Wednesday was day of contrasts. Spent the morning in our first proper team meeting on the Cadbury project (not its official title but the accepted shorthand). There has been so much to-ing and fro-ing, initial community introductions, data gathering, practical accommodation issues and so on that we have not had time to think about the next steps in the project. So the three long term volunteers – Danielle, Jill and I, plus Shirley, our Tamale evacuee, met Thelma the VSO project officer in the Community Development office with the seriously bright blue walls. We discussed the data gathering, our experiences of the communities we had visited and the teams we had been working with. There are big problems in these communities. Many people in them tell us that they receive visits from other NGOs and charities that come and make them promises and are never seen again. One of Jill’s communities was very pleased when she made her second visit as, for them, this was unprecedented. We are concerned that they do not see this project in the same way and that hope that they will receive help. Their biggest problems stem from receiving too little income which has various causes.


After the meeting I returned to the house, changed clothes, collected my luggage and returned to town to get a tro-tro to the airport. I spent last Christmas in Ghana, but this year I intended to be in the UK. I got my first air conditioned tro-tro, smart smoother ride, slightly faster (even with a short stop for one of the passengers to buy three of the biggest paw paws I have ever seen), but slightly less leg room than the standard ones. They took my luggage free of charge so that was a bonus. I had made sure I was in good time so got out a couple of stops early at had a burger and fries at the Accra Mall. Suddenly you are in a world of fast food, big 4WDs, ex-pats, satellite TV and smart wealthy Ghanaians.



I am wrote this in the departure lounge at the airport in Accra, taking advantage of the free wireless broadband but had to post it in Berkshire as the service dropped at the crucial moment. This will be my last post before Christmas so I would like to wish everybody reading this a very happy Christmas and apologise for not ending any Christmas cards (again!). I would also like to thank everybody who has commented on the blog this year. It is good to hear that somebody is reading it!

Christmas

The Koforidua VSO volunteers generally have different plans for Christmas so we tend to celebrate the festive season early as a group. This year we started on Saturday with a trip to Accra Mall. For those returning home this would help with the adjustment back to Europe, for those staying the opportunity for a few treats. Over the last year there have been a number of additions to the mall. It now boasts an air-conditioned multiplex and after a quick iced coffee, we started our visit with a viewing of Quantum of Solace. We lunched in the food courtyard and then bought barbeque food in Shoprite.
Dan had commissioned the construction of a barbecue from an old oil drum. It arrived on Saturday morning. On Sunday all the volunteers from the region came and we cooked beef kebabs, pork sausages, veggie burgers and beef burgers. The local kids were fascinated by the whole affair and spent the afternoon peering through the railings into the compound, occasionally pointing out when items were burning. It was a sunny dry season day until, just as the final sausages were gently blackening, the rain came.

The Election

Election Day in Koforidua was eerily quiet. The BBC had a team in Ghana and reported on early morning polling activity. Queues had been building since the small hours and in some cases stations had not opened as materials or staff were not present.
Mid-morning I went to one of the internet cafés in town. On the way I met my friend, Grandson, a school teacher. He was not going to vote. He wanted nothing to do with corrupt politicians, whatever their party. He was particularly affronted by Nana Akufo-Addo. He had received an automated phone call from the NPP flagbearer, but the message did not include any greeting and Nana had not asked how he was. ‘How are you?’ is a standard part of any Ghanaian greeting and Grandson argued that he could have no respect for somebody who wanted something from him, without being remotely interested in his well being. Many churches had cancelled services to allow people plenty of time to vote. I passed the polling station at the Presby School. There was a queue outside but all appeared quiet. On the way back I met three young men who asked if I had voted. They proudly showed the indelible green ink on their right thumbs, indicating they had marked their ballot papers.
Over the rest of the day I occasionally listened to Joy FM, an Accra based new station. There were reports of practical problems at some of the 21,000 plus polling stations and some islands in Lake Volta, north of the Afram Plains were still not in business in the early afternoon. Queuing in some places took many hours and the Electoral Commission stressed that if you were in a queue at the official closing time of 5 pm you would still be allowed to vote.
As it grew dark results began to trickle in. Votes are counted at polling stations, so early results are only for stations and not for whole constituencies. Votes are listed by party in the presidential and parliamentary polls.
The Electoral Commission has 72 hours in which to declare the result and took nearly full advantage of this. By Monday morning it was looking pretty certain that neither NDC nor NPP had enough votes to assure a ‘one touch’ victory for their presidential candidate. To avoid a run off and win the race, one candidate must take at least 50 % of the vote plus one additional vote. Only the Electoral Commission can announce the result, so the media had an impossible job in reporting on the results as they came through and only being able to speculate vaguely on the potential outcome. At one point, Joy FM was effectively saying Atta Mills of the NDC could still be president if he received 140 % of the uncounted votes.
The result, when it came was that there was barely a percentage point between the NDC and the NPP and that the NPP was less than a percentage point from a one touch victory. The other six presidential candidates did abysmally. There will be a run off election on 28 December and consequently another three weeks of campaigning.

Ghana Decides

Do you Believe in Ghana? Vote for me, Nana Akufo-Addo on 7th Dec for quality education, jobs, healthcare and a brighter future for our children. God Bless Ghana.
Sender: AkufoAddo
Sent: 6-Dec-2008 20:31:35

The campaigning is over, the speeches have been made, the text messages have been sent and the anthems have been sung. The commentators have made their concluding remarks and note has been taken of election related violence in Nigeria earlier in the week. The police and other services queued up and voted on Tuesday. The hawkers will be counting their profits from the sale of posters, hats and T shirts. The ballot papers have been airlifted to the remotest parts of the country. The Electoral Commission has confirmed which marks will be accepted as votes and which won’t. The screens have been set up in public places to display the results as they come in. The BBC has predicted a close finish. VSO has evacuated volunteers from Tamale, seen as the area most likely to suffer violence, to other parts of Ghana. The observers have arrived from the European Union, the African Union, the Commonwealth and, no doubt, other agencies. The prayers for peaceful elections continued at special services last night. The polling stations opened at 7 this morning and will close at 5. After four peaceful elections how will Ghana handle the fifth?

Water

For one of the rainiest parts of Ghana, there is amazing little water in the taps of Koforidua. All the time I have been here there has only been one day, or slightly more, of water each week. It comes on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning and vanishes again sometime on Friday. This is usually the time when I do my washing and enjoy the convenience of water straight from the tap. I also fill every bucket and basin in the house. The landlord’s brother fills my outdoor tank with a hose and this easily keeps me going until the next week. Volunteers in other parts of Ghana, even the drier northern regions, tend to get a better supply of water than me, with the possible exception of those in Tamale, (Hi, Tim).

The simple fact is that Koforidua is a rapidly growing town. It is a regional capital and new developments are constantly springing up. The existing local reservoirs are woefully incapable of meeting the increasing demand. This has been recognised by the authorities and by the spring (fingers tightly crossed) a dramatic improvement should be place. A pipeline is currently being laid, which will drain water directly from Lake Volta and bring it to Koforidua. On a recent trip to Boti Falls, there were large pieces of plastic pipe lying along the roadside waiting to be laid.

However, in the meantime, after the arrival of two short- term volunteers the existing tank is no longer enough to see us through the week. VSO has purchased a tank more than two and a half times the original in capacity and my landlord agreed to plumb it into the mains and the house. As a result I now have a theoretically constant water supply. The pressure is not great, so the flow is modest and showers will continued to elude me, but this will make a huge difference.

