Around Accra, for the last times

So the photos show, from top...., some of my work people, then its like street views of Accra, one you can even see a train! It runs like once a day and I believe is so slow you can walkk faster, mainly cos people live on the tracks and they're not meant to run them down or anything....


I don;t know how much I've said about it before, possibly a lot....but there are lots and lots of people here, and a great majority of them are always out and about on the streets, a lot selling, some just hanging, others moving around.

This huge volume of people can make walking around very difficult, already dealing with not good footpaths and open drains and ditches to fall in, avoiding walking into people, and avoiding people who grab you and call you over constantly can make going outside sometimes a very daunting prospect. Sometime in the middle of my stay here there were nights I just stayed at home because I couldn't be bothered dealing with it, but then I got over that fast again.

But now, the AMA, who are like the city council, have been taking on this clearing out exercise to take all illegal tradespeople off the streets and footpaths...When I first heard about it, I thought they were being crazy, and it kinda coincided with Obama's visit, so it was cleaner for him....not that I imagine he walked much of the streets, but even though the tradespeople come back, even when their little makeshift stands have been destroyed, the AMA are actually holding pretty firm and keep moving them on.

So now you can walk along the footpath without worrying about walking into somebody's goods or being asked to buy something every 1sec, but in addition they are keeping people off walking on the roads and grass verges, so there seem to be more hundreds of people to avoid walking into!!

I think it is actually slowly starting to help ease congestion though, but sometimes its an inconvenience.....I always knew where I could buy what as I wa walking along the road, now sometimes its not there when I want it!!

Anyway the point of this story is that in January I went to a meeting in town, where the building was actually 7 flights high, so had a view of the central market and town, but I didn't have my camera at the time.

Today I managed to get back there with my camera, as someone from work was going, but even though I got the view and the photos, the chaos is fully not what it was in January, there lots like there's no traffic, no cars weaving in and out, and the people walking down the stretch of market seem to have space to move, which they never had before.

So I have my photos but not the effect I was hoping for.....