Ghana

Drawing Camels with Ghana’s Young Female Aviators

by phil December 6, 2011 Camel Drawing
Thumbnail image for Drawing Camels with Ghana’s Young Female Aviators

This post is a warm-up. I have a lot more to say about what I experienced last week. A more substantial post to come on the How to Draw Camels blog in the near future. Northeast of Accra, close to Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in the world, there is a town called Kpong. [...]

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You Bring the Yam, I’ll Bring the Fire

by phil November 28, 2011 Ghana

Mosque minarets of Newtown, Accra at dusk The air of Accra clots around the door. Part salted sea breeze, part sweetened tropical smokiness, part diesel exhaust, burning refuse and dry palm leaves. The dead air of an airplane cabin is gone. I told myself I would study the moment I stepped off the plane. But [...]

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He is Undergoing Some Suffering – Things Said on a Movie Set in Ghana

by phil January 9, 2011 Ghana
kids in ghana

“So who is that guy?” I asked this of Harriet, who I had met through Rita, who I met through Couchsurfing. I was on the set of a movie, Harriet’s senior thesis, at the National Film and TV Institute of Ghana (NAFTI). “Oh he is the doctor.” “What’s wrong with him?” This question was possibly [...]

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Me and the Ivorian in the Stairwell

by phil September 4, 2010 Cote D'Ivoire
The bus from takoradi to Abidjan

My last post ended with a shared taxi on the way back to Takoradi. A British volunteer, an American journalist probing oil companies in Takoradi, and myself. Before getting in the car I had one of those unpleasant near vomit burps that scorched my esophagus. Things were about to get unimaginably ugly and I had [...]

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The Best Beach in Ghana

by phil September 3, 2010 Ghana
best beach in ghana

Leaving Takoradi, I took a tro-tro to Agona Junction, a traffic circle that has become a small village. From there I needed to find a car to Akwidaa, the fishing village closest to where I was headed. The tro-tro (there is only one that goes to Akwidaa) had left minutes before I arrived. It would [...]

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Couchsurfing Takoradi and Some Leftover Accra Pics

by phil September 1, 2010 Ghana
bush ghana

Blazing out of Accra, red earth, two story termite mounds, and green everything else. On the bus to Takoradi, I was pleasantly hypnotized by the scene outside my window when the driver decided to let a pastor on board. The pastor yelled into our ears for two hours. This is typical in Ghana. The pastor [...]

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