24 Hours Inside Ghana s Capital City crazy African megacity

So, we've come to this place where people look through the dump sites here and they recycle. This is where they make and brew alcohol. It's like Viagra in a stick. They're burning tires on top of metal pipes and they're cooking whole goats. So, here you can see old computer cables and they'll sell these and then people will go take them over to an area next to the river, burn them and get the valuable metals out of them. Oh, he's making cooking pots. This is the mold here. Gangsters. Some guy just came out with a knife shouting at us. Welcome to Accra, capital city of Ghana here. Come down to the coast here. You can see there's some shacks and things. There's fishermen here getting ready. It's an action-packed place. Very interesting here because majority of people speak English. So, you can have really nice genuine interactions. Wanted to come here for such a long time. Let's go meet the people. So, we've walked along the beach a bit. These scenes are absolutely surreal. They're burning tires on top of metal pipes and they're cooking whole goats. You can see the smoke billowing over there. There's some ladies here and they're smoking fish. Absolutely incredible. The scene here is out of this world. What was your name, sir? Your name? My name is Manuel. Manuel, nice to meet you. You're welcome. Easy life or hard life? Hard life. People here are suffering. Suffering. Yeah, man. Okay. Job, no day here. No jobs. You have to talk. You have to help us because our community is so bad. Your community is bad. And what do you need? We need something like company, more factories, more jobs. More jobs. And see our fathers. They are suffering. Right. Fire is very... Yeah, hard conditions. Yeah, like smoke and... Our government should help us. But the government don't look at you. The government is not helping? So, you have to... Tell them. Yeah, man. What do you want to say to the government then? I want to say to the government that they should do factories, companies, more jobs. Thanks, brother. Appreciate your time. You're welcome. Yeah, thanks. Really nice people here in Ghana so far. Like, so accommodating and hospitable. It's amazing. So, you can see all the wire. This is all from tires here. And they're burning. They're telling me to be careful because there's hot spots because they're just burning randomly and you can accidentally stand on a fire, basically. You said your English was not good, but I think it's very good. Exactly. Yeah, brother. Some guy just came out with a knife shouting at us. And now everybody's shouting. I'll explain in a second. It's super intense. I was just talking to Emmanuel, you saw there. He kind of looks over the neighborhood and anybody that comes in, like me, for example, with a camera, then he's kind of like in charge. Then it was like a small power dispute and people were shouting. One of the guys pulled out a knife, kind of like coming towards me. Like, I think he wanted to take the camera or I wasn't sure. But, you know, a guy shouting aggressively with a knife. We're going to go and meet the guy now. I think everything's sorted out. We had a few, like, problems before, but everything good now, eh? No, I'm a butcher. That's why I always have an old knife. Yeah, yeah. All right, brother, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Cheers. You live here? We've met Survivor, right? And how is life here? Because your name is Survivor. It's stressful? I'm good, brother. Oh, what's... Okay, is it alcohol? Okay. Just a little bit. Yeah. It's medicinal. Yeah. One shot. A little bit of alcohol. It's pure alcohol. I think me drinking it will send me to the hospital. No, this is purely organic. This is from the stems and roots of plants. Yeah, so this one, no toxic. It's a good way to start the day. Yeah, come again. A good way to start the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Sorry, Survivor, so you were saying before I... Yeah, I was saying before, you said the name Survivor. All great men that ever exist, even from the Bible until now, Okay, so you look at it positively because... Yeah, positively. You're gonna get through to something better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, what do you need to make life better? Wow, good life, you know, positive work and positive people, have good work and good income to be able to manage off it. So you need more jobs? Yeah, more jobs and opportunity. And what do you do to make money? Buying and selling? Yeah, food. Food? Food and seafood like the fish. Okay. So you're a fisherman? Yeah. Wow, beautiful. Oh, well, thank you, Survivor. I appreciate your time. You're a legend. One love. Yeah, one love. It's good, brother. Take care. People are really nice here. We beg you and we beg European nation to talk to Russia and Ukraine fight because we are suffering for Ghana because of Russia and Ukraine. So because of the war in Ukraine, stopping food getting here and you're suffering because of it. Suffering. So you're asking United Nations, European Union to help you. Okay. To talk to them. Right. Russia and Ukraine to stop the fight. Stop the war. Because we are one. We are one. Beautiful, brother. