Richard in Koforidua

The End

2009-09-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

I have been back in the UK for two weeks now. In many ways it doesn’t seem like I ever went away. Occasionally I can see that things have moved on, but most of the time it appears seamless.

This will be the final blog entry. I'm not going to make any profound statement about my time in Ghana and how it changed me. I'm not sure I know that yet. I do know that I will follow Ghana's progress with keen interest. I was fortunate enough to be there at an important time - the end of the celebration of the country's 50th anniversary celebrations, the hosting of the Africa Cup and most importantly the peaceful transition to the NDC government and the recognition of Ghana's democratic maturity internationally. Ghana is now celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Nkrumah and next year will see the start of commercial oil production off its coast.

I am sure I will keep an eye out for all things Ghanaian and West African. I had some spare time in London the other day. I visited the British Museum to see what they had from West Africa (the V & A had nothing on display from its permanent collection). There was a large basement room devoted to Africa. The most obviously Ghanaian exhibit was a chief's stool. In Savile Row I noticed a tailors' with the Ghanaian name, Ozwald Boateng. In the nearby National Geographic Store on Regent Street, I was stunned by the prices being charged for Malian wooden items. One was over a thousand pounds. I wondered how much of this would end up with the carver.

I was wearing a Ghanaian batik shirt that day and when I was buying the latest editon of 'New African' in WH Smiths at Victoria, I am almost certain the black assistant thanked me quietly for the payment in the main Ghanaian language.

There was a BBC documentary on the porn industry last weekend. The journalist was stressing the profits being made by big respectable hotel chains and mobile phone companies from selling porn. In one sequence he visited Ghana to look at the impact of cheap porn DVDs there. I had to smile when he was virtually mobbed by a class of over enthusiastic school children in a small northern village. He met a Ghanaian youth who had written to a film maker in Los Angeles asking for work. The Ghanaian, painfully camera shy and a virgin, was clearly unsuited to the work. While I was in Ghana I was regularly asked, usually by young men, for help to get into the UK, or the US or anywhere that wasn't Ghana. They seemed to think that I would be able to magically get them a visa. I sympathised with their position but had to tell them I couldn't help. They just wanted something which I had by the fluke of where I was born. It was always difficult to respond to these pleas, particularly as I didn't know what I would do if I were in their positions.

Of All The Airports in All the World

2009-08-23T07:53:00.000-07:00

My last day in Ghana required a lot of co-ordination and provided no time at all to actually think about the end of nearly two years in West Africa. The Pitts had arrived the previous evening in advance of a meeting for representatives of local disabled peoples’ organisations. After breakfast with the end of season mangoes (I shall really miss the fruit – the avocados and pineapples), Kiran kindly drove all the household items to Dan’s house. I went to the meeting and said farewells there before returning to the house. There was space in my cases for everything but I could barely lift the bigger one. I did a little cleaning and then headed to the office. I was given a very touching send off by the agric. staff as well as two batik shirts and a mass of beads. As one of the VSO cars was in town, I was given the rare luxury of a lift to the airport. Most volunteers are left to make their own way.

I had been booked to fly with Royal Air Maroc. VSO were not prepared to pay almost double the price for the BA ticket. The RAM flight was scheduled to leave Accra at 3am roughly four hours after the last flight and four before the next. I would have a ten hour stop over in Casablanca and reach London at 9 pm. This was not an attractive prospect but alternative carriers had entirely European legs and a fraction of the luggage allowance. Gradually the terminal emptied as the other flights left. At our midnight check-in we were told the flight would not leave until midday Friday and we were dispatched to a hotel in East Legon. We were brought back later in morning and told it would now be 2 pm. I spent my last few cedis on a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate. On the same flight was a lady from the same school as two VSO volunteers who left in the spring, another who had done a brief volunteering stint on the Kwahu Plateau not too far from Koforidua and another who knew Danielle and Jill, the other volunteers on the Cadbury project. RAM provided lunch and the flight left at after 3 pm. We were joined by passengers who had connected from Abidjan and waited even longer than us. In Casablanca, the connecting flights had long gone and we were taken to the Atlas Airport Hotel for dinner, bed and breakfast. On Saturday morning we returned to the airport and all the dealyed passengers were crammed into the lunch time flight to Heathrow.

Although the overall journey took more than 48 hours, the actual flight times were more civilized than the scheduled ones. The night in Casablanca provided some acclimatization on the way back to Europe.

Out of Africa

2009-08-14T02:07:00.000-07:00

I have pulled out the big black suitcase on wheels from behind my bed, it was too big to store away neatly. I have removed the layers of dust from two Harmattans and located the key to its lock. I have decided which of my clothes, destroyed by a combination of long soaks, hand washing, punishing sunshine and Omo, will not be going in the suitcase. I would be too embarrassed to give them away. They will go in the skip near the house and good luck to anybody who wants to fish them out again. I have told VSO which items belong to them, if the lease on the house is not renewed for another volunteer and they need to retrieve them. The desks, gas rings, gas cylinder and fridge/freezer will be relatively easy to transport. The water tank, plumbed in on a plinth eight feet high, may present more of a problem. I have thrown away the accumulated bottles, jars and plastic bags. I have closed my bank account, receiving a free Coke as I queued to withdraw the remaining balance. I have taken half a dozen paperbacks to the VSO library in Accra and decided who will receive my bicycle, radio and rechargeable lamp.

I am currently probably the busiest I have been since I arrived in Ghana. It is slowly dawning on people that I will be leaving in just a handful of days and this is the last chance to get things done. Before I go I must complete reports on both placements, run a workshop for two NGOs and be involved in running a forum on the Cadbury project at the Municipal Assembly. There is also the small matter of emptying and cleaning the house.

On Monday morning I sat in on an interview panel. As part of a separate project with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in the north of Ghana, VSO had introduced a programme of voluntary female agricultural extension workers. The volunteers would be selected from the communities that were to benefit from the scheme. They would receive some training, a bicycle and a little additional support from the Ministry and they in turn would help improve the farms in their areas. VSO wants to repeat the process in the cocoa growing communities.

Our interviews were carried out by the Agric. Director and two of his team, the Municipal Planning Officer and the Deputy Regional Director of Community Development. We saw 13 women from our communities. Their ages ranged from 18 to 60, but were mainly clustered near the two extremes. The older women were composed and not remotely fazed by a room with five interviewers and one almost silent white man. They had generally left school early and in some cases this was more than forty years ago, but when asked to read a passage in English, they were confident, clear and accurate. They had relevant experience and appeared well motivated for the work on offer. The younger candidates, in some cases barely out of school, were shy and nervous. One girl constantly raised the English script to cover her face as she responded to questions. Despite recent and longer educations, they stumbled and struggled over the English and few of them showed any kind of motivation for the work.

There was much discussion by the panel on how this reflected on the current state of public education in Ghana. At the end of the session one of the team started to say that, one of the problems in Ghana is that young people want everything now. They seem to expect good jobs to just be handed to them. This was my cue to say that, this is by no means a specifically Ghanaian problem, but that it is far more widespread.

The environment, conditions and customs may be completely different in Ghana, but not everything is so unlike home.

Abidjan

2009-08-10T02:31:00.000-07:00

Abidjan

If we hadn’t been unnerved by the UN people carriers and troops in a range of camouflage uniforms, the appearance of a sheet of A4 on the windscreen of our STC coach with the words ‘Securite Convoi Humanitaire’, probably did it.

Dan and I had decided that our last trip before leaving Ghana should be to Abidjan. We stayed in Accra last Thursday night so that we could take the 4 am bus to Abidjan on Friday morning. The bus left at 5:10, we were in Cape Coast two hours later thanks to almost deserted roads and Takoradi by 8:30. We then had a long delay waiting to merge with a bus from Kumasi but we reached Elubo on the Ivorian Border in the early afternoon.

Of Ghana’s immediate neighbours, Cote d’Ivoire has seen the greatest change in fortune. For twenty years the economy grew nearly ten per cent annually, based largely on cocoa and other agricultural produce. It was easily the most successful country in West Africa and the high rise skyline of Abidjan, capital in all but name, is testament to this. The world recession in the 1980s and the death of Felix Houphouet-Boigny, the country’s first president in 1993 started the country on a downward spiral, ultimately leading to civil war and the intervention of French and UN troops.

When I arrived in Ghana in 2007, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office was discouraging British nationals from entering the country at all, putting it in the same category as only one other country, Somalia. Since then, the fighting has reduced, but democratic elections postponed since 2005 have still not taken place. They are now scheduled for the end of 2009. In January 2009, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution which would keep UN troops and police in the country until the end of July 2009, at the earliest. The Council cited human rights violations and the need to enhance the country’s capacity to manage a democratic and transparent election as reasons for staying. In May 2009 there were more than 9,000 uniformed UN personnel in the country, most in the north and west.

Nevertheless, the F & CO has relaxed its warnings. The north of Cote d’Ivoire should still be avoided but Abidjan can be visited with caution. It suggests that the biggest risks are not violence but street crime and scams.

We were at Elubo and Noe its Ivorian equivalent for a couple of hours. Abidjan is only 122 km from the border, but a lengthy customs inspection west of Aboisso meant we did not arrive until after 8 pm. The hotel receptionist took us along the road to a place where we could get tasty grilled chicken and chips and we shared a beer with him.

Abidjan is occasionally referred to as the Paris of West Africa but at first glance, New York would be a more appropriate comparator. The city is divided into distinct areas by the Ebrie Lagoon. The various districts are linked by a modern, efficient and frequent ferry service. We stayed in Treichville, a broad promontory with docks on its west bank and inland a mix of housing, shops, bars and mosques. On Saturday morning we walked to the lagoon, stopping at the well stocked, Chinese built market on the way. From the Gare Lagunaire we could see the skyline of Plateau, the central business district (second from left in collage). We spent the day exploring Plateau. The cathedral of St Paul was the highlight, the tower a stylised representation of the saint himself and the church itself taking the place of flowing robes (far right). Unfortunately we could only glimpse the vast and colourful stained glass windows. As usual we marvelled at the quality of food and the service in restaurants – a hallmark of the former French colonies.

On Sunday morning we went in search of washerwomen near the Parc du Banco, a spectacle recommended by Lonely Planet. Maybe we were in the wrong place or maybe they do not work on Sunday. We did find a policeman at one of the ubiquitous road blocks. He wanted ‘cafe’ money. We also saw a very striking building on the top of a ridge (third from left). We did not hang around, partly because escaped convicts were rumoured to live in the area. We were welcomed enthusiastically by the craft stall holders in Cocody Market. We had a couple of Flag beers, with complimentary coconut and peanuts at the Hotel Ivoire, once West Africa’s premier hotel and now a vast scruffy shell (far left). The pool was long drained and the thatch on the night club was balding. We returned to Treichville and sat in a bar sharing the local drink of choice – a box of Argentine red wine. We ended the day with substantial burgers and cokes at a Lebanese restaurant and took cake back to the hotel. Dan would want me to point out that I sat on the cake box, miraculously squashing his cake but not mine. Maybe my recently purchased Baoule power stick protected mine.

On Monday morning we walked to Gare du Bassam for transport back to Ghana. On the way we found the most impressive omelette sandwiches we had seen in West Africa – French bread with a layer of tinned peas, onion, tomato, mayonnaise, Magi sauce and the omelette itself flavoured with a little crumbled chicken stock cube. Lonely Planet in 2006 reckoned 5,000 CFA was a good price for the fare. We found an empty car and were offered seats for 6,000 CFA, or the whole car for 24,000. We were happy to wait for two more passengers to turn up. The driver didn’t say much but the hangers on were keen we buy the other seats. We paid for our two and then the driver decided to leave anyway. He asked for a ‘cadeau’, so we gave him another 1,000. We couldn’t understand why he had left without a full car, denying himself half his potential income. He bought petrol for 7,000 which was enough to get us to Noe but not back again. He had said he was a policeman when we got in and quickly showed us an ID card. He was certainly known at the checkpoints and consequently we were only stopped twice and then only to show his papers and not ours. We picked up another passenger from a broken down bus and made it to Noe by noon, in less than three hours. In relief and gratitude we each gave the driver another 1,000 CFA. The border formalities were swift and our early arrival encouraged us to try and get back to Koforidua within the day rather than spend a night in Western Region. We found a tro to Accra. We were at the Kaneshie station by 6:30 but it was nearly 8 pm before we left Circle for Koforidua.

Not unsurprisingly we think we only saw two other tourists during our weekend. Abidjan is unlikely to make it as a tourist destination even when peace returns but it provides a very striking contrast to anything in Ghana.

2009-07-22T02:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-19T03:56:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-12T03:24:00.001-07:00

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

2009-07-03T02:07:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-03T01:59:00.000-07:00

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.

The Adomi Bridge

2009-06-24T02:13:00.000-07:00

Spent a peaceful weekend with Catherine and Carla at Aylos Bay beside the River Volta. We would have appalled the VSO Ghana doctor, if she had known that we had been rashly swimming in the river and eating fresh water prawns. At least we didn’t eat incorrectly prepared fruit or bread from a polythene bag into which a small boy may have previously blown. The only mild annoyance was the occasional bored youth in a canoe bobbing up to ask if he could paddle us to the other side.

Aylos Bay lies ten minutes walk from the Adomi Bridge. The bridge was opened mere weeks before independence in 1957 and is one of only two which crosses the Volta south of the Volta Lake. Curiously, the plaques at either end state that the bridge was opened by His Excellency Sir Charles Noble Arden-Clarke GCMG, Governor of the Gold Coast but that the plaques themselves were unveiled by the Honourable Kwame Nkrumah LLD MLA, Prime Minister of the Gold Coast.

About a year ago this crucial link between the Volta Region and the rest of Ghana was threatened, when cracks were spotted in the superstructure. Worryingly the cracks were, apparently, spotted by passing fishermen rather than any regular inspection team. The bridge was briefly shut and then reopened on a part time basis while repairs were undertaken. Representatives of the original contractors Dorman Long have since given the repair work a clean bill of health. Like most bridges, however, the Adomi was not designed to carry the heavy trucks and buses that now ply this route. The inevitable future repairs and maintenance would cause havoc on the roads, but at least they might provide a few benefits for the youths with canoes.

2009-06-12T06:10:00.000-07:00

One of the benefits of a long volunteer placement is the opportunity to see changes in your adopted second home. Regular readers will know that I make regular trips to Boti Falls with visitors to Koforidua. A visit yesterday provided examples of both the positive and negative changes that are occurring in Ghana.

The waterfall itself had seen little rain in the last few days and was no more impressive than it had been in April, but there is always something new to see. Yesterday it was a gently swaying preying mantis and a quite alarming pair of large smooth limbed spiders in vast webs.

We had left the waterfall and had just made the descent through the lush green undergrowth to a dry stream bed. There were strips of bark and wood littering valley bottom, clear indication of illegal logging at some point in the past few weeks. When visiting cocoa growing communities we are regularly told that one of the threats faced is tree felling. To reinforce this, it is a rare visit when you cannot hear a distant chain saw. The environmental damage is permanent, but there seems to be little interest from the authorities in dealing with the problem.

Further along the path, beyond Umbrella Rock, we began to hear children singing and the sound of drumming. Under a tree, in a clearing to the left of the path, children were enjoying their mid-morning break. They were running around excitedly and dancing and hitting anything they could find as makeshift drums. One was using a plastic bottle. The school building was new. I had seen it maybe once or twice before on earlier trips, but this was the first time I had seen it in operation. Probably not recognisable as a school, it consisted of a shiny silver corrugated roof supported by wooden posts. At ground level below it, a block of three classrooms was marked out in cement blocks up to a foot or so in height. The intention, no doubt, is to complete the walls when money becomes a available, but in the mean time there was no reason why classes could not start. Each ‘room’ had a blackboard but little else. Many of the smaller communities in the Eastern Region, even those within a few miles of the regional capital, have limited access to schools, so it is good to see a new one open. Local villagers themselves will have done much of the work to make it happen, probably including the actual construction.

Obama Coming

2009-05-26T03:20:00.000-07:00

Coming from a country with a long established democratic process, I take peaceful elections and changes in government for granted. Sadly, Ghana is currently one of the very few examples of an African country which can claim such elections. Ghana’s fifth peaceful election and second change in ruling party, late in 2008 continues to draw praise and accolades from across Africa and beyond. There was little mention of President Mills’ recent visit to the UK by the British press (as they seemed more preoccupied with ride-on lawnmowers, pet food and moat cleaning) but the Ghanaian media recorded Gordon Brown’s complimentary remarks on Ghana’s democratic maturity. However, just to prove that some things are the same the world over, the ‘Daily Guide’ published photographs of the lavish Kensington hotel and even the bed where Mills slept. It was clearly indignant about the cost to Ghanaians of taking a party of thirty to London. (A subsequent government statement noted that the majority of the places were actually paid for the British government. Ironically, the Ghanaian government paid for the accompanying journalists!)

