Stop Moving to Ghana without Visiting (Is Africa a Good Place to Live?) Maybe...

I'm Kwaba. Welcome to Expat Life Ghana. I'm Tony. This is my wife Ayo. We're documenting our move from Texas to Ghana as we go beyond the return. In this video, Tony has a bone to pick with y'all. Stop saying I'm moving to Ghana and you ain't even visited. What's up with that? Let's get this video started. You're kind of worked up about this. What's up? Yeah, I was talking to someone in the States who's never been to Ghana before and they're asking how to get Ghanaian citizenship. How do they apply for dual citizenship? Okay. Well, first off, Ghanaian citizenship is by birth, by blood, or by marriage. Without one of those three things, it's going to take a little bit of time. Right. And she wanted it in less than a year. And before she even came. Yikes. Not going to happen. I've been here going on three years with a Ghanaian dad, and I'm still trying to take care of that mess. Yeah, exactly. But there's a bigger issue here. She'd never even been here. She wanted to move here and become a citizen and has never been here. Okay. Never seen a man being on the side of the road or experienced doomsaw or water outages for 10 days. Never smelled her market or washed her feet before she did anything else when she got home from a long day. Nope. None of that. We try to keep things real for you here. And we tell you the good and the bad. And I love Ghana. I love it here like there are no words for how much I love it here, right? But that doesn't mean everyone will have my same experience. Yeah, I feel like I love Ghana too, but I know it has its downfalls and its challenges just like everywhere else. Yeah, you have to come here to see and experience things. Here's an example. Where do you want to live? Like, what do you know about Tema or? What do you know about any of these places? Our experience in Tema is because historically this is where your dad was and this is what we know. So we've come to love Tema quite a bit. However, I also like Abri for different reasons. So people coming and they're dead set on moving in one place and you've never been here. Why? What do you know about that place? The good and the bad to make you say, I'm moving there. What's interesting to me too is that there are so many people who come and they're decided that they're living in East Ligon, that they are living in Osu, and they're like, that's where I want to be. And those just happen to be two areas with like the worst traffic, that kind of traffic that makes you not want to leave your house ever again. That I wouldn't be like, I couldn't live with that on a daily basis every time I wanted to leave my house. Oh, you wouldn't. You'd never leave the house. Oh, right. It's not with that. Yeah. So I think a lot of people see things in videos or hear us talk about something. Oh, that sounds nice. I want to live there. Come see Ghana before you say, I'm moving to Ghana. That makes absolutely no sense for anyone to move here without first visiting. Join the conversation, drop a comment below and let us know what you think. Another thing that I think people should consider too, is that it is easy to access the comforts of home from here. I mean, I think relatively easy. If you need it, you can most of the time get it, but you can't always like, if you love sour cream on your taco, you are going to be disappointed to find out there is no sour cream. There aren't really any tacos. I was just about to say, you found tacos here? Yeah. Yeah. So I just think it's hard to understand what you can and cannot get and what you can and cannot do until you actually come and try to do it. Not in vacation mode at the hotel, but like in real, in the real space. Remember those people who came here and they were sold on Cape Coast? Oh, they were so excited. And they were for really good reasons. Like they wanted to be near a very strong expat community and they liked the proximity to the ocean. It totally made sense to me. Right. They got here and they were like, it's not for us. You got to have boots on the ground to get it. You got to be here for a while to know what you are really looking at. Because I guess there's a big expat community in Cape Coast, they wanted to be around that, but then they found that moving around wasn't quite the same as if you were in Timor or Praia or something like that. The entertainment and... It's like a much smaller, a smaller town. If you want to have that smaller town feel, Cape Coast is great. Perfect. But if you want the nightlife and entertainment district, Cape Coast isn't going to be that for you. Well, and it's harder to access some of those things, comforts from home. The further away if you get from Accra, the less opportunity there is to buy imported items that you may be accustomed to. Right. We thank the heavens for the smart people who decided we're going to open up the American store and the American warehouse and American store GH and all those places that provide those amenities from home in the States and they bring them here to sell. We thank you for that because we're close to them and they give us a little bit of comfort knowing we have something we're familiar with. There's nothing like that. Tony's very happy to have found Grits and Cheetos. Very easily. No, Cheetos lately have not been around. It's been like six months. But Grits, they've heard you on the Grits, babe. You're good. Hi, I'm Leo. Subscribe right now. So I guess what I'm saying is, if you're coming to Ghana and you're saying, hey, I'm moving to Ghana, something you should ask yourself, what do you know about Ghana that you've never been here? And you're saying, I want to move here. What is that drive? I'm just really curious because there's so many things about Ghana before you move here. You need to know. If you get frustrated easy in a system that isn't quite up to date in dealing with land issues, buying land or technically anything. Yeah, it's kind of anything. You're going to have some issues with patience because you have to be very patient coming here to understand things don't move smoothly and they don't move quickly. Well, and that's, I mean, interestingly enough to kind of counter that idea, that slower pace that like kind of what's a good word here? I don't even know. The slower pace and the laissez-faire. Is that the right term for it? Some people like that. It's just kind of chill. It's just cool and chill. And, you know, it can be frustrating. We'll see how cool and chill you are three months later trying to get a driver's license. Yeah. Well, and there's, you know, we love Ghana and we have a connection to Ghana and that's why we're here. But there are a lot of other countries to experience and consider when you think about Brexit and leaving the States. So it doesn't have to be Ghana. It can be many other places. We love it here. But you should find out if you love it here. Right. And the only way you will do that is by visiting. So there you have it. Come for a visit before you sell everything in Blackville. Yes. And if after you watch this video, you're ready to play your turn, join a close Facebook group so you can meet with folks just like you. Yes. And if you're planning that first trip to Ghana, check out what we have to offer on our website at expatlifegana.com, including full service tours, airport pickups and drop-offs, and day trips to see the best of Ghana. Plus, for all you people that want to come and visit before you move, we offer accommodations at our Airbnb. Check out the full rooms and full service options online at expatlifegana.com. And if you are still here, hit that like button and subscribe. Don't forget to hit the notification bell so you can join us for our monthly live videos right here on YouTube, the last Friday of every month. And with that, Charlie out for now. I'm a Ghana. I visited before I moved. Yeah, but you loved it right away. I mean, I think there are some people who... I don't know. Maybe some people are just like, remember that one guy like, yo, it's not here. So anywhere is better than here. I could get some of those frustrations that people have. They're like, it ain't better than this. But you, you gotta. You gotta. Well, and even if you decide, like, even if you come and visit and you're like, Ghana is the place and you're like, okay, so I'm going to be in Accra. That might get annoying after a few months, like when you're out of vacation mode and out of hotel, you know, mode. So people are like that. They like that busy feeling like they're in the middle of Do you remember that one time we were meeting people and they were in East Laguna and we were in Tama and we left at the same time. They got there after us. Yeah. I was like, how, how can that be? We had to get on the motorway. They sat in traffic. I just couldn't. Like, that's just not for me. But that's the point. You should come into experience. So you know, which parts I agree with you. I agree with you. Delete that last part. I don't want that on the record. It's on the record.