 See, I don't think I'll ever get over the fact that the comfort of familiarity of our environment usually tends to make us locals less and less explorative of the special things and perhaps even the special places that we may have until someone else comes to show them to us. And the thing is, it's like that everywhere in the world, it's not just Ghana. Even people who have lived all their lives in this Accra, this very city Accra, some of them have never been to parts which aren't so far from them. They live in one space and that's where they've been all their lives. I guess it makes sense to some extent but sometimes I wonder, I wonder why we don't self-hype and sell what's within our cities and country, you know, where most of the gems that we come to like are most likely not discovered by other people but they are made attractive and they are recommended by other people and then it becomes a thing. It's bothersome to me. I guess quaterally we've never really looked at travel as leisure for the sake of it. It's more with a purpose. We travel because we have to. So on that note, I am deciding here on this channel to start a new series and it's going to be sharing some of the places that are favorite places that we've visited and still do visits when we can. So this is a new series I'm going to be introducing on the channel. And because we really can't be traveling so much at will, I'm going to start with, I'm going to start small by sharing some of the cool places or hidden hangouts that we love in the city of Accra. So technically, these are not so hidden because I mean other people know it but if this is your first time hearing of some of these places that I'm going to be mentioning then I hope you do check them out and explore your city even more. Now this one came about because as usual, we were tired of staying indoors due to the quarantine and we needed a change of scenery so we decided to find something else or someplace else to hang out just like we did with the Kokorobeete garden trip with you guys really, really not. And as usual, it was Elaine who introduced me to the place. So yes, today on the vlog, let's go to Thea. We started Thea a bit over a year ago and it came about basically my husband and I and my two kids, I have two kids, we're avid travelers so everywhere we used to travel, we used to because now with COVID, we're not traveling this summer. Everywhere we travel, the first thing we do is go to where food is so the best food places and not like the Michelin, we used to go to the Michelin Star but like the really authentic food. So I think all of us realized the connection between food and culture and that's something that we wanted to reflect so it was a dream of ours. We didn't think we'd do it in our forties but we did. We don't come from the hospitality industry so this is a shout out to anyone who has a dream. You don't have to be trained in it but you have to have a passion for it. I grew up in Ghana so I'm also Ghanaian and when I moved back to Ghana in 2011, I felt that there was something missing. I missed the authentic Ghana so that's when we started doing recipes at home and also hunting down the things that we used to eat and you don't find very easily. So we have one of our signature baked items is a pebbles cake which was my childhood dessert, pebbles. They're M&M's but we need big jawbreaker M&M's. I know pebbles with groundnuts in them. Exactly so yeah we crushed those and put them on a chocolate cake with Ghana made chocolate and every day is an exploration of that of nostalgia, of Ghanaian culture, of eating local and fresh and I think before COVID things were maybe not as understood but now when people walk in they understand it. They understand the connection to nature, they understand the connection to food and they understand the connection to eat fresh and I think that's what maybe has made us a bit different and hoping that business will pick up again because you know all small businesses have suffered and will continue to suffer in this period so it's actually a co-working hub as well. My husband and I don't have offices. This is our office so our office is in the garden, our office is in the inside rooms. We also have two full kitchens. The kitchen concept came about because also of our travels and I think it's become very popular everywhere for people to explore cooking and culinary arts. They've become fashionable again because of the connection to food culture so we've done a few of those so we decided to open up two rooms that are kitchens for chefs and amateur chefs and foodies like us to just show off their talents and explore food and where we have one chef next week who's doing baking and she has she's fully booked because people know and understand what food therapy is and she found herself in that so we're hoping we can attract a lot more people who are just love food and we also sell cookbooks and books by African-American authors and Ghanaian authors. A lot of them are our friends we're hoping to do book signing soon but you know now that things are happening the way they are we have to be a bit cautious about not gathering too many people at the same time. We also do showcasing of food entrepreneurs we've actually extended into home accessories as well but all locally made all very authentic by very talented Ghanians we have a coffee plantation owner and he's also was a banker all these people who have come from different backgrounds just like us and have a passion for something and they want and they just want to be happy in their life and I think that's maybe what people see when they come here they see a place where you can just be yourself and and work and maybe dream of it. So if you like this video I think you should just give it a thumbs up right now and subscribe to my channel my name is Kwame I'm a documentary filmmaker and voiceover artist based in Accra Ghana and I'm happy that you're here on my channel it's my attempt to make sense of life and human experience so welcome to the party and subscribe subscribe hit the bell button so that you get notified when I post a new video and I'll catch you again on the next one in the meantime, adios, peace!