End of the Line

Last time I was in Accra, I visited the Survey Department near 37. This is almost the only place in Ghana where you can buy large scale maps. Near the back of the compound I found a large dusty room shelved throughout and full of maps. I only knew about the place because Dave Beautyman, one of the new volunteers in the Volta Region had been there soon after he arrived. There were no obvious attempts to market the maps and I half expected to have to show some ID before they would sell me anything. However ten Ghana Cedis later I had two 1:50,000 sheets of the Koforidua area – like the Ordnance Survey, the places you always want, seem to be on the edge of two sheets. The maps were based on aerial photographs taken in the 1970s but other than the development of the town itself little would have changed in the intervening years. The eastern sheet ends at the Greenwich Meridian, suggesting that if you travelled directly north from Koforidua you would end up in west London.

Armed with the information contained in the maps, but not the maps themselves as they came rolled at about a metre in length, I felt confident to experiment with some walks around Koforidua. On Saturday I decided I would try to find Kentenkiren Falls. They were not marked on the map, but they were mentioned in a brochure about the New Juaben Municipal Assembly as a tourist attraction that should be promoted. There was also a photograph, which was even more encouraging. I tried to extrapolate where the falls lay from a sketch map in the Assembly’s Medium Term Development Plan. I decided that following the defunct railway line would be the easiest route.

Koforidua railway station still stands near the Foster Bakery, not far from the Old Estate. It is not quite clear what the building is used for now and I have not investigated closely. The substantial canopy, projecting from the main building, continues to defy gravity and remains in position. Large signs marked KOFORIDUA welcome the goats that wander through. There is a hoarding on the platform advertising Polos, “the Sweet with the Hole”. It is many years since Koforidua has seen a train and probably as long since Polos were easily available here. The line ran from Accra to Kumasi and for much of this distance the single track is still present. It occasionally appears beside the road to Kumasi and where they cross it creates another set of bumps for the tro tros to negotiate. The trains were apparently scheduled to take six hours to do the entire journey but eventually they could take more than a day and finally they didn’t even do that. The line is only operated out of Accra as far as Nsawam now. The only reason I know this is that, unfortunately, there was a recent rail accident near Nsawam. It was blamed on a combination of poor track and rolling stock.

With huge pressure on the roads in Ghana, particularly Accra, there is occasional talk of reopening the railways. So far, there is a new commuter service bringing passengers from the Tema direction to the capital. With no immediate prospects of reintroducing trains in the Eastern Region, I felt the line would make for easy walking and reduce the chance of getting lost. Things started well. I left the town. The line was obviously used as a footpath between the smaller outer lying settlements around Koforidua. Having lost its original use, it felt a bit like walking along Hadrian’s Wall, the remnant of another empire and in some ways just as irrelevant in the present day. The only difference was that at Hadrian’s Wall, I would represent the colonised and here I was the coloniser. As I walked the undergrowth thickened. There were a few people about. I met a man tending his crop on a small plot. He told me that this was his weekend activity. During the week he was a railway engineer based in the transport police office at Koforidua station. I didn’t feel I could ask him what engineering was required on the railway line that was, at this point, knee deep in rushes and small bushes.

The line was now less a means of transport and more of a nature reserve. With patience I am sure I would have spotted plenty of exotic birds and butterflies. I glimpsed a few. I was impressed by the neat little grass birds’ nests I encountered at one point. The rushes by now were considerably taller than me and when the bushes began to scratch me regularly I decided it was time to give up. I was also hoping not to encounter any snakes in the undergrowth. I took a promising looking track west. It brought me out on the southern bypass near the New Capital View Hotel. I would need to try a different approach to the waterfall. Eventually I will give up and ask one of my colleagues at work the best way to get there.

It had been sunny all morning and I took a shady break at a container shop for a ‘mineral’. As I drank my Sprite from the bottle, the manageress’ brother tried to match me up with his sister. She had expressed a desire to marry a white man and to paraphrase him she wasn’t getting any younger. When he had seen me approaching it seemed like his, if not her, prayers had been answered. Any volunteer will tell you that this type of encounter is an occupational hazard. The only thing that was remarkable on this occasion was that I must have looked even more of a scruff than usual, scratches on my arms and legs, sun burn on one arm, black marks all over my shirt and white marks on my now very faded shorts.

