My 2 Week Diary on Creativity or Working Without Electricity

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I was once able to sit and concentrate all day, without disruption. Now, even when I’m deeply engrossed in what I’m doing, I have no choice but to endure random disruptions and shift my attention to something else—that doesn’t require electricity, or internet, or water.

Indeed. I kept a two-week diary of living with power and water shortages. I hope this gives a sense of what life in Ghana is really like. Funny, though. I remember, with a wry smile, a comment I made within my first two weeks of arriving in 2005 and the power cut again. I lost all the work I was doing at the time and said something like: “I can’t work like this!”, out loud, surrounded by seasoned volunteers and Ghanaians who live like this their entire lives. Yes, I was that girl.

Fast forward: 4 years later.

Fri 13^th Nov

10.56 a.m. Power cut. I was saving in Word as I wrote. This is now automatic. I ctrl+S after almost every sentence. What to do now? OK, I’ll mind-map out a new project on paper until the power comes back. At least the water is still running.

11.13 a.m. Power returns. Not bad, just annoying. Cleaned dirty stove-top instead of mind-mapping so not an entire waste of time. Opened Word doc. Good. All saved.

1.21 p.m. Bloody power cut again. Time to make sweet potato salad with Khmer style dressing. (I’ll often work through lunch if there’s power, even if I miss lunch. I’ll eat crackers or bananas because you never know when it’s going to cut.)

1.49 p.m. Power back. Good timing. Called town. It was cut across the whole region. Mind mapped project and had lunch too.

Mon 16^th Nov

1.31 p.m. Bloody power cut again. It’s called “lights out” in Ghana.

1.55 p.m. Power back. Not bad. What is it with 20 minute cuts? Have to restart all over.

Wed 18^th Nov

10.10 a..m. Power cut in middle and didn’t save. Returns 30 seconds later. Bloody hell. Need to reboot.

10.20 a.m. Opened Word. Lost last hour of work. Walked out front of house. Truck ran over water pipe on Monday and its still gushing water today. Called Ghana Water Company repeatedly but they don’t seem to mind losing precious water for days on end.

6.10 p.m. Lights out again. It’s pitch black. No moon. Feel around room for phone with in-built light. Sit and listen to utter silence. Nice change. Mosquitoes start attacking. Buggar.

6.29 p.m. Lights return. Yay. Can cook dinner now.

Thurs 19^th

9 a.m. Just realised water has been cut off. Pipe out front fixed now though. Like living in a parallel universe. Use tank water for now. At least we have power.

10.05 a.m. Just as I reach to plug the stabilizer into the socket and start work, the power cuts. *Stream of expletives* Still no water. Continue mind-mapping new project. Make separate mind-maps of each branch of the main map. Nice and quiet, except for the Guinea Fowls squawking like World War III just broke out.

10.34 a.m. Power returns (we always leave one light on to know). Becoming ADHD. Start computer work.

10.55 a.m. Go to wash hands. Water back!

Tues 24^th

Day of Barcelona game. Godwin excited

7.06 a.m. Lights out again. Godwin starts cursing and worrying about missing game. I curse missing working time.

8.30 a.m. Power returns. Great. Start work.

12.02 p.m. Power cuts again. Oh boy. Godwin sounding like angry Guinea Fowls. He loves watching Amanpour on CNN at noon—one of the few foreign programmes we get each day via Metro TV. I empathise; I just want to finish my work. Eat lunch. Start working on writing out content for new project on paper. This is how I generate my best ideas anyway, so it’s ok.

1.00 p.m. Still no power.

2.00 p.m. Still no power. Godwin calls town. None there either.

3.00 p.m. Officially Dark Ages

4.00 p.m. Still living in Dark Ages

4.45 p.m. Back in the 21^st Century.

Watch game! Barca wins!

9.00 p.m. No water. Great. No flushing until morning.

Fri 27^th

7.08 a.m. Power cut. What’s new. Eat breakfast in quiet.

7.45 a.m. Power returns. Yay. Stays all day. Get work done.

Tues 2^nd December

Noon. Power cut. Seems to be a pattern of Tuesday cuts. Draw some new designs by hand.

