Ghana, West Africa

In the 4 days we spent here I have come to love Ghana, its landscape, its history, and mostly its people(mainly the children). The coast reminds you of southern California, cliffs overlooking the ocean, waves crashing on the rocks. But its weird to see a "California" coastline with thirdworld structures. The city of Accra is very hot, dry and dusty...and flat and crowded. Most of the commerce is through street vendors, who sometimes combine their stands to make a mall of sorts. They also have drive throughs, but theirs are so advanced that the merchandise is brought to you- balanced on their heads- while you sit in traffic(Which is what we were doing when Danny got the picture of the taxi with its 2 distinguished passengers). The history is mainly centuries of the slave trade and colonialism, and finally independence in 1957, so Ghana is younger than I am. After a series of coups they have had a constitutional democracy since 1992 (can you tell I am reading from the Ghana Fact Sheet?). And the people...at first I was once again disdainful of the aggressive marketing of the vendors, "Come to my shop, I give you good price, you buy my jewelry, or cloth, or drums,whatever", but relentless and multiplied several times over. But it finally hit me, after how many poor countries, that these people are just struggling to survive. I have more admiration for the fishermen who work just as hard and don't annoy me, but now I have respect for the dignity of the others. There are also areas of the city devoted to mechanics, where men salvage parts from old cars to keep other old cars running. "Running" sounds inappropriate in the face of their horrific traffic jams. And women set up cooking spots among the broken down cars, and children run around playing, and babies are slung onto their mothers' backs, so day care is not a problem. I offended one Ghanian (that I know of) when we were talking about healthcare, and he said that they have to pay for it. I asked,"but what about the poor?" And he looked back and sternly replied, "Poor! What is poor? If you have two arms and 2 legs you are not poor. If you have a family you are not poor." I guess I agree, but typing this I just remembered the dump that Danny visited, where people live and go through the garbage and live off what they can recycle, just surviving the best they can. Absolute poverty? Yes. Poor? Never!