For many, however, the ultimate reward for Ghana’s performance will come in July, when Barack Obama will make a one night stop here on his return journey from the G8 summit. Within hours of the announcement by the White House, attention was being drawn to the fact that Obama’s first trip to sub-Saharan Africa (he will be in Egypt in June) will not be to Kenya, his ancestral home, as many expected. Kenya, as the New York Times put it, is ‘deemed to troubled to visit’.

Ghana has clearly caught the attention of the US. It is only fifteen months since Ghana hosted Obama’s immediate predecessor. The image of George W. Bush pounding shea nuts while Laura looked on, in a newspaper photograph is still fresh in the mind, as is the lengthy list of roads which had to close in Accra for security reasons. Added to a visit by Bill Clinton in 1998, this must make Ghana one of a very small number of countries to host three successive American presidents.

To say that Obama will get an enthusiastic welcome here is obviously an under statement. He will be regarded as one of their own by Ghanaians, despite his considerably more eastern origins. In 2008 his election victory was, to my recollection, the only non-domestic news story to make the front page of the ‘Daily Graphic’. I am looking forward to the local souvenir business going into overdrive.

One article I found on the internet was not concerned about Kenya, but was more interested in the fact that Obama would be visiting Ghana, rather than nearby Nigeria. The rivalry between the two most important English-speaking countries in West Africa can be very tense sometimes. Nigeria, the dominant country in the sub-region and comfortably the most populous country in Africa is regarded by many Ghanaians as a very bad place. One timely illustration of this mutual dislike is the ‘sex scandal’ which is currently ‘rocking’ Koforidua. In the past week the ‘Daily Guide’ has reported that a Nigerian videoed himself having sex with a Koforidua woman and them posted the footage on-line. The footage has been widely downloaded. Even the picture on the front of the paper drew large crowds around local newsstands, as Koforiduans tried to identify the woman. She is alleged to come from my district of town. There are certainly Nigerians in Koforidua, but with no actual proof of the identity of the perpetrator, the article on the second day referred to a student from a ‘neighbouring country’. Nigeria was not mentioned at all. The local women, famously known throughout Ghana as ‘Koforidua flowers’, are not amused at this slur on their character. According to the second article, they intend to demonstrate against ‘foreigners’.

Accra

2009-05-15T02:33:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons I like Koforidua is that it isn’t Accra, but it is convenient distance – an easy day trip – from Accra. Accra is a something of a necessary evil. If I need to visit the VSO office, want any shopping which Koforidua cannot offer or, more extremely, want to leave the country, I have to go to Accra.

Accra has been the capital of the Gold Coast and later Ghana since the colonial administration decided to move there from Cape Coast in 1877. Also the largest city in the country, it lacks the tradition and ceremony of Kumasi and the history of Cape Coast. It has no real centre, but is rather a collection of smaller communities submerged into one big traffic congested sprawl.

Much of the early development was along the coast around the three remaining European forts – to the east Osu Castle, formerly Christiansborg Castle and for the time being the seat of government and to the west neighbouring Forts Ussher and James, most recently prisons and both now open to tourists. The British expanded the city from the forts. With the departure of the colonialists, Nkrumah created Independence Square between Osu and James Town. The square is a vast empty space bookended by two arches one classical in design to the north, the other more reminiscent of MacDonald’s ‘golden arches’. More recent development has come around the city’s ring roads – the Nkrumah Circle transport hub, embassies, hotels, NGO headquarters and the Osu shopping district off the inner Ring Road and the airport and Accra Mall on the outer one. Between these stands the brand new Jubilee House a replacement for the Osu Castle government offices, empty and awaiting the President’s decision to spend the $12 million needed to complete it. The coast in the centre of Accra has been ignored, other than as in an informal rubbish dump. Only to the east of the city is it nearly pleasant enough for a handful of large hotels to have opened. Their pool areas remain considerably more attractive options than the adjacent beaches.

Despite my dislike for the place, exploration of some of the older quarters has provided some rewards. Architecturally there is little of any consequence. What remains of the pre-independence era is not that striking and uniformly in a state of neglect. The newer stuff is on the whole ugly with only Jubilee House making any kind of visual impact, but the streets around Ussher and James Forts are of great historic value. Accra’s first school, hotel and some of its oldest churches are here. The fishing harbour was the most important in Ghana until the development of Tema and Takoradi and many of the streets are named after the mixed heritage British families who resided in the area. Nkrumah made many of his early speeches at the Palladium, a former music hall and his political party, the Convention People’s Party was launched there in 1949.

When I was in Kumasi recently I picked up a booklet which provided a guide to this area. I had been to James Town once before, about 18 months ago. It had been a grey, damp day. The road was being completely rebuilt and there was dust and earth everywhere. The James Fort prison was still in use and the whole scene was very depressing. During the week, I visited the area again. It was a completely different place. It was sunny; the sea was aquamarine, the road complete, the prison shut and generally the tone was much more upbeat. The map in the guide was good and I found many of the landmarks mentioned. I visited the Ussher Fort Museum, although disappointingly the ruins are not safe to explore. I was able to catch a glimpse of one the rings in the local boxing clubs. I could see just enough to know it was being used as a washing line, rather than for a quick spar. I climbed to the top of the 30m high lighthouse for commanding views across the city and up and down the coast. Just as much fun though, was sitting on shaded benches with locals showing them the pictures of their neighbourhood in the booklet.

Jackson Park

2009-05-11T03:27:00.000-07:00

It is a long time since I made specific mention of Jackson Park in the heart of Koforidua. By European standards, its hard surface and lack of grass makes it more a square than a park, but either way it is an excellent facility and as far as I am aware unique amongst regional capitals. It hosts everything, from the grandest funerals, parades and durbars to ping pong for the children, basketball for the wheelchair team and the weekly bead market.

For Ghana’s Golden Jubilee, each regional capital created a new Jubilee Park to perform a similar role to Jackson Park. For reasons which are not entirely clear to me, rather than refurbish Jackson Park, an entirely new ground was constructed near the regional police training school. It was said that refurbishment would have meant the loss of the name Jackson Park in favour of Jubilee Park. The result is that Jackson Park continues to get steadily scruffier and the new Jubilee Park stands almost entirely neglected. The police seem to use it for practice drills and I have seen it used as training ground for learner drivers but its inconvenient location means it is unlikely to have much of a future.

On Friday, Jackson Park was once again packed for a night of music sponsored by the French Embassy and the currently ubiquitous Vodafone. I arrived around six and sat on the edge of the stand to watch the final light and sound checks. After a couple of wet and overcast days, the sky had largely cleared but it remained pleasantly cool. Behind me the sun was sinking, creating a striking sunset and bathing the scene in a golden glow. The final egrets flew to their favourite tree in the corner of the square after a day spent stalking the local cattle. In front of me, the almost full moon emerged from behind Obuotabiri and began its ascent into the now inky blue sky.

A couple of rows of chairs had been set up in front of the stage. These had been monopolised by the local kids. Some of them were briefly distracted by the arrival of the tall white man but they were generally happy to watch the proceedings and dance to the test music booming from the speakers.

With the sun finally gone, the park was lit by a combination of strong moonlight and stronger stage lights. One or two Fan Milk boys tried to sell a few more meat pies and ice creams before calling it a day. The park gradually filled. The giant screen started showing looped Vodafone commercials. (Vodafone now owns a large chunk of Ghana Telecom and almost overnight it has rebranded it. It says something about the precarious quality of the mobile phone services here when Vodafone selects as its slogan: ‘The network that works’.) Eventually some hours after the billed start time, a DJ appeared and started the proceedings. It was 10:30 before the main act began, a mixture of rap, traditional drumming and some strong Malian influences. I had been joined by my friends by now. We enjoyed it and the audience was appreciative but it had been a long day and by 11:45 most of us had given in.

Zoom Lion and the Wheelie Bins

2009-05-11T03:02:00.000-07:00

There is a new noise on the streets of Koforidua. If we didn’t have enough already, we now have to contend with the music which signals the arrival of the Zoom Lion refuse collection truck. The music is loud (of course) and mainly of the gospel variety. Fortunately they are not using Praye’s Zoom Lion Song produced for a ‘Keep Ghana Clean’ campaign. It has the inspiring lyric ‘next to Godliness is cleanliness (my brother), If you live on health, no more sickiness (my sister)’.

Zoom Lion is the intriguingly named contractor which is gradually sweeping up all the district assembly refuse contracts. They have done a good job in tidying up the skips (not sure whether they have designated these as civic amenity sites, but they probably will) and they do clean some public places.

Over the Easter weekend they began the next phase of their operation. I got back from the coast to find the neighbourhood dotted with smart blue or orange wheelie bins. There is even one in our compound. Nothing has been said about it. Nobody seems to know quite what to do with it. Still in its plastic wrapper, it keeps appearing in different places between the houses. They seem far too nice to put rubbish in and as Zoom Lion will charge to empty them they probably won’t get much use. While there are plenty of small boys to take your rubbish to the nearest skip and you can burn the flammable stuff in your yard, the wheelie bins seem a bit pointless. What will happen to them is anybody’s guess. Ghanaians have a knack of recycling otherwise redundant equipment. You can be looking at the girl carrying chilled water sachets on her head, when you realise the receptacle being used is a drawer from a fridge/freezer. The car wheel and oil drum barbeques are other favourites.

There is no doubt that Ghana could be significantly improved with some investment in tidying up and better disposal of waste materials, but are domestic wheelie bins really part of the solution?

2009-05-04T02:29:00.000-07:00

A regular feature of the volunteer experience is playing host to friends and family from home. As I mentioned in the last item, we have had a run of visitors to Koforidua over the past month, often overlapping. Many itineraries have been planned and replanned, hotels booked and guidebooks thumbed. You want to make sure visitors have a good time and go home reassured that their distantly located friend or family member is in relative comfort and safety.

My parents have just returned to the UK after just short of two weeks in Ghana. They did not get off to a good start. Fog at Leeds/Bradford Airport led to them missing a connection in Amsterdam and a rerouting via Dubai. They arrived 17 hours late and had travelled more than twice as far as necessary. Their luggage arrived later that evening having waited in Amsterdam for the next direct flight. We hung around in Accra while we waited for it to show up.

Things improved. In Koforidua, neighbours and work colleagues were all delighted to meet them. I was a little surprised to find nodding acquaintances proudly claim that they were my sister or mother. They met all the Koforidua VSO volunteers and a few from other areas. We squeezed most of Ghana’s top tourist attractions into barely a week – Cape Coast Castle, Elmina, Kakum Canopy Walk, Kejetia Market, the Manhyia Palace and National Cultural Centre in Kumasi, Wli Falls, The Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary, the Nkrumah Mausoleum and Independence Square in Accra, Boti Falls and Lake Bosomtwi. They visited five out of Ghana’s ten regions. They used countless taxis and tros, they spent a morning in church, tried Ghanaian food (steering clear of the more ‘hardcore’ dishes), bought beads and cloth and waved at ‘obruni’ shouting children. They saw crocodiles, fed mona monkeys, watched drumming and dancing and waited for an hour on the roadside outside Asamankese while a replacement was found for a sick tro tro.

I returned them to the airport on Tuesday in roughly the condition they reached it in and was back in Koforidua before they took off.

Easter

2009-04-14T03:35:00.000-07:00

The entries over the last month have been more of a travelog, than a blog about living in Ghana. There has been little happening on the project, so I have taken advantage of the free time. I shall be leaving Ghana in the next five months and I still have a few more things to do and see.

Easter was a bit of a mix. An opportunity to say goodbye to volunteers who will be leaving Ghana before me, a couple of days relaxation and good food at Big Milly's Backyard on Kokrobite Beach and a trip to the Boti Falls (unfortunately barely a trickle after a very dry fortnight) with Dan and his brother and sister. We seem to be very popular at the moment with a continuous run of family and friends visiting over April.

Ghanaians

2009-04-07T02:38:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked to describe Ghanaians by somebody coming here in the near future. After saying how fortunate I was to be here and how welcoming and friendly Ghanaians are, I fell back on the words of the 'Imported Ghanaian' for some rather less flattering views. Alba Kunadu Sumprim is a lady with Ghanaian parents, who was brought up in the UK before moving to Ghana. In her book, The Imported Ghanaian she lists a number of Ghanaian characteristics. Of course, I couldn't possibly say whether I agree with her views!

1. Ghanaians know everything and are always right.
2. Ghanaians answer a question with another question or a reply that has nothing to do with the original question asked.
3. Ghanaians are no respecters of time.
4. Ghanaians love to tell people to exercise patience but to get any results and quickly you have to shout and get upset.

5. Ghanaians will do anything for you – as long as you are not Ghanaian.
6. Ghanaians are snobs and will quickly look down on anyone they do not consider to be worthy.
7. The surest way to test your popularity is to keel over and die. Ghanaians love funerals. It’s the number one form of entertainment.
8. Though a peaceful people, it doesn’t take much to offend Ghanaians.
9. Ghanaians are very honest but they rarely mean what they say or say what they mean.
10.Ghanaians don’t like to say no, any other word but no. They prefer words such as ‘yes’, ‘we’ll see’, ‘go and come’ or other combinations of words which always end up meaning no.

11. Ghanaians rarely listen to anything properly. When a Ghanaian doesn’t understand something, they seldom ask for clarification and will do what they want.
12. Ghanaians are very religious. Church is the second biggest form of entertainment.
13. Ghanaians don’t like taking responsibility; they prefer to rely on or blame someone else.
14. Ghanaians will always feel free to butt into your business and dish out advice, even if unwanted.
15. Ghanaians take themselves too seriously, even though they generate humorous situations, at times frustrating, at every turn.

"Are you crossing?"

2009-03-31T02:23:00.000-07:00

Wherever you go in Ghana you will be asked ‘how are you?’ and ‘where are you going?’ or just ‘where to?’ The first is very polite and automatically leads to ‘I am fine. How are you?’ and then ‘I am also fine’. As to the second question, there appears to be a constant fascination in the destination of obrunis. The answer, whether it be ‘to the market/ to Accra/over there’, usually just leads to approval and rarely a supplemental question. In lorry parks the question is asked by tro mates and usually becomes ‘Where are you going, white man?’ (This leads to regular discussions between volunteers on the subject of when it is appropriate to draw attention to the ethnic origin of the other interlocutor in the opening statement of a conversation.)

For a couple of days last week the question I was asked most often became ‘Are you crossing?’ I was travelling across the Afram Plains. Despite its relatively central location within Ghana it is one of the most remote districts. During the 2008 elections there was big delay in voting here because the necessary materials did not arrive on time. The construction of the Akosombo Dam in the early 1960s dammed the Volta River. Between 1962 and 1966, the level of water behind the dam gradually rose eventually creating Lake Volta, the biggest manmade lake in the world. 80,000 people from 700 villages, 1 % of Ghana’s total population at the time, were moved to 52 resettlement communities. One consequence was that the Eastern Region’s northernmost district, the Afram Plains, lost its land connection with rest of the region. The Bradt guide book on Ghana describes an interesting journey between the Volta Region and the Ashanti Region via the Afram Plains using two ferries across the lake. I decided I would make this journey.

On Thursday morning I took a tro to Nkawkaw on the Accra-Kumasi road and at the base of the escarpment that forms the Kwahu Plateau. The plateau provides the south-west border to Lake Volta and rises to nearly 800 metres above sea level. The tro made good time and I was soon in a shared taxi zigzagging the steep road to Mpaeso on the top of the plateau. Mpaeso was pleasant and noticeably cooler than Nkawkaw, but there was little to keep me there. I picked another shared taxi to the next town, Kwahu Tafo. I was soon the only the passenger and the driver was keen that I charter him to Adawsu the southern ferry terminus. He couldn’t make his mind up what to charge me, but eventually decided on 20 Ghana cedis. I declined this offer and got out in Kwahu Tafo. He drove on as I fastened up my rucksack. Almost as soon as turned the corner I was approached by a taxi driver asking if I was going to Adawsu. He needed one more passenger to fill his car. The fare was 2 Ghana cedis. I agreed. It was not until we were nearly there that I realised it was the same taxi I had just left. In my defence I had only seen the driver in profile on the first journey and most of the taxis in these parts are Opel Astras.

Adawsu is little more than a collection of mud and thatch houses a short distance from the shore line with a few stalls selling food to waiting truck drivers. I ate egg and bread on a bench and talked to a group of drivers. Christopher said that the ferry off the Afram Plains to Kpando was broken and not running at the moment. I pondered turning back but decided I would continue and get a second opinion in Donkorkrom, the district capital. The ferry arrived and disgorged its cargo of vastly overloaded tros and trucks. There was even a Metrobus on board. There was a pause while the north bound vehicles were marshalled to make most efficient use of the available space. I was relieved to see that these vehicles were more modestly loaded. Christopher found a tro that would take me on to Donkorkrom. The crossing was short. As a reminder of the lake’s origin the ferry passed tree tops sticking out of the water. Most trees were left untouched when the lake was created and they have been a navigational hazard ever since.