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Hello, sir. Yeah. How are you? Oh, he's making cooking pots, right. Amazing. And how much does he sell one cooking pot for? This is the mold here? Yeah, this is the mold. Uh-huh. This is the mold. Is there a problem with the government here, did you say? Sorry? They don't think about you. Right. What do you want them to do? Oh, I want them to help us. In what way? For help. What kind of help? Oh, money. Money. And the minerals. Minerals. Like aluminum. Aluminum. So they want the government to subsidize aluminum. Do you have a family? This one. Is this enough for surviving and it's a good business, profit? Yeah. Good profit. Okay, great. Good, good, good. I'm happy to hear that. Yeah. Have you been doing this your entire life? Mm-hmm. How many years? Oh, like more than 20 something years. Yeah. This is what we call manpower. Manpower, yeah. This is a manual. No chemicals. So this is... Is this metal then? Yeah, we just... Yeah. Oh, so it doesn't stick. Uh-huh. So you leave a little bit of a gap so the metal can pour through. Yeah. Aluminum, right? Yeah, it's aluminum. And you're heating this up right here on the beach? Yeah. It comes boiling. Wow. And this is your wife? This is my wife. Nice to meet you. You put water in there to cool down and set the aluminum. Wow. So this is the new pot. Yeah. Just like that. Amazing. Okay. Wow. Done. Wow. Nice work, man. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Okay. So this is the public shower situation. They're all occupied at the moment. The community come together and put these facilities in place for everybody to use. Do you have to pay to use this? Yeah, they pay. How much? Not for me. I already showered today. I want to shower. Unless you go back to the sea, then you don't shower. Right. So people either shower in the water or here? After you bath from here, then you can use the correct water. Go for a swim and... But you can also... Bath directly. But what's... How much do these people pay? It's like... One city. So we're here with Michael. And you're going to be my right-hand man here in Ghana, right? Sure. And so we just had like a bit of an incident here. Do you want to just run us through what happened there? Oh, okay. So, as you can see, we said we want to take a walk along the beach. When you go to slum areas, there are some common things that you see. We have gangsters there. Gangsters? We have gangsters. We have gangsters there. We have decent people living there. Decent? Decent people living there. We had hard-working, as you saw. The hard-working guy, the blacksmith. Making the pots? Making the pots. Yeah. He was on drugs? What kind of drugs? Oh, weed? Oh, okay. That was scary, man. Yeah, I was also scared. But I... You were scared? Yeah, I was scared as well. Why? What did you think could happen? Because I just don't know why he just came and then pop up and then pull out a knife. But I think the conclusion was he was having a feud with a guy that we were taking a walk with. Yeah, the guy that was showing us around here had a problem with him, right? Sure, sure. They were having personal problems. Yeah. So I think when he met him, the anger was there. And then we met the guy and gave him a hug, you know? Yeah, sure. And he seemed a lot calmer. Yeah, sure, sure. Oh, he did? He felt bad? Yeah, he felt remorse because he didn't know we were doing something official. Right. And he just interrupted. Okay. So he felt sorry and then apologized for that. Right. Which I think is the best thing that he did. So we've come to this place where people look through the dump sites here and they recycle. You can see on the other side of the river here, big fires. And there are also people living here in these slum areas. Most of the people that live in these slum areas come from the north, which we're going to go to later in the trip. Things are even harder up there for a lot of people. So a lot of the people come down, normally young men. You can see there's fires. They're burning down things like plastic cables to get to the copper wire inside of it. And then they'll sell that. They come down here by themselves. They'll send the money back up to the north to their families. You can see it's... This is speechless in terms of the scene here. So Michael. Yeah. This is Abu Bloshi. Yeah, Abu Bloshi. This is quite a famous market here, right? Sure. One of the popular markets in Ghana. There used to be container ships arrived full of electronics from all over the world, right? And then the government cracked down on it and stopped that because it was one of the most... I think it was the most toxic waste dump in the entire of Africa, right? And they shut it down. That was what the government was saying, that it's toxic. But that was a business means for the people. That was a business. Now the government has sacked the people from there. That's why job is not there. They have sacked everyone from that side. That's why now these days crime rate is high and things. Crime is increasing. Yeah, because there's no job. Uh-huh. You get it. Because they used to be doing the scrap there. They get a lot of money, sell all kinds of things here. What do you think of that? Um, I think it's very bad. That was not a good approach because the best thing was to educate the people. And if you think where they are living is bad, the best thing to do is to come and renovate there. Instead of just kicking them out. Yeah, kicking them out. They've taken them very far away. There should have been an education, there should have been renovation. So this is where they make and brew alcohol. Similar to the stuff I had earlier in the video. So yeah, just very, very potent smell here. Derived from fermented palm. Business here must be good, right? Because this will always sell. Many shops are having problems selling but this shop is doing just fine, right? Yeah, I mean, I can just hold the camera because she doesn't want to be on film, right? So I'll just face me and I can talk. Yeah. Do you sell a lot of this? Like all day? You sell three of these a day? Okay. Wow. That's pretty, that's a lot, eh? Okay. What is the price for one of these? 