The Way to Worapong

I finally made it to Worapong. This was the cocoa farming community which we did not visit when we undertook our original contact meetings, because it was regarded as too inaccessible. It was regarded as more appropriate for a delegation from the village to come to Asikasu at the point vehicular access ends and meet us there. To interview community members and to get an impression of the environment we had to visit the village itself.

I left the house at 7:15. The Harmattan is in full effect now and the mountain only slowly emerged from the haze as I approached the meeting point. Although a couple of the interview team had decided that the climb would be too onerous, there were still enough of us to fill two pick ups. I travelled with Adukpo, the Agric. Director and representatives of the Departments of Co-operatives and Community Development. We waved at people from Kofikrom, the previous day’s community as we passed through. We disembarked at Asikasu and met the local Assemblyman who then accompanied us. The narrow path immediately left the village and became submerged in lush, green vegetation. After crossing a couple of streams it began to climb slowly up the escarpment. The path needed care to negotiate, although it was never necessary to resort to taking hand holds. For the people of Worapong this is their main access route. The children descend everyday to school and the women of the village must regularly use it, carrying their smaller children or quantities of farm produce bound for the markets on the valley floor. There were cocoa trees at regular intervals, many stripped of pods, so late in the harvest. Occasional bird song and crickets were the only sounds in the otherwise peaceful forest. After half an hour the path levelled and we entered a clearing. Dotted around it was a handful of fenced off homes and on one edge a covered meeting space. Chairs had been set out in preparation for the meeting. There was the usual selection of chickens, ducks, sheep, goats and pigs. There were few people waiting, but sounding the narrow village hand bell soon produced a bigger turnout.

A prayer was said; the assemblyman and agricultural officers explained the purpose of the morning. Focus groups of men, women and youth were assembled and sent to different parts of the village, while another team interviewed the chiefs, elders and opinion leaders. At the end of the morning we gathered together again. We were presented with coconuts, bananas and citrus fruit. There was a formal ending to the meeting, questions were asked and answered and we made our move towards the Asikasu path. Just as we approached the chief’s house we noticed that the front members of the group were going inside. While the team had worked, a meal of boiled yam plantain, and cocoyam with sauces had been prepared for us. As we ate we prepared ourselves mentally for the descent to our vehicles.

Mobile Phones

Ghanaians love their mobile ‘phones. The speed at which they have been adopted across Africa has been phenomenal. Land lines have been almost entirely bypassed in the process. To give some idea of how insignificant land lines are: Koforidua has the same three digit STD code as Asamankese, forty miles away and the individual subscriber numbers have only five digits. Mobile numbers all have ten digits. You can easily believe the often quoted statement that on average, Africans have easier access to a mobile ‘phone than water, whether it is true or not.The technology has spawned an industry in the selling and transfer of ‘units’. Along most roads you will see rows of sometimes adjacent booths selling ‘phone credit. Often they are decorated with strings of used cards waving in the breeze created by passing traffic. The money made from the sale of units must be tiny, but it doesn’t seem to deter people from taking it up. Some businesses combine it with other trades. On my route to work, I see a shoe and credit selling shop. On the ring road in Accra, you can purchase a kit of all the items you need to start you own booth – signs, umbrellas and the stands themselves.The overwhelming popularity of mobile phones has produced problems though. Just as the streets of Accra snarl up with ever increasing traffic, the Ghanaian airwaves are now filled to capacity with calls and SMSs. It is getting harder and more frustrating to successfully connect to other users. There are currently four networks operating in Ghana and a fifth license has been awarded. At one point last year, MTN, the largest operator, was prevented from issuing new SIM cards until it had sorted out some technical problems. It is now issuing cards again but the service still seems to be deteriorating.It hardly seems necessary, but the networks must be amongst the biggest advertisers in Ghana. Their hoardings are vast and their sponsorship is prominent. MTN was the main sponsor of the Africa Cup at the beginning of the year and seemed as if every billboard in Accra was MTN yellow. There is still a twenty foot high Michael Essien on the approach to Koforidua from Accra. I was watching some children looking at an MTN sign the other day. They must have been at the learning to spell stage. They carefully read aloud the letters M,T and N, before chorusing, ‘Everywhere you go’, the company slogan, even though it didn’t appear on the sign.I started by saying that Ghanaians love their ‘phones and like everywhere else they are interested in the latest models and latest new features. I could be uncharitable and say that some Ghanaians love my mobile ‘phone in particular. I have now had one stolen and left another one in a taxi which I didn’t get back. This is my own fault for not being more careful, but as a result, for the last four months I have been using my spare ‘phone. It is a little larger than current models, but it works fine. It calls and texts (not predicatively) and even worked in Timbuktu! The reaction to it from friends and colleagues has been general amusement. My national service friends at the Assembly have suggested that if I left this one in a taxi, the driver would call me and ask me to come and remove it. They say it would also be useful for weight training and Joe has asked to borrow it for a week, for its novelty value. I think the final straw came during a visit to one of the cocoa communities last week. The place had no electricity, no piped water or proper toilets, no school, clinic or any other facilities. As we were preparing to leave the chief looked at me and said, ‘I like your ‘phone’, and somehow I know he was being a little sarcastic.

The Akwantukese Festival

Saturday saw the highlight of the year for Koforidua and the New Juaben area. Jackson Park was filled with chiefs, dancers and drummers with very large drums. We arrived very early and sat in as much shade as we could, in a spot on the edge of the square. Unfortunately the owner had not turned up with the key so we couldn't be served any drinks. Eventually the chiefs, the local MP, the Municipal Chief Executive and other dignatories arrived. The wait was well worth it and Carla got her moment of fame when she was plucked from the audience to dance. She did not disappoint.

Cocoa

If you are aware of a strong vinegary smell and you find yourself in a village in southern Ghana at this time of year, it means that you will not be far from a large mat or table covered in brown almond-like beans. The local farmers are drying out this year’s cocoa harvest. Ghana is the world’s second largest cocoa exporter, after neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire and it is its second biggest source of export income. Cocoa was introduced to the colonial Gold Coast from Fernando Po, by Tetteh Quarshie, a Ghanaian blacksmith. Quarshie created a cocoa farm at Mampong in the Akuapem Hills, less than twenty miles from Koforidua. The first cocoa was produced in 1879. The farm is now a tourist attraction and two of the original trees still bear fruit.
Ghanaian cocoa beans are generally recognised as being of a high quality. British confectionery company, Cadbury has been sourcing cocoa from Ghana for one hundred years, currently buying all its cocoa for the UK market here and 15 % of Ghana’s total export output. However there are problems. Productivity is dropping, many farmers are unable to derive adequate income from cocoa alone and some are giving up growing cocoa altogether. The communities in which they live are often remote and poorly served. Only some villages have electricity and few have schools or medical services. Some are not even accessible by 4WD. Young people are leaving to search for more rewarding and less physically demanding work in towns and cities. Cadbury has carefully studied the situation and earlier this year it launched the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, as a means of tackling these problems. The partnership has embarked on a ten year project with a budget of £30m and the aim of ensuring that cocoa growing communities thrive. The partnership involves the United Nations Development Programme and was even mentioned in a piece Bill Gates wrote for Time magazine in August, where he quoted it as an example of creative capitalism.
Cadbury has engaged three organisations in Ghana in carry out the initial phase of the project. VSO is one of these organisations and its work is to undertake research in thirty cocoa growing communities across three districts in the Eastern Region. It will then produce an action plan for each one of them. One of the chosen districts is New Juaben, in which Koforidua is located. I am a member of the small team of volunteers currently assisting the local offices of the Department of Food and Agriculture, the Department of Co-operatives and the Department of Community Development in collecting information from the chosen communities. Between us we have now visited all thirty communities (well 29, it was decided that Worapong would be too hard for us to reach so the villagers came to a neighbouring settlement. We have insisted that next time we will meet in Worapong). We have introduced the project to the relevant chiefs, senior farmers, assemblymen, elders and opinion leaders and invited them to be involved. We are now finalising research tools before beginning to gather information.
The last few weeks have provided a fascinating insight into cocoa farming. We visited a seed production unit at Akwadum and watched the ladies painstakingly pollinating the female flowers on the cocoa trees with the male flowers held in tweezers. They told us men were generally unsuited to the work because their hands were not steady enough. We have watched the cocoa pods being harvested and cracked open and the beans fermenting under palm leaves prior to drying. Theo at the Tetteh Quarshie Cocoa Farm took us on the tour informed by his wide knowledge of cocoa. The villages we visited were very welcoming and the villagers are keen to be involved with the project.