At Ekye I joined the big Mercedes tro. It was probably the slowest tro I had ever used. It trundled sedately along the untarred but mercifully rut free road to Donkorkrom. I had expected the Afram Plains to rather barren, but they were just as lushly green as the rest of the Eastern Region, if rather less developed and more sparsely populated. I reached Donkorkrom at around 4 pm. I sat near a man from Kumasi who had come for a quick meeting at the hospital there. He had hoped to return to Kumasi that day but had rather underestimated the duration of the journey. I didn’t see him again but he would have been lucky to catch the last ferry back. I couldn’t find the Bradt recommended accommodation and somebody was in the only room at the Oasis, a smart new bar and restaurant opposite the Assembly building. I found a more than adequate room at the well signposted Genesis Guesthouse, in a quiet area just off the main road. I returned to the Oasis with my Daily Graphic and had a couple of Stars and jollof rice with fish at a shaded table as the sun rapidly sank. A brief power cut was a distinct improvement, depriving the handful of customers of the loud music and the satellite TV.

Not sure of what lay ahead I left the guesthouse just after 6:30 am the following morning. In the town centre there were a few tros but strangely nobody was boarding any of them. It was explained to me that nothing would happen until the first transport arrived from the Adawso ferry. The tros would then set out to the various communities across the plain. I found a shared taxi to Agordeke. The driver insisted in putting two passengers in the front next to him and four behind. This caused a lot of grumbling and when he took a very leisurely approach to refuelling and chatting to the filling station staff, there were some very dark mutterings from my fellow sardines. We set off. The reddish brown dust from the road gradually infiltrated the taxi and liberally coated those of us near the windows. By now Wilfred had attached himself to me. After about an hour we reached Agordeke. Wilfred took me to his brother’s house and we wiped the worst of the dust of with a towel. Later in the day though, I still seemed to be sweating brown liquid. We were still about a mile from the lake but Wilfred decided he wanted to visit almost every house on the way. Strangely and fortunately, everybody he wanted to greet was out.

At the water’s edge lay the ferry, The Fourth Republic. Gently rusting, occasionally creaking and slowly dissolving into the lake it was clearly a very long time since it had made the journey to Kpando. Its main purpose now seemed to provide covered seating to protect waiting passengers from sun and rain. As we arrived on the beach the long wooden passenger boat that now plies the route was just mooring along side The Fourth Republic. It was not yet 8 am. The crew abandoned the boat and found shady spots to rest in. A couple of cars and heavily loaded tros arrived. A white couple arrived but quickly returned the way they had come. Maybe they did not fancy 20 kilometres plus in the narrow wooden boat. After 10 am attention was turned to loading the boat with cargo and passengers. I reckon there were about sixty of us on board plus a fair amount of luggage. We were near casting off when another tro arrived. A huge argument erupted. The new arrivals wanted to board the boat and started unpacking their tro with this in mind. They pointed to small gaps on the benches where they could be shoehorned in. The passengers on the boat were divided. Some agreed that there were indeed gaps, but others were vehemently opposed to this not wanting to (further) compromise their safety. I sat quietly, reasoning that this would be the only time I would ever use this boat and the chances of it sinking on that one trip must be infinitesimally slim. The crew, wisely, did not seem to get involved in the shouting and continued their preparation to leave. At stem and stern were men with long bamboo poles. We were gently pushed away from the side of The Fourth Republic preventing the new arrivals from boarding. Once it became apparent that the boat was going to leave without them the decibels rose. Even when the outboard motor had started, drowning out the shore based protests, the debate continued on the boat for a good ten minutes and it was occasionally revived over the course of the journey.

The trip lasted about an hour and we passed more trees and several islands or former hills. We moored in a sheltered cove at Torkor. Wilfred found a taxi to take us to Kpando. Once there we parted before he could start dragging me around all his Kpando acquaintances. I had a Pepsi and bought oranges and an avocado. I was first to board the Kpando-Kpong tro - both towns sharing silent ‘K’ names. At Kpong I changed tros and was back in Koforidua before sunset.

Larabanga

2009-03-25T02:34:00.000-07:00

There is, of course, a flip side to Mole. A short distance from the park’s main gate is the village of Larabanga. The creation of the game reserve and later the national park meant that many people had to be relocated. Compensation may have been provided, but it may not have gone to those who deserved or needed it. While it is illegal to kill the animals in the park, this does not stop the animals causing a nuisance when they come to the village. There are four villagers currently in prison because of incidents involving the killing of animals. Sentences can be in excess of five years.

Some attempts have been made to tap into the tourist dollars and cedis being spent up the road in Mole. There are a couple of guest houses and the village has its own attraction – its mosque, which is probably the oldest building standing in Ghana. Without written records there is no real way of telling just how old it is particularly as its mud and straw structure needs regular maintenance. I visited it with local guide A.D. He showed me the exterior and the interior of a building with a similar structure, to give the impression of what I would see inside if I were Muslim. The mosque itself is in the West Sudanese style and was looking very striking after its most recent repair and repaint job against a back drop of blue skies. Its small size, compared to the larger mosques in Burkina Faso, gives it a more intimate feel and reminds me of the modest Saxon churches in north-east England. A.D. said that the doorways were purposely made small to force those entering into bowing as they did so.

I was making mental comparisons between the conditions in Larabanga and those in the Eastern Region cocoa communities. Without the rich soils and vegetation and the abundant if unpredictable rainfall there are few potential sources of income here. There was evidence of charcoal making and I was shown the mill used to process maize and cassava. I was also taken to see a couple of the women involved in turning nuts into shea butter. Public transport is almost non-existent here and even the tourist office has almost entirely collapsed. A.D. believed that education was the key to improving livelihoods. He is studying at the polytechnic in Tamale, about four hours away. There are plans to build an Islamic school. The only school is Christian and the population is entirely Muslim.

The Bradt guide to Ghana devotes a few paragraphs to the experiences of visitors to Larabanga. Several were frustrated by the hassle they got from people asking for money and insisting on acting as guides. This behaviour is frustrating but you understand why the locals try it. I was fortunate and was not pestered at all. Maybe things have changed and there is an understanding that this kind of conduct will discourage visitors. Alternatively, there was a big wedding in town and it was Friday, the Muslim holy day. These may have provided a lucky distraction for me.

Mole

2009-03-23T04:35:00.000-07:00

This is a guess, but I don’t there are many game reserves where you can get two nights bed and breakfast, two evening meals, a few beers, park fees and a two hour guided walk across the park for about $50. Mole (mo-lay) National Park, Ghana’s most important reserve is never going to compete with Kenya or South Africa as a destination for seeing wildlife. The journey to Mole is an invigorating experience. A couple of hours spent in a Metrobus rattling along a ridged, sun dried mud track (worse in the rainy season) is not to everybody’s taste. The Mole Motel is nearly fifty years old and in a need of major overhaul, but it is well staffed, has a pool, good food and great views of two waterholes. The range of wildlife you are likely to see is small but we saw elephants at close quarters and later watched them bathe in the waterhole. We saw green monkeys, bush buck, kop and baboons. Warthogs kept turning up all over the motel.

The new minister responsible for tourism has said that she is looking for ways to increase the numbers of tourists coming to Ghana. There have been plans to upgrade Mole Motel for some time and even talk of flying in tourists. With a sensitive upgrade and improved road connection more people could be attracted and most would be happy to pay a lot more than $50 for the experience.

No Sweat!

2009-03-15T04:41:00.000-07:00

Tuesday was a first. As I may have mentioned it gets quite warm here, regularly in the mid thirties and very humid. Consequently I sweat almost constantly. My clothes are rarely dry and I can sometimes almost wring my shirt out when I get home.

On Tuesday I has a meeting in Accra. I was collected from the house in the ministry pick up, driven to the CARE International office in Osu. I spent the day in an air conditioned office and was then driven back to the house. For the first time in Ghana, I didn't break a sweat all day.

Posuban Shrines

2009-03-11T03:19:00.000-07:00

On Thursday I returned to the coast of Central Region for a couple of days visiting a few more of the ruined European forts. I reached Mankessim on the Accra – Cape Coast road just before noon. Mankessim seems like little more than a busy transport junction today, but it was the first capital of the Fante people and it is home to the most impressive posuban shrine in Ghana. Posubans were constructed by military companies called asafo, who were responsible for defending their towns. The posubans, unique to the central coastal area of Ghana, were originally used for storage of arms and company regalia and are now of mainly ceremonial use. They are generally highly and bizarrely decorated.

The Mankessim Posuban is tucked away on a quiet road a few hundred metres from the town centre. Three storeys high and adorned with a range of exotic figures and creatures, the posuban serves as a memorial to the founding fathers of Mankessim, a tribute to the gods and a series of symbolic pieces of advice. Don’t judge by outward appearance, be prepared, listen to well meaning people and do not take them for granted and so on.

I found jollof rice at the tro station and took a shared taxi on to Saltpond. The custodian wanted ten cedis to see the posuban there and although he quickly dropped to five, it was still too much and I moved on down the coast to Anomabu, home to a number of posubans and Fort William, one of the most complete remaining forts. I checked into the Hotel Mariesabelle and found I was sharing it with a contingent of students from the Department of Architecture and Planning at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. They were down to do a couple of days’ work at Fort William.

Friday was Independence Day (Ghana’s 52nd birthday) and I started with a short ride to Cape Coast to see the regional parade and march past. The salute was taken by Ms Ama Benyiwa Doe, the new NDC regional minister. When the parade was over I browsed for a while in the Black Star Bookshop. A TV in the corner was showing the president’s address at the main celebration in Accra. I had lunch overlooking the sea at the Castle Restaurant and then bumped into VSO volunteers Eddie, Behi and Paulo at a nearby coffee shop. While they had lunch, I took a taxi back up the coast to see Fort Nassau in Moree. The first Dutch fort in Ghana (1612) and built with Dutch bricks, what little is left has now been taken over by fish ovens and easily excited children. The views along the coast paid off the walk.

On Saturday the custodian at Fort William showed me a couple of the posubans in Anomabu, including one shaped like a large scale model of a European style war ship. I then walked east along the coast road to Fort Amsterdam at Abanze. Despite the name, this was actually the first British fort built on the coast (1631). It is now a substantial ruin with a prominent location. I picked a tro back to Mankessim. When the onward tro to Swedru lost power completely and gently glided to a halt, the driver carried out temporary repairs using the unwound metal ring from the ignition key. This turned out to be very temporary indeed as we stopped again a few metres on, but fortunately near enough to a roadside mechanic’s stall.

Trials and Tribulations

2009-03-09T04:33:00.000-07:00

Monday morning should have been straight forward. Charge up my electricity smart card and spend an hour or so on the internet. It started by a visit to my landlord’s brother’s house across the compound to insert the smart card in my meter before charging. This done, I walked the mile to the main electricity office. There was a short queue to pay. The lady at the window took the card and money but told me the card had not been inserted in the meter so it could not be charged. I walked home. The landlord’s brother confirmed that the card had been inserted and that it sounded like it had developed a fault, as his had. I took the card back to the office. Fortunately I was dealt with promptly and was soon in the back of a 4WD heading back to the house with an engineer. We made a couple of stops on the way and, fortunately (again) we passed the landlord’s brother on the way. He gave me the key to his house so we could get at the meter. At the house, the engineer confirmed the faulty card. Unfortunately the car was not returning to the office so I made my third trip to the office. When I arrived the power was off and the computer was unable to validate a replacement card for me. By the time I had bought a newspaper and a huge bo froot (doughnut equivalent) the power had returned. One of the clerks tried to charge me 2 cedis for a replacement card. I objected and he capitulated. I left with my new card and headed for the internet cafe. The new card had to be inserted into my meter before it could be charged up. It was now three hours after I had begun the process, I must have walked five miles and I was no nearer charging my card than I had been when I started.

This was of course all hugely frustrating, but could have been a lot worse, particularly if I had not been able to get the key to my landlord’s brother’s house so easily. Daily life in Ghana, particularly involving customer service, presents many such annoyances but I have to be careful that I remain objective about them. Are they caused by Ghanaians or is something else responsible? In this case it was a faulty (probably very cheap) card. The service I received from the Electricity Company of Ghana was actually very prompt and efficient. The only negative aspect was the cheeky attempt to charge me for the new card. I accept that I might have been getting the VIP white man service but it doesn’t happen very often and it makes a change from being overcharged. Customer service generally is poor, even by comparison with other African countries but there are signs of improvement. For every bartender whose attention you can never attract, even though she has nothing else to do, there is a DVD seller who will go through his entire stock looking for the disc you want.

Miscellany

2009-02-25T02:33:00.000-08:00

A combination of the age and condition of the internal paint work and the ferocity of the current spells of rain, mean that there are now chunks of white gloss paint on the floors of most rooms in the house.

The local branch of Melcom (think Argos, if it had existed in communist era Russia) has a small stock of Waitrose own brand tinned mackerel fillets – in vegetable oil or alternatively brine.

As the average Ghanaian barber has only two cuts in his repertoire – very short and even shorter, I have managed to go nearly six months since my last cut. I reckon with a little trim around the edges, I could probably go a few months more.

Yam Chip Wife

2009-02-25T02:32:00.000-08:00

I fancied yam chips and pepper sauce on Saturday. I hadn’t had them for a week or so. Most week day lunches recently have been taken in the cocoa growing communities – usually boiled plantain and coco yam with palaver sauce. Either that or I just walk into one of canteens in town, order light soup with fish and rice and say the Agric. Officer will pay for it. It’s a curious arrangement, but it works so I don’t question it.

Anyway, I cycled into town and as I suspected the normal yam chip lady was not there and her stall was deserted. I don’t think she does Saturdays. I tried to remember where I else I could get freshly fried chips. (Older ones tend to get a bitter taste.) Then I realised I would have to visit my third or possibly fourth wife. The good thing about Yam Chip Wife (YCW, yes she has got a real name, but I have forgotten it and it’s probably not a good idea to have to ask her what it is and this stage) is that she doesn’t make the same demands as the others. There is no ‘where have you been?’, ‘what did you bring me from Accra?’ why didn’t you phone?’ she just accepts me for what I am and is always pleased to see me, no questions asked. Her stall is on the main road, beside the cash and carry and opposite the Shell Garage. When I sit in the back of the pick up, because there is no room inside, my colleagues always shout at her as we pass so that she notices me. Sitting in the back of the pick up always arouses quite a bit of excitement. I don’t think it’s seen as appropriate behaviour for ‘obrunis’.

I reached YCW’s stall. She was there and she immediately started putting chips in a bag without asking what I wanted. She put seven big wedges in a bag (I would normally ask for four) and then offered sauce, which I accepted and fish which I turned down. It had been a very fishy week. I proffered a 1 Ghana Cedi note. ‘No’, she said, ‘you are my husband’. I hesitated but then thanked her earnestly and put the hot bag in my rucksack. I pedalled off pondering if or how I should reciprocate this generous gift. As I cycled the chips gently warmed the small of my back.

The Honorable Nana Adjei Boateng

2009-02-25T02:18:00.000-08:00

The transitional period of President Atta Mills government continues. On Thursday he gave his first State of the Nation Address and among the various announcements made was the revocation of the appointments of every single local authority chief executive in Ghana – all 140 plus of them. These are political appointments and therefore every one of them, regardless of the political loyalties of the residents of their districts, belongs to the ruling party. The NPP chief executives must therefore be replaced with NDC ones.

In fairness, it was an announcement expected much sooner. The President’s failure to oust the NPP chief executives on day one had provoked the first outburst of dissatisfaction from former President Rawlings. In 2001, President Kufuor had sent the then NDC chief executives packing immediately and Rawlings expected the same treatment for their successors. It was left to a government spokesperson to state that clearly the NDC had failed to explain fully to Rawlings and others why it had not been appropriate to dismiss the chief executives sooner. The NPP chief executives stayed on in a kind of limbo for more than six weeks. There will now be a period without chief executives when the newly appointed regional ministers are expected to be held responsible for the authorities. No doubt, they will work closely with the co-ordinating directors, the most senior civil servant in each authority.

This means the end of the road for the Honorable Nana Adjei Boateng as Municipal Chief Executive of the New Juaben Municipal Assembly. Notionally he was my boss during my initial placement in Koforidua. An imposing figure, particularly when dressed in one of his traditional smocks, Nana has the gift of being able to talk off the cuff to any group of people on any subject at a moment’s notice. He came to the local launch of the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership. ‘So Richard,what’s all this about?’, ‘Er, helping cocoa farmers in deprived communities’ and he was off for ten minutes on the issues facing cocoa farmers with conclusions not dissimilar to the ones which Cadbury’s research had uncovered. I have seen him address everyone from meetings on inclusivity in education, to presentations on Farmers’ Day, to turf cutting for school extensions, to passing out parades for the local disaster recovery team. The most alarming was when he suddenly appeared as guest of honour at the local rotary club a.g.m. It’s a long story as to what I was doing there, but I think he took great relish in ensuring that I took part in the dance interlude.

