9:30pm and I take a taxi downtown. Soon enough I begin to feel like I've made a mistake, when the cab drops me off at a dark parking lot, saying it can't go further because it's a private club.
Guards are everywhere, while there are practically no cars on the street or people walking. It feels the complete opposite of India (especially since my taxi -- despite being the ONLY one on the road -- screeched to a stop when the traffic light turned red... something you'd never see in Hyderabad).
I step through the gate and feel like I've been transported to another land. Lush green grass surrounding me. I'm at "Cavaliere Pazza" -- Accra's Polo Club, although I'm told they've removed all the horses after illness spread across the group. I sit and wait at the bar -- I'm meeting a friend of a friend from business school for drinks. Looking around, it strikes me that I can be pretty much anywhere in the world (well, maybe not NYC because of all the lush grass, but easily somewhere in LA). Hip hop blaring, World Cup playing, and beautiful people all around.
The friend of the friend arrives -- an Italian from Milan who's been here three months working with an oil company, and who graduated a year before me at Columbia. I learn more about the oil industry in Africa than I thought I'd know. It's always interesting to me what types of expats end up living in a particular city. In Hyderabad, it's highly stratified, with one group of expats working in social enterprise, another group working in IT, and not much of anything else. Here in Ghana, I'm told it's all expats working in oil, non-profits, or telecom. He talks about how much safer Accra is than other African capitals -- although he still has a car and driver who doubles as his bodyguard.
It's a fun night out, which leaves me wanting to explore the city even more.
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