3.04 p.m. Power back. Managed to get some designs done. Now to write.

Yesterday evening. 5 p.m.

Power cuts. Godwin stands up with hands on head and walks outside cursing. He returns. He looks like he’s about to cry. I’m about to cry. We’re missing the World Cup presentation.

5.05 p.m. Power returns. Phew. Ohh.

One hour later. Ghana and Australia are in the same group! Why?! And Ghana faces Serbia in their opening match, Ghana’s national coach’s home country and the one nation he expressly said he did not want to face. The “powers that be” certainly have an odd sense of humour.

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Believe it or not, this was a fairly reasonable couple of weeks. We were having cuts daily or every second day for a while. In 2007 it was for 12/24/36 hours on end, every second day.

Anyway, that’s a snap-shot of the reality of living without a reliable electricity or water supply. Add to all this, almost every time I go to the internet café the internet connection cuts in the middle of work. The power may cut too. Sometimes I lose everything.(As I paste and check this online now in the cafe I'm getting the message: Could not contact Blogger.com. Saving and publishing may fail. Retrying...and so it goes. I hope we're still connected when I press publish. Oh it's back!)

The worst aspect is that it’s very hard to meet deadlines when you lose chunks of precious time. If a deadline is a Friday, you always plan to finish by Thursday because there is no way you can plan on having power or an internet connection on the deadline day—it’s too unpredictable for that.

The worst is when you’ve built up anticipation to do something, and were looking forward to getting stuck into it, and then suddenly you simply cannot do it. You just have to do something else. That becomes very frustrating. If you ever wondered where that look of defeated resignation that Ghanaians sometimes get comes from, I believe this may have something to do with it.

It’s forced me to become creative. I have learnt to write anytime, day or night, anywhere—especially on trotros, in anything—computer, paper, my hand. When you have no choice but to write “when the writing’s good”, then you just do it. I don’t need to be at a comfortable desk with a view. I don’t need a chair. I don’t need to wait for inspiration. I don’t even need air-con when the temperature hits 40. I don’t even need a fan. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you have no choice and it’s just you, your determination and your imagination.

I make sure I’m working on several projects at once, in different stages of completion. I make one low priority and default to it when the power goes out. If I’m writing something, I’ll have printed drafts and use the power cut to edit on paper. So all’s not lost. It just means that you have less control over things. For someone who was once a major control freak, this is good; I have no choice but to go with the flow—or lack of!

If you have any stories to share, please click the comments below and let us know. I know many who are yet to come to Ghana for the first time are reading this and will benefit from others’ wisdom.

Costs and money for travel and life in Ghana

Budgeting for travel or life abroad is one of the most difficult challenges you face before departing. How much should I bring in cash? Is it safe to carry cash? What about traveler’s cheques? Can I use a credit card?

EDIT: This was written in 2009. Multiply all figures by 4-5 to get up to date prices in 2017.

Here I  list ‘a basket of products’ and their prices from the market and shops. I’ll write up a few journeys and show their costs to give you something to measure other trips against. And I’m going to talk about renting and utilities costs.

