Sekondi-Takoradi

Takoradi-Sekondi
This building is the only modern place you'll find good things to spend money on.
Country	Ghana
Official nickname	The Oil City
Population	445,205 (2012)

Takoradi-Sekondi is a twin coastal city in Ghana a mere four hours' drive west from the capital of Accra.

Name

Takoradi-Sekondi is actually called Tarakonidianii but anyone that wasn't from Africa couldn't say it right. Then the Ghanaians got so angry they had no choice but to name the city Takoradi. Anyone is bound to enjoy it here. Even though it's on the other side of Ghana, you'll be fine travelling 4 hours, right?

History

Takoradi has few outlets of American hamburger chains, but it has a fine (though inedible) harbour.

Sekondi was one of Ghana's large cities offering residents a chance to all speak the same language, in this case Ahanta, while Ghana's other cities spoke some other language. Ahanta is spoken throughout the city and all the way west to Prince's Town; beyond that, you are on your own; say the wrong thing and you might find yourself taken all the way to Ivory Coast. Starting in the 1600s, explorers from Europe built forts on the coast, with the worrisome prospect of bringing a single language for everyone to speak. Ghana eventually threw off the colonists and returned to speaking its own gaggle of languages.

In the 1900s, massive oil deposits were discovered in the western region, raising the risk of foreign workers arriving and again speaking the same language. In the current century, Wikipedia has arisen, documenting many things, but not the Ahanta language. Takoradi's harbour was dredged deeper to attract oil tankers; and its tourism sites were dredged too, with the new nickname of Oil City.

Commerce

This is how Ghana's west coast might look in the prosperous new era.

Takoradi's traditional industries have been timber, energy, and technology, the latter meaning drinking enough energy drinks to stay up all night building a ship in a bottle with timber (toothpicks). However, everyone anticipates the conversion of the Takoradi industry to oil in the near future.

Tourism forms a tiny part of the region's economy. The beaches to the west have brilliant white sand, which attracts brilliant white foreigners for a week at a time. This industry is also looking to the region's oily future. Depending on the application of technology to offshore oil drilling, the region may develop black-sand beaches, which might be a new source of national pride.

Culture

The Takoradi region is overwhelmingly Christian. One-third of the population is Charismatic. They tolerate the uncharismatic remainder. Only 0.2% practice traditional religions, so there is a minimum of sacrifice of livestock and the neighbors' young children.

Education

Takoradi Technical Institute teaches 1,400 students and has a "fab lab" from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The fabulous lab teaches students not to pronounce the letter "r". The downtown has many Internet cafés, which teach students how it would feel to be able to get on line from home.