Sobering ...

Today we arrived in Takoradi, Ghana -- the country's fourth largest city, and we took a trip to a nearby fishing village, which was very interesting, but also very depressing.

The people who live here wrest their livelihood from the sea, and they live in abject poverty.  As you can see from the main photo, there is no attempt to stem the tidal wave of plastic trash and other rubbish from its inevitable march to the ocean, and it's sad that the link between it and the threat to their very livelihood seems to go totally unnoticed.

We met with the town's Chiefs -- very dignified gentlemen who kindly answered our questions before showing us how the fish are caught and then smoked to preserve them.  There were so many excited children!  We were followed all over the place by a great swarm of them -- they were utterly delightful.  The town itself was shockingly poor -- at least to our spoiled Western eyes.  Very unreliable running water, minimal electricity, open drains ... I can't imagine such a hard life.