Last week my sister and her husband came to visit us. It was their first visit to West Africa and I think they were a little apprehensive as they thought they would be constantly bitten by insects, live in primitive conditions and get very sick from eating the food (if they could find any they liked) and drinking the water. However, they were very pleased with what they found here and were very surprised at the level of the hotel we stayed at and the places where we ate out, as the food was as good as they could get in the UK.
They did have some Ghanaian experiences though. Our car broke down in Kakum Forest Reserve and so the three of us had to get a taxi down to the hotel, leaving my husband to deal with the car. We were intending to travel back to Accra the next day and expected the car to be fixed, but it wasn't, so we had to travel back to Accra by taxi. My husband looked for a taxi he thought capable of making the trip, but didn't consider the fact that the driver couldn't speak English and had never been to Accra before!! Everything went well till we reached the new motorway and I was a bit slow telling him to turn to Tema - forgetting his lack of English -so we found ourself driving through Accra. I drive here and know parts of Accra very well, but not that part. Anyway we eventually found a road I recognised and got home safely wondering if the driver ever found his way back to Cape Coast!
We took them to the airport on Tuesday but we only intended dropping them off, as the airport isn't a great place to hang around. They went off to go through the formalities and we tried to start the car but the battery was dead. My husband called his brother to bring some jump leads, but as he was still in his office we realised it would be quite a long time before he could help us, so he then went to the car parked in front to ask the driver if he had any.
The guy hadn't, but he offered to help by taking the battery out of his own car and putting it in ours and then once the car started we did the reverse procedure meaning we could drive our car home. We were so relieved and offered the guy some money for his help but he declined and said he was just pleased to help. We were very impressed by his actions in helping complete strangers who were in difficulty and it just reinforced in me one of the reasons why I like this country - the people!
