Musical selection of my Ghanaian favorites

A lot of these songs did not have "official" music videos posted on youtube, booo... But the songs are still awesome.

Pretty much, these are my favorite remind-me-of-Ghana songs. There were played everywhere! and after we obtained their music files from our Ghanaian friends, my roommate and I would play them when we hand-washed our laundry in our room. :)

P-Square - No One Like You



D'banj - Fall in Love



Praye - Angelina



Black Rasta - Obama Song

Wanlov the Kubulor - Human Being

My favorite Ghanaian foods!

Ghanaian food!

This was my first meal:


(clockwise): Chicken, fried yam, fried plantains, some type of veggie peppe, stir-fried vegetables, jollaf rice.

If I could describe Ghanaian food in three words, I would say.. filling, satisfying, tasty. However, it is definitely something that I had to grow on me. When I first had the true varieties of Ghanaian food, I found it very heavy, carb-y, and oily. After realizing though, that many Ghanaians only ate once a day, with perhaps, a small breakfast of bread and tea, I could understand why they offered such big portions.

Here are some of my other favorites!


Fufu with groundnut stew and light soup and a piece of Chicken. Best eaten at lunch time to avoid sleeping on a full fufu baby stomach.

Fufu is pounded cassava-I actually made some on my last day there at a friend’s house. Goundnut stew is like.. a peanut buttery soup. However, I found it a bit too creamy and fatty for my liking, so I like to mix it with some light soup (spicy chicken broth of sorts) to lighten it up. Top it off with a piece of goat meat or chicken meat and I am a happy camper. :)

This mean costs about... (average 40 cents per ball of fufu, .60-2.00 for a piece of meat depending on where you go and how big the piece of meat is)


Alice and Megan special: two hardboiled eggs, a few pieces of fried plantain, salad with ketchup and salad cream, spaghetti noodles with tomato stew, on a bed of jollaf rice and waachye. Best for dinnertime when you wanted something on the “light” side.

Megan and I would always split this dish after class at the night market (eatery near the International Student Hostel). It would cost us about 2 ghana cedis (less than 2 US dollars), be completely vegetarian, and we would get our fix of raw veggies (via cabbage salad).

It was sooo good!


in the back: Red-Red (deep fried plantains with oily beans). Usually only served at lunch, best for lunch in case the beans don’t sit well :)

This was another lunch-time favorite for me. I would usually get it with a side of avocado to mix up the flavor. My favorite place to order red-red was at the one stand right when you enter bush canteen. I would get 40 cents of plantains, 40 cents of beans, 20 cents avocado and a side of pure water. I would be full till dinner, sometimes even the next day.


Here’s another special- vegetable stew with rice- that we would cook all the time in our room. Vegetarian friendly!

There are usually a set variety of things that Ghanaians eat. I would usually purchase from various stands on and off campus, and each stand would sell a specific type of food. It was all so cheap, so simple, and with such fresh ingredients--I definitely miss it. Top off a meal with a 10 cent orange or some fresh cut pineapple and I was ready for the rest of the day. :)

These were my four favorite Ghanaian dishes. There are more Ghanaian varieties in the Cooking entry. :)

I wish I took more pictures. Some of these shots are courtesy of friends who went to Ghana. :)

Cooking in Ghana

Cooking usually took place in my room or in the Volta Hall B Block kitchen.

After a trip to the market, I would gather with friends to cook mostly native dishes. I have the recipes written somewhere but I can’t find them anymore. i will upload them as soon as I come in touch with theme.

Here’s a collage of some of my cooking experiences! :)

We cooked on hot plates.

Tro-Tros...

Heading down a street in Accra.

The most convenient way to get around is via Tro-Tro. The EAP office is strongly against students riding in Tro-Tros in Ghana. They claim they are dangerous and unsafe. While this warning does hold some truth, I felt like it was such a cheap and convenient way to get around, I couldn’t resist.

This is a Tro-Tro:


Sometimes, I felt like the rest of the world sent their near-broken-down vehicles to Ghana, where Ghanaian Tro-Tro drivers would then run them into the ground.



Here’s how it works.

There are designated Tro-Tro stops all across Accra. The closest stop to campus is right outside the main entrance. If you walk out of the campus main entrance and head toward your right, you could find a Tro-Tro to Osu, Circle, Accra Market (aka Makola), among others. If you cross the street and take a Tro-Tro, you would be heading toward a closer and smaller Madina Market (where I did most of my grocery shopping).

As Tro-Tros drive by, a “Mate” will be shouting the Tro-Tros destinations out the window. Sometimes, when demand is low, they will stop and wait at a stop until the car fills up. This usually occurs for longer distance trips.

If you flag it down and get on a Tro-Tro, the Mate will be near the door rushing you in. They will also collect your money based on your destination, and will alter the driver to stop at these said destinations. I feel like these doors are sometimes unreliable, so I feel that the Mate is also there to hold the door shut. This can be seen below.



Again, the EAP office heavily warns against riding Tro-Tros because they feel that riding in them is dangerous. For example, this one time, the tire blew out on me while I was on my way back from a trip. Luckily, when this happens, make sure your driver does not slam on the breaks and instead, lets the car stop on its own and he steers it towards the side of the road. Any skilled Tro-Tro driver should know this.