3,400. Say again? 3,400. Okay. And what size do people buy it in? A whole barrel or smaller? Okay. Like one of these? What's the price? 350? For one? Five liters? Okay. Thank you. The same lady we were just talking to, Agnes, this is her shop as well. They're selling red label Johnny Walker here and all different kinds of alcohol. So obviously this would be the more premium alcohol. And then they have the local stuff mixed with herbs and things. I think this is something like what I had this morning and that's super intense. So they've got all these water pumps here lined up and all these pipes going in all direction. And that's the water supply. What was your name? Steven. Yeah, nice to meet you. I'm Nick. So this water comes from how far? Very far? Very far. Yeah? I don't know whether you know Kaswa. It is a main pipeline from Widja, straight one to here. It's clean? It's clean water. You're drinking? We use to cook. Cooking? Nice water. Okay. Looks very clean. Clean. Thank you. You can see these pipes, they're running all around these streets. And they're pumping from the main river. Hey man, you good? Cynthia. Nice to meet you. What are you making? Clothes. Okay. And is it a good business? Not good business. No? No. Why no good? No money. So you work all day and you try to sell the products but it's not good? Everything is made hard, that's why. We are apprentices. Oh, apprentices, right. You're just learning. And how old are you guys? Eighteen. And what is life like for a young person in Accra? Our parents, they don't have money so we have to learn some way. Otherwise, for us, I'm having one child. You have a child? Yes. We need help. You need help? Yes. What kind of help? We need business. You need business? Yes. So there's not enough work? You need more jobs? Yes. Okay, right. Okay. It will help us to complete our work. After completing our work, we get some place and open our shop too. You want opportunities? Yes. Yeah, so you want to be able to afford your own sewing machine? Yes. Okay. And then you can make your own business. Okay. I wish you the best. Thank you. Bye. Thanks. I sell eggs. Sorry? Eggs. Oh, you're selling eggs? Yeah. And is that an okay business? Yeah, because I don't have money. I have small children. I don't have a husband. No husband? Yeah. And children? Yeah, children. How do you feed your family? Every day I will get 20 CDs. How do you feed your family of 20 CDs a day? How? I go and buy rice. Rice? One cup. One cup? Yeah. And what else? I do small things. Small things? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I want help. You need help, yeah. Yeah. And what happened to your husband? My husband is not there yet. He left? Yeah. Okay. How many eggs do you sell a day? One crate. Sorry? One crate. How many in a crate? 30. 30 eggs in a crate? Yeah. You can see these big pots here. These are the same as what we saw the guy making on the beach earlier. But obviously this is a bigger size, incredible. And this is traditional pepper spice sauce and they got beans and rice. And then there's a huge line here of people lining up to eat. This is local medicine, you were saying, Michael? Yeah, this is local medicine. It's very powerful. You've seen it. It's very powerful. Medicine for what? They have a medicine for menstrual cramps. A man who is suffering impotency, they have medicine for that. It's like Viagra in a stick. So, you mix this with that or this and then you get a medicine. Sure, you get a medicine. So, you'll tell the mother... You just have to tell mother... Yeah. ...your problem you are facing. And she will recommend to you the best medicine to buy. So, she's like a pharmacist? Yeah, in a way. She's a herbalist pharmacist. Herbalist. How's business? It's fine. It's okay? Business is not moving as wanted, but she's still managing. All that she'll be needing is a good capital. Though she has started the business alright, but if you have more money you can invest a lot in the business and the business will boom. So, as you can see, some of the medicines have gone bad or in a way old. Old, yeah. It needs to be changed. Okay. But because there is no money, she's still maintaining until she gets new ones. So, what she'll be needing is support and money. An investor. Yes, an investor, exactly. At the moment, how many customers? Yesterday, for example. Just one yesterday. And how much was the product? 26, which is $1.5. So, there's no extra money for savings. So, the job is just straight hand to mouth. And she's a single parent as well. To me, the math doesn't work out. So, what do you eat? What about rent? Things are very hard. Her landlord is living on her. So, she's almost at risk of getting evicted. She could lose her home. Yeah, sure, in a way. Yeah? And then what happened? She'll have to search for another place that she and the children can be accommodated. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, so we've come into this local barber shop and... Sorry, what was your name? Jeff. Nice to meet you. How's business? You have lots of people getting haircut? Like five people. Five? And this is your business? Yeah. Oh, wow. In Ghana, what's the current situation? Because I just got here and I'm just wondering what is life like here? Normal life, but it's very hard. The system is very hard. So, what needs to change is the government. The government needs to change? The government needs to change things. Now, things are cost. If you go to the market, you can't buy. Die, you used to die. People say you can't buy, so... Oh, really? Like inflation? Yeah. The city has become one of the world's worst performing currencies. Losing 60% of its value against major currencies like the British Pound, Euro and American Dollar since the start of the year. The pandemic, war in Ukraine and rising oil prices have all damaged its heavily indebted economy. Do you think that it will get better or do you think it will get worse? It will get better when... As we keep going, it will get better, so... Life watch. You're positive? Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate it. Thank you. What are those guys fighting about? It's all about money. And I think they went to work and... The other is trying to cheat. This is because... You mean they didn't split the money fairly or something? Yeah, one is trying to cheat the other. You see, sometimes... You come to areas like this, the strongest survives. It's all about poverty. Before you go to find out what they are fighting about, it's less than $5. This area of Accra has been famous for many years. It used to be the biggest e-waste dump site in the world, which means that people would bring materials like computers, you know, old Windows 95 monitors and computers and things. They would bring them here, break them down and sell the parts. And it was known as one of the most toxic waste dumps in the whole of Africa. But the government's recently shut it down. There still is an underground market here where they're still sending all kinds of material, metals and things. It's fascinating but also shows the desperation of what many people have to do to earn a dollar. So, you see on the other side of the river there, the government have built that wall and it used to be where people would sell a lot of their things but it's been blocked by the government. And then they've come to this side of the river. We've just met a local guy here and he's selling all kinds of the pram, DVD players, big flat screen there, old vacuum cleaner. Just anything that they can really sell is scrap metal or people can repair, there's an iron. So, here you can see old computer cables and they'll sell these in bunches and then people will go take them over to an area next to the river, burn them and get the valuable metals out of them to sell. Wouldn't bring much money but anything to get a meal for that day. Homemade dumbbell here and stack of metals here and then people will bring them, put them on the weighing scale. Then they'll know that they can agree. So, everywhere we walk here is just old mobile phones. From countries all over the world, Australia, Europe, America, Asia, all different parts of the world. Coming here, selling these little scraps of metal that we throw in the bin then making some money off them. Everywhere, look, I'm walking, phones, phones. Look, there's Sony. So, this is where electronics end up when we get the latest iPhone every year. You can see old computers here. Hi, sir. So, you're selling these? Right. And so, what happened here? So, the government came and they shut down the other site. So, is it harder for you to sell now? It's hard for us to sell now. This place is congested now. You know, we used to have a lot of place to put our things. Right. But here, you don't see. Yeah, it's very busy, eh? Most of the workers have run away. All of us used to be here. So, you're not happy with that? Yeah, yeah. So... Not at all. What do you need to be... What do you want to happen? We wanted to go back to our place, our old place. Over there? Yeah, there. Okay. Your old customers have been pushed out? Pushed out, yeah. So, now nobody can buy? That's it. Right, okay. So, here's a piece of a fan here. And he's hitting off the copper, you can see. And they keep the copper in here. So, they make 30 cities from one piece of that fan. Okay. That's a steering wheel? Yeah, that's a steering wheel. You get five cities in addition, so it'll be like 15 cities. He pays 10 for it? He pays 10 for it. And sells 15? He pays 10, 15. So, 33%. Thank you very much. No worries. So, these guys are stripping apart this old car engine right now. What kind of metals are they looking for? Copper wires attached to it, so they are extracting the copper. And after that, they have the aluminum. It's just all car engines, car parts. There's a Hyundai engine right there. And they've always got... You always see the scales around, because they want to make sure that they're... If they're selling parts, that they're getting a fair price. So, what people are telling me here is that they used to have a lot more space to go about their business, you know. Because they don't have many opportunities and they have to, you know, do whatever it takes. You can see stripping apart car motors, inhaling all these fumes. They're burning rubber and metals. It's toxic. I've seen sources where people are actually dying at very young ages because of the pollutants that they're breathing in. They're not wearing masks and things. It's a very hostile environment in terms of the toxins being released into the air. And that's only been emphasized from what I can see here because the area is being brought into a much smaller place. It used to be along those walls. But what people are telling me is that the government built that wall, but there's nothing inside there. It's just empty land. Obviously, you know, the pollutants, they don't want that being spread. But then, of course, the