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.