Adabraka is a town located in Ghana’s Greater Accra Region and the Korley Klottey Municipal Assembly. It was Ghana’s first and most affluent neighbourhood while the country was ruled by the British. And it is one of the best places in Accra to stay. Adabraka’s streets are laid out in a grid of parallel straight lines that cross one another, suggesting a covert strategy to herald the township’s founding. The quiet organization of my memories of home is formed by a labyrinth of human secrets hidden behind these organized streets.
Despite being a recent Accra suburb, Adabraka, Accra has a mysterious past that dates back to legendary periods in human memory. Long before the Gold Coast was established, Muslim traders from the North would travel south to market their wares while dressed in their regal turbans and dignified robes. Adabraka developed where the moon casts its silvery look right down upon the ground. The traders would show up around midnight, pitch up camp, and wait until dawn to begin bartering their wares as the night glistened in a blue, silvery brilliance. To sell to the buyers from the coast, they brought exotic curiosities, Islamic books and prayer beads, woodwork crafts and leather goods, cola, and tiger nuts. They also brought livestock such as cattle, goats, sheep, millet, and yams.
At this intersection, now known as Adabraka Market, the dealers, merchants, and buyers would gather to conduct business. By appealing to one another, or “ada-braka,” and requesting better terms of trade, the buyers haggle and discuss prices with the sellers. I see, Ada-braka. The vendor will declare, “I’ve already lowered the price. The buyer requests a reduction in price, saying that it is too exorbitant. In an effort to get the seller to lower the price, the buyer haggles, begs, and sweet-talks the seller.
The buyer might then choose to accept the merchant’s terms or continue negotiating until a price that is acceptable to both parties is reached. Oral thespians assert that the word’s Arabic roots are al baraka, which means “blessings”; the customer says, “If you bring down the price, Allah will bless you,” and as a result, the location became known as “Adabraka.”
Adabraka, Accra was arranged in a beneficent fluidity of lines that gave the impression that they were intended to gauge Accra’s size and breathing capacity, as well as to predict how Ghana’s future would unfold over the infinity of distances beyond the realm of our own comprehension. All of this was completed before Ghana was born.