North York Close

so today i got the keys to my crib. too bad MTV wasn't in sight. yeah its in a low wall, lawn & flower neighborhood. getting there , i get to see that there are bad roads in ghana too but not for long. the stretch of road turning off into the area where the estate is, is untared road until you get just inside the estate. i went to go get curtains for my windows and discovered another interesting thing about ghana.

the curtain place was run by syrians. the service is very 'white' like. i deposited some 50 ghana cedis about 6000 naira and one of their guys , followed me home to measure my windows after which they would do the curtains and call me when its ready. man is that service or what? the downside is that the curtains will be ready in what two weeks? i manage to use my naija wit to push for accelerated service so he promised he'll see if it can be done in a week.so i'll have to hang bedsheets over the window till then. anyway i decided to get the bamboo curtains for the living room. cost me an arm, a leg and some. this is the first time in my life i'm doing furnishing. i guess its normal (the pain in my limbs).

i'm still yet to get a hang of the whole cedis thing. the curtain guy told me 500 the first time we met. my first thought was panicky. what had i gotten myself into? i wasn't a bourgeois. i was just an average joe from naija. the guy now said 50 ghana cedis when he saw the fearful look in my face. i relaxed then and fished out the cash telling him ah that i wasn't ghanaian so i was still confused by the cedi business. he asked where i was from and i told him i was a nigerian. he didn't bat an eyelid , i guess it must have been my ghanaian companion. i was safe (to do business with).

tomorrow morning i shall move to my new abode for the next couple of months(?), years(?). aside from the absence of a white picket fence the neighborhood is an extraction from some janded place. ok i exaggerate a bit but you get my drift. that brings me to housing in accra. the picture i get is that the government sold out large chunks of land with specific plans as to how they were to be built on down to the landscaping. the houses i come across are all neatly ordered. same style but you would see different colors and a few enhancements but the basic design is the same. you get a very organised look and feel. yeah and one thing, the ghanaians love their surroundings. every house has a well kept lawn and they outdo themselves to innovate with their flowers. i wonder if that was in the government specification as well.

if you ever visit ghana look me up in NYC....