This past weekend is when we began our intense American weekend. This was when we did the most Obrooni things and par-took in the delights and desires of an Obrooni. When you think of everything that a visiting Obrooni might do, we did it. Every place where an Obrooni was most comfortable, we went.
We started out by going to the shopping mall. Yes, a shopping mall It didn’t contain much that was amazing, but it was close enough to home for most of the area Obroonis to shop there. The shopping mall was tucked away, hidden almost, in the opulent, lavish, private homes of the wealthy – and Obroonis. There was a liquor store, jewlery store, ice cream, fedex, small grocery store, some beauty salons, offices, and a very nice internet cafe. It was easy to tell that Obroonis from the area and those working in Ghana frequented the shopping mall. It was easy to tell that these Obroonis flocked there for their daily needs, but it so much easier to get what you need on the street. This is also where I saw my first ‘real’ parking lot in Ghana.
We did some shopping and haggling in the ‘Center for National Culture’ and headed back to the hostle to eat some lunch. 
It was a big meager and a bit Obrooni of us, but still good. We ended the eating session with some FanChoco, it is a plastic pouch, like the water, of frozen chocolate milk – so good during a hot day. A few of us decided to go for a run for the first time in Ghana. So far the only people running that I have seen are either training for soccer or are late for something. As we ran the back streets behind our hostel, people called out, “Obrooni, what are you doing?” Children ran to the street and callled ‘Obrooni’ to us. The children lined the road clapping, cheering, and chanting, ‘Obrooni.’ It was almost as if I was in a high school cross country race again. The best was the taxis who honked at us to see if we wanted a ride. No, just some silly Obroonis who want their excerise. It must really make no sense to most Ghanaians since most of their daily lives and jobs are excerise. Here they can’t choose when to excercise or not, it is run or just stop.
We had heard of a great recommended restaurant called Afrikiko and decided to go there for dinner, since there was also music. But we arrived and all the lights were off, it looked quite shady so we headed to another recommended place called ‘Home Touch.’ On the way to Home Touch, our taxi passed the new, under-construction american embassy. It was so disgustingly huge and unnecessarily gigantic. The US has pulled it foreign aid from Ghana, so why does it seek such an imposing presence? The compund was massive, many storied almost like a hotel, multpile gates, and numerous secuirty cameras. I couldn’t believe the extent of the new embassy. We arrived and got a big table and at the start of the evening we were the only people in the place. We drank and ate goat and fufu in a light soup. I am not sure what light soup means because my soup was so hot that my lips and throat burned with goodness afterwards. Some of the girls in our group sang with the live band (quite Obrooni) and made fools of themselves, but it was a great time. When we were given our bill it was about 200,000 cedis too much and we thought we were getting jipped, but oh well.
We had the rest of the weekend plus Friday off since we were traveling to the far eastern region of Volta on Sunday. We woke up early, for some reason unknown to me, for breakfast on Friday because some of the girls were picking up dresses made in Osu and some of the other girls were getting their hair braided. Most people returned to their beds to regain some lost sleep – which I hear is impossible to do, but I did likewise. I slept for a really long time and did some more reading, finishing The Village of Waiting. We then met up with hte group at Frankie’s to go out and Francis joined us. We first went to Epo’s bar with Francis and met and had some drinks. While we were there a big volunteer group from England arrived and we chatted it up. I talked to a girl who was stationed in a very rural village in the north of Ghana and found out that each person was stationed far off in a different area. The English people, with their beautiful accents, were headed to a nightclub called ‘Bliss,’ so we decided to tag along. It seems that no one, no taxi driver or otherwise, knows of Bliss or where it is. Finally we found a taxi driver who knew the place and headed there. We arrived and were treated to the most Western style bar and club that I have seen yet. It was full of Obroonis – American and English – no wonder no one had heard of the place.
Saturday we all slept in after the night of clubbing. I missed breakfast since I slept too late. Most of us stayed in our rooms sleeping, reading, or just hanging out. I didn’t emerge until 2pm and didn’t eat until very late. We all went in waves to the internet cafe and talked in the courtyard about our experiences in Ghana so far. What an Obrooni weekend – in style, food, company, experience, and habit. We ended up having a great Ghanaian meal at Cez Arfique, but otherwise so Obrooni.
Index of blog post series on Ghana.