Day 1 Overview

May 26
Accra, Ghana
Just before bed time.

We had our first day in Accra. We went to Accra mall. (Similar to mall in Bloomington except with palm trees). We bought a phone ($20). Went to Osu market and bought some "formal" African clothes for meetings ($18). We went to Internet Cafe for some quick blogging. Then strolled around the Kwami Nkrumah Circle market (a mile of open air vendors ). Then took taxi back to hotel to meet with our contact who is arranging for us to meet with insurance companies tomorrow.
All of this is cataloged in photos at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/africanjones2go/AfricaPics#
Enjoy!

Some observations along the way:

• People here are really helpful. Everyone was so willing to go out of their way to show us around, introduce us to people, and make sure we had a good experience.
• The taxi cab driver complimented us on our negotiating with him from his original offer to take us to town for 7 Cedis to 5 Cedis. He took us all around and was very helpful.
• Everything is fairly inexpensive.
• Many taxi drivers are from war torn countries (Ghana is very welcoming of foreigners and they can find employment easily as taxi drivers) but they don't know where anything is. (Bring a cell phone and a map).
• We heard American country and western music in the restaurants (the music world is definitely flat).
• They recycle everything (and even make goods from discarded materials) I hope you wont mind the potato chip bag coin purse as a present, and they are very energy conscious (with shutoff switches on every outlet).

Tomorrow is our first real day. Will have some substance to report back later.
Bye from Ghana.
Jim