locals have had the way that they can eat taken away. So, very complex situation, obviously. What's your name, sir? My name is Blessing. Sorry? Blessing. Nice to meet you. So, where do these phones come from? We buy them from... Especially some from the repairers. Some from the individuals. Why do people buy these for parts? Yeah, some of the repairers came to buy some of them, some of the parts to go and repair their phones. Right, and then you have the batteries. These batteries. If you need battery for your phone, you can come. Why is this so light? There's a battery not here. Yeah, there's no battery inside. iPhone. iPhone, yeah. Wow. And is this a good business for you? Yeah. Is this a good business? Yeah, it's a good business. We buy condemned batteries too. Okay. And we supply to the company, they buy. People are buying them now. Right, right. Are these valuable? Yeah, this is skeleton. They're still inside. Yeah. You know, when you see like certain clothing gatherings in Western countries, a lot of those clothes actually get sent to Africa with the intention of being given away to charity. But a lot of them actually end up getting resold. Pick one and eat. Pick one? Yeah, pick one. This one. Yeah, pick. No, this one. No, money. This one? Okay. Pretty good. You're hiding. You're hiding there. Okay. Let's go. Let's go on a hot day. Thank you very much. So, we've just come downtown to the central business district. Nice clean streets, big modern building, banking buildings. There's the National Theatre over there. The huge disparity of wealth obviously exists everywhere. But it was very interesting. You see people burning little cables to get copper out of. And then you come here to these huge banking buildings with clean streets and things. It's an absolute contrast. How would you describe the current situation in Ghana for the local people? These people are really working hard. They're hard-working people. We go to see the scrap dealers, the butchers. So, what we think the government can do for these people is to establish a company. There should be industry there. This will help to push in their living standard. And I think it will help to support the whole country. Okay, so we're here with Benjamin, right? Okay, yeah. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Nick. So, you just came up and you said you wanted to express yourself, right? Yeah, I just wanted to express myself. Okay. Because I really liked the conversation going on between you and... Oh, you liked it? Yeah. Okay. So, I decided to... Yeah, feel free. Some of us, we... There are other people who get involved in so many stuff like stealing and... Crime. Right. Some of us that we don't have the courage to do all those things. We tend to beg people for alms, people to give us money to buy food. And they put us all into one... Category. To me, like this... For me, I don't like the situation I find myself in at this moment. Right. Yeah. Because I really wish I could turn the time back and then I'll start it all over again and then... Oh, really? Yeah, I'll stand up to something. So, you have regrets? Yeah, I've regretted all the... And so, if you could go back, what would you do differently? Yeah, well, if I could go back, I'll just go back to school. I'll become an architect. Architect. Architect, yeah. And where do you live now? I sleep at a bus stop. You sleep at a bus stop? Yeah. So, you don't have a house? Yeah, no. Really? Yeah. What about your parents? My mom is late. Your mom is what, sorry? Is late. Late? Yeah, she's dead. Oh, she died? Yeah. Oh, sorry to hear. What happened? Excessive pressure. Excessive pressure? Yeah, like... Stress? Stress. She had a heart attack? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, sorry. And do you see your dad? Not frequently, not often. I see him once in a while. Is it a bad relationship? Yeah, there's a bad relationship. Any brothers or sisters? Yeah, I have two brothers and a sister. So, we are four. And do you see them? No, I barely see them. Oh, really? So, you don't see your family? Yeah, I don't see them. Oh, that's a shame. How do you see your future? For now, I don't see anything bright in my future until things turn over. If I should get any pillar or help from anywhere, I'm going to start all over again and then I'm just going to build up my future and then I'll just get out of all this mess. I'm ready to make change. Okay. Thank you so much, mate. You're welcome. I appreciate your time. Good luck, eh? Good luck. Accra, it's blown through my expectations. I knew it would be fascinating, but it was definitely even more interesting than I had anticipated. That moment with the knife was definitely super intense. Two guys were kind of surrounding us and one was trying to get to me. I think he was trying to take the camera. I don't know what was going on. Within the space of like 20 minutes, it turned from a guy coming at us with a knife aggressively to everybody smiling and hugging. So, there you go. The people have been so kind to me. That's a bit of an introduction to Ghana. Obviously, there's a lot more to the country. We drove through middle-class neighborhoods and past more expensive places. You know, as time goes on this trip, still many more videos to come. Stay tuned for that. We're going to be seeing many different elements of the country. Hope you'll join me for that. And Ghana, going to be an amazing trip. A really beautiful country. Great to be here. So, I'll see you in the next video. In case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening and good night.