Costs of products and services:Bar of bathroom soap: 40 pesewas (Ghana made) – 2 Cedis (Imperial Leather)
Block of laundry soap: 50 pesewas
Toothbrush: 50 pesewas – 3 Cedis
Pack of shaving razors: 3 –10 Cedis
Washing up sponge: 1 – 3 Cedis
Ajax like cleaning powder: 1.5 Cedis
Cigar lighter: 50 pesewas
Ten boxes of matches: 1 Cedi
Small block of cheddar cheese: 7 Cedis
250 gm butter: 4 Cedis
Medium sized packs of ground coffee: 10 Cedis (only available in Accra)
Nescafe all in one sachets: 2.5 Cedis per cup
Pack of 25 Lipton tea bags: 1 Cedi
400 gms of milk powder in plastic packet: 4 – 6 Cedis
200 gms sugar: 1 Cedi
400 gm oats: 1.8 Cedis
1 litre vegetable oil: 2 – 4 Cedis
1 egg: 20 pesewas
5 big tomatoes: 1 Cedi (although the price fluctuates)
1 loaf of bread: 1 – 1.5 Cedis
2 medium eggplants: 1 Cedi
1 kg potatoes: 2 Cedis
3 carrots: 1 Cedi
1 big cabbage: 1.5 Cedis
1 head of garlic: 20 pesewas
1 maggi stock cube: 10 pesewas
5 small onions: 50 pesewas
Fistful of bananas: 1 Cedi
5 small oranges: 50 pesewas
5 large oranges: 1 Cedi
Hard coconut: 50 pesewas – 1 Cedi
Fresh coconut: 20 – 40 pesewas
2 big yams: 1.5 Cedis
Packet of spaghetti for 2: 60 pesewas
Small tin tuna: 1.9 Cedis
5kg bag imported rice: 11 Cedis
5 kg local rice: about 8 Cedis
1 litre of Star Beer: 1.5 Cedis and most similar beers. Guiness is slightly more.
1 litre bottle of Mapouka (Bailey’s rip off): 2.5 Cedis
375 ml Coke: 40 pesewas
Bottle pineapple cider (Alvaro): 70 pesewas
1 bottle of drinking yoghurt: 1.5 Cedis
1 bottle hair shampoo: 3 – 15 Cedis
Set of 3 good stainless steel saucepans: 80 (eighty) Cedis
A packet of cheap stainless knives: 12 Cedis
Wooden chopping board: 3 – 5 Cedis
Washing bucket: 3 Cedis
These clothes are the sort of thing you can negotiate over on the street:
Flip flops: 1 – 5 Cedis
Copy Burkenstocks: 10 – 20 Cedis
3 pairs of underwear: 1 – 4 Cedis
1 pair running shoes: 20+ Cedis
New pair of jeans: 10 (stall on street) – 30 Cedis (shop)
Used t-shirts: 2 – 8 Cedis
‘Pretty’ sandals: 5 – 10 Cedis
Bead bracelets: 1 – 2 Cedis: really depends on the beads
Colourful cloth patch pants: 5 – 10 Cedis
One plastic soup bowl: 50 pesewas
One ceramic coffee mug: 1 Cedi
Rubber football: 3 Cedis
Real football: 20 – 30 Cedis
1 G jump drive: 10 Cedis (Prices vary greatly on the different sizes)
Broad band internet connection 1 month: 80 Cedis
A basic Nokia phone: 30 – 40 Ghana cedis
There are now 4 cell phone providers that all sell prepaid ‘units’ along streets everywhere. You can top up your credit for as little as one Cedi.
Phone ‘chips’ or sim cards cost 1 – 2 Cedis each. Since competition is hotting up there are regular discount offers and many Ghanaians have one chip from each company to take advantage of this.
Second hand car: You can get them for as little as 500, but normally around 2000 Cedis or so.
Second hand motorbike: 300 – 600 Cedis.
New motorbike: 900 Cedis.

Journeys:
Cape Coast to Busua Beach. I’m talking trotros and taxis.
Cape-Takoradi tro: 3.5 Cedis
Takoradi tro-Agona junction: 1.5 Cedi
Agona junction share taxi to Busua Beach: 70 pesewas
One night at Alaska backpacker hang out: about 10 Cedis (was 8 when I last went)
One meal of rice and chicken at Alaska: 4 – 6 Cedis

Accra to Wli Waterfalls
Taxi across Accra to Tudu station: 4 Cedis (rough average across town)
Tudu tro to Hohoe station: 5 Cedis
Hohoe tro to Wli: 1.5 Cedis
Both guest houses are about 16 – 30 Cedis depending on the room
Their meals are anywhere from 3 – 10+ Cedis.
Waterfall Lodge (run by Germans) serves excellent food.
Waterview Heights, run by Ghanaians, is very friendly and welcoming. Food is OK (no one equals Eli, except Mountain Paradise about one hour south of Wli off the Fume junction.)

Accra to Mole National Park. This is a killer trip on public transport.
STC or similar coach from Accra to Tamale: 20 Cedis
Overnight hotel in Tamale: at least 10 Cedis or more
Public bus from Tamale to Mole: 4 – 6 Cedis
Park entry fees: 4 – 5 Cedis
One night in 3 bed room at Mole Motel: 25 Cedis
Guided walk: 7 Cedis
The bus back to Tamale and coach to Accra are the same again.