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month

Winneba

On Thursday afternoon I found myself heading for Winneba, with a rucksack almost half full of plantains and assorted citrus fruit. I spent most of the week in West Akim district with Jill, visiting tiny remote cocoa growing communities with the local Ministry of Agriculture officers. These communities are very poor but they very generously put gifts in the back of the pick up for us as we left each village. We ended up with coconuts, branches of plantain and between 50 and 100 pieces of fruit. Jill and I carried as much as we could but without our own transport it was hard. On Thursday afternoon she returned to Koforidua and I travelled on to Winneba on the coast just over an hour away.
I had booked a couple of nights at Lagoon Lodge on the University College campus with the aim of visiting the forts in neighbouring Apam and Senya Baraku. The Cape Coast to Accra road takes a route several miles inland from the coast at this point so travelling between settlements involves taking transport up to the ‘junction’ on the main road and then back down to the next place. On Friday morning I walked along the beach into Winneba, found an egg and bread lady who provided breakfast at a fraction of the hotel price, took a shared taxi to Winneba Junction and another to Apam. Apam has an attractive bay and is dominated by Fort Leydsaamsheid (Dutch 1697 – 1782, British 1782 – 1785, Dutch 1785 – 1868, British 1868 – 1957, Ghanaian 1957 – present) and the spire of the Methodist Church which dwarves all surrounding structures. Like the cocoa communities, Ghana’s fishing villages are also very poor. Over the two days I was asked for money almost constantly. I was only asked one question more and that was my name by almost every child who saw me. I would tell them on the way to the beach and on the way back they would shout ‘Richard, bye bye’ at me. On the beach in Apam, I chatted briefly to a family who were swimming in the bay. They had just arrived for a family funeral from inland Brong-Ahafo Region. They were taking advantage of the water before the ceremony began. I returned to Winneba and walked on the beach as the sun dropped, diverting to the lagoon to watch the wading birds.
On Saturday morning I checked out of Lagoon Lodge. It had been a good choice, with spotless, well furnished rooms, good food and attentive staff. I took a tro to the junction, a second tro east to Awutu Beraku junction and then a taxi to Senya Baraku. The Fort of Good Hope (Dutch 1704 – 1868, then British and now a guest house) was easy to find and provided good views of the bay. The fishing boats were just arriving with their catches. There was a lot of activity as they were hauled out of the sea, the women collected and sorted the fish and children milled around either playing or helping out. I was shown around the small fort by Eben (apparently a common name in the area, probably influenced by the significant number of Ebenezer Chapels). The cramped cell used to hold up to 100 male slaves had no access to light and a hole in the ceiling through which food would be occasionally dropped. As Eben was pointing out the features, it was hard to ignore the fact that the space is now a storeroom filled with crates of Coca Cola and Guinness.
It was the end of the morning by now and I decided I would go to the neighbouring village of Fete for lunch before returning to Koforidua. The taxi driver put me in the front seat with another passenger and probably overcharged me. It turned out that my new intimate co-traveller came from Betom, the district of Koforidua where I live. In Fete, I walked the short distance to Tills No. 1 Hotel and grudgingly paid the 5 GHC to get on to the premises. I enjoyed a couple of sole in butter sauce with chips and a Club beer, while looking out over manicured lawns to shaded beach tables to the Gulf of Guinea. The contrast between this place and Senya Baraku three or four miles away was immense. As I mentioned the fishing villages are poor. I don’t think it would be exaggerating to say that the ruinous buildings, the steaming cauldrons, rubbish and half naked (or more) children would not be out of place in a Breughel painting. This is not a criticism of Ghana. Sadly, such contrasts are far more widespread and not unique to Ghana.

Too busy this week to write anything, so I am saying it in pictures. From the top, a sign seen at the school in Suhyen west of Koforidua, new volunteer Jill getting into the swing of this week's big NPP event in Jackson Park and trees on the mountain very early one Sunday morning.

Credit Crunch

Last Tuesday, I took a tro to Asamankese, in the heart of the cocoa growing region, for a meeting with the Agric. Officer and the Municipal Chief Executive. It took, half an hour to fill and then set off towards Effidause. Almost immediately we stopped at a filling station for fuel. This may seem strange, but it is the usual course of action. Why do they not fill up with fuel before filling up with passengers? The simple answer is that the driver needs the fares taken to pay for the fuel. In the UK the bus companies have accounts with the fuel suppliers and presumably pay them on previously agreed terms and at some point after the fuel has been taken.
Credit does not feature large in the lives of most Ghanaians. Credit cards are virtually useless here, (although a debit card system using thumb print recognition as a security check is being launched and heavily publicised). Mobile phones are of the prepay variety, the electricity company is rapidly installing prepay meters with smart card technology. When VSO lease houses for volunteers they expect to pay a year, or more likely two, in advance. The nearest you get to credit with the local shops, is when they let you take a bottle of Coke home without making you pay a deposit on the returnable bottle. If you have very little money, the solution offered by stall holders is the availability of very small quantities. Nobody will object if you want to buy one onion or a twist of flour or herbs or even a polythene with a couple of spoons of cooking oil.
There are bank loans for those able to demonstrate the ability to repay and of course there is micro-credit, seen as one of the catch all measures that will lift Ghanaians and others out of poverty. However, borrowing is most likely to occur between family members.
At national level things are different. The government is, no doubt, indebted to various other countries and organisations. With very little in the way of state handouts or benefits, Ghanaians, however, know not to depend on the government. The only intervention seen as having significant impact is the degree of government subsidy on fuel and essential foodstuffs.
The news of AIG, Leaman Brothers, Iceland’s bankruptcy, nationalisation of banks, the “death of capitalism” and the speculation about what will come next dominates BBC World Service broadcasts at the moment. Occasionally mention is made of the potential impact of all this on Africa. It seems likely that there will be less money available to provide aid and that will present problems, but one advantage of being near the bottom of the heap is that when it all goes wrong, there’s less far to fall.
I pondered this on the return journey from Asamankese. I was on the back row with a goat under my seat. The goat was not particularly happy to be there, but sat still and behaved reasonably well. It got its own back on its owner when we reached Koforidua. It staged a sit down protest in the lorry park and had to be dragged away.