There was usually a sting in the tale to any of his ad hoc speeches. They would usually contain some kind of reprimand to the group concerned. This was probably a throw back to his previous career in teaching, but it meant that nobody was immune from a quick telling off whether it be the municipal HIV/AIDS working group – ‘we need more commitment from you, if we are going to do something about having the highest prevalent rate of HIV infection in the country,’ or the local umbrella group for organisations for persons with disabilities – ‘you’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t work together.’ His views on the evils of discarded water sachet bags are well documented.

He would arrive at every appointment, however close to the assembly, in his chauffeur driven, freshly polished black 4WD with smoked glass windows. You could never tell if he was in it or not, but whenever he saw me at the Assembly, he would always say he had spotted me recently on some street corner or another.

Had the NPP won the election, Nana would have been assured some worthwhile kind of promotion. As it is I’m not sure what will happen to him next, but at least he won’t be watching me through the smoked glass windows.

Fire Starters

2009-02-16T04:07:00.000-08:00

As I was leaving the house one day recently, the compound suddenly filled with butterflies. As I approached each bush or tree another group would appear. The landlord was irritated. The previous evening the compound had been invaded by smoke from bush fires lit on the banks of the nearby stream. (The picture was taken from the compound.) The butterflies had lost their homes in the process and set up a temporary base with us. The phenomenon lasted a couple of days before they found somewhere more appropriate.

Lighting fires is a popular Ghanaian past time. Particularly during the dry season, you will regularly see small patches of brush burning. I was walking home from Dan’s house very late one evening when I saw a largish one near the top of the mountain. On a smaller scale, many households, including my immediate neighbours, burn their rubbish. I regularly wake with the smell of smoke in my nostrils.

You rarely see anybody managing the fires. They are just left to run their own courses. Occasionally they do get out of control, but fortunately the generally very damp conditions mean we are never faced with situations like the appalling ones recently experienced in Australia. That said, they are frowned upon and you will occasionally see appeals in the press from small communities asking the perpetrators to desist from this activity.

The Mmetiamu Bridge

2009-02-16T03:49:00.000-08:00

The letters page of the Daily Graphic is one of my favourite features and I am always disappointed when the page is replaced by something more mundane. Sometimes there are letters commenting on major current issues, but more often than not, the correspondence is of a much more random and often highly parochial nature. There might be a letter of praise for the service provided by the DVLA office in Kumasi, or a complaint about noise from a specific church in Sunyani, or a demand for more litter bins or a request for a new public library somewhere.

The 9th January edition contained missives on the following topics: the Chairman of the Tema East Constituency writing to refute an accusation that he had been arrested; a complaint about charges made for senior school certificates (one of a small number which illicit a response from the relevant authority – in this case a letter from the West African Examinations Council stating that charging was not authorised); a plea to increase the size of the 1 pesewa coin; another plea to community members not to dig trenches in tarred roads as makeshift traffic control measures; a request to reinstate railways as a means of transporting cocoa; a reminder to thank God for continued peace during and after the elections and a letter suggesting it was inappropriate to suggest that God chose the new president as, in the author’s view, both main parties had rigged polls and that, therefore, God would not be associated with such malpractice.

A letter in the paper on the 4th August last year particularly caught my eye. Godwin Yirenkyi was expressing concern about the dangerous traffic on the Mamfe-Koforidua road (a view I can fully support) but he went on to comment on the condition of the Mmetiamu Bridge. I have not been able to find out more about this bridge from other sources, so must rely upon the accuracy of his text:

“Near the Asuoyaa Bridge and close to the former Accra-Kumasi railway line is another unique bridge built over the Densu River in 1911 by the Swiss missionary and civil engineer, Jacob Isliker, on behalf of the enterprising pioneer cocoa farmers who migrated from the Akuapem Mountains to establish the early cocoa farms around the river. Called the Mmetiamu footbridge and known locally as the “wharf”, it is one of the oldest bridges in the country and though it looks strong, the need for some maintenance cannot be ruled out. The tourism importance of this bridge would be appreciated when it is recalled that is probably the only one of its kind in Africa. Dr Polly Hill, formerly of the University of Ghana in her book, “Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana (1970)”, described it as “a splendid and historic landmark that should be preserved as a monument to the business enterprise of the first cocoa farmers due to its uniqueness in Africa”.”

It took seven months before I finally got round to seeing the Mmetiamu Bridge for myself. The first weekend in February, Dan and I cycled four miles down the Mamfe road through Mile 50 and Okorase to Old Asuoyaa. A further mile along an unsealed road brought us to New Asuoyaa, a small farming community. We locked our bikes around a convenient electricity pole and asked a group of farmers sitting in a shady spot for directions to the bridge. One of them, in his green wellingtons (sensible protection against snake bites) immediately stood up and said, ‘lets go’. He led us a few hundred yards round the village to a very precarious railway bridge over the river. I knew this wasn’t the bridge we wanted and asked tentatively for the ‘wharf’. Comprehension dawned and we set off again along the railway line. At Asuoyaa’s long redundant station we met a couple of men moulding mud building blocks. We walked a good mile along the single track, through a cutting and out on to an embankment, before dropping down to the Densu River. The final approach was through elderly cocoa trees.

The Mmetiamu Bridge does not disappoint. Constructed from a framework of solid wooden beams and topped with a buttressed roof of corrugated iron, it looks a very substantial structure. Closer inspection shows that many of the elements have been seriously compromised by woodworm. A few of the floor boards have been replaced but there is no evidence of any more serious maintenance. Just short of its centenary, there seems little chance of the bridge surviving far into its second century.

The bridge occupies a very peaceful spot. The Densu is narrow here and barely moves at this time of year. The banks are densely overgrown, but there was another farmer nearby tending a neatly cleared plot of cabbages. He said that his great grandfather had led the local construction team for Isliker. He was adamant that the bridge was constructed in 1808, but this would give him some exceptionally robust ancestors and mean that it predated the arrival of cocoa in Ghana by some seventy years.

We returned to New Asuoyaa with our guide. He asked nothing for the hour plus he had spent with us, but we insisted on giving him a ‘dash’ for his trouble.

Godwin Yirenkyi’s letter ended with an appeal to the Ghana Cocoa Board and other stakeholders to preserve the Mmetiamu Bridge as a tourist attraction. The original route (probably to Suhum, west of Koforidua) used by the cocoa farmers has long been superseded by the road, so the bridge had little practical potential. It would be great shame to see it disintegrate further, but its fate looks sealed.

Akwaaba Cadbury

2009-02-05T04:58:00.000-08:00

Monday was big day in the cocoa growing community of Kromameng, near Suhum. A team from the London end of the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership arrived in the Eastern Region to see the progress being made with the project. We, the VSO volunteers, joined our Country Director and the representatives from CARE, the United Nations Development Programme and Cadbury to visit Kromameng. I have visited twenty of the thirty communities in VSO’s part of the project. I have always been welcomed and often fed, but this was a special occasion and the community had pulled out all the stops. There was an audience with the chief and elders, an exchange of gifts involving schnapps and boxes of Cadbury produce, the circulation of calabashes of sweet, fresh palm wine, there were drummers and painted ladies and a danced procession to the village school. While the majority of the group went to visit a neighbouring cocoa farm (old hat for seasoned volunteers) the rest of the village danced for Danielle and me. The children from the school were in a frenzy of excitement at all the activity, apart from the seven tots unlucky enough to be selected to recite verses for the visitors. To say they were terrified would be an understatement.

It was certainly one of those days to remember what a privilege it is to be working with the Ghanaian cocoa farmers.

The Rain Returns

2009-02-01T03:04:00.000-08:00

A dramatic storm on Thursday night signalled the return of rain to Koforidua after an absence of over a month. When overhead, the thunder was like cannon fire. The temperature rose markedly and the humidity increased. It also looks as if the Harmattan’s days are numbered, here at least if not elsewhere in Ghana.

Silence in the Library

2009-02-01T02:52:00.000-08:00

Ghana is a noisy place. The main culprit is music blasted at peak volume from speakers in shops, tro tros and funeral gatherings. Add to this; singing and chanting from incomplete and effectively open air churches, omnipresent ring tones, liberal use of car horns and a wide selection of very vocal birdlife and you get quite a cacophony. After a while your tolerance to all this sound tends to improve and it begins to fade into the background. It was in the pin drop silence of the Balme Library at the University of Ghana in Legon, yesterday that I really realised just how noisy everywhere else is.

Jill, Danielle and I had decided to visit the University for the day. Not a conventional tourist destination, but reputedly it had a good bookshop (rare to non-existent in Ghana), a botanical garden and pizza within a couple of hundred yards of the entrance.

The University was founded in 1948, as part of the preparation for independence being made by the colonial rulers. The original architecture has a strong Japanese theme and you can clearly see how the main buildings are set out like an eastern temple at the end of an imposing avenue. At the head of the avenue, a flight of steps lead into a sequence of courtyards heading towards the Great Hall. The effect was a little spoilt by the facts that, being Saturday, it was washing day and the student residents of Commonwealth Hall had, by necessity, festooned the courtyards, with drying washing (the smell of Omo was powerful) and that at the end of the Hall, the doors were firmly padlocked meaning we could only glimpse the University’s tower through very grimy glass. With a little more effort we could probably have found an alternative route, but by that point pizza was a bigger draw.

The bookshop was excellent. There was a good selection of material on Ghana. Danielle and I were particularly take by a school atlas with well presented maps of Ghana and the sub region showing population, vegetation, climate, raw materials and so on. The nearby Balme Library (which along with the elusive tower and a statue of three interlocked figures called ‘Nuturing’, features heavily on the 5 Ghana Cedi note) had an even bigger collection of material on Ghana and Africa in general. We spent an hour dipping into an array of volumes. I found an academic study into tourism in Ghana carried out in 1974. It contained the line: “It is an open secret that many Ghanaians regard some foreign tourists as having corrupting influence on Ghanaian society because of their irreligious outlook to life, anarchist and egotist morality, strange aethestic (sic) values and deviant dressing habits.”, but the survey undertaken indicated that Ghanaians were a rather less concerned and more relaxed about visitors than the ‘open secret’ indicated. There were collections of Stanley’s correspondence, a survey of cocoa farmers carried out 25 years ago with a questionnaire not dissimilar to the one we have used on the Cadbury project and a recent, fascinating book on beads. The last included an account by a native of Koforidua, born in 1922 that referred to a dispute which escalated into a war between the people of Koforidua and neighbouring Effiduase in the late 1920’s. “One day the Omahene [chief] sent three of his men to take messages to the Chief of Effiduase. One of these men was killed, the second was detained, and the third was tortured and sent back to Koforidua with his ears cut off.” There was also an account of an ‘intrepid archaeologist’ who took a Land Rover full of corned beef out of Legon in the 1950s, “...as he went along he ate the corned beef and collected artefacts. When the space in the Land Rover had been converted from corned beef to artefacts, he came back to Legon.”

The campus was a very pleasant place to spend a few hours. It even had benches from which to enjoy it. The botanical gardens could do with some attention, but still provided a very pleasant place to walk. Within a short distance of the entrance we saw a variety of interesting flora and fauna. We returned to Koforidua at dusk having had a good day. The pizza wasn’t bad either.

2009-01-25T02:23:00.000-08:00

Friday was as dry as dust. The sun never fully emerged from the hazy milky sky, and remained a pale white disc. The outline of the mountain was barely visible as a slightly greyer patch against the sky. There has not been a drop of rain since I returned from the Christmas rain. The washing I had put out to dry in the passageway on Thursday evening already felt bone dry to the touch and had taken on the reassuring texture of cardboard.

After cocoa and porridge I worked on my laptop for a little over an hour, finishing off summaries of the cocoa growing community interviews we carried out before Christmas. This had been hanging over me since my return and only a number of more pressing matters had prevented me from completing them sooner. There was a brief break in the power supply while I worked, but my battery had enough charge for this not to be a problem. I walked over to the Department of Agriculture offices in the Ministries complex with my pen drive, so that the notes could be printed and photocopied in advance of the next project team meeting. The director had travelled north for the week and I would need to find William to arrange the copying. The extension officers had gathered for their regular meeting and were sitting chatting in the conference room. There was no sign of the meeting started. Part out of concern for my health and part out of curiosity about the mysterious life of an ‘obruni’, they asked me if and what I had eaten this morning. My answer was satisfactory and they told me that William was at the department’s e-commerce centre further up Ministries Road.

I found William with a couple of the department’s national service personnel. They were having a reading day, William explained. The computer was being serviced and they reckoned it would be able to take my pen drive by noon. I left, saying I would return then. They said they would be reading until three.

I walked over to the bike workshop near the Shell filling station. Last spring David, from the U.S. organisation, Bikes not Bombs, arrived in town. With some support from the Emmanuel Foundation he set up a bike workshop with the aim of training some of the local persons with disabilities (PWDs) to maintain and build bicycles and eventually run their own business. Much of the funding comes from donated bicycles collected by Bikes not Bombs (http://www.bikesnotbombs.org/) in America. Containers full of bicycles are sent to Ghana. Part of each shipment is sold immediately to local bike dealers to provide capital to the run the workshop and the rest are worked on by the trainees.

I knew a new shipment was due from the port at Tema, but it had actually arrived at 1 am that morning. By the time I arrived, the lorry had been unloaded and the yard was full of hundreds of bikes – racers, mountain bikes, hybrids, children’s bikes and even a tandem. I offered to come back later and help move the remaining bikes into the workshop store. I bought a Daily Graphic – more news of President Mills’ cabinet selection and emerging details of the previous government’s controversial management of the economy – and returned to the house. I changed my clothes. I had been wearing a batik shirt for traditional dress Friday, but put on faded T shirt and shorts for handling the bikes.

I returned to the town centre and deposited the computer files on the Department of Agriculture machine. It turned out for some reason I could not entirely fathom, the copying would have to wait until the Director’s return on Monday. I bought yam chips and pepper sauce and ate them before returning to the workshop. Although only a couple of dealers had been told about the delivery, nearly every dealer in the district must have arrived by now. The bikes were being piled up around the site as sales were negotiated. David was pleased with the amount they would make and how little he had to get involved in the process. There were some lively debates between the dealers but it all ended amicably. The dealers began to remove their purchases. Some were wheeled away individually, others were stacked precariously on hand carts and dragged out, some ended up in the back of Astra estate taxis (maximum load of about 7 bikes) and the majority left in piles on flat bed trucks. I helped carry the remainder into the store. By 5 pm, the yard was empty again. When I arrived David had offered his wrist rather than his oily hand to shake. When I left, my hand was nearly as grubby as his so we shook.

We made arrangements for him to meet me at St Joseph’s Hospital the following morning. The previous week I had travelled to Accra in the hospital ambulance to collect ten wheelchairs being temporarily stored at the VSO office. Behi, a VSO volunteer in the Central Region, had met the donor and had marshalled requests for chairs from other volunteers in the south of Ghana. Unfortunately the chairs had had a somewhat protracted stay with the customs authorities at Tema, but they had finally been released. The chairs were essentially in flat pack form and David had agreed to help me assemble them. It looked like they would be relatively easy to put together, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

It was dusk by now. The sun had turned a pale orange, and the sky had taken on a rather thick yellowish tinge. I crossed Jackson Park and headed for home. I seem to live on the route to almost every school in town and groups of children in assorted primary coloured uniforms seem to spend the entire day milling around and drifting back and forth. Most are keen to politely greet me – “Good evening. How are you?”, “Good evening. I am fine. How are you?”, “We are fine” - and some want to embark on more in detailed conversions. Sometimes we exchange names (one member of the group is usually called ‘Richard’. He is pushed forward, he smiles and looks sheepish) and they ask my address. At this point I usually say I live here and point vaguely in the direction of my house. I have yet to receive a deputation of schoolchildren, but at some point my luck will run out.

Despite the odd sachet of water during the day, the Harmattan left my mouth completely dry. I stopped at the bottled drink store. I asked for a cold Pepsi. A bottle from the chiller box was produced and opened. I was invited to sit in the one available chair. I sat and drank, put the bottle in the empties crate and paid the 40 Gp. As I turned the final corner for home and an evening meal, I waved at the tailor working at his sewing machine on the first floor balcony of his house. He waved back. Until recently he worked in a ramshackle, wooden construction beside the road, but just before Christmas it was demolished and now the foundations for a more substantial building have been laid. His twin daughters waved too, just tall enough to see over the balcony wall. They are always identically dressed and, having a tailor for a father, usually in something different. They are always excited to see me and jump up and down. Sometimes they are too excited to even shout, “obruni, obruni, obruni”. We waved and smiled and after a few moments they started to say “Bye. Bye”. I took this as my cue that the conversation had ended and it was time for me to move on.

Health

2009-01-18T02:27:00.000-08:00

Is it possible for a volunteer to live a healthy lifestyle in a country where a bottle of gin (admittedly, local) costs slightly less than half the cost of 200 g of butter (admittedly French)? I pondered this is I walked home with a plastic bag containing both items and 20 pesewas worth of lemons. The answer is obviously ‘no’, if these items were to form the basis of my diet.

