Cultural experiences part 1 – Running on Labadi beach

Labadi is a part of eastern Accra and is situated close to the beach. Some mornings after having stayed at my friends’ place there, I’ve gone running on the beach. It is quite an interesting experience I must tell. First of all, the beach is very dirty since a lot of things are dumped on it, or in the sea and subsequently washed ashore (playing football here requires hawk-eyes and feet of steel). The running starts to get really interesting after a kilometer or two where the beach starts to get crowded. Not by jogging or swimming people (most Ghanaians can’t swim), but by men performing their morning rituals. These rituals basically consist in shitting on the beach. Yes indeed, the beach is transformed into a public dumping ground of human feces. The men, because women are rarely seen here, aren’t at all disturbed by some jogging obrunis and some of them have even asked us to join them. Well, maybe one of these days…..