Embassy Day
(TUES 3/7)
Today we visited the U.S. Embassy for a welcome and a safety/security briefing from U.S. diplomats. It was very official and formal, we had to check in all of our phones, watches, and passports, and no bags were allowed. We were advised not to eat street food unless it was really hot, to not drink the water out of the faucets or sachets (plastic bags) since the water if often not clean, and to not ride tro tros (vans converted into taxis) or motorcycle taxis. Also they reminded us to take our anti-malarial medication every day since this is a high malaria region. One thing that was neat was that I spotted a disc golf basket on the grounds of the embassy!
After the embassy tour we stopped at the W.E.B. Du Bois museum, which was his home for his last years of his life. Du Bois was an American sociologist, an author, and a Pan-African civil rights activist,
You haven't really experienced Accra unless you stop at the Black Star Square, also known as Freedom Square. This famous landmark was commissioned for the celebration of the independence of Ghana from the British in 1957.
We did not stop at a school we had planned to visit because the students had another day off of school for Independence Day. Instead we stopped at an arts and crafts market to practice some haggling skills. After the market we enjoyed dinner out at a famous Ghanaian restaurant.