How to Hitchhike in Ghana

At a restaurant on the beach

On our trip to Kokrobite Beach!

Sometimes you can delve into and learn about a culture in the most unexpected and inconceivable ways, as is what happened to me last weekend.  I am convinced that it was some divine miracle of God, even if it was a bit scary at first.  But I think this was one of my first big blatant lessons in trusting God.  Though I had heard a lot about the friendly Ghanaians with their generous warmth and hospitality, it didn’t really hit me until this incident last weekend:

Since I’ve been here, the beach has been so wonderful to me!  I have already gone many times.  Our usual spot is Labodi Beach, because it is a 5 minute taxi ride away.  This is a great beach full of entertainers, fishermen, and artists.  Wednesday night is also Reggae Night at the beach where we dance around a bonfire and step into the ocean!

Last weekend a bunch of us decided to get out of Accra for a bit.  So we took a taxi to Kokrobite Beach about an hour outside Accra, a 25 cedi ride.  The beach, of course, was amazing!  It felt more “authentic” than most beaches I’ve been to, probably because the beauty of the beach wasn’t interrupted by mega hotels and stores.  We just stayed at a small resort made up of two bars, a restaurant, a stage for the reggae band, and houses to rent out.  The house ended up costing us each only 9 cedi and 33 pesewa a night.

So the next day, Anna and I need to catch a cab home.  We only have a total of 3 cedi on us.  I guess we figured that we would catch a cab to take us home and then we would run inside to get more cash to pay the driver.  Unfortunately, catching a cab proves to be a challenge as we are in a pretty rural area.  So we walk from the resort and through a small town without seeing any sign of a cab.  Pretty soon it becomes desolate as the first town fades away, and we see the next one on the horizon.

But then a man stops us.  “You don’t want to keep on walking.  In the next town, the people are hungry.  They will rob you.” (Good thing I didn’t have anything valuable on me).  So we stop on this empty road and watch as a car drives by every once in a while.  The man keeps a careful eye on us, and then flags down a car driving by.  The man in the car is going to the Accra airport, just a few minutes away from where we live.

We get in the car, where the man is warm and welcoming. He even insists on putting out his cigarette immediately.  We talk about Ghanaians, church and religion in Ghana, America and the times he lived in America, and he kept giving us clear instructions about where he was going and where he would drop us off.  He dropped us off in Osu, a part of Accra that’s only a five-minute car ride away.  He told us that it should only be a 3 cedi taxi ride home from there!  Anna and I stepped out of the man’s car, laughing at our good fortune of finding a ride home for only 3 cedi total!  It was an amazing experience.  That is something that I probably wouldn’t do in America, but because I knew a bit about the friendly Ghanaian culture, I felt safe accepting the ride back to Accra.

Baboon at Shai Hill Reserve

Anna Shaw at Shai Hills

Adventures for this weekend included going to Shai Hill Reserve to see baboons and hike up a mountain.  Then we took a tro tro home.  A tro tro is a sort of bus system, but they are really just big vans stuffed with people.  That was an interesting experience.  Today our RAs gave us a cooking lesson in Ghanaian foods, so I’ll be sure to blog about that soon!