I had a far more touching encounter with the taxi driver who took me back into town from Mile 50. He picked me up. I checked to make sure his was a shared taxi and that by inference he would take me for a low fixed fee with any other passengers who would hail him en route. He confirmed he was, but when we reached Koforidua he refused to take any payment. He had picked me he said. I insisted on paying and he reluctantly took the money. I think he would have taken me all the way home if I had let him. Sadly the regular reaction to ‘obrunis’ is to try and charge them a little extra on the grounds that they can afford it. You gradually get to know the local prices and challenge any request for more. This becomes hard though with the relentless price rises. This experience was therefore a very pleasant surprise.

Welsh Cakes

Despite my best attempts to avoid it, every now and then, I am overcome with a need for something British. Of course I mean food, the usual preoccupation. Lack of an oven stops a huge number of things that would be possible even with locally purchased ingredients. Some volunteers, mainly in the north, do have ovens. I have seen one in Navrongo which is identical to the Belling I used at university twenty years ago. Cakes and biscuits are a big loss but I reckoned I could make Welsh cakes or a close approximation. I needed to check quantities, so first I Googled them and downloaded a recipe from the BBC website.

225g/8oz self-raising flour, sieved – I had plain flour and baking powder from Shoprite in Accra. Flour is sold loose in the street but it can be a bit hit and miss. Not sieved as no sieve.

110g/4oz (preferably Welsh) salted butter – preferably Welsh, but actually French from the chilled cabinet in Intermart, Koforidua

1 egg – no problem

handful of sultanas – Shoprite again and sitting in the fridge since January when they seemed useful.

milk, if needed – not needed fortunately

85g/3oz caster sugar - granulated

Without a measuring device not even a table spoon, the quantities were guess work. I rubbed the butter into the flour in a large metal measuring cup. I added and mixed the remaining ingredients and floured the table. Rolling pin substituted with a glass jar that had previously contained ludicrously expensive green apple pulp (but Accra was the only place I had seen it outside Italy). My paper thin wok could not be described as a heavy iron griddle but on the lowest possible gas, I managed to produce something that wasn’t too burnt on the outside and wasn’t too underdone on the inside. The whole exercise provided a sense of achievement which just about compensated for the effort and improvisation involved.

The Rock of Tabiri

It’s been hanging over me since I arrived in Koforidua. Early on Sunday morning I finally conquered it. Approaching the town from any direction the best indication that you have nearly arrived is the sight of the distinctive mass of Obuotabiri. The local mountain, home to the local gods, is visible from all over Koforidua and the surrounding settlements. Sometimes shrouded in cloud and at others veiled in Harmattan haze, it provides a reassuring point of orientation, often helping when confused by the eccentric street patterns. Early on Thursday morning I had been in the countryside near the Densu River looking at a piece of land with the chairman of the local association for the blind. I had never been this far out in this direction but to the north-east stood Obuotabiri, not presenting its usual silhouette but nevertheless there.
For some time we had talked about climbing it, but with the Harmattan gone and much clearer conditions and a spare Sunday morning Gijs and I decided the time had come. We wanted to avoid the heat of the day so we agreed to meet at the wine shop at 7 am. Not familiar with town at this hour on a Sunday, I was surprised to see three running clubs set off from Jackson Park. With drums, horns and chanting they seemed much more exciting than their British counterparts. We knew there was a road to the cluster of communication masts at its summit and that it left the Ho Road just beyond the waterworks. The route could not have been easier. It took just over an hour from the wine shop to the top. There were a few people about, most asked where we were going. We thought this a little strange as the road went to the top of the mountain and stopped. There wasn’t really an alternative. We said we were going up the mountain (and, OK, it isn’t really a mountain but it is certainly regarded as one). Much of the land on the slopes is cultivated. Oranges were particularly apparent. We reached the top drenched in sweat. There was a good view point from which to take in the whole municipality. To the left Jubilee Park, straight ahead, Jackson Park, the central market, Assembly building and Ghana Commercial Bank, to the right the Roman Catholic Cathedral and in the distance the distinctive blue shape of the New Capital View Hotel. I could see my landlord’s two storey house, the spot at the garden gate and the roof of my house. There was a slight mist so the view was not as good as it could have been, but the cloud had kept the sun off us. The vultures wheeled below us rather than above. Koforidua looked calm, neat and tidy. Little sound made it up the mountain other than the occasional shout of ‘AccraAccra’ from the loudspeaker at the tro tro station. The view taken in and the day warming up we returned to the track and were back in the town by 10.

