Eid al-Adha Holiday- June 28

 Wednesday June 28


Today was the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha which marks the culmination of pilgrimage and is a festival of sacrifice. Yesterday driving back from the Volta region we did see a lot of trucks filled with cows and bulls and also lots of goats being tied up on the side of the road which Roland said were for sacrifice. Ghana is predominantly Christian (there are church signs on every street, especially Pentecostal church signs) but there are a lot of Muslims too, we’ve seen several small mosques and this is the largest mosque in Ghana that we’ve driven past a few times. 




When driving past the Black Star Square (by the Independence Monument), we saw tons of people coming to the square that had shade tents set up for a service for the holiday.

This is a public holiday here so the doctors told us to not come in today. So, we slept in a bit, then went to Labadi beach club which we stayed at for a while. I was able to lap swim in a rectangular pool which was good (even without goggles). It’s interesting to see all the people there, definitely all tourists, many with kids, and there were some Europeans, Brits, and some Chinese tourists. We had some really good ice cream and I had calamari; the seafood here is really great with being right on the ocean. 



It was overcast the whole day but I still got sunburned. 


We then went back home and one of my roommates went to the airport to fly home. It’s definitely sinking in that our time in Ghana is almost over! 


We went out to dinner at a place called Bistro 22 and I had a good salad, usually we don’t get that much fresh produce because it’s riskier for bacteria. This was in a really nice area that had several restaurants and bakeries. 


The area of Accra we are staying in is called Mamprobi and it is one of the poorer areas. Drivers often ask us why we’re staying here and doctors have laughed when we told them. It’s fine to me because our house is adequate, but it’s definitely true that our street is a dirt road and very bumpy and there’s not a lot of big houses or any restaurants that we would eat at here. 


It is a bit jarring to go to places where there’s lots of tourists and expensive things; and to think that people on vacation here are seeing a different side of Ghana than we are seeing in our day-to-day. 

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