Trading places

If you want designer names, come to Ghana. Everything from Gucci watches to Nike trainers. If you want genuine designer names…don’t.

The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in this country. The people can do amazing things with their hands. You take a pair of trainers or a piece of furniture to them. Even a photograph of something you’ve seen, can be turned into a material item. Items might be ready within the day, they may take up to three months dependant on the complexity and on GMT. Despite what I’ve said, they really are hard workers when they put their mind to it. Traders are to be found set up at the side of almost every road. All sorts offered including; leather suites lined up in the dirt, dog houses and freshly cooked sheep’s heads. One man has a line of beds and dog houses on his patch. His sign says “Moses” with a telephone number below. He will apparently turn his hand to most things. He may take a while to produce your product though. Not that I believe him to be lazy, it is the tools of his trade which may hamper him. His saw is a bare hacksaw blade. It takes a long time to cut through a 6x2 for a bed frame with one of those. His single chisel is a sharpened screwdriver and for a smoothing plane, he has a razor blade set into an offcut of wood. I mean no disrespect to this man. Sarah has told me she wants to buy him some proper tools to show her appreciation. I’m sorely tempted to do likewise. He is only one of many who keep themselves going by whatever means necessary.


The roads are often poor quality. Regular bottlenecks through single lane underpasses cause no end of problems. Locals have seized this opportunity by making up red and green flags. A pair of men will station themselves at either end and control traffic. They have no power and some will simply ignore them but the system works pretty well. Every few days, we will stop and hand some change to each one as thanks. Not everyone does this; it must still pay as they are regular fixtures. Everywhere you look, there are people trying to free others of their money. I’ve mentioned the vendors on the pavements. The real pains are the hawkers in traffic queues. Pull up and within seconds, hoards of them descend on the car; Toilet rolls, mobile top up cards, pictures of the last supper, puppies. How about a couple of tins of Guiness for a tired driver? The women carry goods on their heads. Certainly an example of having good posture. Not a hawker, just a chap walking along, had a car battery perfectly balanced on his head. As he turned to look towards the road, the battery slowly spun whilst remaining level, a sight to behold. The hawkers will be drawn more to a car full of white faces. We are known as obronis here, a colloquial word used for those with paler faces than natives of Ghana. It is more used in a descriptive context rather than as an insult. To insult a Ghanaian, offensive words and phrases include; using an otherwise term of endearment such as “You’re being a monkey” is a definite no no. Deep offence is caused by telling someone they are a beast, a fool or an idiot. On no account ever tell someone to shut up. These might be mildly unpleasant phrases back home, here they are worse than saying c**t. The hawkers are trying to make a living like anyone else. Some work independently, sourcing goods to sell off. Others work for shops, they will be given a certain amount of stock and have to sell it throughout the day. One product to definitely avoid is bread being sold in late afternoon. It will be the stuff shops want to get rid of. Perhaps even more alarming, are those selling fish products, no real refrigeration and out in the punishing sun all day. A smile and a shake of the head are often enough to ward them off. If there is something we need and it is safe, we will trade with them. I say safe in connection with the sandwiches some will make for you there and then. These men and women are out all day dodging traffic. When the call of nature presents itself, they will just go. No matter which way the men turn, they are facing some kind of traffic, so seeing one urinate publicly is not at all uncommon. The women wear long skirts. While balancing their load on their head, they will just hike up their skirts and squat down. Picking themselves up again just in time to make you a lovely fresh sandwich! The most common transactions we carry out are for MTN mobile phone credit. We buy the sealed cards with scratch off panels. We could use a shop but when we buy twenty Cedes at a time, and locals are more likely to buy one or two Cedes at most, it boosts their day no end. To carry out a transaction, often means the vendor has to run alongside a car as it moves off. Hesitate here, even for a second, and there is a crescendo of horns. Local people will sometimes just drive off. Alternatively, they can be seen throwing the money out the window and leaving the hawker the unenviable task of scrabbling around the road as traffic rushes past. Probably the single most annoying hawkers, are the window washers. You know the drill; you pull up at a traffic light and out of nowhere appears someone with a mop and squeegee. I’ve described before the method of flicking on the wipers to deter them. This doesn’t always work. They may lift your wipers, leaving them stranded waving side to side in mid air. It’s not just the annoyance factor of someone expecting payment for doing what “wash wipe” already does. It’s the permanent damage to the glass that stones on the cleaning surface have. Whether this is accidental or not is unknown. They get very angry when you drive off and they have layed a mere sud. In their eyes they should be paid for this.