VSO Disability Sector Meeting

Most of the current VSO volunteers working with people with disabilites. Programme Manager Sonia Kwami is on the far left.

I saw Paul Daniels advertising a new Tesco insurance product on a row of TVs in or local department store the other day. The TV at our local spot keeps showing cheap ASDA ready meals and DVD box sets that will be ‘out on Monday’. For me this is pretty disconcerting. My ‘other life’ seems to be invading my Ghana life. Satellite TV has arrived in Koforidua. It’s been available for a while now, mainly for the plush hotels and wealthy Ghanaians, but a big push and a new Premiership coverage deal from DSTV, the local provider, means that dishes are popping up all over town. The new arrivals are mainly in bars, but one or two enterprising individuals have put them in back rooms and charge 50 pesewas to watch a match. They have chalk boards with lists of upcoming fixtures. Between football matches the spots show the Kiss Music Channel complete with British commercials.
Football is the main draw but there are also film channels, children’s channels and imported American dramas. There is nothing like the variety provided by Sky or Virgin but it provides a more choice than that provided by the terrestrial Ghanaian broadcasts. I do not have a TV, but the other two volunteer houses in town do. That said we have never sat down to watch a show together. GTV, Metro, TV3 and TV Africa show (to the inexperienced eye) similar combinations of football, news and current affairs, Ghanaian and Nigerian films, dubbed South American soaps and a limited selection of imported films and shows. I did once catch a half hour documentary on Zoomlion, the waste management contractor. Possibly the best thing, from our point of view, is the early morning direct feeds from BBC World News, CNN and Al Jazeera, only spoilt by the sudden indiscriminate chops from one channel to the next. The most bizarre thing I have seen is an English dubbed edition of a German heat for ‘It’s a Knockout’ which must have been almost 30 years old.
Without TV, the main alternative source of home entertainment is DVD. Available all over Ghana from stalls and street sellers, they sell for as little as three Ghana cedis. With incredible compression rates they manage to squeeze hours and hours of entertainment onto a single disc. This means complete series of shows like ‘Lost’ or ‘24’ or Prison Break’ (a particular favourite here) or a disc with, for example, all the Harry Potter films, and all the Spider-man films, and the Pirates of the Caribbean series and the 6 Star Wars episodes. Alternatively you can get most of the James Bond films (interestingly, this disc skips discerningly and selectively through the Moore films, ignores Dalton altogether but insists on including ‘Never Say Never Again’). The quality is not brilliant but they are watchable. It is the sound that suffers most. When it rains heavily on the metal roof you have to resort to headphones, if alone, or potentially one other person you know well enough to share with. There are usually English subtitles, which helps considerably. We viewed a near silent version of ‘Blood Diamond’, only able to pick up the odd nuance of Leonardo Dicaprio’s southern African accent.
Further entertainment is added by the imaginative titles given to the DVDs. Presumably the result of computer translation and typographic error, they include: Gun Irritable Battle Crime Roe, The Decisive Battle Orangutan Planet, Dolph Lundgren v. Robert De Niro and Beautiful Girl Special Service Unit.

Eid al-Fitr

Tuesday was a public holiday. I spent the day with Dan, Catherine and Carla. In the early evening indigo clouds rolled in and lightning began to illuminate patches of the sky. Hoping to avoid the impending rain, I took a tro tro back into town to find the centre of Koforidua packed with people. They were lining the streets watching a procession of cars (mainly taxis) slowly making their way along the main street. There were musicians on the back of trucks and people dancing in between them.
The public holiday marked Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan and Koforidua was celebrating this with the procession. Ghana is predominantly a Christian country (70 %), with a significant Muslim minority. The percentage of Christian’s in Koforidua is probably higher than the national average as the Muslims tend to be present in greater numbers the closer to North Africa you get. Given that Christian Ghanaians take their faith very seriously indeed – you just need to see the number of new churches being built to realise this – the celebration of Eid is just one indication of the Ghana’s remarkable religious tolerance. Then it might also be that any excuse for a street party is worth taking.

Second Time Around

Four new volunteers have arrived in Koforidua in the September intake, so we have begun to do all the things we did this time last year. On Saturday we returned to Boti Falls, taking Catherine, Catherine and Carla, my fifth trip in the past twelve months. The falls always look different and there is always something new to see. Some of the undergrowth around the steps has been cut away, improving the first view of the waterfall. For much of the drive there the road was accompanied by sections of the pipeline which is being installed between Koforidua and the Volta Lake. It is hoped to have the pipeline open in the spring, providing some relief to the residents from the woefully inadequate supply we currently have. Koforidua must have some of the highest rainfall levels in Ghana but the supply is much more robust in many of the drier towns in the north. When I returned from Timbuktu, thanks to roadworks outside the house, the supply had been cut off completely and I was dependent on the contents of the big black tank in the compound for a couple of weeks. Fortunately the pipes have been reconnected now.
Most of the time, it doesn’t seem like a year since I arrived and at others it doesn’t seem like I’ve ever been anywhere else.

If it's Tuesday, it must be Benin

Pictures:

MALI: The Track from Timbuktu

MALI: Most impressive scenery of the trip

MALI: Timbuktu taxi - that's the vehicle behind the donkey and cart

BENIN: Ganvie stilt village

NIGER: Mosque in Niamey

BURKINA FASO: Mud mosque in Bobo

MALI: Our boat in Mopti

MALI: Niger River skyline

Six thousand kilometres, six border crossings and a lot of French bread later, Dan and I have completed our whistle stop tour of central West Africa. We had three and a half weeks and our aim was to make Timbuktu, taking different routes north and south and experiencing as much as possible on the way. This was a tall order and we were both surprised that we returned to Koforidua on the day we planned. The schedule rarely allowed more than a couple of nights in any one place and the need to use long distance coaches meant we rarely strayed from the major towns and cities en route. Our biggest regret was not being able to visit Dogon Country in Mali, one of the highlights of the region. Nevertheless looking back on it now we packed a lot in.
GHANA, 12 August – A bad start. The STC bus to Ouagadougou is fully booked. The next is several days later and will throw our plans out before we even start. Dan makes a quick call to Katie in Bolgatanga and we buy tickets for the following morning’s bus. We spend the rest of the day buying up the paltry quantities of CFAs held by all the foreign exchange bureaux we can find in Accra. We cross our fingers that the ATMs in Burkina will be cooperative. We have more success getting a visa from the Malian Embassy and finish the day with pizzas in the Tuesday two for one deal in Osu.
13 August – South of Techiman, one of the wheels on the bus had to be changed. We reach Bolgatanga at 1 am. The rainy season has created a moat around Katie’s house. It is pitch black and we narrowly avoid stepping in it.
14 August – Katie provides breakfast. Sarah fills us in on her recent trip to Timbuktu with Tim and shows us the Fulani hat she bought. The border crossing at Paga is very smooth and the shuttle bus to Ouagadougou is waiting. We reach Ouaga by four, later than anticipated but with the benefit of some proper sleep in Bolga. The hotel we used at Easter is full but we are directed to an alternative near the central mosque. We finish the day with pasta at Le Verdoyant.
BURKINA FASO, 15 August – We spend the morning at the excellent artisan centre. Dan buys a large mud cloth and I select a batik cloth of a baobab tree. After an early lunch time burger we get the coach to Bobo-Dioulasso. We are alarmed to find our rucksacks packed in a second bus. The staff will not move them, but we travel in convoy for most of the journey and we are quickly reunited with them on arrival. The French/Swiss owned Campement le Pacha provides a peaceful sanctuary and good pizza.
16 August – We visit the striking mosque and the well stocked market in the morning before heading to the Music Museum near the sports stadium. In the evening we eat at the nun run l’Eau Vive, but have to leave Les Bambou bar before the band get going because we have an early start for Bamako. We walk back to the hotel in the rain.
17 August – Take the bus to Bamako. The journey takes the whole day. At home I would never consider long distance bus travel, the kind of journey that takes you from London to Germany or Italy, but here it is the only practical option. An 8 hour journey seems comparatively short. We get our first glimpses of the Niger River at Segou. Africa’s third longest river (and tenth longest in the world) will be a significant factor for the next fortnight of our trip. We reach Bamako after dark. There is chaos at the bus station. We select a taxi which takes us across the city to our hotel. The Hotel Tamana provides me with my best night’s sleep. I am loathe to leave the cool cotton sheets.
MALI, 18 August – Our day in Mali’s capital starts with another ride across the city to buy bus tickets out again. We are amazed at how good the roads are, by comparison with Accra and how little traffic there is. We return to the city centre crossing the Pont des Martyrs on foot. It is Monday and the museums are shut. We explore the centre including the sprawling market. We do not linger at the fetish stalls. We buy provisons at a supermarket for later in the trip – canned paté becomes a convenient alternative to tuna and sardines for sandwiches. We hang around the shop waiting for heavy rain to clear.
19 August – Early starts have rapidly become a feature. Most buses leave at or before dawn. The taxi takes us to the wrong terminal but it is a short walk to the right one. The Mopti bus is nearly full. As we leave we are handed two croissants and a bottle of soft drink. This gives Gana Transport a bonus mark in our West Africa bus operator league table. We leave Bamako by the route we arrived and retrace our steps as far as Segou. Unlike Ghana, the villages we pass through are in different architectural styles depending on the tribe that they belong to. Some have round houses, others domed and others very square. The vegetation is still very green and not dissimilar to much of Ghana. The bus TV shows videos most of time but when it is within range of a town transmitter we see live coverage of the Olympics including the award of one of the British gold medals. The landscape is flat for most of the day but begins to become a little more interesting as we approach Mopti. We reach the town and park on the quay, just in time for the sunset. We take a taxi to our hotel. We book in for three nights.
20 August – We have been on the move almost constantly for the past week so a couple of days doing very little in Mopti provides a bit of a break. We have arranged onward transport to Timbuktu in Bamako and are keen to confirm arrangements here. We make contact with the company representative. I have capitaine, Nile perch for lunch. We are intrigued by the street photographer with his wooden box camera. We have our picture taken. He produces a negative print which he then photographs to produce a positive version. We rapidly get fed up with being pestered by people wanting to sell us things or take us on trips.
21 August – More of the same. A highlight is the chilled fresh mango juice served at Pas de Probleme hotel. We have lunch at the Bar Bozo with its excellent harbour location and its queue of touts waitng to sell us CDs, boat trips, jewellery, and so on. Just below us a man is washing his goats in the river.
22 August – The moment of truth. The question of how we will get to Timbuktu is resolved. Early in the morning, the rep takes me to the port on the back of his motor scooter. I pay the balance to the boat man and see our vessel, the Kerewane. We will be sleeping on the covered upper deck with a dozen or so other passengers. I return to the hotel, we pack and check out. We squeeze into a shared taxi back to the harbour. We are ferried out to the boat. The floor is corrugated iron. We are sold reed mats. These just about take the edge off the unforgiving surface with which we will be intimate for the next 48 hours. A family take the spot next to us. The children are polite and share their nuts with us. I return to the shore for a sack of water sachets. When I reach the spot where I left the boat it has gone and with it Dan, my phone, money, passport and belongings. For some inexplicable reason it has moved a hundred yards up the quay. I find it again and am ferried out to it. We look at neighbouring pirogues laden with people and cargo, with their prows dangerously close to the waterline. Our boat is no where near as full. We have been on board a few hours and little is happening. We resign ourselves to a long wait until it is full but then at 4 pm, the engine shudders into life and we sent off down the Niger. An hour out though we pull into the bank. Another boat joins us. An approaching sandstorm has been spotted. We drop the plastic sheeting and sit out the sand and subsequent rain. It is now nearly dark but we chug on for a few hours before mooring.
23 August – It is still dark when we set off. I have barely slept. The floor is very hard. I resolve to see whether sleeping along the corrugations is better than across them. Life on board is very straightforward. The view slowly changes as we head downstream. Most of it is water and sky. The banks of inland Niger delta make up only a narrow dividing strip. There are occasional settlements, a few trees, and herdsmen with cattle or sheep. The sky provides vast sunrises and sunsets. We stop near some villages. Small boats come out to collect goods or passengers and others come to sell food. The day is taken up with watching the view, reading, listening to MP3s, eating and attempt to sleep. A visit to the toilet is an adventure in itself. The toilet is located at the stern on the lower deck. To get to it involves walking down the top deck, climbing over the side and edging past the engine taking particular care to avoid the hot exhaust pipe. It is then possible to climb into the lower deck area and pass behind the curtain right at the end. The triangular toilet area has a hole between the floor boards and is dominated by the shaft to the rudder. The boat is constantly being bailed out and there is often water in this area as an added obstacle.