How Much?

On Friday I went to buy a ‘meat pie’ for my lunch. ‘Meat pie’ must represent one of the very few British influences on Ghanaian cuisine. It is recognisable in shape as a flat hemispherical Cornish Pasty, but the content makes even the variety available at British filling stations look pretty good. The ones I go for (hopefully) contain minced corned beef and a little onion but the major ingredient, by far, is dry shortcrust pastry. The girl with the glass cabinet displaying meat pies at the entrance to Linda Dor Annex Restaurant, smiled at me. “One Ghana Cedi?”, she said slightly cautiously. She knew it was my first purchase since a whopping 66 % increase in price. I gestured reluctantly but handed over the red one Ghana cedi note. She put the pie in a thick paper bag and that bag in a black polythene bag. That will be the subject of another whole blog entry.
One thing you cannot avoid in Ghana is price increases. Everything costs noticeably more than when I arrived in September. I, like other volunteers, will also be victim of the obruni factor whereby traders will decide that the whites can afford to pay a bit more than the locals. Gradually you get to know the proper rates and loyalty to certain market stall holders reduces the chances of being ripped off. I bought a tin of corned beef (much of my life revolves around the stuff) and a small tin of tomato puree at the weekend. The assistant added the two items on her calculator and gave a figure three or four thousand old cedis higher than expected. I gave my interpretation of the sound Ghanaians make when they are surprised by something. The assistant queried my exclamation. I indicated that, in my experience, corned beef of this quality could be procured for a lower price at neighbouring establishments. I handed over a five Ghana cedi note. She asked for the correct money (loose change is a highly valued commodity). I pointed out she had a draw full of coins clearly visible. She said that if I give her the right money she would do me a special price. I handed over the change and ended up with the corned beef nearer, but not quite at, the price I had hoped for.
Everybody is feeling the pinch. Fuel prices rise, leading to tro tro fares increases on nationally agreed percentages. All transportation costs on food are passed on. The restaurants regularly increase prices and your heart sinks when the waitress produces a newly printed menu. You know it will mean the same range of dishes at new ‘moderate’ prices as one place in town describes them. Chocolate has increased by 20 %, the fare to Accra by 25 %, the meat pie rate is high, but it is the first time, in fairness, it has increased since I arrived. One of the reasons that increases cannot be small is the lack of 1 pesewa coins in the system. The lowest denomination of the new currency in regular circulation is the 5 pesewa piece, worth 2½ pence. In the old currency the lowest was one quarter of one penny.

The problem is accentuated by the fact that prices are so high relatively in the first place. Food makes up the largest part of my weekly spend. Based on one Ghana Cedi equalling 50p or one US dollar, 50p will buy four large onions, or one very good avocado or maybe eight average tomatoes. It isn’t enough for a 100g bar of local chocolate but should get you a couple of Cokes. This doesn’t seem too bad until you realise what people actually earn. My allowance from VSO puts me on a par with a tro tro driver. Many of my local colleagues at work will get more than this, but the majority of Ghanaians will get far less, especially as I get free accommodation thrown in. I worked out what the cost of a can of expensive corned beef (what else?) would be to me in the UK, if it made up the same proportion of my pay as it does in Ghana. I discovered it would have cost 48 pounds! It’s not a particularly accurate comparison but it makes the point.

Things could be a lot worse. The huge world wide increases in food prices are filtering through, but not to the degree that neighbouring countries are being affected. This week trade unions in Burkina Faso staged a two day general strike over cost of living increases and Ghana’s inflation rate (officially 13.79 % in March) is miniscule by current Zimbabwean standards.

I’m considering giving up meat pies at this new price though, at least until I get bored of the alternatives.