VSO take volunteer health very seriously - mainly in the form of preventing illness, but also diet and insurance coverage. At pre departure training we meet members of the VSO headquarters’ medical team and we receive a weighty health guide. (Don’t swim in water where you might catch bilharzias, be careful to iron clothes dried outside to kill any eggs laid by flies which if left could hatch and burrow it your skin.) VSO also regularly undertake exercises to see whether the allowance we receive is sufficient to buy the right food for a balanced diet. Fortunately VSO has recently increased our allowances; otherwise I might not have been buying either the gin or the butter. Incidentally alcohol is not included in VSO’s calculations.

VSO pays for the injections we need and anti-malarial drugs. Every morning I take a green capsule after breakfast which won’t actually prevent malaria but should mean that if I do get it, it should be in a milder form. Koforidua’s tropical location makes it ideal territory for mosquitoes. I am sure I read somewhere that the first British missionaries here were unable to stay because of the general air of pestilence about the place. Malaria is still rife, but if you can afford the drugs it is usually not as serious as you might think. Most volunteers here seem to get it at some time or other.

It is possible that the anti-malarial’s themselves are a greater threat than malaria itself. Some volunteers are prepared to take their chances with malaria rather than suffer some of the side effects of the preventative drugs. I take doxycycline which can increase susceptibility to sunburn (not good when you live virtually on the Equator), skin rashes, nausea, diarrhoea, severe headache and should not be taken if pregnant or if you suffer from liver problems. It is also an antibiotic, but on the positive side it has probably contributed to the fact that I have only suffered from two bouts of diarrhoea in 16 months. It is also used to treat acne!
I find it quite hard to eat enough. The hot conditions reduce my appetite. I definitely lost weight and I am now making a conscious effort to try and keep what I put on over Christmas – more bananas and yam chips with pepper sauce. Keeping hydrated is also a constant consideration. I always have a bottle of water to hand or know that I will be going somewhere where sachets of pure water will be available.

Exercise, like eating, needs effort and I don’t do much. I do walk around town rather than take taxis but I have to walk at a slower pace, otherwise I end up dripping with sweat. I have finally decided to buy a bicycle. When I get it, I will have to weigh up the benefits of the exercise with the risk of being knocked off it. I’m already looking for the quieter byways which the cars don’t often use.

2009-01-11T03:14:00.000-08:00

I flew back to Ghana on 6th January. The Ghana International Airlines flight was about a third full and there was plenty of room to stretch out and move around. There were good views of the Sahara. It was dusk by the time we reached Accra and still 29 oC. This was a revision on the 32 oC threatened the crew en route, but still a big difference from the frosty -2 oC at Gatwick.

I was quickly through immigration and took a taxi to the Tema tro tro station. It was now the dying hours of the Kufuor presidency and the car radio was tuned to a programme discussing the news of presidential pardons. The run-off vote on 28 December produced the narrowest of victories for Professor John Evans Atta Mills and the NDC, with less than half a percentage point between him and the NPP. By midnight the NPP’s term would be over and the following afternoon Atta Mills would be sworn in as third President of the Fourth Republic in front of crowds in Independence Square.

I reached the tro station at 7 pm. There was one tro waiting and it was going to Koforidua. I boarded, bought an extra seat for my luggage and waited. The traders were packing up and the flickering lamps that illuminated their stalls were being extinguished. Nobody seemed interested in going to Koforidua. One man turned up with only half the fare and at eight a Ghanaian and his sister-in-law from overseas arrived. The couple paid for their seats and I paid for three more so that we could leave. It was so dark now it was hard to see the value of the notes in our hands.
I reached Koforidua at 10:15 and walked home. There was a noticeably subdued atmosphere about the place over the next couple of days. There was less music playing, less traffic and fewer people about. Eastern Region and Koforidua in particular strongly support the NPP. I talked to a number of people and they were all concerned that the NPP had not been returned for a third term, but they were trying to be positive. We will see what happens next.

2008-12-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-15T04:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-15T04:36:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-07T03:30:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-07T03:17:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-07T03:11:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-05T02:08:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-23T02:47:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-16T02:45:00.001-08:00

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

2008-11-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

Winneba

2008-11-02T03:06:00.000-08:00

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.

2008-10-26T04:36:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-20T08:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-13T05:09:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-29T03:24:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-08T03:27:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-20T10:09:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-04T05:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-30T03:23:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-07-21T05:27:00.001-07:00

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

Serious Pursuits...

2008-07-21T05:18:00.000-07:00

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.

VSO 50th Anniversary Conference

2008-07-14T04:17:00.000-07:00

On May 19 1958 the first VSO volunteers (thirteen 18-year-old men) left the UK to give a year's voluntary service in developing countries: Nigeria, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Sarawak and, barely a year after independence, Ghana. Since then over 30,000 VSO volunteers have worked in over 70 countries. Each country holds a conference for all its volunteers and staff every two years. Last week VSO Ghana held its 50th Anniversary Conference.

I was a member of the organising committee. The group consisted of representatives from the regions where VSO operates. We had a planning meeting in Accra in late May and talked about content, venue and entertainment. We had access to the notes and feedback from previous conferences. We were very conscious of the need to balance a thought provoking work agenda with opportunities to relax and socialise with other volunteers. As few volunteers stay in country more than two years most people will only attend one conference. While we all travel and meet other volunteers from time to time opportunities like this are almost non-existent.

We were very pleased with the conference. Dr Nicholas Westcott CMG, the British High Commissioner in Accra and Pauline Seenan from the Department for International Development both attended the opening ceremony. GTV and TV3 covered the speeches. We looked at the role of VSO, fifty years after its inception, how to ensure its continuing relevance and the preparation of funding proposals. Feedback on the various sessions was very positive. I spent a lot of time behind my lap top during the Powerpoint presentations. The staff at the New Coco Beach Resort were very helpful and provided everything we requested. We had a very good cultural evening with dancing, singing and sketches from the main national groups within VSO. The Filipino dancing was voted the best but there was a special mention for Eddie Doyle as Father Jack. On the final evening we arranged for a local group of drummers and dancers to perform by the pool.

I was touched by the number of volunteers who thanked the committee members for the work they had done. For me, the only disappointment was our failure to get 50 volunteers into a tro tro. We managed 33. At least we have given the committee of 2010 a target to beat.

Tema and Ada Foah

2008-06-30T02:53:00.000-07:00

I hadn’t given the sun much thought until Saturday morning. It is obviously always there, even when it’s hidden by big black rainclouds. The high temperatures make it hard to forget. When you talk to Ghanaians in bright sunshine they will very sensibly steer you into a shady spot. Other than that I hadn’t considered it further. I was in Tema, Ghana’s main port on Saturday morning. There is nothing to see and no real town centre. I was between tro tros and the only thing worth looking at was the ‘Presbyterian Church on the Greenwich Meridian’. The church had a guard’s booth, which I thought was a little unusual. The church was modern and nothing special. I walked through the gate and smiled at the guard. He asked me my business. I said I just wanted to look at the church. He said there was a charge and produced a neatly ruled hard back exercise book with a list of charges in the front. After the concessions there was a one Ghana Cedi charge for adults, a two Ghana Cedi charge for foreigners and a five cedi charge for ‘rich persons’. I tried my usual line that I was a volunteer, resident in Ghana but this did not wash. I enquired whether I might fall into the category of ‘rich person’. The guard looked me up and down and thought I might. I assured him I wasn’t and I reluctantly settled on being a non-rich foreigner. I thought for the money the guard might act as guide but once the fee was fixed he lost interest in me. The Meridian is marked by a line in the grass along the church’s boundary wall with a couple of curious posts at either end. A little south of here it vanishes into the Gulf of Guinea and presumably it does not resurface until Antarctica. While thinking about this I realised that the Northern Hemisphere’s longest day had just passed and that the sun must just be returning south from the Tropic of Cancer some 18 degrees or so north of my current location. Sure enough the sun was to the north of me, as it had been since April. I was just used to the sun always being in the southern sky. I had registered when I arrived in Ghana last September that the sun was very high in the sky and in the middle of the day there were virtually no shadows at all but that was my last thought on the subject.

Leaving Tema, I spent the next couple of days in Ada Foah a small town in the Eastern Hemisphere on the west bank of the River Volta just north of its estuary. The town fits neatly between the river and the ocean. On the ocean side stands a distinctive Presbyterian church. Saturday was obviously grounds tidying day. There were a good number of parishioners at work with tools and flowers. Some of the men were busy scything the long grass with their machetes. Still nearer the sea was a tiny British cemetery, totally forgotten, many of the graves were almost completely destroyed either by vandals or the waves. I could only make out one name – Captain A. Cooper, died April 11th 1926, aged 50 years. West of the town, the strip of land gets gradually narrower. There is a small fishing village which I visited after the church. It is punctuated by small lagoons crossed by wooden bridges. In one, boys were punting around dropping, lobster pots for crabs (crab pots?). It was a peaceful spot. I was greeted politely by everybody and occasionally steered back towards the correct route through the houses. I was invariably asked where I was going, although heading towards the headland there was very little choice in the matter. There were young men mending nets, ferrymen negotiating the estuary with boatloads of passengers, one man was weaving rushes into wall panels and, as usual, children were everywhere, many of whom were inclined to follow me around. Those that saw my camera demanded: ‘picture, picture!’. Eventually you relent, take the picture, show it to them and they all get tremendously excited. The pictures are usually good but it doesn’t seem quite right to take them. I did, however, say a firm no to the small boy who wanted a picture despite the fact that he was not wearing a stitch of clothing.

I spent much of the rest of Saturday at a very pleasant small hotel overlooking the river. I enjoyed beef in red wine sauce with chips and a couple of beers at a leisurely pace and watched the assorted vessels pass by.

Highlight of my VSO experience?

2008-06-24T02:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of the passing of Ghana's Disability Act. The Ghana Federation of the Disabled held an event in Accra to highlight the event. VSO supports GFD with volunteers and a number of us were drafted in to help with proceedings.

Guest speakers included the minister responsible for the act and senior representatives of the main disabled people's organisations in Ghana. There were two songs performed by a deaf school choir. The newly crowned 'Ghana's Most Beautiful' was also there. She intends to devote part of her year to helping people with disabilities and she outlined her plans. Hopefully she won't have to spend too much of the year having to stand next to tall obrunis . To the left is Mboje, VSO volunteer with GFD.

"She is not correct"

2008-06-24T02:27:00.001-07:00

Many Ghanaians assume that all obrunis are wealthy and in most cases, relatively speaking, we are. The ex-pat obrunis are in general far wealthier than the average VSO volunteer. This perception means that I am regularly asked for money. The kids who having politely greeted me or just shouted ‘obruni, give me thousand’, are not a problem. They can be dealt with easily with a look of mock surprise and indignation. They never persist and know that they are just trying their luck. Obrunis in Koforidua are not that common so they have to make the most of any opportunity. When I go away for a few days there are the people who say, ‘so what did you bring me from Tamale/Accra/UK?’ In these cases I am just apologetic and say I didn’t bring anything for them.

There are other requests which are harder to deal with and before I start on this I have to say I totally understand why people ask and I do not blame them for doing so. Ghana is a developing country and obviously the majority of people have very little. I very rarely do give away money, partly because if word gets around I would be inundated with requests and partly because I know that if I agree to give every time I am asked I would have nothing left. I am left trying to salve my conscious with the thought that theoretically my work here is donation enough.
With the people I don’t know, I have no way of telling how genuine the need is but others are all too apparent and very sad. There was the boy whose flip flop had broken and needed a small amount of cash for new ones. Footwear is a good indicator of relative wealth and is something of status symbol. At work, my colleagues and I wear shoes. Sandals are worn by some and the poorer people wear cheap imported flip flops. The very poorest, of course, walk bare foot.
This week I was buying porridge oats and jam at Mobil 2, neither commodity bought by the average Ghanaian and probably regarded as luxury items. I was approached in the entrance to the shop by a young lady. She asked if I would buy an ice cream she could take back to her young child. This would entertain the child while she did some household chores. She then decided to introduce me to some of the goods on sale in the store pointing out that there were products designed to be convenient and nutritious, effectively wonders of the modern age. She spoke calmly in good English. When she left the shop, the assistants noted that I had clearly made a new friend and said that the lady was ‘not correct’. This is an expression I hear from time to time. There are many expressions in Ghanaian English which have different meanings to other variations of the language. I have not quite decided whether ‘not correct’ in this context meant that the lady’s behaviour was inappropriate, ie that she should not have been begging or that she was, to use another euphemism, ‘not right in the head’.

Another thing which was not correct this week was the offer I was made on Friday morning. A group of men sitting just off my road to work beckoned me over. They pulled back a sheet to reveal two very scruffy, but decidedly dead cats. Both had blood stains on their necks. I know that cat is eaten here and regarded by some as something of a delicacy. Later, when I mentioned my encounter at work, I was told this was not correct. This was not because I was offered cat but because you should never take a cat which is already dead or where the means of death is even slightly ambiguous. The offer was also rather ironic. For the past three weeks I have been cat sitting for one of the other volunteers. As I write this there are two young tortoiseshell cats peacefully sleeping within a foot of my lap top. They don’t like leaving the house and in the circumstances this is probably just as well.

2008-06-17T07:24:00.000-07:00

I have visited Wli Falls once (see earlier item). I buy the Daily Graphic maybe twice a week. What are chances then of opening Saturday's paper and seeing that the Graphic took a picture on the day I visited and that I would (just) be visible in it? 1. is the centre page spread. 2. is a detail of the picture. 3. is a picture I took just before the Graphic and 4. shows me at the falls wearing the purple t-shirt. Click on the picture to open a larger version.

Street Food

2008-06-09T05:02:00.000-07:00

The tiny plot of land beyond my garden wall just appeared to be open wasteland. Every now and then a herd of cows would briefly graze there and move on. A couple of months ago, the scrub was burnt bringing flames rather close to the wall. I was, therefore, rather surprised to find when I returned to Koforidua, after a few days away, that a crop of corn taller than me had appeared there. This was, if nothing else, testament to the fertile soils of Ghana’s forest belt. The cobs are almost ready to harvest. They will then be sold by street vendors, adding to the amazing variety of snack food and drinks which are available in Koforidua throughout the day. Some vendors have fixed spots others keep on the move selling their wares from bowls or glass cabinets carried on their heads. Tro tro stations are popular pitches and the vendors will drift from one tro to the next, paying particular attention to the ones about to depart.

The corn is sold in two variations and the going rate for a cob is ten pesewas. Boiled until tender, the seller will then peel back the skin so the purchaser can inspect the corn before agreeing to buy. She completes the peel and rinses it in water before handing it over. The alternative is grilled on a brazier. Plantain is also sold, grilled in chunks of different sizes and invariably accompanied by a tiny polythene bag of warm groundnuts. The coconut sellers spend their time trimming as much of the unnecessary material away from the nut with machetes before finally removing the top when a sale is made. Once you have drunk the milk you pass the shell back, the seller then cracks it open. He then either passes back the fragments, with a scoop to remove the tender white flesh or he removes the flesh himself and gives you the pieces in a bag. The orange sellers make their preparations by deeply scoring the tough skin of the oranges. This makes them much more pliable. When you buy one you just make a hole at the top of the orange and you can just suck and squeeze out the contents, making no sticky mess. Yam is sold in pieces deep fried and sometimes with grilled, smoked fish. Not fish and chips as I know them but bearing some similarities.

Drinks are usually sold in clear polythene bags, filled on the spot with tea, coffee, hot chocolate, porridge and so on and then tied up. To drink, you bite off the corner and suck out the contents with care. Ice water is sold in the same way but the safer, option ‘pure water’ is filtered and sold in sealed square plastic bags called ‘sachets’. (Ghanaians pronounce the ‘t’ in sachet. It was quite strange in Burkina Faso where the pronunciation was the more familiar French ‘t’-less version). The sachets can be bought individually or in fragile sacks.

‘Rich cake’ is a fairly dry and relatively expensive plain cake which is a cut in a variety of ways, often heart shaped. Better value are the round, doughnut like cakes, which are deep dried in oil. Very occasionally I buy these from a lady with a stall near the ministries who fries them on the spot. I would buy more, but I rarely manage to find her there.

The spot at my garden gate, other than offering bottled lager, Guinness and minerals is also home to a French speaking kebab seller. Over a barbeque made from an old car wheel, and in common with 99 % of kebab sellers all over Ghana, he grills two varieties of kebab. There is the skewer with alternating brown meat (goat or beef) and onion, which is then dipped in very hot spices. Then there is the skewer with the sliced pink sausage. The sausage is very pink indeed. The packs in Intermart say they are beef. The consistency is good, with no lumps of fat, gristle or other unidentifiable matter, but I would not like to hazard a guess as to what is actually in them.

A new addition to the spot is an egg and bread stall. Eggs fried into omelette with a little onion, tomato and maybe salad (even bits of corned beef and fish) are sold in hunks of tea bread.

