Ghana Palava - 27/01/07

Greetings from West Africa.  We arrived in Accra on 15th January and have begun or slow journey back to Europe overland and across the Mediterranean from Morocco to Spain.

Palava seems to have three or more meanings in Ghana.  It is a sauce made of meat and spinach, it is also the room where slaves fates were sealed in the castles and there is a third meaning which is to describe a discussion or argument between Europeans and locals!  Here it could also mean the type of pandemonium that we use 'palaver' to define in England.

Flying over the Alps

Flying over the Alps provided some amazing views but apart from that Lufthansa was very disappointing, I did not know whether the stewardesses wanted to serve me or cast a spell on me!  As well there were several small children on the plane, all as spoilt as you can imagine from Nigerian and Ghanaian families that can afford to fly.  The screaming of the children was chilling, primeval even, it did not make me look forward to long West African bus rides!  We had a brief stopover in Lagos which gave us an introduction to the Harmattan, the dust season that covers the whole of West Africa for several months of the year. Flying over Mali, Niger and Nigeria we could see absolutely nothing at all, the thick cloud covered everything, we did not realise we were on top of Lagos until we dropped to a few hundred metres altitude and suddenly we were on top of Nigeria's infamous city.

'God is Alive' taxi

We arrived in Accra late in the evening and were glad that we had pre-arranged an airport transfer to Crystal Hostel as we did not relish the thought of an introduction to West African public transport at this hour! The trip to the hostel took about an hour and a half through the centre of Accra, we stared from the windows at the glorious array of street food available, at the masses of people on the street and the darkness of it all.  We thought maybe there was a power cut, we did not realise that Accra at night is always very dark.  Apart from the stalls it seemed that every other shop in Accra was a beauty salon, all with ridiculous names and even more ridiculous pictures. This was the first negative impression I had of Ghana and Ghanaians, that there is a lot of superficiality, in a similar way to the Philippines they buy into the image of the wealth of the West without noting the other side, that one must work for it and that many people are not so satisfied.  Ghana is touted as one of the more developed countries in Africa, from my perspective this seemed to mean that everybody owns a mobile phone but not everyone has enough food to eat. Even the market woman have a Nokia tucked away in their shawls.

'No Weapons' Hairdresser (Accra)

Accra was hot, dusty, dilapidated and chaotic, as we expected.  Whilst not a bad place it suffers from the lack of any centre and much of time is spent wandering between huge streets and crowded markets, through slums and along the coastal road, past the national stadium and concrete monstrosity that is Independence Square.  We stayed long enough to acclimatize and introduce ourselves to African food, which has not been the culinary highlight of my life!  We visited the Togo embassy and managed to acquire a VTE (Visa Touristique Entente (allowing us a single entry each into Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Niger) which is very hard to get hold of.  We shall probably only use it for Togo, Benin and Burkina Faso.

Near Independance Square, Accra

Paul Theroux described Accra in his novel 'My Secret History, published in 1989, like this:-

“So many of the buildings in Accra looked brittle and mouldy, like stale bread, and the streets were crumbled like old cake.  The sky was heavy with the dull gleam of stifling clouds, and even at night the air was clammy and unbreathable” - Paul Theroux, My Secret History, pg. 302

and like this:-

“The main street of Accra was scattered with squashed branches and trash and some of its pot holes were large enough to hold three children, just their dark heads showing above the street as they played in the yellow mud of the whole (sp)” - Paul Theroux, My Secret History, pg. 300

and I might say that despite the claims of development not a whole lot seems to have changed in the intervening years.