Money matter

There are genuinely very few things I miss in Ghana. The convenience of being able to make large purchases with a piece of plastic is, however, one of them. Fortunately, in Ghana it is quite hard to find a large purchase you want to make. I will be in the UK for a fortnight at the beginning of May and needed to buy a plane ticket. It is not possible to buy and pay for a ticket on-line from Ghana. The travel sites like Travelocity deny that Accra exists and certainly won’t sell you a ticket. The British Airways website allows you to book, but then politely sends you off to your local branch of Standard Chartered Bank to make the payment. Koforidua’s branch of Standard Chartered closed a few years ago. I tried a travel agent in Accra but they would only accept payment in US dollars and required just short of a thousand of them. I did not want to add a big currency conversion to the already steep cost. I reluctantly went back to the BA website, booked a ticket, twice, as the first reservation expired before I was able to get to the bank. When I finally found myself at a Standard Chartered in Accra with a valid reservation, I was presented with the improved choice of paying in US dollars or Ghana cedis. Fortunately I had sterling I had not been able to exchange in Ouagadougou (the pound is a very poor relation in Francophone West Africa), I withdrew the maximum I could from my UK account from an ATM and borrowed the rest from friends until I could make another ATM withdrawal. I exchanged the sterling for cedis and returned to the bank. I was directed to the top floor. I was given coffee while I waited. ‘Do you like my coffee, Richard?’ asked Mercy. We were quickly on first name terms and I now feel that, should I ever need another Ghanaian bank account, Standard Chartered is the place to go. As I handed over the handfuls of cedis I remarked that it was just as well the old cedi was no longer legal tender. I would have needed at least 456 bank notes. I learnt during the process that even the Ghana cedi is currently worth more than the US dollar.
I now have a confirmation e-mail from BA. I shall be flying into Heathrow Terminal 5. Surely by May they should have it working properly?