24 August – I sleep slightly better. I am more tired, I am more used to the surface or my change of orientation helped. We expect to reach Korioumé, Timbuktu’s port , around lunch time but there is no way of telling when we will actually get there. Questions to the crew solicit vague responses and gesticulation suggesting just around the next bend. When I get a signal, I phone and book a room. There are only a few people left on the Kerewane now. We reach the port as the sun is setting. We roll up our reed mats. They may be useful. A small boy with a pirogue expertly takes us the final leg. The Timbuktu ‘taxi’ is waiting to go to town and we take the two seats in the cabin. The luggage goes on the roof. We are met in Timbuktu by Kalil, a guide Sarah had met. He and an associate take Dan and me to our hotel on the back of their motor scooters. Before we know it, we are there. The rooms are small and reminiscent of cells but they are clean, tidy and adequately equipped. I am overwhelmed by the heat. Although I am tired I wake in the night and feel stifled by the hot dry blackness which engulfs me.
25 August – The hotel is right on the northern edge of Timbuktu. The Sahara literally starts at the edge of the compound. We have breakfast. There is a fresh pot of jam into which we make significant inroads. We have heard that getting out of Timbuktu is easier than getting in and know that we need to start planning this straight away. We head into town, view the Sankoré Mosque on the way and try to find transport. We soon become the target of two groups of tour guides – Kalil and Ali Baba who is linked to the man who arranged the boat from Mopti via his brother. Both are keen to arrange transport and trips into the desert with the Tuareg. Over the next couple of days we have various discussions with them and their associates before eventually agreeing to go with Ali Baba who promises are private 4WD with only four other passengers for a fee nearly twice the public service. We know the journey will be long and very uncomfortable and feel that the extra space will be essential. We buy local cloth in market. Dan orders three shirts which he collects at the end of the day. We have lunch at Restaurant Souvenir on the roof the indoor market. We spend the rest of the day accompanied by a young man who tells us he lives thirty days camel ride from Timbuktu. He is studying English and French in Timbuktu and wants to go to Bamako to train to be a doctor. He takes us to the other mosque, the artisan stalls and a Tuareg wholesaler. We dine at the Restaurant Amanar near the hotel for the second night.
26 August – I take mint tea with the boys who sit in the gatehouse at the hotel. We reach the half way point in the jar of jam but avoid the open can of processed cheese. The sky is grey and there are a few spots of rain as we walk into Timbuktu. We find the post office and have our passports stamped at the tourist office. We have lunch at the Poulet d’Or and meet Calvin from Brooklyn. He is travelling alone around Mali and like us is surprised at how few other tourists there are. While we eat the rain returns and soon floods the streets. It eases and we leave but it picks up again as we approach the hotel. The rain is good news and the kids love it as they can virtually swim in some of the vast puddles but it puts our planned camel ride at risk. Thankfully the rain stops and we are taken out to meet our camels on the edge of the sand. We are dressed in red waterproofs and must look even stranger than the average tourist. We are taken to a Tuareg tent and given hot sweet mint tea and the hard sell on their silverware. We return to the hotel and meet Calvin at the restaurant but not before a show down between the rival tour guides. The first power cut of our trip ends before we turn in, meaning that we gratefully have the use of the fans in our rooms.
27 August – the 4WD driver’s mate is at our door getting our bags shortly after 4 am. It soon becomes apparent we have been put in a public and not a private car. Dan and I share the front passenger seat, rather than sit four across in the row behind. We reach Korioumé, where we join two other Toyota Landcruisers and wait for the sun to rise and the pontoon ferry to take us across the Niger. The port is very muddy after the rain. Dan picks his way through it to buy fresh flat bread from a street oven. After a long wait we set off. On the south bank we start the hundred kilometre plus drive to the metalled road. The three cars travel in convoy so that if one breaks down the other crews are there to provide assistance. Our mate sits on the roof. When the windscreen gets mud splattered, the driver shouts at him and he pours water down it from a bucket. The cars do break down from time to time but it is never serious. After a lunch break a distant escarpment comes into view. This slowly gets closer. At 4 pm, a couple of hours late, we reach the main road at Douentza. It transpires that our tickets are only good to this point and not all the way to Mopti. Two French girls are in the same position. We fail to get hold of Ali Baba by phone and are forced to squeeze into the back of the one car going onto Mopti. There follow three very uncomfortable hours with only beautiful scenery as compensation. We bail out at Sévaré and book into Mac’s Refuge. We are late for the evening meal, but we get served and enjoy beer and excellent food.
28 August – ‘Mac’ drives me to the bus station and I buy tickets for the 2 pm service to Gao. It should arrive at 10 pm. Sévaré is a pretty unremarkable place but useful for transport. Dan and I pick up a couple of things at the small supermarket. The taxi driver we used the previous evening delights in charging us £4.80 for ten minute taxi journey to the bus station. The Maiga Transport bus is being loaded. A motor scooter goes on the roof. One of the bus’s curved front windscreen windows has been reglazed with a piece of flat plate glass. The bus is an hour late leaving. The mesas of the Gandamia Plateau provide scenery which rivals Monument Valley. Unfortunately the light fails before we reach the end of it, but for a while the gloom is punctuated by the hulking outlines of the rocky outcrops. This is not a good bus journey. The cargo on the roof prevents all but one of the ventilation hatches from being opened. Behind the scooter and luggage are stacks of new tyres, covered in black rubber particles which get into the vents for the air conditioning. Dan in particular gets covered in black specks. We later blow our noses and find that the contents have turned black. Because of the heat the rear door is occasionally opened to let in air. This also lets in clouds of dust and sand, adding to whole desert bus experience. The driver makes regular stops to overfill the bus with additional passengers. We are very late by the time we reach a security check point west of Gao. The Bani bus, timetabled to leave Sévaré four hours after us, passes us. Some of our passengers are held at the check point and the driver decides to leave without them.
29 August – We reach the Gao depot at 2:30 am. The crew announce it is not safe to unload the bus until day break but they allow us to stay on the bus until then. I had booked a hotel room but there was little night left and we are not prepared to leave the luggage. Once the luggage is released we make our way to the bus yard of the company with the Niamey service. We arrive to watch a very smart bus departing for Niamey and then discover that this is the last bus until Tuesday, four days away. We find another bus company with a daily service and buy tickets. The ticket seller indicates a small but smart bus that will make the run. We take breakfast - omelette in French bread with coffee. The coffee mugs are prepared with mountains of dried milk . At Gao we are required to register with the police before leaving Mali. We do this. It is now approaching 8 am. We stagger to the Hotel Atlantide, Gao’s one central hotel and book in. By now we have gained a guide – Ali Magnifique. We waits outside while we shower and rest. The hotel is distinctly shabby and appears to have no staff other than the receptionist. Around noon, we feel able to face the remainder of the day. Gao is a remote port on the Niger. We have an excellent lunch of capitaine in mustard source. Ali takes us around the fish market, shows us the giant hippo skulls at a friend’s house and takes us to Gao’s main attraction, the Tomb of Askia. This mud pyramid is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We are taken inside and onto the roof by the guide. On the inward and outward walks we stop for Cokes at a bar cum abbatoir. We are uncomfortably close to some very worried goats. We return to the hotel, watch the sunset from the quay and decide against taking a pirogue out to the Rose Sand Dune. We have a beer and then eat chicken in isolation in the back yard of our lunch time restaurant. We send Ali Magnifique on his way. It transpires that he is acquainted with Ali Baba in Timbuktu.
