GHexpat

Actually as I write this, I’m no longer in Tamale.  My trip was cut short by, most simply put, an employer stabbing me in the back.  The workforce in Ghana is dominated by small-scale scale entrepreneurs, which makes it more readily possible for workers to be treated unfairly as opposed to being employed in a corporate-like system.  But that’s a discussion for another day. For the most part, I enjoyed my time in Tamale though fell really sick upon departing, and it took me a good week to get over that illness.   The best thing about the city, as opposed to those in in the south of country (including Accra), is the low cost of living.   The caveat though is that Tamale is generally dirty, which logically would contribute to sickness if your body isn’t used to the environment.   And what it feels like is that I caught a case of malaria, very weakening though thankfully not completely debilitating. SOME VILLAGES CLEANER THAN THE CITY Some of the villages o...

Most Ghanaian fraudsters aren't bad people.  The likes of romance scammers may have ethical issues when it comes to the pursuit of money, but they usually aren't the type of people you would describe as the epitome of evil.  They aren't the types of hardened criminals you more commonly find in places like the United States. AMBITION & SURVIVAL IN GHANA In anthropology, there's this concept called cultural relativism .  As a (cultural) anthropologist, one's job is to study foreign cultures by actually living within them - as would a native - for an extended period of time.  One thing I've learned living in Ghana is that people want and need money just as they do stateside, but the access to that type of cash just isn't here.  For instance, the government of Ghana doesn't have the wherewithal to borrow trillions of dollars, as its American counterpart does. In the U.S., young, disenfranchised men who want to make money like grown-ups tend to get into e...

I’ve spent practically all my time in Ghana in southern parts of the country, i.e. the Greater Accra, Central and Eastern regions.  The former two border the Atlantic Ocean or, as it is more specifically called in this part of the world, the Gulf of Guinea.  The Eastern Region is a bit more to the north, being the one I prefer out of the three due to its greenery. Some years ago, I also spent a couple of months around Kumasi, i.e. in the Ashanti Region which is, in a way, further north than the Eastern Region though still in the southern half of the country. I long fantasized about coming to Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region.   There were a number of times throughout the years when I was supposed to come up here for one reason or another, but those trips never materialized.   It is widely understood that Tamale is different from places like Kumasi or Accra, which are more or less similar, so I longed looked forward to seeing the North. Recently, I fina...

The Lake Volta, running from the Adome Bridge to Akosombo in the Eastern Region of Ghana, is the most-beautiful place I personally know of.  This area is also illustrative of some of the contrasts you come across in this country.  One one hand, you have these really exotic hotels and lodges.  But nestled in-between are residential areas that leave something to be desired in terms of development. Aylos Bay Garden Restaurant & Lodge is an establishment I've been familiar with for years.  I'm friends with one of the proprietors - Kwame Ayim, aka "Papa Water" - and went to check him about a tourist site he more recently opened on nearby Atakwame Island, which he owns.  So this was more like a business than leisure trip.  But still, I decided to snap a few pics overlooking the lake: You'll notice that none of those pictures are of the interior of the establishment.  In the past, Kwame told me that I shouldn't film inside, out of respect for patrons' pri...

I always find it funny - for lack of a better word - how historically the American media has depicted Africans as being primitive or intellectually inferior, yet now, in the information age, some Americans      are so intimidated by African fraudsters that some don’t trust any netizen from the Motherland.   I’ll admit that the fraud situation is a lot worse in Ghana than it was a generation ago.   But to help put things in perspective, look at it like this.   In the U.S., disenfranchised and disillusioned youth tend to get into drug dealing in the name of generating income.   But in this part of the world, those same type of people take up fraud, most often via the internet. I was inspired to write this post by a Ghanaian friend who recently told me he came across a video whereas an African-American couple, apparently with their children, decided to move to Ghana, got beat in the head by fraudsters and responded by damning the entire country.   ...