The newest product offered, is Christmas tooters. A Santa face with a roll out tooter in the mouth. First it was a single red candy stripe one, then appeared one with a tooter going out either side of the mouth. Seeing this sent the whole car into a fit of giggles. The whole thing seemed surreal. In fact, the idea of the run up to Christmas in temperatures of 35 degrees, rising by the day is surreal actually. Now the evolution is a green tooter one side and a red one the other. Sort of port and starboard. I’ve made it clear, I will only buy one if they have one with a tooter out their arse too. With the stipulation I don’t buy the display model.

Supermarkets are a more convenient option. With convenience comes higher prices. You could buy a lettuce from a fruit and veg stall for one Cede, go to a supermarket and an imported one with less chance of hidden bugs will set you back twenty Cedes. With an exchange rate of two Cedes to the pound, one point four to the dollar, things start to get very expensive. Admittedly, it is generally on imported goods. A one hundred gram jar of Dowe Egberts instant coffee is anywhere from two to two pounds fifty back home. In one of the supermarkets, I saw it on sale for twenty six Cedes. Christmas tins of chocolates will set you back up to forty Cedes. A large box of Fairy washing powder tipped the scales at ninety eight Cedes. Even chocolate made in this country is expensive. If you do see a nice looking price on a shelf edge, by the time you get to the checkout, the price doesn’t match. A few times so far, things have rung through at higher prices. Shopping is a case of keeping your wits about you. If you see an item at a good price, grab it! Stock of certain items often runs out. Assistants favourite phrase is “It’s finished”. Items that are cheaper include water. Just as well with the amount we go through per day. The tap water is safer here than elsewhere but still only risked for washing and brushing of teeth at a push. A five litre bottle at one sixty seven is great value. Cigarettes are very cheap. Hardly anyone here smokes, something they like to make you painfully aware of. In traffic today, I had one out the window. A car full chased up alongside us and a passenger shouted over “No smoking here, you are not allowed to smoke here” Not true, as Ghana has no smoking ban indoors, let alone on a public highway in a private car. They didn’t give up and kept speeding up to draw alongside to shout insults. Now, whatever your views on smoking might be, publicly heckling others in the open air is unreasonable. They especially don’t like seeing women smoke. Sarah has had some very nasty reactions to just standing in a car park or open street. It is a welcome change to be able to smoke inside bars. If my doctor is reading this, please close your eyes now. My consumption has risen dramatically. A combination of the company I’m in, the mosquito deterrent effect and now deliberately pissing off the hecklers. Ah yes, and cost. Two hundred Pall Mall is eleven Cedes, Rothmans a little more. I have yet to find Benson & Hedges although I’m told they are here. With prices for two hundred, effectively less than I pay for twenty back home, I don’t worry so much about getting every last draw out of them, so maybe my health risk has diminished a little. The other plus side of few fellow smokers here, is that I am very rarely bothered by someone asking for one. I imagine having that level of attention, together with traders antics, would get just too much to cope with.

It’s fair enough that some things are more expensive, especially imported goods. Some imports look decidedly unintended. In a large mall shop that does electrical goods, I found ASDA Smartprice microwaves. Thirty quid back home, the price tag of one hundred and sixty seven Cedes here. It is quite possible they are seconds. It is much more likely that the shipping container became “lost in transit” rather than goods having fallen off the back of a lorry, and they regularly do, quite literally! falling off the back of a container ship is a source of products here. The containers themselves often then being used as roadside shop units. I hate to think how hot it must be to work in those. Something else I’ve spotted very cheap, is Singer sewing machines. The antique treadle ones which have been refurbed. I’m sorely tempted to pick one up to take home and flog on Ebay.