After having spent almost eight weeks of my summer in Accra, the buzzing capital of Ghana, I feel like I’m some kind of authority on the subject. I could advise you where to go to buy the best red-red (a hefty mixed bean dish usually served with fried plantain) or point you in the direction of the few rare places that serve real coffee. If you’re anything like me, coffee is next to godliness so you’re going to need it.

I found myself cursing my choice of an ex-British colony for a place to spend my summer, where there is little access to real bread and coffee, when ex-French colony Togo is just a stone’s throw away, with real coffee and bread and pastry!  By stone’s throw, I of course mean eight or nine hours on a tro-tro, otherwise known as the minibus that could potentially result in you losing your life, or at the very least your dinner.

However, considering it’s been approximately eight months since my visit now – I may have to accept that I can no longer claim an ‘expert’ title on the city. While I was there I met lots of different people from outside of Ghana, who all had been bitten by the bug of this West African wonderland. For most of them, this was their second, third or fourth trip to the city… and the one experience they all had in common was the shock they felt at how much had changed since their previous visits. Accra is growing and changing at a rapid rate, so as little as five months between their trips made a marked difference on how they felt they knew the place. One rather thrifty American friend noted with horror: “Oh my God, it’s suddenly got expensive!”

She had a point. As many would expect from a developing country, the prices of every-day items like fruit and water fall far below what you would expect in the UK. For example, bag water (purified water safe for drinking) would cost you 1.5 cedis for a sack of 12 500ml bags. If we go by the current exchange rate, where one British pound is approximately equivalent to just under three cedis, and the average bottle of water in Britain tends to cost anywhere between 50p and £1… You can see how cheap that is by comparison!

Despite this, the market in Accra for ‘Obruni’ commodities is booming. Obruni is the Twi name for ‘white person’, and if you happen to be from anywhere outside of Africa, regardless of skin colour, you will be called Obruni probably up to a 100 times a day, for the term is generally used now for any non-African person, or a tourist, in Accra. The Obruni commodities I’m talking of are the ‘home comforts’ one might crave if you’re from Europe or the States; pastries, coffee, pizza, salads, chocolate bars and so forth. There is a huge market for selling these products, and many Obruni establishments like Monsoon restaurant, Deli France cafe and Koala supermarket make a killing off of them. For example, Sunshine Salad (a wonderful little place up the road from Deli France, off of Oxford Street in Osu) charge up to 18 cedis for a salad with fresh vegetables, meat and cheese. This sort of pricing is close to what you might pay for a packet salad or restaurant starter of a similar idea in the UK – around £6. The salad is delicious, and I personally believe it is worth the money!  It might come as a shock however to those who would expect everything in a developing country to be at a cut price.

I am excited to find out how much of a shock am I going to get when I next go to Accra, pitch up at Sunshine and order their chicken halloumi salad as a treat after too much red-red and plantain. If my friend’s experiences are anything to go by, I might need to prepare to save a little extra cash if I’m planning on indulging in Accra.