Usually, for short trip, this is less of a worry. If a Tro-Tro breaks down, you can just get out and hop on another one. For longer distance trips though, you might want to make sure you get a newer looking Tro-Tro, or perhaps ride a bus instead. (Bus times and routes are pretty set, and can be found in the Lonely Planet Ghana Guide).



However, when stuff like this (above picture explains) happens, everyone is really quick to help. If there is no spare on the car, or in case the spare is flat too, other drivers with spares have been known to stop and help.

Here’s what the inside of a Tro-Tro may look like. This is the EAP/campus Tro-Tro that we took once in a while. Often times, I found Tro-Tros I hired myself to be much more crowded. There is so such rule as one passenger per safety belt, so they usually just stuff the Tro-Tro full of people. If you feel unsafe though, never be scared to get out and get in a newer, less crowded Tro-Tro. Most drivers I met were pretty sensible, but there were a few that really wanted to make that extra fare.



The best part of riding a Tro-Tro is reading the signs on other Tro-Tros.





I rode countless Tro-Tros during my five months in Ghana. I feel like you’d miss out if you didn’t ride it at least once in Ghana.



However, if things just don’t feel right, there are also Taxi’s everywhere that you can take. and with Taxi’s, always feel free to bargain down their prices. Never pay more than 1/3 of what they start with.

Money in Ghana

If you have a Bank of America debit card (like me), getting money will be a cinch in Ghana!

Barclay’s Bank ATMS are located all over the country, and will satisfy your withdrawal needs of all varieties. There is even one on campus, located across the street from Akuafo Hall, on the main road.

Once you arrive in Ghana, you probably won’t need money. In fact, for the first few days, all your meals and such are provided for. You can bring some US dollars to change at the airport, and I would recommend doing so because the airport has the 2nd best exchange rate in the country (#1 is the US Embassy, something we don’t have access to...). If you plan to change at the airport, bringing big bills will get you a better exchange rate than with 20s.

If you bring all cash, you can open a bank account at a bank on campus with the help of the assistants at the EAP office. Some people did this and were able to keep their money safely stored.

My Volunteer Experience at the Legon University Hospital

The Legon University Hospital consists of five buildings. There is an out patient clinic, a pediatric ward, two general wards- one for the general public and the other for the educated elite- namely professors and students from the university across the street, a maternity ward, a unit for emergencies and accidents, and a dental unit. The concrete structures, covered in yellow paint that is now peeling from either the daily humidity of the weather, or the from the various ticks of time. Regardless though, the hospital looks a little worn down. Each directory sign is overshadowed by large advertisements from the drink or product that has sponsored the development of the sign. However, despite the conditions of the facilities, nurses in pristinely white and freshly pressed white outfits parade around, reused file folders and ball point pens in hand. Doctors are scattered in various consulting rooms around the hospital, and you can tell where there are cause benches and lines of people crowd around these rooms, all waiting to see the same physician, hoping that today, the doctor will stay long enough to see them.


There’s the parking lot and out-patient clinic of the hospital.


Outpatient Clinic!


Sign in the OPD, leading to all the rooms.


The hospital’s only ambulance. I’m not sure how it works since for all five months I was there, all the landlines of the hospital were down and not working. As I was leaving, Ghana Telecom was purchased by a private British telecommunication company, Vodaphone. I heard about a national ambulance service, but no one could comment on how it worked or if it worked at all. :T


General Ward B.


Emergency and Accident’s Ward. There wasn’t even a sign labeling this building.


Nurses at the Children’s Ward.


Dr. Woode, the pediatrician.


In the Maternity Ward. This is where mothers and newborns are placed after they give birth. There are 4 mothers and newborn pairs to a room. It was empty today, so I took a picture.

It’s a really small hospital, but the nurses and doctors are all really nice. Despite being understaffed and underfunded, the hospital staff is pretty good at providing services to the local population, and about giving treatments even when patients can’t pay. Since it is affiliated with the University of Ghana, it receives funding from the government and from the university, which is enough to keep it running I suppose. While it may look a bit run down, so much happens in this place everyday, it was a really great place to volunteer and help out.

Beautiful Volta Hall

Here are some pictures of the all-girls hall at the University of Ghana.


Each hall has their own slogan. Volta’s? Home of Ladies with Vision and Style. :)


Main Entrance to Volta Hall. The windows on top belong to the Volta Cafe- Volta Hall’s internet cafe. it was free for most of the year because it was undergoing repair.

*NOTE: if you want some side money, you can work for Jonathan and make ten cents a page typing up. other people’s homework. :)


Volta Hall Main Courtyard and Main Dining Room/Study Hall in the back.


Courtyard walk way to the rooms.


Residence Hall style dorms. Each room has two bunk beds and sleep 4 girls. All 4 girls share 1 desk, which is often times used as the “cooking table.”


Walk way to the executive suites, where they housed the foreign students and the Ghanaians who wanted more privacy in their room.


Window looking into our room.


My room! My roommate had the room in the back.


My roommate, me and [some of] our neighbors! :)