Ghana (day 3)

The power went off at 6am today. It’s still off at 3.30pm. This is normal.

We do have a generator, so we do have electricity. Noisy, smelly electricity, of course.

I’ve seen one solar panel in 3 days. It was powering a traffic light.

Traffic is also a significant problem. So is the pollution it brings. Many of the commercial vehicles are clapped out beasts shipped over from Europe - instead of being scrapped.

We had to give up on visiting a fish farm business today as we got a call at lunchtime to tell us the traffic was gridlocked. 3 hour there and another 3 back, we were told. It’s not far away.

Most Europeans will not have heard of Kumasi. It’s the 2nd city in Ghana, with a population of about 2m. It’s the centre of the Ashanti region, and historically the capital of the Ashanti kingdom.

We may try to see the king next week.

Today one of our visits was to an industrial workshop area, where small businesses make shoes - especially flip flops. Businesses come from all over West Africa to bulk buy. They got Blipped.

An interesting experience. I’m not sure how well some of us can adjust to offering advice to cash businesses in a market type environment. One or two seem obsessed with business plans and cash flow projections.