Renting:
Most landlords expect you to pay up fully in advance for at least one year, but more like two to three years. It’s difficult to find anything under one year. It can, however, be done, but it takes a lot of looking and there are very few trustworthy agents. I’d love it if someone could alert me to any good agents. It’s more a matter of knowing someone you trust to go around and hunt for you and using word of mouth.

They also expect you to cover all your maintenance costs. There are no tenants’ rights. So if the plumbing fails or pipes bust (as they did once for me), you pay. Imagine you owned it, but you don’t own it. You don’t pay council rates, but you do pay water.

Accra. I’m no expert; I never lived there. But I have heard tales from others and this is what I know. It’s as expensive to rent an apartment in Accra as it is in Sydney—for the same level of accommodation. For a decent two room place you’ll pay anywhere upwards of 400 Cedis a month (you can live by the beach in Sydney for this) in a central location. For what it’s worth, Phnom Penh was the same.

If you rent a room in a basic compound and share a shower and kitchen with others, you will spend at least 100 Cedis a month, but probably more. If cost is an issue in Accra, you’d be better off living with a Ghanaian family and renting a room from them.

I always suggest hitting the notice-boards at internet cafes and asking online at places like Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree Forum for tips or inside info.

The upfront payment condition is the same across the country, but costs vary greatly.

Kumasi is slightly less expensive than Accra and easier to find a place not right in the centre of town. I’d recommend asking at Vic Babboo’s in town and the net café next to the British Council for accommodation.

Cape Coast is easier again (but not as easy as you’d think). It has many guest houses where you can pay upwards of 100 Cedis a month, long term, for a room. In fact, LOV Guesthouse in Abura, an offshoot town of Cape Coast, has gorgeous fully furnished rooms for 100-150 Cedis a month. It’s on a ridge overlooking the lagoon and ocean. Lovely and private and the owner, Mr Eshun, is a cool guy. On the downside, it’s a walk from the main Abura road and can be dodgy at night—always take a dropping to the door. Coastal TV put their staff up there and all the drivers know it for that.

Not that I imagine many would look up here, but there is a shortage of rooms in Bolga due to the Bawku conflict and prices are on par with Kumasi and Tamale.

Utilities:

In Bolga we pay a flat rate of 10 Cedis a month no matter how much water we use. In Elmina it varied according to usage and was always around 20 Cedis or so, depending on how many people were staying.

Electricity here is about 20 Cedis a month—computers, fridges, TVs, the works.

How much should I bring in cash?
In my opinion, I think it’s very safe to bring up to a thousand in cash. You have to be careful in crowded areas and dark roads at night. If you’re planning a journey up to Mole, only take what you need and leave the rest locked up at ‘home’. The exchange rate is better (and so is the service) at hole in the wall exchange booths than banks.

What about traveler’s cheques?
They can be painful and time consuming to change. I’ve known tellers to refuse someone because their signature was fake; it was their signature. And others didn’t take the passport as valid. Insane. Personally, the hassle factor is too high for me, but it’s up to you.

Can I use credit card?
I’d minimize the use of credit card other than for withdrawing from ATMs. I’ve heard of fraud in hotels and any place someone has time to copy your credit card details onto paper. However, I did use mine a few times and so far, no problem. You cannot use Mastercard! If I'm wrong, someone please alert me. (edit: Thanks Jade! I think I transfered minor Visa issues I'm having subliminally while writing.)

Your home ATM
You can use your home ATM card to withdraw cash and all the usual charges apply.
Be careful. Occasionally the ATM machine messes up and doesn’t actually dispense the money, even though you get a slip to say it did. Worse, it doesn’t dispense and you don’t get a slip so you don’t know if it was deducted or not. The latter happened to me once and, although I thought the amount was deducted, my bank noticed I didn’t receive cash and reversed it without my needing to say so. You can go into the bank and report it and they’ll follow it through for you.

You might like to check out my Cost of Living in Pictures post. And this currency converter which includes the Cedi!

I would truly appreciate updates on any of this information. If you have something to add, please do so in the comments below. I'm always trying to find out what works and doesn't at banks!