An interesting combination is provided by the Fan Ice seller. These guys ply there trade from hand carts. The carts have insulated compartments for ice creams and on top of these will be a glass box with warm meat pies. I did once see a man buy something from each compartment. You can always tell if there is a Fan Ice seller in the vicinity by the distinctive sound of the horn he blows.

My favourite is cosay (sorry, I’m not sure of the spelling). It’s a burger shaped disc made from deep fried spicy bean paste. In Koforidua it is served in a long tea bread roll. My enjoyment of this certainly amuses by colleagues.

This is not an exhaustive list of Ghanaian street food. It is possibly to buy full blown meals, stews which you take home in your own bowl or pan or in a plastic bag. Some dishes come wrapped in leaves. What this does demonstrate is that, if you have the money, it is difficult to starve here.

Wli Falls and Hohoe

2008-05-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

I decided to visit Wli Falls, claimed to be the highest waterfall in West Africa, right up against the Togolese border in Volta Region. Most of the other Koforidua volunteers had already been there. I phoned ahead , booked a room at Taste Lodge and on Friday afternoon I went to the Ho Lorry Park to get a tro to Hohoe, the nearest town to the falls. There was no tro in the park, just a group of annoyed people sitting and standing around the ticket office. I was assured that the tro would arrive soon. One of my work colleagues and his brother arrived. They live in Hohoe and go home some weekends. With no sign of the tro, they asked if I would be interested in splitting the taxi fare. They had a friend with a taxi, so we would get a good rate. I agreed, the car was summoned and we left. We made good progress but once beyond the Volta River and the Asikuma road junction the oil light on the dashboard flickered into life. By now we were in deep in the verdant hills of Volta Region. There was an occasional village but nothing more. The driver slowed down in the hope that this would help matters. Generally, Ghanaian filling stations are not dissimilar to those anywhere else in the world with big signs, shops and forecourts. The one that appeared on our left was an open space in the scrub with a single pump in the centre. There was a small thatched shelter and to the side of this some pieces of wood and logs laid out to mark the edges of a makeshift mosque. The driver stopped the car and shouted at the attendant, enquiring whether he had any oil. He had and produced a large can and a funnel. The driver checked the quality with his fingers and bought some. Properly lubricated, my colleague’s brother said a short prayer as we drove away.

The journey to Hohoe took about two and three quarter hours. I checked into the lodge, went for a beer in a central spot and returned for chicken and jollof rice in the lodge restaurant.

On Saturday morning I walked to the tro station, breakfasted on egg and bread from a stall and found the Wli tro. I don’t know whether it was because it was a holiday weekend (Sunday was Africa Union Day and Monday is a holiday), but there were not many people about and all the transport was slow to fill. The tro had one person in it and took nearly 90 minutes to fill. I met up with three Germans. When we arrived at Wli we signed up to have a guide take us to the higher falls. We started gently ambling through the jungle towards the lower falls before striking off up a track which was in places quite a scramble. After an hour and with much sweating and a few stops to catch our breath, we reached the base of the upper falls. The guide had made the climb in flip flops and showed no sign of perspiration. He had insisted that we have at least a litre of water each but he did not touch a drop.

Wli Falls are well worth the visit. The water cascades over a shear drop into the plunge pool below. Another party arrived from Togo. People swam and splashed around in the pool. There were maybe 15 of us there by now and it felt quite a privilege to be in the presence of such magnificent scenery. The time came to leave and for some time we could hear the Togolese calling to us from their path on far side of the falls. On the way down we stopped at the equally impressive lower falls. This was much busier and clearly a popular destination for Ghanaian day trippers. Some of those present were celebrating the end of school exams and others Manchester United’s victory over Chelsea in the UEFA cup. The lower falls are also home to a huge bat colony. It had been dry and partly sunny so far, but at this point it began to rain lightly. There was no sign of a tro but we found a taxi driver prepared to take six of us back for a Ghana Cedi each.

In the evening I watched dancing in the Muslim quarter of Hohoe as part of the outdooring of a new chief.

It rained from around 2 am on Sunday morning and it was only just easing off as I checked out of Taste Lodge at 7:45. I took a tro to Ho and spent the middle of the day with volunteers Karin and Michael. Ho is a much smaller and more rural regional capital than Koforidua. We walked up to the ridge behind the town and looked out to the south west - the almost flat landscape punctuated by the odd mountainous outcrop. After lunch I took a final tro to Koforidua. The sky was heavy with black clouds and it rained intermittently. Crossing the Volta, the view upstream was of the river winding towards overlapping ranges of hills in different shades of grey. As we drove west the sun finally appeared briefly below the cloud before setting. The landscape was illuminated with an eerie golden glow and the road in front of us steamed.

End of the Line

2008-04-29T01:06:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-20T05:06:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-20T04:45:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-04-15T01:16:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-04T02:19:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-04T01:55:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-04T01:53:00.000-07:00

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'

2008-04-03T05:15:00.000-07:00

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...”.

Easter

2008-03-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

Since arriving in Ghana people have been saying that mangoes will soon be back in the market. Well in the last few days they have finally arrived. There are tables of them in neat stacks waiting to be sold.

I'm not really aware what special events appen over Easter. The gift shops wheel out the cellophane wrapped gift baskets they didn't sell at Christmas or on Valentine's Day. A couple of people have talked about trips up various hills and mountains which seems fitting. At some point I will get around to climbing the one that looms over Koforidua.

I shall probably be spending Easter in the north. But this is dependent on all kinds of uncontrollable factors so we will see what actually happens. Next week is a VSO meeting in Accra, so it is unlikely I will write much more before the end of the month.

Happy Easter.

Every Little Helps?

2008-03-19T01:17:00.000-07:00

A new front opens up in the supermarket battle for world domination.

Stella and Kwaku's Wedding

2008-03-17T02:51:00.000-07:00

Last month one of my colleagues invited me to his wedding. The ceremony took place on Saturday at Akropong Akuapem, a small town, about an hour from Koforidua up in the Akwapim Hills. Benefitting from the cooler climate and gentle breezes, the architecture indicates that the place was developed during the colonial period. The spire of the Victorian Presbyterian Church still dominates the town.
Not knowing how long the tro tro would take to fill, I arrived in good time. A funeral was overrunning, so most of the people surrounding the church were in black. Eventually these were replaced by more colourful and in some cases flamboyantly dressed wedding guests, in a mixture of western and local outfits. This combination summed up the wedding itself. Much of the day would be familiar to anybody who has attended a wedding. The ceremony itself was a lively and very happy occasion. Two of the hymns were in Twi, but I was able to join in with To God be the Glory. There was dancing during the offertory. After the photographs it was a short ride towards Mamfe for the reception in the grounds of a private residence.
Ghanaians take meetings very seriously and even in the smallest informal discussion it is often necessary to have an agenda, formal openings and closings and even prayers at start and end. I hadn’t expected this to extend to wedding receptions but there was an agenda (cutting of the cake, popping of the champagne, proposal of toast, vote of thanks etc.) and one of the local MPs had agreed to be the chairman and to make some opening remarks. While the hot buffet was being served (including two the biggest fish I have ever seen on a plate) the Municipal Chief Executive, our ultimate boss arrived to make a few well chosen remarks.
I got a lift back to Koforidua in one of the Assembly’s minibuses. There was much singing on the way and discussion of the views expressed in the church sermon concerning a woman’s role in serving her husband – or not.

2008-03-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I had to go into Accra for a hepititis B booster. I took a tro tro over the hills via Aburi. In the early morning light the valleys were wreathed in a fine mist. It was relatively cool and very peaceful. I got off the tro tro at '37' a big intersection near the airport. After a quick visit to the supermarket, I spent a few minutes watching the bat colony in the trees situated on the edge of the road junction. Because of the time of day not many bats were on the move, but the ones that did move were much bigger than the ones in the UK. After amusing myself and passing Ghanaians, I took another tro tro to the VSO office. My injection was carried out efficiently, VSO reimbursed the expenses, I had a brief conversation with the programme manager and had lunch in Osu, with Behi, another volunteer just back from weather battered Britain.

The return journey to Koforidua was enlivened by a tro tro incident. Just after the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange the tro tro clipped the tail light of a car in front. Both vehicles pulled over. The drivers examined the minor, but annoying damage. The passengers exchanged comments. About half of them got out to join in the discussion. The only resolution the car driver would accept involved going to the Police Station. The passengers returned to the bus, we dutifully drove to the Legon police station. The passengers expressed frustration about so much fuss ofver so small an amount of danage. We entered the police compound. The drivers went into the station and returned with an officer who examined the damage. A small amount of money changed hands and we continued on our way.

Independence Day

2008-03-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

March 6th marks the anniversary of Ghana’s independence from colonial rule. Fifty-one years ago ago Doctor Kwame Nkrumah, who would later became Ghana’s first president, declared “Today, from now on, there is a new African in the world.” There is a big parade in Independence Square in Accra, this one being the final occasion for John Kufuor as President of Ghana. Each of the regional capitals also hosts a parade. Koforidua had two lengthy dress rehearsals on Monday and Tuesday mornings before the actual event. By the time I arrived at Jackson Park on Thursday morning it was 8 am and most of the marching groups had already filed onto the square. The event has to start early to avoid the heat of the day. It was cloudy but the sun soon came through. The spectators could watch from the canopied areas or from under the big trees around the Park’s boundary but the participants were out with no protection for approaching four hours. Several people fainted but the Red Cross stretcher bearers were on hand to get them to a shady area.
1,785 people took part in the parade, representing a range of groups. Obvious ones like the army, the police, various cadet forces, many of the schools and churches and some less expected like the hairdressers and beauticians and the prison officers’ wives. The range of uniforms made it a very colourful occasion. The event was attended by various regional VIPs including the regional minister, senior police, army and local government officials. The local traditional chief made the most impressive entrance with his own parasol bearer. There was a gymnastic display by children from the Presbyterian Trinity Model School, an inspection by the military officers and a march past. Once the VIPs had been collected in their official 4 x 4s, the park quickly emptied, leaving, for many, the rest of the day as a holiday.

Lake Bosumtwi

2008-03-04T04:49:00.001-08:00

I spent the final weekend of February at Lake Bosumtwi near Kumasi with Jacqueline and Gijs. We took a tro tro to Kumasi on Saturday morning and had lunch at Vic Baboo’s Cafe. Jacqueline was stunned to see three pages of vegetarian options in the menu. We arrived at the lake in the late afternoon. Guide book stuff – this is the largest natural fresh water lake in Ghana. It lies in a crater probably formed by a meteorite rather than a volcano. It covers 25 km2 and has a depth of 90 metres and increasing. There is a taboo on the use of traditional fishing boats and consequently fishermen paddle round with their hands on roughly hewn planks of wood called padua. Life has been made easier for them now they are allowed to use nets. The book also says that fishing is not allowed on Sundays but the fishermen clearly haven’t read the book.
It should have been possible to see the ridge of mountainous peaks all around the lake but the Harmattan wind has returned in some force and it was very hazy with all the dust. Nevertheless it was a very tranquil spot. We stayed at the Lake Point Guesthouse run by an Austrian-Ghanaian couple. The accommodation and food were of a very high standard. I particularly liked the breakfast pancakes with fresh papaya. There were a couple of cats hanging around particularly at meal times. The guesthouse had its own section of beach on the lakeshore. On Sunday we walked east around the lake to the next three villages and then returned to spend the afternoon reading in hammocks by the water. We left on Monday morning and rather than take a tro tro from Kumasi we experimented with the big orange Metrobus. Cheaper than the tro tro, but the more rigid suspension gave the speed bumps a more jarring effect.

Quiz Night

2008-02-27T05:28:00.000-08:00

OK, this entry is unashamedly for Unison’s Harrogate Branch members who go to quiz nights at Robert Street. Late one night a couple of weeks ago, Dan sent me a text asking for help. He had been in Accra with the new intake of volunteers. Some of them had been with him to the quiz night at Champs Sports Bar. They had won the quiz and as part of the prize they had been asked to set and host the following week’s quiz. Most of the team had to leave Accra and go to their placements before the next quiz. Hosting therefore fell to Dan, Steve (pictured, asking something obscure on football) and myself. We were assisted by Anne, Dean and Jessie, Sarah’s daughter on the night before she flew back to the UK. I reassured Dan that I had some experience of this type and the idea of asking quiz questions on another continent did appeal.
Champs is an ex-pat bar on the Accra Ring Road. It is very unGhanaian. During the Africa Cup it had hosted the BBC World Service’s Saturday afternoon’s sports programme a couple of times. We were given instructions and expected to bring powerpoint presentations, a film clip, several rounds of questions and music. Steve did sport and current affairs. Dan did the music round and wrestled with a clip of ‘Anchorman’ – two hours before we left Koforidua for Accra he found a continuity error which messed up his questions. I did a round based on people celebrating their birthdays on 21st February including Robert Mugabe and Charlotte Church. Wikipedia has its uses. We also discovered it was UNESCO Mother Language Day which was an excuse to use Alta Vista to translate Beatles song titles into Korean and back again. Some were hard and unfathomable like ‘Silence’ (Something) and ‘Inside living one’ (A Day in the Life) but my favourites were much easier – ‘The strawberry keeps defending forever’ and ‘The superior red pepper, the heart of which is lonely, hits the evil unit’. One round ended with a six way tie, so there had to be a drink off between those six team.
There were no complaints about questions or the marking, we only overran our slot a bit and we had some Windows Vista issues which led to a last minute music round substitution but as hosts we were given free beer for the duration. The next set of new volunteers arrives in September. This time I’ll be waiting for that text from Dan.

2008-02-19T11:15:00.000-08:00

A week last Saturday Dan ‘phoned. Agnieszka, one of our volunteers in the Upper East was staying in Accra and had found tickets for the Grand Finale of the Africa Cup. Within 24 hours we were in Accra and on our way to the game. With a largely Ghanaian crowd, the atmosphere was less tense than it would have been had Ghana been playing, but there was a party mood. The Egyptian fans were to our right and before the game started some of them brought a banner round with a thank you message to their Ghanaian hosts. We had seats behind the Cameroon goal for the first half and were in a good position to see the keeper stop the Pharaohs from scoring. In the second half and at the other end of the pitch, he was unable to prevent Egypt from producing the only goal of the match and winning the tournament for a record sixth time. The President of Ghana presented the trophy and there was a final firework display before we left the stadium.
I don’t expect to be writing about football again while I am in Ghana. The tournament saw some excellent matches in some excellent facilities. Ghana, though disappointed not to have won, has much to be proud of in its handling of the event. A week on football fever has died away. George W. Bush has just stepped off Air Force One as I write for a 36 hour visit and talk has begun to return to the other big Ghanaian event of 2008 – the presidential election in its final days. The next Africa Cup will be in Angola in 2010. I hope it will not be overshadowed, later in the year when South Africa hosts the first World Cup to be held in Africa.

What I’m eating

2008-02-12T03:19:00.001-08:00

The short answer to this is “not enough”, as I’ve certainly lost some weight since I arrived. (VSO note that generally male volunteers lose weight while the females gain). I will save what Ghanaians eat and eating out for another day, suffice to say, what I generally prepare bears no little relation to what my neighbours will be eating.

I am fortunate in that Koforidua offers a wide range of foodstuffs in its markets and shops. In Accra almost everything is available – at a price. Ho benefits from being near the Togolese border and sees some fruit and vegetables that we don’t. In the north, the variety is poorer although, from what I saw of it, Tamale does pretty well.

The market in Koforidua is large. Tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, cabbage, green beans, carrots, cucumber, green peppers, chilli peppers and spring onions are easily found and instantly recognisable. Potatoes can often be found in small (relatively) expensive quantities. Cauliflowers and aubergines are very rare indeed but huge avocadoes are available from time to time. Less familiar items are garden eggs (yellowish, auberginish and nt surprisingly egg-shaped), ochre, cocoa yam leaves (large limp leaves, not unlike spinach), cassava, plaintain and yam. Plantain is like a large banana but fried or boiled and used as a vegetable. Yam looks like a small wooden log. Once cooked it’s like a very starchy, very bland potato. With suitable flavouring it makes a fine potato substitute and costs a lot less than the real thing. Cassava is similar to yam.

There are oranges, bananas (smaller than those at home, but with a good taste), pineapples, coconuts, (lumpy) lemons, papaya and (seasonally) mangoes. Apples are available but are expensive as they are imported. They tend to sold on the roadside in packs rather than in the market. Lemons and oranges are both green.

Easily obtainable items in shops include canned fish (mackerel, sardines, tuna), corned beef, canned hot dogs and other meat but never pork based (I’ve managed to avoid the chicken or beef luncheon meat so far and the small tins marked canned mutton), baked beans, tomato paste, jam, pasta, rice, cream cracker type biscuits, porridge oats and vegetable oil.

Frozen meat and fish can be purchased from cold stores (haven’t done this yet) and, of course, live poultry and the odd goat is always available.