30 August – Our alarms wake us at 3:30 am. The hotel is in complete darkness. We reach reception and virtually have to break out of the place. We walk to the bus yard. The minibus is not ours. An older bus, part full of passengers, rolls up. In a new twist, this bus has five narrow seats in each row with an aisle between seats 3 and 4. The road to Niamey is fortunately very good. The Nigerien border officials take great interest in our jobs and want to know what we actually do. We struggle to explain, but they let us in. We have the now customary Muslim prayer break in Tillabéri and reach Niamey mid afternoon. A taxi takes us to the Terminus Hotel. This is the most upmarket of our journey and costs three times the rate of the next one. We have a substantial suite with good air- conditioning and CNN. We watch the breaking news of Senator McCain’s decision to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate in the US presidential election. Three members of hotel staff arrive with a substantial camp bed. We set off to find the bus station to buy bus tickets to Cotonou. The bus station takes some finding but we are given a lift by a man in his pick up who is going to collect tyres. We are impressed by the computerised tickets and smart departure areas and have high hopes of the bus. We take a taxi to the Grand Hotel and have draft beers watching the sunset on the far bank of the Niger River. Niamey has an odd layout. There is almost no development on the river bank. There are just a few ministerial buildings including the Palais du Congrès. There can be few capital cities where the administrative headquarters sit cheek by jowl with grazing animals and crops. The heart of the city is set well back from the river bank and is completely invisible from the terrace of the Grand Hotel. We dine at Le Dragon d’Or’s, Saturday night Chinese buffet. The food is good but neither of us feels we do it justice.
NIGER, 31 August – When I draw the curtain I find a peacock sitting on the air-conditioning unit on the ledge outside. We walk to the supermarket, on through the central market and on to the Grande Mosquée. The custodian shows us around taking as much money as he can from us in the process. We take a taxi back to the Grand and have ham baguettes and beer on the now deserted terrace. At the end of the afternoon we leave, walk down to the JFK Bridge, up Avenue Mitterand and veer into Avenue de l’Uranium. The bat colony at Place de la Republique is distinctly second rate compared to the one at 37 in Accra. We hang around waiting for Le Pilier, the Italian Restaurant to open. Eventually it does and we order pasta. I finish with tiramisu and Dan with ice cream.
1 September – Reluctantly we make another early departure and walk very briskly to the SNTV bus station only to find that once again the bus was not the same as previous ones we had seen. It was another 5 seater. We leave. At Dosso, half way to the Benois border we make a scheduled stop at a depot. As we are about to leave, a fuel leak is noticed. Over the next four hours, the fuel tank is removed, the contents decanted into drums and the hole welded. The local traders do brisk business as we buy drinks and omelette baguettes. We leave just before we lose the shade. At Gaya we disembark, pass through the border of Niger and, on foot, we cross the River Niger for the last time before entering Benin. Benin is lush and green, but the roads are the worst we have come across (excluding the track out of Timbuktu). Our progress is slow and we reach Parakou, approximately half way through the journey at about 9 pm. The driver then decides that because of a threat of bandits further south, we will go no further tonight.
BENIN, 2 September – It’s after 5 am before we set off again. We reach Cotonou at noon, after a mammoth thirty hour bus journey. We take another ludicrously expensive taxi to the Hotel Concorde. The main road outside the hotel, apparently in common with many roads in Cotonou, is being completely reconstructed without consideration for pedestrians and local businesses. The path to the hotel front door is something of an obstacle course. We leave our bags and avoiding the road works walk to Le Gerbe d’Or (third and final “d’Or” of our trip) where we eat burgers and frites. We return to the hotel to find our room open and hot water gushing through the bathroom and corridor ceiling. There is a good inch of water on the bathroom floor and it has just reached our rucksacks. We are moved to the next room. We are of course shattered having barely slept since Saturday night. We snooze, intending to go out and eat in the evening but we sleep through and do not wake properly until 5:30 am.
3 September – Cotonou is awash with kamikaze motor scooter taxis. We have to dodge them constantly as we search for and fail to find the bus pick up points for Calavi mentioned in Lonely Planet. On the verge of giving up we find a huge tro tro/taxi station near the Grande Marche. Two taxi drivers nearly come to blows over taking us and one leads me by the hand to his car. At Calavi we walk down to the lagoon and charter a boat to take us to the stilt village of Ganvie. To describe Ganvie as a low budget Venice would be unkind but true. The village has hotels, schools, mosques, a market and so on. All are accessible only by boat. We are dropped at a restaurant/hotel/boutique and served capitaine and rice. I buy a piece of indigo cloth. Children hail us from all directions in the hope of getting ‘cadeaux’ but the guide and boat operator make sure that the tips all go in their direction. On the way back into Cotonou we pass the tables set out with glass containers of petrol and diesel for sale. On arrival we spend some time in the market and in the evening we walk across town to an Italian restaurant. We are disappointed by the pizza.
4 September – An early start to make a 7 am bus to Abomey, centre of the Dahomey kingdom. We end up in a people carrier which arrives at Bohicon at around eleven. Our only choice for the remaining nine kilometres is scooter taxi. We reach the museum in one piece. We watch bronze being poured into moulds to make souvenir figurines. The craft work on sale here is very impressive and Dan succumbs to a very attractive hammock. A guide with no English takes us round the museum opening up one room after another. We see the ceremonial staffs of the various chiefs of the Dahomey kingdom with their emblematic creatures, including a bull and a chameleon. We see the throne borne on the skulls of four enemies of the king and bas reliefs of some of the more unpleasant methods of torture. Not wanting to get stuck in Abomey for the night we make a swift and uncomfortable return. We had bought an extra seat on the way out but are unable to repeat this on the way back. Cotonou’s streets are awash after heavy rain. We shop in one of the many supermarkets, buying ground coffee, paté and chocolate for our return to Ghana. We return to the Gerbe d’Or for salads, burgers and ice cream sundaes.
TOGO, 5 September – We make our way to the big taxi park. We buy two seats on a people carrier to Lomé, capital of Togo and pay as much again for the luggage. While we wait nearly two hours for the car to fill we eat huge omelette baguettes. Fortunately this car only takes three in the middle row. Behind us are three large market women. We reach the Togolese border at 11 am. Two hours later we reach the Ghanaian border at Aflao. During our trip we had regularly debated whether to spend a night in Lomé. Eventually, time, money and general weariness dictated that we did not. The coast of Togo is only about fifty miles long. We see some pleasant resorts, get snarled up in heavy traffic around the port and get a glimpse of Lomé’s attractive beach side location. The car drops us within sight of Ghana. We re-enter Ghana. I insist on taking the Metro bus to Koforidua rather than take a tro to Accra and another out again. We would reach Accra after four on a Friday afternoon with traffic at its heaviest. We have a very Ghanaian chicken and rice lunch with Gulder beer and hang around until the bus leaves at four. The bus makes slow progress, regularly picking up and putting down. It takes a circuitous route via Ho and is stopped at every single police check point on the way while overloaded, decrepit tros sail through. We reach Koforidua, sore and tired at 9:30 pm.
I have never undertaken a trip like this. Parts of the journey were extremely uncomfortable, but it is easy to see that there has never been a better time to do it. All the countries visited are poor but relatively peaceful at present. All, with the exception of Ghana, use the same currency, the West African CFA, dramatically reducing border bureaucracy. Mobile phone networks were available everywhere, (although in Niger we were unable get access to one.) Improvements have been made since my edition of the Lonely Plant guide to West Africa was published in 2006. Then, there were no ATMs in Niger, the new bridge over the Niger at Gao had not been completed necessitating a lengthy wait for a ferry and the old road from Gao to Niamey took up to 24 very bumpy hours rather than the 8 it takes on the new one.
After three and half weeks of Francophone West Africa, Ghana still seems alien in many respects, but in others it has become very familiar.

