Accra

I had an assignment for my Documenting the African City course to write a 3-5 page paper on Accra. Some of the things in it (most, actually) will be a bit repetitive if you've been keeping up with the blog, but if you haven't, or if you just really love reading about Accra, then here's the paper:

A few days ago I met a guy named Randy and he asked me if I was enjoying Ghana. "Well, I'm enjoying it a lot. The people are really friendly and they don't mind taking time out of their day to say, 'Hello.'"

To this Randy replied, "That is because you're white. No one stops to say, 'Hello,' to me." That's when it dawned on me that sometimes I do not truly see Accra in action because my interactions with people are so different than the interactions of most. Therefore, I believe I see a somewhat different side of Accra than most. However, though in my daily interactions I may not be a fair judge of Accra, I am also entering from an outsider's perspective, more able to notice some of the quirks of everyday life that many of us never realize are out of the ordinary. I question the people and the environment because they are new to me. Taking into account my disadvantages and advantages in analyzing Accra, my ability to see it but not to be it, this is my impression of the city.

With people and products from all over the world, the city is a very international one. Take a walk down Oxford Street in Osu or check out any one of the many tourist beaches and you are likely to find a mix of Ghanaians and foreigners. However, visit a place such a Jamestown where the Ga people live. These people will claim Accra as their land. They are not merely here for business or for the experience of living in a hustle and bustle capital city; this is their home. Furthermore, Accra is not like New York City, a place where so many international peoples come together to collectively own a city, a place where no one at first glance has any identity except perhaps “New Yorker.” Instead, Accra belongs to Ghanaians. Accra is Ghanaians. The rest of us are just foreigners, outsiders, obruni, unable as I mentioned earlier to truly be a part of the city. So, despite Accra’s status as a capital city and an international city, it is still in many ways a very local place, both within itself and within Ghana.

Even though Accra is the home of the Ga people, Accra is in many ways the only place in Ghana that can really be called “Ghanaian.” Everywhere else in the country is clearly dominated by an ethnic group, and thus, these places are better defined as “Ashanti,” “Fante,” or “Ewe” than as “Ghanaian.” Accra, on the other hand, is the one place in Ghana where people from all over the country and from any and every ethnic group come together to create a city in which all of Ghana’s hopes and aspirations mix, mingle, and come to life.

Now that I have examined the simultaneous international, national, and local identity of Accra, we must turn to the built environment of the city to begin drawing an accurate picture of the place. Only a very few buildings and areas in the city look remotely planned. The city looks as though it was made from a huge pile of spare pieces of wood, aluminum, and cement to which someone said, “Alright, start building.” No one anticipated, however, the vast numbers of people who would come in to build their own structures from seemingly spare construction parts. As a result, with the exception of a few modern-looking banks, Accra is a huge urban sprawl of buildings that straddle the line between proper structures and shanties. It is not uncommon to see half-built or half-falling-apart buildings throughout the city. Roadways vary between newly-paved asphalt and deteriorating, pot-hole-filled stubble or dirt roads. In some cases, these roads are squeezed between the structures that people built. In other cases, the roads paved the way for more and more buildings to expand the city further and further. However, there is no reason to believe this city with its buildings and roadways that at times seem to be carelessly thrown together is not a functional one. On the contrary, this urban landscape seems to suit the city quite well.

There are many consequences for this sort of built environment. For one, because of the sprawl of the city, it is not a very pedestrian-friendly city, many places only accessible by tro-tro or taxi. Despite this fact, Ghanaians will often turn Accra into a pedestrian city for a lack of choice. This mix of congested roadways, people moving and working around them, and a tropical climate that makes being indoors without an air conditioner unbearable results in a city that at first glance seems chaotic. However, unlike many other cities with similar environments of seemingly endless urban sprawl, Accra affords people constant interaction with other people. Because of this, space is not very clearly defined. I can wander around the city all day, and pretty much anywhere I go, I am not really invading on anyone’s space. To give a counterexample, in many American cities, there are clearly defined neighborhoods where certain people belong and certain people don’t. Not just anyone can wander into these neighborhoods without being an outsider. However, in Ghana, people can move freely about and never really invade on anyone else’s space. Space is a shared entity, something within which everyone lives and interacts.

Upon stepping into this environment, one’s senses are immediately assaulted with a combination of extraordinary and repulsive, familiar and unfamiliar. One of the most immediate sensations in the city is the mix of smells. One can walk down many streets and within minutes, one will smell fumes of fish released by the intense heat of the day. A multitude of body odors permeates the nostrils. The open sewage that runs through ditches alongside the roads greets a person to the most unwelcome of smells. At the same time, it is possible to catch a whiff of fresh pineapples, oranges, mangos, and bananas being sold on the street. A woman wearing exotic perfume passes by leaves a trail with her scent. The smell of smoke from a distant burning trash pile is both disturbing and comforting. These smells do not mix, but instead assault the nostrils one after another, a never-ending cycle of surprises.

The sights of the city can also be hard to make heads or tails of. On the one hand, many people are dressed in colorful, even flamboyant fabrics with all sorts of shapes and designs on the cloth. People create beautiful crafts that are a sight to look at – bracelets, drums, colorful fabrics, masks, little trinkets, you name it. Glorious tropical trees dominate the skyline of the city (for lack of multi-storied structures), a jubilant mix of greens that look more vibrant than one could imagine, even if it hasn’t rained in months. Yet at the same time, the city is filled with trash that people mindlessly throw into the gutter. Black streams of sewage flow down the cities ditches by the roads. Buildings are old and decrepit, the original covering peeling off in many places.

Similarly, sounds range from local or foreign music playing on the streets and delightful (though incomprehensible to me) conversation among city-goers to car horns honking on the roadways and women yelling for someone to buy something. Local cuisine is at its base very plain food – rice, chicken, plantains, yams – that is infused with a multitude of spices, stews, and soups to create a truly exciting experience for the taste buds.

Despite all this – the identity of the people, the built environment, the range of sensations – what really makes the city is the drive and the demeanor of the people. Throughout the city, people are very business-oriented. Roads are lined with little shop after little shop, all selling many of the same products. Vendors attack the streets, looking for customers on the side of the road and in their vehicles. Taxi drivers roam the city looking for people willing to pay for a ride. Ghanaian businessmen make their way to the main financial centers in Western business suits. All over, people are trying to make a living, develop the city, and improve the economy. The same people are outside every day, from sunup to sundown, always persisting, even when it seems as though everyone is selling and very few are buying.

Because everyone is selling, and because of the way people take over the streets despite a landscape that is not conducive to it, there is a strong feeling of sameness and commonality among people. People are not dying to get off of work as they would be in America. On the contrary, people’s lives are their work, but more than just work. Their lives are also the other people out there trying to make a living, working not so much for a brighter tomorrow or the chance to go abroad, but working to be alive and to be a part of the city. No man or woman is an island. Everyone is a part of a larger city of people, all working with common goals and aspirations, common values, and common lifestyles. This connectedness among the people is as much a result of a common presence in place as it is a common past of traditional life, colonial rule, and the functioning of an international, modern city. As I said in the beginning, I can see Accra, but I can never truly understand it because this connectedness of identity, landscape, and history is the driving force behind Accra.