The smartest thing I did today was wear sneakers. The second smartest was leaving my phone in my pocket, zipped, out of sight. Because Makola Market does not care about your plans. It will swallow you whole, spin you around, and spit you out three hours later with a wedge of kente cloth, a bag of dried shrimp, and absolutely no idea where you parked.
I went for the textiles. I came out with a lecture on the difference between genuine kente and the tourist stuff, a handful of suya-spiced peanuts from a woman who called me her sister, and the phone number of a tailor in Jamestown who makes dresses for a living. The prices, chale. I was quoted something in the thousands of cedis, and I laughed, and we settled at around four hundred and fifty — still not cheap, but it's real handwoven cloth, and it'll last. My wallet felt lighter, but my bag felt richer.
That market is a crash course in Accra. You want to understand the economy? Stand still for ten minutes. You'll see a girl selling phone credit from a plastic stool, a man carrying four boxes of eggs on his head like it's nothing, and five different people trying to sell you the same pair of sunglasses. I bought a mango for five cedis, and a fan for my flat for seventy. No one batted an eye.
After Makola, I needed air. So I walked toward the sea, down through the old streets of Jamestown. The air changes there — salt and fish and engine oil. The fishing canoes are painted like carnival floats, blue and green and yellow, stacked on the sand. Kids were kicking a football with a deflated bounce, and a group of older men played draughts under a faded umbrella, not looking up once. I stood at the base of the Jamestown Lighthouse and watched a white pelican sit on a wooden post like it owned the place. It probably did.
I climbed the lighthouse. A hundred and something steps, and the view from the top is the whole story of this city — the harbour, the old Ussher Fort, the tin roofs of Jamestown, and the skyline of the new Accra rising behind it. I stood up there for ten minutes, just feeling the breeze. The light drizzle from this morning was gone. The sky was blue and the sea was glittering. Someone below was selling coconut slices for ten cedis, and honestly, best ten cedis I've spent so far.
Back in Osu, my flat's a modest one-bedroom — about eighteen hundred cedis a month, which translates to something like a hundred and sixty dollars. I know, I know, that sounds almost suspiciously cheap, but the catch is that landlords here often want a year or two upfront. So I'm paying rent for the whole year in one painful lump. That's the real cost of living in Accra, at least at first.
My body is still adjusting. The heat is not the problem, it's the humidity — it clings to you, makes every walk a negotiation. The forecast said it would only hit about twenty-seven degrees today, but it feels like more. I've learned to carry a small towel, because the trotro ride from Osu to Makola was a workout. Fares are about four to ten cedis, depending on the route. Cheap, but my god, the traffic. We sat for fifteen minutes at one junction, just watching the world not move.
But the movers moved. Street vendors walked between the cars selling plantain chips and sachet water, weaving through with the patience of saints. One woman had a tray of kelewele, spicy fried plantain, on her head, and I couldn't resist. Ten cedis for a paper cone full of golden, pepper-dusted goodness. Eat it fresh, chale, that's the rule.
And then there's the rhythm. August means Homowo, the Ga harvest festival. I'd read that the drumming ban lifts at the end of July, and last night I learned what that means. I was walking back from getting dinner — jollof and grilled chicken at a place called The Buka Restaurant in Osu, about sixty cedis, and worth every pesewa — and I heard it. Drums. Not recorded, not coming from a speaker. Real drums, bouncing off the walls of the old streets, pulling people out of their houses. Families in bright cloth, kids dancing with their hands in the air. I stood at the edge of a compound and just watched. No one seemed to mind. One old woman smiled at me and nodded, like, 'Yes, we are celebrating.'
I tried to find out what's coming up, because Homowo runs through the month, and there's a lot on. I'm told there's a big carnival in Jamestown and Bukom around the sixth of August, marking two hundred years since some battle at a place called Katamanso. I'm also hearing about street-art festivals and more concerts, and there's something called Accra Bar Week happening later in August — international bartenders, apparently. Worth checking dates if you're here.
Earlier that day, I'd done the practical stuff. I opened a bank account at a GCB Bank branch near the High Street. You need your Ghana Card — or in my case, the Non-Citizen Ghana Card — plus proof of address, which means I had to get a GhanaPostGPS code first, which I got from a man who wrote it on a scrap of paper. The queue was long, but the woman at the counter was patient and walked me through everything. I also got my SIM card sorted — MTN, since it's got the best coverage, and they tied it to my card on the spot.
There's still the National Health Insurance Scheme registration on my list, and I've been told to start the residence permit process soon, because the Non-Citizen Ghana Card is a one-year thing and I don't want to be scrambling later. It costs about sixty dollars to renew, and it's issued instantly, but the biometrics appointment takes time to get.
I stopped for a coffee at Jamestown Coffee Company, which sits right there in the old neighbourhood, and I almost laughed at myself for being a cliché. But the coffee was good — strong, dark, not bitter — and the place was full of people on laptops, international and Ghanaian alike. A cappuccino set me back about forty cedis, which felt luxurious but also, weirdly, normal by the third day.
The conversation everywhere is politics and money. Ghana had that peaceful election last year, the transfer back to Mahama and the NDC, and people are still feeling the squeeze. Inflation was around fourteen percent last time I checked — down from worse, but still high. The cedi's been holding better this year, and fuel prices dipped a while back, but the cost of living is the big topic on every trotro, at every market stall. Everyone's got an opinion, and they'll tell you.
I'm also starting to sketch out the bigger plan. This city is just the first chapter. The whole idea of this move was to get down Ghana's Atlantic doorstep — along the old forts and fishing towns, past Cape Coast, up through the Asante forest, all the way to the Volta. I want to see Kakum National Park, that rainforest canopy walkway they're always talking about. I want to stand where the door of no return was in Cape Coast and try to understand what that means now. I want to eat jollof in a different city and argue about whose is better.
But that's not this week. This week is about staying present. Tomorrow I'm going to the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, because I keep driving past it and I want to actually stand in front of the mausoleum. And after that, maybe the National Museum. I want to see those El Anatsui works in person, the metal cloth that looks like it could fall apart and hold together at the same time.
Tonight, though, I'm done. I'm sitting on my small balcony in Osu, listening to the distant drums from I don't even know which direction, and I'm thinking about what the woman at Makola said. She grabbed my arm and told me, 'You came back. That's good. Ghana will keep you.' I didn't have a clever answer, so I just nodded. The night air is warm, the crickets are loud, and for the first time since landing, I feel like I'm not just passing through.
Akwaaba, they say — welcome. But I'm starting to think the real welcome is this rhythm. The drums, the traffic, the market cries, the waves hitting the shore at Labadi. It's a sound that gets under your skin. And I think it's going to keep playing for the next two years. I'll let it.
That's all from Accra for now. I'm Ama Boateng, and this is the Ghana Travel Podcast. Next time, we eat our way through a waakye stall and figure out the Aayalolo bus system. Until then, keep your phone in your pocket and your eyes open.
Akwaaba.
End.