Mopti

Arrived yesterday evening in Mopti after a 10 hour bus ride from Bamako. Currently in an internet cafe struggling with a French keyboard. The Q and the A are reversed so there may be some additional qs.

The town is a major port on the River Niger and comes one week into our travels. At present we are on schedule and everything is running reasonably smoothly but there is no guarantee that this will continue to be the case. We have spent many hours on buses but eaten well in between in Ouagadougou; Bobo and Bamako. We got really worried in Ouaga when our luggage was put on a different bus but we all arrived safely. Highlights have been the hotels. The bed in Bamako was very comfortable; the lamb in Bobo was delicious and the post office attendant in Mopti went out of his way to be helpful to us.

The landscape is only gradually changing despite the distance travelled. It is the rainy season and the countryside is lush. The architectual styles are changing and the mosques are very impressive.

I am composing this as I write and do not feel I am really doing it justice. I will stop now and try and do better when I return to Ghana.

New Departures

I am currently performing a public service by helping the Ghanaian government to introduce more coinage into general circulation. When I withdrew money from the bank this week, part of it came as a heavy bag containing one hundred shiny new 50 Ghana pesewa coins. Each morning I put ten in my wallet and make most of my purchases for the day using them. Dan’s last withdrawal was slightly more manageable, including fifty 1 Ghana cedi coins. These are very uncommon as there is an equivalent note, so he occasionally has difficulty convincing people they are even legal tender.
It is just over a year since the new currency was introduced. Market traders still refer to prices in the old values but the new ones are becoming more commonly used. The transition has been smooth and with an injection of more coins there should be fewer problems making up change.
It’s the end of the school year, so I will not be woken by the children at the neighbouring school singing the national anthem and reciting the Lord’s Prayer for a few weeks. It is also the last week for many of the Assembly’s National Service personnel. Every October, the Assembly receives about thirty volunteers. Many of the current contingent are graduates from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi. Some will stay on and work in Koforidua, but it will be a lot quieter around the place without them. I will certainly miss them and the conversations we had.
At the end of this week I will travel. (In Ghanaian English the verb ‘to travel’ is used much more broadly. It explains any absence without any need for further elaboration. You might say, “The Director has travelled”. She could be at a conference, on holiday, or just down the shops.) I will be making the most of the opportunity to see a little of West Africa beyond the now cosy and familiar Eastern Region of Ghana. Last week, Dan and I visited the Togolese Embassy in Accra and collected very useful visas which will allow us into Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin and Togo. We have been lured by the prospect of mud mosques, bats the size of small dogs and a throne made of skulls. We have a rough itinerary but it is the rainy season and we know we will have to be pretty flexible. I will be back, fingers crossed, at the beginning of September.
Finally it is approaching a year since I arrived here with VSO Ghana’s September intake, always the biggest of the year. If you are reading this and you are one of the volunteers preparing to come out this September, let me be the first to say Akwaaba! I also pass on the tips that I was given by a volunteer who had already started work here. He suggested bringing the following:
· a head torch
· a cutlery set (penknife, with additional fork and spoon)
· lap top (can be carried on flights in addition to hand luggage)
· silk sleeping bag lining
I didn’t bring the head torch, but do stumble around a lot in the dark. Fortunately in Koforidua the power supply is fairly constant now. The other items I use very regularly.

The Presidential Election and the Freedom of the Press

According to the Daily Graphic, President Kufuor is very worried by a news story which appeared in a recent edition of the Palaver newspaper. The paper had suggested that the President might dismiss the Army Commander, Major-General S.A. Odotei because he was not prepared to sanction a State of Emergency planned for this September. The State of Emergency would have averted the President’s party’s imminent defeat in the General Election. Odotei’s failure to support this dastardly plan meant that the President intended to retire him prematurely and replace him with the presumably more compliant, Major-General Ayiku, Commander of the Northern Command. The Graphic reported the President’s denial of the story and pointed out Ayiku, the intended replacement, died in March 2007 and was buried the following month.

The story neatly draws attention to two issues concerning the Ghanaian Press – its freedom and the implications that brings and its current preoccupation with the forthcoming presidential election. I’ll probably look at some of the more bizarre stories which emerge from the free, and by the looks of it, largely, if not entirely, unregulated Ghanaian press on another occasion. The election is a more topical issue at present.

Progress towards the election really began around the time I arrived in Ghana, last autumn. The main parties were in the throes of nominating their presidential candidates or ‘flagbearers’. President John Kufuor is approaching the end of his second presidential term and the rules do not permit him to stand again. Nearly all the senior members of his New Patriotic Party (NPP) appeared to decide they wanted a shot at the top job. The rank and file membership must have faced a lengthy ballot paper at their conference before Christmas. Fortunately for them Nana Akufo-Addo emerged as a clear victor. Many received barely a handful of votes. As one of Koforidua’s local MPs ruefully pointed out on the morning of the count, he would not have bothered to spend so much money if he had known how poorly he was to fare. Over the past few months Akufo-Addo has been rebranded. In his pictures, he started off looking like a serious, but slightly grumpy statesman. He popped up regularly during the commercial breaks in the Africa Cup, pledging his undying support for the Blackstars. His photographs now show a very jolly figure, a cross between Father Christmas and your favourite uncle. He is on the verge of selecting a running mate and the debate over whether it will be a representative of one of Ghana’s main minority groups - women, Muslims or northerners, is fierce.

The main opposition party – National Democratic Congress (NDC) has significant support but has a couple of major issues with which to contend. Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings first came to power in a coup in 1979 and ran Ghana in one way or another for most of the period up until Kufuor’s election. No longer a candidate, now a professional loose cannon, he remains a vocal and controversial figure looming over the NDC. The NDC’s candidate is his former Vice-President, Professor John Atta-Mills. Unsuccessful on both occasions against Kufuor, Atta-Mills is flagbearer again and hopes it will be third time lucky.

Of the remaining smaller parties, the Convention People’s Party (CPP) has the distinction of being a rehabilitated version of the party founded by Ghana’s first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah. The party was outlawed following Nkrumah’s fall from favour and the name was banned from use for a time.

The papers are full of reports of the candidates’ various campaign trails. These are complimented by a slew of editorial essays and comment features. The press is manufacturing huge concern over whether the elections will be peaceful or not. Zimbabwe and Kenya have provided unwelcome reminders that Africans cannot be guaranteed peaceful transitions or that now unpopular or time barred leaders will leave with good grace. Nearer to home, in West Africa there are still examples of presidents prepared to change rules to allow them to stay in office longer or postpone elections for their own benefit. Westerly neighbour, Togo recently had peaceful elections and was rewarded with European funding. Easterly neighbour, Côte d’Ivoire hopes to have elections soon following a lengthy civil war.

In Ghana there is serious unrest around the community of Bawku in the far north-west with continuing nightly curfews. (A VSO volunteer was removed from a neighbouring town and has now been found work elsewhere in Ghana.) Other than that there are currently no apparent signs for concern. Nobody I talk to is particularly worried. Unless we are to believe the Palaver, Kufuor is showing no sign that he will not step down after the election. His biggest crime of late, appears to have been his possibly ill judged decision to create an award for Presidents of Ghana, of which he was the first recipient. This certainly wound up the other parties particularly as the actual medals used were not manufactured in Ghana but came from overseas at apparently great expense.
The President says that in the past he has not been concerned about some of the more scurrilous stories which appear in the press, leaving it up to the reader to determine whether they are true or not. However, he now feels that such writing could undermine the security and stability of the state and he has asked that the Palaver’s article be fully investigated. He probably has a point.

...and less serious ones.

I seem to have had a little too much time on my hands this weekend.

Serious Pursuits...

In the last week, I have had some involvement in the work of a couple of other VSO volunteers.

Zulekha is based in Accra and placed with the Special Education Directorate of the Ghana Education Service. She has been working on a project aimed at drawing excluded groups into the education system. This is particularly targeted at disabled children and therefore has a link with work being undertaken by other VSO volunteers. On Tuesday, Zulekha was in Koforidua for an event to attract attention to the work that is now underway in the Eastern Region. We took part in a procession of school children around the city centre. The children had banners and posters and we were accompanied by enthusiastic drummers and brass musicians. Many had been supplied with white T shirts with the message: “We believe in Inclusion”. We arrived exhausted, particularly the band members, at the Ghana National Association of Teachers auditorium (not far from my house), for a series of speeches from GES officials and local teachers. The Municipal Chief Executive was also present and spoke enthusiastically about the project. There was the usual TV and press coverage.

On Thursday, the local Rotary Club presented the Municipal Assembly with 150 rubbish bins to be located around the town centre. Once again the media were present to witness the Chief Executive’s acceptance of the bins. This is the first large project which Koforidua Rotary Club has been involved with in some time. It is hoped that one of the next will be in partnership with Dan’s NGO. That evening, Dan and I were welcomed as guests of the club at their annual hand over meeting and given the opportunity to formerly introduce the proposal.