Travel to our new hotel

Coaching partners went to their communities/hotels for the ucpming visits to credit unions. Bruce and I had the shortest trip in terms of distance, but it took a couple of hours. As we got near our hotel, we drove past the “Pink” hostel – I think that is the place Bri stayed at for one night in August. We are based in Accra for our credit union visits. We may get a chance to swap out with the team in Cape Coast for our last credit union which would give us an opportunity to be a little more rural.

Accra is very large city with a population densely packed. Traffic is very difficult with so many cars, taxis, buses, people, and the odd goat to manuever around. But our driver, Bright is his name, was able to take some shortcuts and get us to our hotel by 11 or so. We then went to an area called Osu, where a lot of ex-pats live/work. This is also near where I stayed in a previous visit and I was familiar with the area.

Since we had the afternoon free, we had a relaxed lunch and then walked the main street where there are many vendors and their “sales staff” eager to entice into a purchase. I was looking for Black Star jerseys and some specific fabric for Brianna. Bruce and I had several tag alongs for quiete a few blocks until I emphatically told them we were not interested and thanked them for showing us their “stuff”. Whew, and since Bright knew of a place to get the fabric – off we went. it was in a different market, not far from the CUA offices. More of a people’s market than a tourist market and there we found the fabric I was looking for – yeah!

We headed back to our hotel and did some walking around locally where we encoutered children at a couple of places shouting – “obruni! obruni!” (white man, white man) I smiled and waved at them and they waved back. It was a bit of an orientation to the neighbourhood around our hotel and we walked for quite some time – many different types of entrepenurs – selling small appliances, a tailor, a hair stylist, a tire replair place, a computer place, – each with its own unique signage. I will try to post some photos tomorrow.

It was hot and humid today and just walking works up quite a sweat – so we had to stop and have a refreshment at a place called the “Bus stop”. It was a bar nearby where all the local tro tros stop to pick up passengers. We then returned to the hotel and had our supper – local dishes – Bruce had chicken and jollof and I had chicken and red red. I can feel the red red in my tummy now!

We visit our first credit union tomorrow and both of us are keen to hear their story, what challenges they might have, and what insight we may be able to share with them to overcome those challenges. It will be an interesting day I am sure.