Ghana, West Africa is the oldest independent African country, having gained its independence from England in 1957. The first president was Dr. Kuame Nkruma (you still hear about him).

This outside link has some additional history of Ghana.

Ghana is not too sore at the Brits anymore. It was a relatively mild disunion between the two. English remains the official language (you can still hear the british influence). All signs and public things are strictly in English. The Ghanaian accent is unique but you can hear a slight British tinge. Not everyone speaks English. The schooled individuals speak best. Ewe country is close to Togo, which uses French; hence, it is heard often, too.

Anyways, in Ghana there are many language and cultural groups. They are somewhat related much like French and Spanish could be considered related. The country is opening up to a new economy and, especially in the cities, things are changing rapidly.

There are two seasons- rainy and dry. We were there during the rainy season although it only rained once. The temperature while we were there was not too hot. I guess that we saw exceptional weather. It is usually hotter than the around 80-90’s that we were in (although the humidity is a killer, especially around the coast).

The currency is the cedi- the exchange rate when we were there was 2340 cedis to the dollar. There are only (some 500) 1000, 2000, and 5000 denominations and smaller coins so the wads of money that we toted around (for our hundreds of dollars) were enormous.

Click here to return to the Ghana main page.