To add some further variety, there are the petrol station shops. Depending on what stock has come their way, they may offer Cadbury’s chocolate, Kit-Kats (fortunately the shops are air conditioned, British chocolate does not fare well in tropical Africa), canned sweet corn, kidney beans, mayonnaise, Heinz vegetable salad, breakfast cereals, cheese, butter and foreign biscuits (we have recently found a supply of Dutch spiced spekulaas biscuits and are fairly rapidly getting through the stock).

To get much more, really needs a trip to Accra. There is a supermarket with a vast range of imported and breathtakingly priced produce near the VSO office and Shoprite, a South African chain has just opened its first branch in Ghana, on the Koforidua side of town. For supplements to local goods like spices, sauces, Coleman’s mustard and European style bakeries Accra is fine, but it is not practical or affordable for a weekly shop.

For breakfast I alternate between porridge and bread fried in egg. The porridge is Quaker oats bought in a resealable tin. The local ant population has a knack of finding its way through anything short of a hermetic seal. Fresh or indeed liquid milk of any kind is almost unheard of in Ghana. Evaporated milk from Ideal or other brands is used in hot drinks and after that its dried milk. I use the dried which is fine for cooking and just add a heaped dessert spoon to the porridge as I’m making it. According to the tin it is packed with vitamins and apparently it can be turned into yoghurt. Eggs are sold individually in the market, current price 12 pesewas each. Bread is widely available and tends to be sweeter than at home. This is not so good for sandwiches but is not a problem for toast or frying in egg. I drink hot chocolate, usually Milo, rather than instant coffee or tea. At the weekend I have ground coffee from Accra which I brew in a small metal pan and pour out through a small sieve.

Lunch tends to be something picked up in town or a meal at the Ghana Commercial Bank’s restaurant with Dan.

In the evenings I often have pasta with sauce. Tuna, olives (a jar from Accra), tomatoes, garlic, onions or a Bolognese made with corned beef (better than it sounds). Chilli is an option (also corned beef based). Sometimes I have something cold with tomatoes and cucumber and a rice or pasta salad. I have made risotto with canned mushrooms. There is a range of very good stock cubes, particularly the Maggi ones. Soups tend to work well - thick vegetable ones with mashed yam to give extra body or tomato and dried bean. Just what you need on these cold, 20oC+ February nights! Fish cakes or corned beef hash with yam are good. I only have gas rings and no oven, but the fridge/ freezer means that if I make a large quantity I can freeze part for another day. I don’t often have dessert. There is always fruit and biscuits.

Tonight I’m going to see what I can do with South African dried soya mince. It says its lamb biryani flavour.

End of the ‘Host and Win’ Dream

2008-02-12T03:12:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday afternoon the sky darkened earlier than normal and Koforidua saw its first rain in a couple of weeks. The weather conditions interrupted the power supply and the back up generator at the Mobil 2 spot kept dying. These were the circumstances in which we watched the Black Stars’ semi-final encounter with the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon. By the end of the first half the mains power had returned and the TV interruptions stopped, but Ghana’s fortunes could not be restored so easily. With the absence of a couple of key players, including suspended captain, Mensah, some debateable refereeing and against a determined performance from Cameroon, the Black Stars found themselves ejected from the competition. On this occasion the Cameroonian Lions were indeed indomitable. On the final whistle the group watching at Mobil 2 rapidly melted away. Despite a huge disappointment, the fans in town (ie the entire population) were stoic in defeat. We were in a taxi a little later and the driver was matter of fact about the unfortunate circumstances of Ghana’s final match in the Africa Cup. There was no blame. All the Black Stars had to console themselves with was a victory in the third place play off against Cote d’Ivoire in Kumasi on Saturday, ironically the fixture the Ghanaian press had been predicting as the final.

2008-02-05T09:58:00.001-08:00

Not a proper entry this week, as time has gone rather quicker than expected. Instead, in celebration of Ghana's quarter-final victory over 'local' rivals Nigeria, a couple more Africa Cup pictures.

Africa Cup - The Opening Matches

2008-01-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

Ghana has made it through the first round with a victory in each game. Top of group A, they now face Nigeria in the quarter finals on Sunday. I have seen each of Ghana’s three opening matches in different circumstances. I watched the first game against Guinea on TV at my landlord’s house across the compound. These were definitely the most civilised surroundings. I watched with his two boys and was plied with fruit juice and biscuits. All the terrestrial channels are showing the games live. For the first half of the tournament there are games every night so there is really no escape. Choice of channel you watch tends to depend on which has the best reception rather than the best coverage.
I watched the second game against Namibia at the Total 1 bar or ‘spot’ in the centre of Koforidua about 20 metres from my day time office window. The larger petrol stations in Ghana often have their own spots. There are three Total stations here, hence the numbering. I sat with a colleague from work. Dan would have been there too, but he reluctantly decided to go home, having discovered a large cockroach in his house and deciding he did not want to be cohabiting with any of its friends for any longer than necessary. Although this was a victory for Ghana it was not their finest 90 minutes. Fortunately, the only goal of the match came just before half time giving cause for much flag waving, dancing, singing, horn blowing, music and general excitement during the interval. This continued at the end of the match.
As previously mentioned I was in Accra for the Morocco fixture. I was in a row of seven VSO volunteers. The refurbished stadium is very impressive. We had good seats near the centre line opposite the main stand. We could see the Ghana coach LeRoy, opposite standing in his trade mark arms folded position, but the running track around the pitch puts some distance between spectator and player. Fortunately Essien, wears yellow boots and is easy to spot. The stadium was nearly full and the crowd was in cheerful mood. If there were Moroccan fans present, we could not see them. We were in more expensive seats (about £7.50) which meant that there were a lot of non-Ghanaians around us. I felt sorry for the Ghanaian sitting next to me as he was sandwiched between white people.
Although Ghana was top of the group before the game, depending on the other group game being played simultaneously down the coast in Sekondi, it was still possible for them not to proceed to the next round. Morocco needed to win to stay in the tournament. By all accounts, this was the best game Ghana has played in the tournament to this point. Ghana scored twice in the first half and Morocco was unable to recover from this.
It is unlikely I will see any more of the games first hand. Demand for tickets to the later rounds will be high and the arrangements for distributing tickets have come under some criticism in the Ghanaian press.

Bunso Arboretum

2008-01-22T03:33:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning I took a tro-tro westward from Koforidua for about an hour. It left the main road to Kumasi at Tafo and a couple of kilometres further on, it passed the entrance to Bunso Arboretum. Like the botanical gardens in Aburi, it was marked with an avenue of tall palm trees. I asked the mate to stop and I walked back to the arboretum. The back road was not busy and I was immediately struck by how peaceful the place was. To the right was a small wooden building and on the veranda I found Ben (26), the guide and Philip who managed the guesthouse. I later found this was two-thirds of the park’s staff. The third man was a Seventh Day Adventist and therefore understandably unavailable.

After a chat, Ben took me on a walking tour. We wandered through the trees for a couple of hours while Ben told me something about them and their various uses. It was fascinating and I only wish I was able to remember half of what he said. Early on we found an unusual type of cherry tree which had produced a couple of fruit. Ben picked one, washed it in bottled water and passed it to me to try. It was vertically ridged and looked like a tiny tomato but tasted good. We then moved on to a bush with small capsule shaped, radish coloured berries. Ben peeled an orange he had brought and gave me a quarter to eat. He asked me how it tasted and I said it was fine but a little sharp. He invited me to suck the flesh from a couple of the red berries and wait for four minutes. I then ate the remainder of the orange. Because of the berries, it tasted a lot sweeter. Ben explained that these berries had been used to make very bitter medicines, like those created from tree bark, more palatable. Sadly, although an excellent natural sweetener, also suitable for diabetics, there was no interest in using these berries commercially in Ghana. There had been some overseas interest but it not amounted to anything yet. This seemed to me particularly strange with Ghana’s cocoa research institute only five minutes drive away. (So far it has only diversified into cashews.)

We moved on to a tree with very large buttressing roots at its base. Ben demonstrated the alarm that could be raised by striking the roots with a large stick. They produced a very satisfactory booming sound. The gaps between the roots also provided sufficient shelter for his ancestors to live in. All the time we were walking we were surrounded by flittering butterflies. Ben said that there was an unusually large number this year and that a visitor that morning reckoned there could easily be 500 species present. Unfortunately they were particularly energetic and did not want to sit still and be photographed. We moved on to a tall tree from which dangled lengthy fronds some of which had reached the ground and burrowed in to become routes. This plant, monstera had a symbiotic relationship with the host tree but unlike a parasite did not draw from the tree. It just used the tree for accommodation. The fronds grew very fast and Ben happily demonstrated their strength by hoisting himself up and swinging his 70 kilo weight from them. We returned to the visitor centre via the hill top guesthouse. It was set in a secluded opening in the tropical vegetation and enjoying good views of the surrounding scenery.

Although the visitor book showed a flow of visitors into the place, it was clearly a very modest trickle. The place has no publicity budget and no website. It receives a good entry in Bradt – the only comprehensive English language guide to Ghana - and is briefly listed in a Ghana Tourist Board leaflet for the whole of Ghana. It is situated only 3 kilometres from the Linda Dor Service Station on the main road from Accra to Kumasi and the north and easily accessible by car. The guesthouse was reasonably priced and had electricity and running water but could provide no food. The whole place is sadly one of many missed opportunities in Ghana. The potential there is huge.

Africa Cup of Nations

2008-01-18T04:54:00.000-08:00

It would be pointless to try and ignore the biggest event in Ghana this year. On Sunday the 26th Africa Cup of Nations will open with a match between Ghana’s Black Stars and Guinea at the newly refurbished Ohene Djan Stadium in the centre of Accra. To be hosting the tournament and to be tipped as a strong contender to win it, has given Ghana its biggest high in...well, 10 months since the peak of the 50th anniversary of independence celebrations. There are flags everywhere in Koforidua, no self respecting taxi driver is without one. I will be in Accra on Monday and no doubt they will be in even greater abundance there. Street sellers have t-shirts, a wide assortment of hats, key rings, banners and so on and they are praying more than anyone that the Black Stars make it past the first round. Thursday’s ‘Daily Graphic’, the biggest selling newspaper here devoted the entire edition to the competition, with the exception of one article inside the back cover about the national security minister who was recently sacked by the president and is now alleged to be under house arrest.

Ghanaians love football and it is frequently the topic of conversation. I am regularly asked which my favourite team is and my interrogator usually tells me his (very rarely her) favourite is Chelsea and this is usually because of the presence of one Michael Essien, the nation’s footballing hero. My current claim to fame is that I met somebody who was actually on the same ‘plane as him coming in from Heathrow on Wednesday. It will surprise nobody who knows me, that I have not seen the man play football, but I am familiar with him from his regular appearances in advertising campaigns. He is apparently a big advocate of Guinness and his secret is apparently Fanyogo, a frozen pink yoghurt product.

Advertising generally for the tournament is big business. While we were in Tamale in November huge hoardings appeared right across the main highway almost over night, advertising MTN the main sponsor of the event. Even the government has got in on the act, with posters stating that by paying their taxes Ghanaians will be supporting the Black Stars.

It has been quite a race to get the four stadia and the entire supporting infrastructure ready for the tournament. The nation now holds its breath to see how the Black Stars perform on Sunday. There is some anxiety because the team captain, Stephen Appiah is injured and out of the tournament. Coach Claud LeRoy has assured fans that Appiah will be with the team throughout the tournament to lend moral support. “He brings something extra. He is the natural leader of this team, so it will be great to have him with us.”

My interest in all this? Well I’ve been eating Special Edition Stars Rice (‘Support the Black Stars to Victory’), I bought the T-shirt (down in the docks in Takoradi, of all places) and I’m going (along with six other volunteers) to Ghana’s last first round game in Accra against Morocco, tipped to be Ghana’s most serious competitor in Group A.

The Walk to Work

2008-01-15T06:05:00.000-08:00

I leave at around 8 am, which was either just before or after Krishma was picked up by Osu, the driver from the garment factory. The sun will have been up for a couple of hours and is already very hot, but more bearable than it will be later in the morning. Nevertheless it is wise not to adopt to fast a pace or I end up coated in sweat by the time I arrive. The walk takes about 15 minutes, depending on distractions. The bar or ‘spot’ immediately next to the gate on to the road is quiet. The noise from the bar varies from night to night but it is almost always silent soon after 9 pm.
There are a number of school children around in their smart shirts, shorts and shoes. I rarely make it to work without ‘obruni’ (white man) being called at me at least once. I usually respond by asking how they are in Twi (stretching my knowledge of the language close to its limit). They always respond and usually with a giggle.
I pass the Kes Hotel, and the occasional small shops on the way to the main road. I exchange waves and smiles with some of the shopkeepers. There was a Labradorish dog on the corner with a number of tiny puppies but the last one is now quite grown up now. There are chickens and chicks everywhere, usually ferreting about in the drains and scrub. Somebody has dyed their chicks shocking pink but this is wearing off now. Fortunately all the roads are tarmaced. Dan and Halim, in the other VSO house in Koforidua must negotiate a muddy track before they reach the main road.
I turn right on to the main road at the imposing Presbyterian Church. All the major Christian denominations are represented in Koforidua. The Catholics have an elegant twin towered building positioned above the town on the lower slopes of the town’s twin mountains. With the continuous changing weather the mountains always look different. Although, in season, the rain tends to come in the morning , there is no guarantee of this. Some mornings the peaks are hidden in cloud, others they are brightly sunlit. Often the tree lined ridges are silhouetted against a threatening dark blue cloud. At the moment the peaks are hazy because of the Harmattan but this soon fades.
There are more small businesses along the roadside – a couple of electrical repair men usually working on the innards of a TV set or video recorder, barber shops and tailors and seamstresses. There is a small rubbish dump with a skip in it. Most mornings there are a few vultures picking over the wast. Whenever you look up to the skies over Koforidua, you will probably see a few vultures wheeling around.
I reach Jackson Park (pictured), the vast tree lined square on the edge of the central business district. Most mornings it is just being used as a short cut or by kids playing at the table tennis table or on the basket ball court. There used to be a pool table but this disintegrated one night during a particularly heavy storm. On Thursday the bead market is set up in the north east corner. This is town’s chief tourist attraction and may mean the arrival of a few additional obrunis. On Saturdays the square hosts an array of funeral parties, the guests dressed either in black or white. On the northern side of the square is the remnant of a large tree. At night it used to provide shelter for hundreds of storks. Before Christmas about two-thirds of the tree was removed by the Assembly. A few puzzled storks remain, some pick their way through the debris of the tree, like the victims of an earthquake returning to look for their belongings.
I walk along the side of the Municipal Assembly compound. There are a couple of newspaper stands. The front pages are pinned up for passers by to read. I occasionally buy the Daily Graphic and wait to see how long it sits on my desk before somebody picks it up.
There are a couple of people sitting under large parasols with large manual typewriters waiting to provide typing services for anybody requiring a letter. Many of these will find their way onto the desks of my colleagues. Finally I turn in through the gates of the New Juaben Municipal Assembly, cross the compound, through the car park and enter the building.

Tro-Tros

2008-01-11T05:03:00.000-08:00

One of the brochures from the Ghana Tourist Board describes tro-tros as ‘adventure –filled minibuses’. Lonely Planet, takes a less romantic view – ‘a catch-all category that embraces all forms of transport that‘s not a bus or a taxi’. The tro-tro network across Ghana is comprehensive and often the only affordable way of getting from A to B. The coaches may be safer and cost no more but they are often equally unreliable and, as they almost totally ignore Koforidua, I have rarely used them.
A tro-tro is a minibus which can carry from around 14 to 24 passengers depending on size. Most are Japanese. Prerequisites are:

a) a cracked windscreen;
b) tip down seats in the side aisle (meaning that nobody on the left hand side can get out without the aisle passenger leaving the tro first);
c) a brief message in large cut out letters on the back window, usually religious – ‘God Knows’, ’Jesus Saves’, that kind of thing, although I have seen ‘Frank Lampard’;
d) a radio tuned either to booming reggae or a man ranting on religious or political themes or a hole in the dashboard and no radio at all;
e) a maximum of one functioning dial on the dashboard, rarely speedometer; and
f) one baby/small child who will cry for at least part of the journey. If unavailable, a chicken will provide a similar role.

The tro-tro will be manned by a driver and usually a driver’s mate. The mate collects fares, juggles small amounts of change and may allocate seats. I once saw a female mate in Accra, but don’t expect this to catch on. The tro-tro will not depart until all the seats are full. A tro-tro can take between a few minutes and several hours to fill depending on route and time of day. Larger tro-tros should be avoided as they take longer to fill and, paradoxically, there is less space in them. If desperate this wait can be circumvented by paying for any remaining seats. The only exception to this was a tro-tro I took from Cape Coast which left, for no obvious reason, with five empty seats.

