Trip to the Fish Market

"Oh hello, Mr. Health Inspector."

During Mr. O's previous stint in Ghana, he kept his meat intake low and his fish intake lower. Now that he has the means to acquire various proteins, the menu has gotten significantly longer. Marina Mart flies in their own fresh meats from Europe (the French butcher is quite knowledgeable), the restaurants have stepped up their culinary game (their secret: Brazilian chicken) and even some enterprising Ghanaians have developed modern farms and abattoirs (high quality local pork is now available).  

This also meant a rediscovery of fish in Ghana as well. At the chop bars, fish is barbecued whole, very crispy and is not particularly appetizing. Now, fresh fish can be ordered at all sorts of restaurants and resorts. There is even a guy that will deliver to your door a variety of fish caught in the morning and prepared during the day - for a price.

Or one can go and get their own fish. While fishing in the Gulf of Guinea is best reserved for the locals, one can take a trip to the Tema Fish Market to inspect and purchase the day's catch. Being something new, the family of course got in the car and drove to the industrial harbour to check it out with friends. It's not every day that one plans a family excursion around driving to a functioning manufacturing district/seaport.

"I don't know how to cook it either."

The fish market is fairly non-descript: off a main industrial road is a driveway surrounded by unmarked stalls where the market ladies store their day's purchase on ice and vie aggressively for the customers that come, including Accra's restauranteurs and other enterprising obrunis. Prices are negotiated, fish are scaled, gutted and cleaned (a word that in this case should not imply a reasonable level of hygiene). The group bought a wide variety of fish: tuna, grouper, cassava, shrimp prawns, calamari and even live lobster.

There are a few drawbacks to the fish market. First, it requires a drive to Accra's industrial satellite Tema on a Saturday morning, where traffic jams are the norm. Second, one needs to have a good idea of a) what they want, b) what they are willing to pay, and c) which market lady is the right one. Third, it smells like fish (surprise!), an odor one takes home with them. Fourth, it means the buyer will need to prepare the fish, unless they have some help.

Mrs. O, being the pragmatic one, invited their fish-purchasing friends for dinner. While there was some significant work involved in preparing the fish, it was all in good fun. Most notable was the group looking up how to kill a lobster on the internet (thanks, youtube). Some high-quality beef kebabs were also procured, so dinner that night was a delicious surf and turf with lots of wine.

On Security

READER BEWARE (of open sewers)

"If money bought happiness, the wealthy would be dancing in the street. But only poor kids do that."

This was recently observed on a church bulletin letter. It's one of those pithy sayings such as, "Dance like nobody is watching" or "Do what you love, love what you do". Yet somewhere in the cliché is a kernel of truth.

Since moving to Accra, Mr. and Mrs. O - mild-mannered members of the middle class at home - have inadvertently become part of Ghana's top 1%. And the feeling of insecurity has become embedded in their psyche: their property has walls, electric fencing and guards, their house has windows with iron bars and ovsesized locks. Even when they drive, the doors are kept locked and windows rolled up.

All of these features are ostensibly to protect them from thieves and murderers. Yet in Accra, one is most commonly assaulted by the smell of open sewer and for most, the sketchiest people encountered on the street are starving or hanicapped beggars - hardly a serious security threat. The biggest killers out there are reckless drivers of taxis and tro-tros. Thieves are statistically more likely to be disgruntled guards or househelp doing inside jobs. (On a related note: treat these people nicely. They know where you keep the nice stuff.)

To be sure, crime in Accra is an issue, but not on the scale of Lagos or Johannesburg, where daylight carjackings and murders are a regular occurrence. The best advice for safety in Accra is the same that would be given for a major city like London, New York or Toronto: enjoy yourself, be self-aware and don't go to certain areas at certain times. 

With the booming economy, opportunistic crime is on the rise. Up until recently, robbers were only armed with machetes (and mostly for the scare factor), but stories of brandished handguns and once-in-a-blue-moon expat murder are becoming more common.

All of this points to the problem of inequality: in much of Mr. and Mrs O's home country, crime is not a huge issue because the rich are not outrageously rich, the poor are not abjectly poor and social services can fill major gaps. So while doors are locked at night, security is taken more or less for granted. In (overly) broad terms, Ghanaians have historically existed in a state of dignified poverty, but current economic growth primarily benefits the wealthy (especially the male, moneyed and politically-connected) and is concentrated in a few urban areas. Ghana will have to decide how it deals with the dual goals of joining middle income nations while ensuring that its citizens earn a middle-class income themselves. Otherwise, the walls will stay high and electrified, the guards vigilant and the nights ever darker with mystery and danger.

It is a big scary world out there, but it still needs exploring.

In the meantime, Mr. and Mrs. O will remain vigilant, but make every effort to enjoy Ghana and to connect with their fellow human beings, whether they be wealthy fellow expats, or the poor-yet-friendly folks asking for change on the street. Living behind walls is a fact of life, but it is important to venture outside of them every now and then to remember what makes the city and the country so fascinating and why Ghanaians have a reputation for being the friendliest people in Africa. It is also important to show Little Miss the world beyond her compound and to feel a part of it. In the end, it will be the people themselves who decide how to treat one another and how to feel secure both individually and collectively.

New Year, Accra-style

Lighting things on fire: a Ghanaian tradition since 1957

The end of the year for Mr. and Mrs. O include the usual motions: watching end-of-year TV recaps and marathons, catching up to end-of-year music lists and reminding themselves that they are too old for new year's eve parties. In fact, the last time that Mr. and Mrs. O stayed up and went out to a New Year's Eve party might have been before they were Mr. and Mrs. O.

Once again, they found themselves at home, in pajamas, eating fine chocolate and watching comedy films - basically the opposite of the Hollywood ideal of New Year's Eve celebrations. They fell asleep before 11PM to the sounds of intermittent hand-lit explosives.

Since December 23rd, it seems, the residents of Accra (demonym: the "Ga") have been randomly lighting holiday fireworks after dark. Few of these seem to make light, but they certainly do make noise. If the family were living in a rougher West African capital, like Abidjan, Lagos or Kinshasa, there might actually be concern that the noises were gunplay. Thankfully, violent crime is low enough that there is very little worry of this sort of thing, provided doors are locked properly. So the reports of explosives are heard sporadically during the festive season, with Little Miss excited to hear the "pop".

On New Year's Eve, the fireworks seemed to be going off much more regularly throughout the evening. But once midnight rolled around, Mr. and Mrs. O were awoken by a rolling thunder of loud noises and bright lights in the sky. In most of the developed world, celebratory fireworks are put on in a central area (park, harbourfront, etc) as a public good, with home-lit fireworks being a bit more of an expensive niche (Mr. O's family has a proud tradition of lighting things on fire in the country). In Accra, public services being what they are, it seems that individuals and companies have taken it upon themselves to invest in their own explosives and to outdo each other with the best show possible. Mr. O made his first new year's resolution to be somewhere with a balcony next December 31st.