Accra - Day Two: Bettina Did Not Go To Jail Today

It was a quie

It's morning at Number 11, just beyond the junction in Dome, an Accra Suburb. Bettina left for work around 7am in hopes of beating the morning traffic. Yaw left for work around 7:30 - meaning he walked through the door from the "living" section of the house (on the left) into the "office" section.  By 8am when I was having breakfast I could hear that he had a "corporate" meeting well in progress with 6 or 8 of his marketing folk.

With the assistance of Adelaide, Yaw's sister and one of his associates, I got a taxi and visited the oldest of Accra's malls, the Achimota Mall.  Adelaide insisted on walking with me to the corner (or "junction" as intersections are referred to in Ghana) and personally negotiating with a taxi driver for the best rate to the mall.  I did not find the items Mr. Baidoo wanted for his new classroom White Boards - dry erase markers and "dusters" (erasers) - but I did find The Second Cup Coffee Shop and enjoyed a large cup of freshly brewed Cuzco Colombian coffee.  I should add that it was also "freshly ground" since I was the first person (perhaps the only) to request this particular coffee and so the barristas opened a new bag of beans, ground them, brewed them and served a steaming cup of java on a shiny metal tray.  Excellent!  Coffee is still a rarity in Ghana (at least brewed coffee is).  Instant coffee is everywhere; but is that really coffee?

For lunch, Akua, who does cooking and cleaning for Yaw and Bettina, fixed Red Red with Fish and Fried Plantains just for me!

Then is was nap time (still catching up with jet lag). Then I took another taxi on a much longer ride into the center of Accra to the Ghana Cultural Arts Center - the most complete market of Ghana arts and handicrafts anywhere in the country. I wanted to say, "Hello," to my old friend Muhammed Dantani, his father and brother who all have shops (more like 8x10 covered stalls) in the Market and from whom I have purchased many unique items over the past 15 years.

On the nearly hour-long taxi ride back to Dome I was reminded of the least attractive aspect of life in the capital city. And, in the intervening three years since I was last here, there are more huge high-rise hotels, new highway overpasses and roundabouts, and, as is always the case, even more traffic and congestion. But the street vendors are ever-present, weaving in and out among the vehicles hawking everything from snack foods, to windshield wiper blades, to maps of Ghana, plastic ice cube trays, and cellphone chargers. I don't know where they sleep because they are never not out in the streets.

Tomorrow morning early, Paa Quesi Baidoo, Mr. Baidoo's eldest son who lives and works in Accra has offered to drive me to Cape Coast - something I'm extremely grateful for because chartering a vehicle capable of carrying my 5 pieces of luggage would have cost a pretty penny and the 2 1/2 hour drive. So, tomorrow and for the next two weeks I will be at the Fair Hill Guest House in Cape Coast with proprietors Ann and Ricky Hooper - yet another longtime friendship which has grown and deepened over the past 15 years.

So, you may be asking, "What's with the catchy title of today's Blog?" Well, let me tell you.

Bettina came home from work this evening flustered and not the least bit happy.  It seems that in Ghana, or at least in Accra, it is illegal to use a cell phone (called a Mobile) while driving. Well, Bettina was talking on her phone (which she was holding below the window level of her Nissan Titan truck). However, a sharp-eyed policeman saw her and pulled her over. "I have been watching you, Madam! You have been talking on your mobile phone for a very long time. I am going to have to arrest you!."  

Bettina tried acting as an ignorant American but to no avail. "How long have you been in this country?"  She told him she'd been here for one month. "Well, in our country we do not talk on mobile phones while driving. I am going to have to arrest you. Or, perhaps you could help me? I want to go to America. If I go there I can hustle and get a good job and make money and then come back and help my family. I can be a police officer in America and get respect. Can you give me money to help me?" 

Bettina said she was going to call her husband first. "No. Do not call your husband." (Yaw was already on the line listening to all of this.)

Well, the upshot was that Bettina offered to help this officer with his application for a visa to wherever he wanted to go. He decided, for some reason, that Canada was a good place.  She told him to call her in a few days and she would help him with his paperwork.

So, they parted company with no ticket and no arrest.  Case Closed.