Pokuase: Anywhere But Here

We cannot lie. Spending almost three weeks in the Greater Accra region of Ghana was tough for us. Jeremy once likened our living situation in Ghana to visiting America and instead of staying in a major city when you arrived, you stayed in a suburb like Newtown, PA where I grew up. But pretend it was Newtown, PA over thirty years ago when there wasn’t much there, just a lot of houses being built. Now take out sewage systems, trash removal, and private transportation to Philadelphia, the closest nearby place where you can find a store at which you can buy anything. Also take out hot water, paved roads, and vegetables. Add in air pollution. Yes, that about sums up living North of Accra in Pokuase… Close, just not quite there yet. And inconvenient to boot.

(Sidebar to Mom and Dad: I am not saying that Newtown is inconvenient or not quite there yet. It would have been in 1980, though. Especially if you didn’t have a car and had to take a VW bus that was about to break down 25 miles to closest store.)

I know my description of Pokuase sounds harsh, and in all honesty, it really wasn’t that bad. The local people we met were incredibly kind. Houses are being built everywhere, and people line the roads selling fruits, vegetables, baskets, even hot food. It was just hard to transition from Arusha, a mid-sized town with a lot of energy to a mid-sized village outside of a humongous city. Especially since the village includes a mixture of huts and new cement homes right next to one another. One of our neighbors drove a BMW, while the others slept outside of a small one room hut. Kind of hard to absorb let alone process…

So for our last weekend in Ghana, we decided to check out another part of the country. After a lot of debate over whether or not we wanted to climb another mountain or lie on another beach, we decided to soak in some of the Ashanti culture in the town of Kumasi. Kumasi’s market boasts 12,000+ individual merchants and I had yet to find some great cloth. Plus, just outside of town is a large freshwater lake. So to Kumasi we will go tomorrow. Just get us out of Pokuase!