June 24, 2021

Tomorrow will be two weeks since we left Utah. In many ways life is not so different, in other ways were experiencing a whole new world. 

We live with a bunch of white church members who share our language and culture in every way. If it weren’t for the humidity, you’d think you were in Utah. (Well, a university dorm in Utah.)

One of the most apparent and obvious differences is driving. We are use to a understandable, repeatable rule based system. The folks in Ghana do what is expedient at the moment. We call it intutive driving. To survive the constant, never ending onslot of cars, you put your nose in the traffic mix and take up whatever available space there is. The driving is aggressive, but not the driver’s emotions. No horns, no angry fists out of windows. Motorcycles are everywhere darting in and out of cars and trotros with no semblance of rules, even to stop at red traffic lights. They just weave around whatever is front of them and go! 

The other thing we are getting used to is the women carrying large silver bowls on their heads along the roadside selling anything from oranges to Mentos to bottled water. The most amazing to me are the ladies who sell peanuts on platters they carry on their heads. Each peanut is carefully lined up on the platter. When the lady gets a customer, she reaches to the platter removes the correct number of peanuts and places them in a small plastic bag without dropping one peanut! All of this happens in the time from the traffic stops for a red and before the light turns green.