Weekend in Ouaga

It can take some time to get a residency permit from the Ghanaian authorities. This can mean that for a number of months after arrival, volunteers are without their passports. Usually this is not a problem, as our identity cards are an adequate substitute. However, volunteers in the north really need their passports so that they can visit Ouagadougou, the capital of neighbouring Burkina Faso. From Bolgatanga, regional capital of the Upper East, it is about 16 hours by bus to Accra but only 3½ to Ouagadougou. It is not just the amazing name that attracts volunteers. For those missing cheese and wine and apparently that is most volunteers, Ouaga is a much more attractive prospect for shopping than Accra. While Ghana was a British colony, Burkina Faso was French so reluctantly I have to admit that the food in the restaurants and cafes is better.
Just before Easter, Dan and I discovered that some of our friends in the north would be spending the holiday in Ouaga and we decided to join them. On Maundy Thursday I took a tro into Accra and met Dan at the OA bus station near Circle. The (purple) bus north managed to leave 3 hours late, experience bad traffic leaving Accra (there is rarely any other kind); a snarl up in Nsawam; some kind of mechanical problem just north of Kintampo which was rectified with a fire extinguisher and some sticky tape and which incidentally nearly resulted in a fight between two passengers at the coach stop in Tamale; and still reach Bolgatanga early, at just before 5:45 the following morning. After a pretty successful bus trip, it was then ironic that the taxi to Katie’s house broke down and we had to push start it. We welcomed the brief rest before heading to the border at Paga to meet the rest of the group. In no man’s land between the two countries, and proving the point about the popularity of Ouaga, we met some other VSO volunteers coming the other way. They promised they had left some cheese and wine for us. The Burkinabe border officials were in no hurry to grant us permission to enter their country and we had to delay the bus. We gave the other passengers water sachets as a goodwill gesture. There was something hanging from the undercarriage of the bus which on the bumpier stretches scrapped excruciatingly across the road. The driver made no attempt to slow down for, or to avoid the potholes. The final approach to Ouaga was on a mud track alongside a beautiful new road junction. It was late afternoon by the time we arrived. The driver’s final gesture was to clip a post on the corner of Place de Nation.
Burkina Faso is landlocked and one of the poorest countries on the planet. Ouagadougou is therefore something of a surprise. It is true that poverty is visible everywhere. You will be hassled more to buy souvenirs than in Accra. The taxis are in a very poor condition. Not one I used had a door handle. You needed wires and a special knack to get in and out. Away from the centre the condition of the roads and other infrastructure dramatically deteriorated. But overall the place was far more impressive than Accra. The city is laid out on a grid with wide boulevards, some public art, and some small parks. The street sellers sold French bread and strawberries and for some unfathomable reason very up to date copies of international magazines like ‘Time’ and ‘Newsweek’. It was a pleasant surprise to find the drains covered and not to run the risk of falling down a hole every time you crossed the street.
The traffic is very different to that in Accra as well. There is less of it for a start. There are almost no tro tros and far fewer taxis (usually green Mercedes). Instead the place is awash with bicycles, mopeds, motor scooters and motorbikes. The site of Burkinabe ladies in their colourful traditional full length dress on a motorbike will stay with me a long time.
We also noticed that far more French was spoken by residents than English is spoken in Accra. This may be because Burkina Faso does not have one dominant local language, unlike Twi in Ghana.
For us the main attraction was the restaurants. We started at a tapas bar, that evening we found burgers and cocktails, the following morning it was French pastries and baguettes and then an open air Italian restaurant with authentic pasta and pizza. On Easter Sunday we started at a cafe near the American embassy with more baguettes and pastries, a range of coffees and presses and smoothies and finished at a beautifully restaurant decorated with local art but serving French cuisine. I had steak flambéed in rum with sautéed potatoes. It was here that we met the Australian zinc miners to whom we must offer our thanks for their kind hospitality.
The weekend was not entirely about food, but it was the highlight. We visited an incredible set of artisans’ workshops aimed at the tourist market. It was far bigger than anything we had seen in Ghana. There were beautiful cloths, carvings, jewellery, ceramic goods and so on. My favourites were the figures made from junk including, spark plugs and motorcycle petrol tanks. We also spent time in the 32 metre swimming pool of the huge Hotel Libya Sofitel, in the spookily quiet Ouaga 2000 district.
On Easter Sunday morning I walked up to the cathedral. The grounds were packed with bikes and people had to sit outside as the interior was full. I arrived just as the congregation began to sing the Hallelujah Chorus.
As Dan and I to be at a meeting in Accra on Wednesday morning, we decided our best option was to get a single bus all the way back to Accra. This was theoretically a twenty hour ordeal. We bought tickets on Sunday afternoon and arrived at the Gare Routiere early the following morning. Dan had barely slept. The journey was without incident but for a long stretch north of Kumasi we watched a big electrical storm. We were in Accra at around 2:30 on Tuesday morning. The two 1,000 km journeys had lasted nearly as long as the weekend itself and although by this stage we didn’t know where we were or what we were doing we agreed it had all been well worth it.

Cultural Differences

An incident which neatly sums up cultural differences. I boarded a tro tro in Suhum the other day. A lady politely invited me to sit next to me. I bought plantain chips from a vendor through the window and as the tro started the journey, I ate them. I held the screwed up cellophane bag in my hand for the rest of journey intending to put it out with my rubbish at home. Just before we reached Koforidua the lady beside me offered to take the bag from me. I gave it to her and she dropped it on the tro floor for me.

'The World Tonight'

Sunday morning. Phone call from Dan. He has in turn just had a phone call from VSO. The BBC will be in Koforidua the following day to interview Dan. After the initial panic that this might be a TV interview, we relax a little when we find it is radio, a brief piece for broadcast on the Radio 4’s The World Tonight on Good Friday, marking 50 years of VSO in Ghana. The BBC want to interview somebody outside Accra and VSO Ghana are insisting that it should be a British volunteer. Unable to think of an alternative, Dan agrees to meet the man from the BBC. He is unable to open the workshop he supports, but rounds up some of his work colleagues. The World Service’s West Africa correspondent arrives. He interviews everybody including me. We all talk, fluently but fairly unintelligibly. Dan takes Will around the market and he records some suitable background noises. The interview is broadcast on Good Friday. We hear it the following week on the internet. To our horror we find that the item is followed by an interview with the Chief Executive of VSO and a Ghanaian who believes that organisations like VSO are wasting their time by sending volunteers to Africa.
I do feature very briefly, and as the final part of the report, I am followed by Robin Lustig saying, “Richard Atkinson, ending that report from...”.