Volunteers in Ghana are told that greeting is hugely important. The handshakes, sometimes with the special clicks, and the ‘how are you/I am fines’ come thick and fast as you go about your daily business. If you do not greet, you can upset people and you may get picked up on that at some later date. We are also told that it is customary to say you are fine even if you are not.

The effect of all these greetings, the smiles, the waves and even the salutes is to lull you into a feeling that all is well in the land of Ghana. It can come as quite a shock, then, whenever you realise that Ghana, in line with everywhere else, is not always like that. The theft of my bicycle, within weeks of my buying it, was an annoyance, but something I put down to experience. It led to a curious meeting under a mango tree with the parents of the suspected thief, with our case being argued by one of Dan’s colleagues in full black toga funeral outfit. Unlike the tree, the meeting was fruitless. It also got me a lot of sympathy from friends and colleagues, the former generously providing a replacement as a birthday present.

The incident clearly stayed in the mind of one of my colleagues. Recently he asked me if I had many friends in Ghana. I said I had a few, but that I mainly socialised with other volunteers. He said that it was good that I didn’t have a lot of friends. He went on to say that the problem with friends is that they think that they treat your possessions as if they were their own. As part of the cocoa project, each of the district agriculture offices had received a motorbike. My colleague was responsible for the bike in our district. He said he had divided his bedroom with a sheet on a line so that the bike could be kept there at night. That way it would not be visible and would be less likely to be stolen. However, he genuinely felt that the more people he knew, the greater the chance that the motorbike would be taken.

On a less gloomy, more superficial but related matter, I have stopped breaking at least one local bye law. I might be inadvertently breaking others but I would have to plead ignorance if accused. Yesterday morning I purchased a bicycle licence. For the princely sum of two Ghana cedis, the cash office at the New Juaben Municipal Assembly provided me with a piece of thin metal adorned with licence number and a small Ghana flag, which I should attach to my bicycle. My name and the bike’s frame number were entered into vast ledgers and I was issued with a carefully written pre-numbered receipt. The accountant in me suspects that the effort involved in producing this licence will have entirely absorbed the two cedis I paid, but I have done my duty. Most people do not have licences. They know that nobody is interested in catching offenders. The same applies to TV licences here. They are very cheap, but almost nobody buys one because unlike the UK they are not enforced.

Beads

Of all the traditional crafts in Ghana, beadmaking is the one most closely associated with the Eastern Region and in particular the Krobo people. On Tuesday we visited the bead factory in Odumase-Krobo, just short of an hour east of Koforidua by tro tro. The ‘factory’, a collection of spacious shelters, is set back about a kilometre from the main road in a very peaceful setting. We were welcomed and introduced to the various processes that go into bead making.

The art of bead making is long established and it is rare to see a traditionally dressed Ghanaian lady or chief who is not adorned with some type of bead. For me, however, the most striking thing about the process was the prominence of recycling, a very modern phenomenon. The ovens in which the beads are baked are constructed from termite mounds. The type of mud produced bonds particularly well and is less prone to cracking at high temperatures than alternatives. This is a bit tough on the termites but new ovens are not needed too often. Most beads are produced from crushed glass bottles. There is always interest in the rarer coloured bottles link red and pink. You can take your own bottles along. Antique beads are re-fired to give them a new lease of life. Tools for threading the beads and other processes have been fabricated from palm leaf fronds, pieces of bamboo and spokes from old bike wheels. In times when it is almost impossible to mention ‘tourism’ without adding the adjectives ‘sustainable’ and ‘eco-friendly’, the beadmakers of Ghana can hold their heads up high.

Obama in Ghana

We agonised for some time about whether we should try and see Obama in the flesh. When would the opportunity present itself again and if it ever did, would it be on such a significant occasion as the first visit by the first African American president to sub-Saharan Africa?

At the beginning of the week, the press was suggesting there would be a big durbar (a meeting, often a colourful occasion involving traditional drumming and dancing) on Independence Square in Accra. This would be similar to an event held in honour of President Clinton. By the end of the week it was made clear that the problematic rainy season and security concerns would prevent this from happening. Instead, Obama would make his keynote address on Africa to a selected audience in the Accra International Conference Centre.

A sighting would have needed trips to either Accra or Cape Coast. I was leaving Accra on Friday, the day he flew in (as, by coincidence, I had been the day Bush came). There were already international TV crews around, all apparently recording the same souvenir cloth and T shirt seller in Osu. There were rumours that roads around the airport and the route to Koforidua would close early in the afternoon. I was taking no chances and even in the late morning the outbound traffic was more like the rush hour peak. The difficulty in getting to either venue and the very limited opportunity of actually seeing the man at them persuaded us against even trying.

I listened to coverage of the arrival of Air Force One at Kotoka International Airport that evening on Joy FM. After a mammoth handshaking session with President Atta Mills, the VP, their respective wives, minsters, leading minority group politicians and top officials, the whole Obama family was quickly whisked away in the Beast. For the crowds gathered patiently near the airport’s VIP lounge, there was not a glimpse of them. This proved to be the pattern for the rest of the 22 hour visit.