The mate will drum up business by shouting out the name of the destination repeatedly – ‘Circlecirclecircle’ or ‘Accraaccraaccraaccra’. In Accra there are also a series of hand gestures which he will use at bus stops to indicate to passengers the tro tros destination. The most obvious being a downward circular gesture to present Nkrumah Circle the hub of the urban and regional network in Accra. Tro tros do not have destination boards but in tro-tro stations they will often have a wooden block on the roof with the name of the terminus on it. This is always removed before departure.

The front seat with the driver is usually a good bet as there is more leg room and usually a seat belt. The middle seat immediately beside the driver is less good as the seat is usually harder than the edge one and there is always the strong possibility that the driver will attempt to change gear with your knee.

Despite my height I have only once been truly uncomfortable in a tro-tro and the prospect of spending five hours in one presents no fears. On long journeys all the passengers lean forward with their heads on the seat in front. This is OK until a section of rumble strips is encountered. This has become a favourite design feature on Ghanaian roads. You can see the roads ministry officials deciding that if the generally poor state of roads doesn’t finish off the suspension in most cars then a few sleeping policemen should do the trick. The exceptional trip was the three hours from Tamale to Bolgatanga with David, Hugh and Dan. We had decided to sit along the back row. There were seats for five but as none of us were exactly small, you could not slide even a very small chicken between us. Seeing that the mate had no intention of leaving without the non-existent seat filled, we paid for it. The back row had almost no leg room and my bottom was soon very sore from taking all my weight. I really wanted to get out after the first hour. We resorted to trying to stand up for brief spells just to relieve the discomfort.

There is always very little space for luggage. I usually have a small rucksack and carry it on my knee. I have managed two rucksacks and a couple of carriers of groceries. Bigger items are charged for and they either go in the tiny space behind the back seat or on the roof. Most tro-tros no longer rely on the locking mechanism on the back door to keep it shut. They are usually tied down with strong cord and you hope it does not break on the journey.

While waiting in a tro-tro station or lorry park, various retail opportunities are presented by (generally) ladies carrying assorted wares on their heads. There are the usual pure water sachets, rich cake, plantain chips (delicious), ice creams, PK chewing gum and then there will be books, toothpaste, bread (very popular) and anything else anybody seems to have to hand. The sellers also know where the tro-tros will have to slow down en-route because of congestion so they wait there to do more business. Some roadside communities appear to be entirely dependent on passing tro-tro trade.

There will occasionally be on board entertainment in the form of an argument about seats or a small crash (the big ones fail to entertain). The crashes occasionally promise to escalate into a fight, with the driver either being egged on or scolded by the passengers. Travelling slowly (there is no other way) round the Accra Ring Road a man stood up near the front and tried to convince the passengers of the benefit of a small box of teeth cleaning powders. He was talking in Twi, but I’m sure that at one point he suggested that this was the preferred dental hygiene choice of white people. I was tempted to stand up and deny it. It is not uncommon for a prayer to be said before a tro-tro starts but on one trip, for at least half an hour, a woman decided to lead the tro-tro passengers in prayers and singing. The response dwindled and eventually she sat down and went to sleep.

Drivers will not be averse to unscheduled stops on route. You’ll be driving along a deserted country road and suddenly you’ll stop, a passenger or even the driver will get out and vanish into the bush. He will come back a few moments later with a huge bunch of plantain or a bottle of palm oil. On a related point, on the trip to Tamale, the coach stopped at road works and before we knew it, enterprising locals had sold enough plantain to the passengers to block the central aisle.

Routes are not entirely fixed. The Kumasi road into Accra is congested and there is a major new piece of road construction in hand. As things snarl up the tro-tros invariably turn right and take rutty unmade lanes round some residential area before rejoining the main road. Occasionally drivers are more ambitious and to the vocal dismay of the passengers will appear to head off in completely the wrong direction.

There are fairly frequent police check points on major routes. Most tro-tros are pulled over and the driver will show his papers and maybe give a small dash (‘gift’ or ‘tip’ but not a bribe, OK?) to the officer. Tro-tros in the south will, by and large, not carry more passengers than their official capacity. If they do it is usually only for a mile or so. In Volta region we were stopped when over the seating limit and the policeman insisted that the driver’s mate got out. We drove off without him and then waited for him to catch up on foot about half a mile further on.

I gather that my tro-tro experiences are fairly mild by comparison with those in the north of Ghana. Goats on a Tro may not have the same ring to it as Snakes on a Plane but they are common place in the Upper East and Upper West. As somebody said to me: “So how do goats get about in the south?” The answer is I don’t know, maybe they just stay at home. Some of the more experienced volunteers say that occasionally they have come across dead bodies on tro-tros, so there is something else to look forward to.

Tro-tros are usually elderly. The mildest manifestation of this is that clothes are easily torn on the exposed sharp corners of seats. The strongest, is that in any major collision they will crumple to nothing. I have sat in the back corner of a tro-tro and on bumpy roads felt one side move one way and one move the other. None would pass a British MOT. I have been on a tro-tro when the driver has turned the ignition key and there has been no sign of life in the battery whatsoever. He released the handbrake and we rolled off. The engine started and we drove for two hours without mishap. Tro-tros are a cheap, efficient and often entertaining way of travelling around Ghana, but I reserve the right to change this view when I break down in one.

Christmas at the Beach

2008-01-05T02:12:00.000-08:00

Five days at the beach seemed to turn into 11 very easily. Halim, Sally, Demetrio, Helen, Ruth and I left Koforidua on Saturday 22nd. We were split into two tro tros they were estate cars that could hold seven passengers rather than minibuses. Ruth, Helen (suffering from typhoid, but which at the time we were treating as malaria) arrived in daylight and walked up Butre beach (pictured) to the resort. The others arived after dark and we were joined by Alex and Katie. The next few days involved a boat trip on the bay, a Christmas day sandcastle competition on the beach, some messing around in the water and not much else. The most strenuous thing I did was visit Fort Metal Cross at Dixcove (pictured), where I met two Texan Peace Corps volunteers from Burkina Faso who were marvelling at just how what Ghana offered by comparison with their postings. The resort was very good but we found ourselves regularly migrating to the adjacent one. Indeed, when we left the first resort we moved into Ghana Spirit for another couple of days. The place was run by a couple from the UK and had only been open a couple of days. The food was excellent, particularly the Christmas Day barbeque. There was also a games area with a fantastic range of board games and books and even some recent British magazines. I hope to go back before I leave Ghana. The website at www.ghanaspirit.com gives a better idea of the place.

When we finally left the place, we moved the short distance to Cape Coast (Queen Victoria above) stopping only in Takoradi for an excellent English breakfast, complete with that rarity in Ghana - bacon. There are pigs here but aprt from the odd trotter in the markets you almost never see piece of pig in the shops. From Cape Coast we visited Elmina Castle (pictured) and I went to the slave village at Assin Manso. We spent the final minutes of 2007 at a bar right on the coast with fireworks (pictured).

Ho! Ho! Ho!

2007-12-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday, all the volunteers in southern Ghana travelled to Ho, the capital of Volta Region, Ghana's most easterly region. It was a good opportunity to catch up with other volunteers and meet the new recruits who arrived in November. The meeting finished on Saturday morning, when Krishma and I took a tro tro to Tafi Atome, where there is a sanctuary for Mona monkeys. There are four tribes within the sanctuary and we found the one nearest the village and fed them bananas. The sanctuary was set up 11 years ago as part of a volunteer led tourism project.

Prior to the Ho meeting, and after three months in Ghana, I was unable to put off the inevitable any longer. I had a hair cut. There is no real discussion as there is only really one hair cut available and that involves a thorough going over with the clippers. I now have the shortest haircut I have ever had but it is very practical and needs no attention whatsoever.

This is the last blog entry I shall make before Christmas, so I would like to wish you all a very happy Christmas. I'm off to back my bags for the coast.

Christmas in Ghana

2007-12-10T08:40:00.000-08:00

Christmas is approaching. This is relatively low key compared to home and probably no bad thing. There are Christmas hymns on the radio, and there are one or two artificial trees about. The Christmas holiday itself is a time for family and friends. Two of the five VSO volunteers in Koforidua - Abi and Krishma - go home for good at Christmas and Dan will be home for the holiday and back in January. We celebrated early on Friday - a holiday here as well to mark Farmers' Day. We ate well, pulled crackers, wore hats and played games.

I would just like to thank everybody who has donated to VSO over the past few months. Hopefully I thanked you all individually by e-mail, but if not I do apologise. In addition to the amount shown on the just giving website, CIPFA, my professional institute has donated 1,500 pounds on my behalf. The webpage will be closing on 31st December so this is your last chance to give. There is a link to the page just across to the right...

Some Snaps

2007-12-03T04:47:00.000-08:00

Just a few pictures as a catchup while I am at the VSO office. From the top - Aburi Botanical Gardens, with Dan, Hugh and friend in Paga, the Tamale bus in Accra, moody shot of Koforidua and Cape Coast.

Chicks and Money

2007-11-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

Just over a week ago, exactly 2 months after arriving in Ghana, I finally gained access to my Ghanaian bank account. This was a lengthy process, not helped by the three weeks my application spent in a desk draw. It does mean that I now have access to the allowance that VSO pay me quarterly (in advance). The actual application meant spending a number of hours in the Koforidua branch of one of Britain's best known banks, shuffling from one seat to another as I got nearer to the desk officer. I now have a cash card with a pin number, both of which were created on the spot in the branch. We are advised to withdraw over the counter though, as this is safer than using the cash machines. Money generally has been slightly more confusing than the usual problems you have on holiday. In July the Ghana Cedi lost four zeros and colourful new notes were issued. The old ones though remain in circulation and will do until at least the end of the year. When shopping, prices are still given in the old denominations so 5,000 cedis has now become half a Ghana cedi and combinations of both notes and coins can be used. A new Ghana cedi is worth about the same as a US dollar and there are two to the pound. One big advantage is that the new notes go to a much higher value. The previous highest value was 20,000 cedis or one pound! It is now 50 Ghana cedis or 25 pounds but try getting change from one of them!

Virgil, one of the Filipino volunteers spent the weekend with Krishma and me. In his honour Krishma made chicken curry for us and the other Koforidua volunteers. As everybody locally will tell you, the best chickens are bought live from the market. We collected one on Saturday morning. Adjua, our landlord's niece had agreed to kill and pluck it but when it cam to it, Virgil did the deed. Without giving details, it was a fairly straightforward process and the results were done justice in the cooking and the eating.

One final thing. When I introduce myself to Ghanaians, I usually have to say my name is ree-CHARD. Richard is a common name in Ghana but if I pronounce it Rich-ud, I usually get blank looks and the request to repeat it.

Call Back

2007-11-15T03:37:00.000-08:00

To complete our in country training all new volunteers attend a two day meeting to compare experiences and look at solving any early problems that are emerging. Because most VSO v0lunteers are based in the north of the country this usually happens in the north. This year it took place in a hotel on the edge of Tamale. All the southern volunteers travelled up by coach from Accra, on Wednesday of last week. This was a 12 hour trip with breaks on the way, on the edge of Kumasi and in Kintampo. We left Accra at 7:30 am and arrived at 8pm. It was really good to catch up with the other volunteers and we spent a couple of enjoyable evenings together. On Friday night a few of us went to one of the local nightclubs in Tamale. As frequently occurs the white people are the focus of attention and I think we all recived complimentary remarks about our dancing. On Saturday morning Hilary, Al and I paid our respects to the local chief and visited his house and many wives. (Nobody present was prepared to say quite how many wives he had.)

Most of the volunteers then returned to their placement towns and villages but Dan and I stayed a few days longer and were provided with excellent hospitality in Navrongo and Bolgatanga. It was good to see the conditions and circumstances in which other volunteers live. The north is different the south in many ways. One of the most striking practical differences is how much drier it is. Our clothes dried out much more quickly than at home. The dry Saharan Harmattan winds are also beginnig to blow. This will make everything including our throats very dry over thhe coming weeks. On Sunday, Dan Hugh and I visited the crocodiles in Paga right on the border with Burkina Faso and we spent a large part of Tuesday with the volunteers staying in Bolgatanga to have motorcycle training.

The journey from Bolgatanga to Accra is 816 kilomtres, over 500 miles. The bus was scheduled to leave at 9 am yesterday, it left at 10:30, at Tamlae it was taken away for 90 minutes, At Kumasi we had to change onto another bus and we rolled into Accra at about 3 am. I am currently at the VSO office in Accra and should be back in Koforidua later today.

2007-10-31T09:04:00.001-07:00

I had expected that by this point life would have settled down and I would have started to write about some aspects of day to day life in Ghana but at the moment there are far too many things going on to do that.

Last Tuesday the Municipal Assembly was visited by small group from Rochester, NY near the Great Lakes. One of their number was a Ghanaian who had lived in the States since the '70s and was now keen to set up some partnerships in the Koforidua area. I was fortunate enough to join the group for lunch and a trip out to the Akosombo Dam, to the north east of town, at the foot of Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in the world. We were taken on a brief tour.

At the weekend I visited three volunteers in the Central Region. I took the tro tro to Asikuma where Behi lives. Unfortunately the mobile phone transmitter failed at a crucial moment andI spent half an hor chasing sightings of Behi around town assisted by three Cubans. Once I found her, we discovered the hotel was full and I spent the night in a very basic lodging house, but there were no bugs. On Saturday we met up with Virgil (Phillipino) and Sulliman (Ugandan) in Cape Coast. We had lunch overlooking the ocean and then spent the remainder of the afternoon on the high walkways 100 metres above the rainforest floor in Kakum National Park. After a night with Sulliman we visited Cape Coast Castle on Sunday morning. This was a British fort used as the last holding point for thousands of slaves before they were transported to the new world. It was last used for that purpose in 1807. The guide was excellent and sensitively dealt with all the issues. After lunch it was tro-tros home, except thant on reaching Swedru with Virgil, I found the connecting service dod not run on Sunday afternoons. I spent the night at Virgil's house and left for Koforidua in the morning.

It feels as if the rainy seasaon is noe coming to an end. I havenot felt rain properly since Saturday afternoon.

On Tuesday next week I leave for Tamale for the end of our introductory training. This will involve a night in Accra and and all day coach to the north. I hope to see some of the wildlife up there, but it may be a fortnight beofre I can post about it.

Kumasi

2007-10-22T02:53:00.000-07:00

Lightning on Friday knocked out our power supply. (It is still out on Monday morning) Fortunately Krishma and I had already decided to spend the weekend in Kumasi, Ghana's second city and a four hour tro tro ride from Koforidua. We were on the road by 8:15. Kumasi has one of, if not, the biggest markets in West Africa. It has 10,000 traders -rather bigger than Skipton Market but without the flourescent jackets. It was also ridiculously busy with people constantly on the move. We found a Lonely Planet recommended hotel near the centre at the top of an office/business block. It had hot water, TV and soft sheets. We visited the Cultural Centre which had a range of very tasteful locally produced craft work. It stayed dry, but in the evening it rained heavily and we were glad of the restaurant in the same complex as the hotel. Although there were a few white people about we felt less conspicuous here than in Koforidua. People were just too busy to be bothered with us. On Sunday morning a man explained to us about the medical properties of the elepant bone his friend was sawing up. We peered through the gates of the Ashanti king's palace and then took the tro tro home again.

Pictures!

2007-10-22T02:24:00.000-07:00

Just a couple to catch up. A better way of leaving Accra than school bus, Boti Falls and our house in Koforidua. Sorry I feature so prominently but at least it proves I'm here!

2007-10-19T04:26:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday I travelled to Accra with the other Koforidua volunteers by tro-tro. The journey of less than 40 miles took two hours forty minutes partly because of the circuitous rout, but mainly because of the horrendous traffic in Accra. Tro-tros have a tendency to leave the main roads and take to rutty lanes when things get bad. We went to a VSO meeting on disabilities. Hot running water and a swimming pool at the hotel were welcome, the mosquito I shared my room with on the first night was not. The meeting was good for the three new volunteers. We got a good insight into the projects the established volunteers are working on, ranging for street children in Accra, mental heath care, disability issues in schools and sanitation facilities for disabled people.

Dan, Behi and I left the hotel on Saturday morning and spent that night with another volunteer, Steve based in Accra. On Saturday evening we watched England beat France in the Rugby World Cup semi-final at a sports bar. It was touch and go with the satellite equipment but it kept going.

Monday was a public holiday to mark the end of Ramadan. It was a rather dull day with nothing to do. Over the last couple of days we have had a tremendous amount of rain. On Wednesday the thunder sounded like a bomb explosion. I later discovered that a shop I used only that lunch time had been struck by lightning and there was stock everywhere. Unfortunately, though the rain is plentiful we only have water from the taps, one day a week at present. The good news is that the power crisis here is over and the only interruptions we currently have are the storms.

Culinary success this week has been yam, ochre and garden egg soup, which tasted quite leek and potatoey and looked quite glossy.

2007-10-18T08:44:00.001-07:00

Bad computer day. This is my second attempt to post this blog as the first posting vanished at the crucial moment.

My time has now run out. So try again next week!