Friday Traffic
Another week gone by. Wow.
Kumasi is called the Garden City of West Africa. Apparently, this is because Queen Elizabeth called it that in the 1960s when she visited. However, the population has exploded since then and there aren’t too many gardens to see. It still is a lot greener than Accra, but Garden City? It should be called the Gridlock City. It took an hour to get home today. A distance of about 15 km. To be fair, there is a lot of road construction going on right now that will make things better in the long run. And from what I’ve heard (and seen in Accra) Kumasi is a lot better than most large African cities.
This place is full of contradictions. There is so much technology around, but so many things don’t work. For example, there are hundreds of people selling the latest Hollywood movies on VCD on the street and everyone has a cell phone. But half the traffic lights don’t work. I guess it’s a by-product of developing while other parts of the world are already developed.
Kumasi is called the Garden City of West Africa. Apparently, this is because Queen Elizabeth called it that in the 1960s when she visited. However, the population has exploded since then and there aren’t too many gardens to see. It still is a lot greener than Accra, but Garden City? It should be called the Gridlock City. It took an hour to get home today. A distance of about 15 km. To be fair, there is a lot of road construction going on right now that will make things better in the long run. And from what I’ve heard (and seen in Accra) Kumasi is a lot better than most large African cities.
This place is full of contradictions. There is so much technology around, but so many things don’t work. For example, there are hundreds of people selling the latest Hollywood movies on VCD on the street and everyone has a cell phone. But half the traffic lights don’t work. I guess it’s a by-product of developing while other parts of the world are already developed.
posted by Tony at 10:17 a.m.
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