The following day I cycled to Dan’s house to watch the TV coverage. Unfortunately his TV was producing a clear picture but no audible sound. We had to follow events from a weak FM radio signal, struggling to get over the Akuapem Hills from Accra and pictures which followed several seconds behind. We saw a brief sequence from the breakfast meeting with the current and two former Ghanaian presidents. We saw the keynote address and parts of the tour of Cape Coast Castle. The last, without any commentary, was a little confusing. While the Obamas explored the castle, President Atta Mills turned up in eye catching white robes. He appeared to wander the streets waving for a while, before thinking better of it and heading off again in a car. What was clear, was that the crowd was kept well away from the castle. You might have been lucky to catch sight of the US president waving, but you probably would not.

We decided we had done the right thing. It must have been a day of mixed emotions for Ghanaians and indeed the many Africans who travelled here from other countries to see him. There must have been great pride that he had come to Ghana, but tinged with disappointment that he had not been more visible. The visit, though largely symbolic, will have enhanced Ghana’s international standing and hopefully her tourist industry. I cycled home as the light was fading. In the house, I put the radio on in good time for the 7pm World Service news. A plane flew over. Koforidua is on one of Accra’s flight paths. When the news began, the Obama in Ghana story started with the statement that he had left Accra in the last few minutes. Maybe I got quite close to him without even trying.

The Nubuke Foundation

My visit to Legon had been to a new art gallery, the Nubuke Foundation. (‘Nubuke’ means ‘a new dawn has broken’ in one of the local languages). The walk to the gallery from the Koforidua tro took me through one of Accra’s more affluent suburbs, complete with upmarket hotels, coffee shops and vast imposing, gated, guarded and barb-wire enclosed residences. The Foundation compound greets you with a huge, joyful, rainbow-coloured, wall-filling mural. Created by Bernard Akoi-Jackson, the intricate, Kente cloth inspired design hides a variety of indigenous creatures – from a crocodile to mice.

I had come to see an exhibition of black and white photographs of Accra’s architectural heritage (in part, to see if it would convince me to change the views I expressed in May). There was a sequence of rooms with views of Achimota School, Korle Bu Hospital, the main Post Office and an extraordinary number of government bungalows. I was particularly taken with a selection of interpretations of the prints in oil paint by S C Decker. The use of colour, to lift otherwise very one dimensional images, was imaginative. The Foundation newspaper noted that many of these structures are under threat from developers and that, therefore, this photographic record was important. I was disappointed, however, that the pictures were new. It would have been good to see archive images of the buildings in their heyday. Unfortunately they all look rather scruffy, worn and neglected now.

Nevertheless, I was inspired. On Republic Day this week, I cycled round the centre of Koforidua. Within an hour I had collected a series of images of the town’s colonial past. I had easily found classical pillars, elegant balustrades, graceful arches, colonnades and even a set of caryatides. Many of these buildings could rival anything Accra has to offer.

The Great Oburoni Debate

A recent letter in the “Daily Graphic”, from an American volunteer in Ghana fed up with being hailed by one and all as “oburoni (white man)” and asking for an end to such behaviour, produced a predictable pair of responses. There was a letter from a hospitable Ghanaian who felt that maybe the practice was inappropriate and probably should stop. A second response, from a British lady, married to a Ghanaian, thought that the American was being completely unreasonable. She pointed out that Ghanaians are amongst the most hospitable people on the planet, there was nothing insulting in the action and that, frankly, the correspondent should “...go and get yourself a life and while you’re at it, take a chill pill.”

I veer more towards the second view. I am less impressed when I am addressed as ‘oburoni’ by an adult, but children, the usual instigators; clearly get great pleasure from it. Why should I deny them this? It will be odd to be back in the UK and find that I am not being verbally bombarded from all directions, often with no obvious sign of the source of the voice. There are, however, one or two peripheral practices which do need attention. Firstly, I strongly believe that the child his- or herself should decide whether to engage with an oburoni, however briefly. I provide the following illustration.

I was in a tro between Legon and Madina on Saturday afternoon. I was in the corner of the back row. The lady immediately beside me was holding her toddler son. The boy had eyed me up and down and then quickly averted his gaze by looking down at the floor. I took this as the sign that he was not happy to have a white man in quite such close proximity and made no attempt to connect with him either with a smile or wave. Some mothers realise what is going on and turn their children away from this nightmare inducing sight. This mother had other ideas. She wanted her son to interact with the oburoni now sharing the seat with her. She turned the boy directly towards me and whispered ‘oburoni’ to him encouragingly. With no alternative to looking at me, he looked more and more distressed and soon began to bawl, disturbing an otherwise peaceful tro-full of passengers. Fortunately we then reached my stop. As I stood in the road and the tro pulled off, I could clearly hear the now hysterical crying above the Madina traffic. From the back window the child’s mother, apparently oblivious to the turn of events, smiled and waved at me. I hope the boy will eventually overcome this traumatic event.