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.