'With Gods Help' Wigs and Weaves (Accra)

Our hostel in Accra was full of British volunteer workers, the new kind, all Gap year kids with no idea of anything outside of their private schools. Unfortunately there are a couple of agencies that have become very popular and whose profits are soaring since the introduction of Gap year programs. Basically anyone can apply to be a volunteer as long as they can afford to pay the fee of around two grand.  Hence why they are all private school kids.  One of them wondered why it was, suspecting that those that had attended boarding schools were more used to being away from home, I could not help but correct him! Actually they were not so bad as they had all realized how useless they were, that they were more of a hindrance than a help and that of the three parties involved, they gained from having something to put on their CV, the agency gained through its steep fees and the host country actually did not gain at all. It is sad state of affairs and unfortunately is not restricted solely to British volunteers, although they seem by far to be the worst.  We have discussed this issue with volunteers from Holland and Germany as well.  The also feel useless but at least their agency was able to put them somewhere outside of Accra, in a remote village where they just might be slightly useful.

“Psalm 23” bus

We also noticed in Accra that nobody seemed to smile at us or speak to us.  We are so used to travelling in Asia where you are always welcomed that we found it strange to be ignored.  On one evening, the lights out (sectors of Accra have a power cut rotating every fifth day), one guy even approached us as we were waiting to buy some food at a stall and started shouting “white people are the most useless thing he ever saw” and other less polite phrases.  This feeling continued as we headed on to Cape Coast and Elmina, two old coastal colonial settlements, the centre of both being the castles that were used in the slave trade.  We did not realise that there was a regular bus, or tro-tro, to Cape Coast as we were only aware of the posh, expensive, air-con STC buses.  There was supposed to be an hourly bus to Takoradi which would stop in Cape Coast but we were left waiting at the station for over five hours, we eventually left on our 1pm bus, which left at 4:45pm!  This does not sound so bad but somehow it seems longer when you are waiting for a posh bus, in comparison, five hours sitting waiting for a local bus to fill up seems like nothing.  Some people were even less patient than us and at one point I thought we were getting the blame as I heard mutterings of  “this is the black mans problem, only in Africa” which made me think that if they gave us a seat on the earlier bus there was no way I was going to jump the queue.  Fortunately this would not happen here.  We arrived in Cape Coast about three hours later and managed to a street stall for rice and “stew”.  I as glad there was not much light so I could not see what I was eating.  For the second time in a few days I ate something like ‘rats blood and intestines stew’!

'God  First' Fast Food (Kumasi)

Cape Coast

Although the people here were not threatening we still felt uncomfortable in Cape Coast, but maybe it was because of the graphic descriptions on the tour of the castle.  One think I like about Ghana, and still cannot get used to, is that all the museums and tourist sights offer free tours, even if you are only two people, and the guides don’t even expect a tip.  Elmina, 13km further along, is smaller and more picturesque than Cape Coast and after spending a day in Cape Coast we took a shared-taxi the next day to Elmina.  Shared taxis are taxis that run regular routes with set fares per person.   Both of the castles are quite beautiful and especially well preserved and the beaches around the castles are full of fishermen and boat makers, children playing and women cleaning the nets and selling the fish.  Unfortunately we could not take so many photos because the people here, and apparently it is the same throughout West Africa, have an intense disliking of cameras and just taking the camera from ones bag often results in shouting and threats and possibly some stones being thrown.  There are many theories why ranging from the sublime (that cameras take away a persons soul when they take a photo) to the ridiculous (that people never post the photos to them so they don’t like giving something for nothing).  In any case we managed to find a few discreet spots from where to get a few shots.  In Cape Coast we found the proper bus station and realised that buses are going as and when they are full.  Not wanting to spend too much time on the coast so early in our trip (we will leave the R N’ R until Benin or even Senegal) after two days in Cape Coast and Elmina we left for the Ashanti region in the centre of Ghana, but not before paying “dash” to the baggage handler at the bus station, something quite usual in many countries around the world but here it seems to be more rife and the guys more greedy!

'Use Marvel toothpaste and then sing at Ngorye studios, Ghanas biggest recoding studio' (Kumasi)

Things were much more friendly in Kumasi, capital of the Ashanti region.  All of a sudden people were smiling and greeting us and the kids wanted us to play football with them and talk to them.  It was a far cry from the attitude on the coast.  Interesting, although there were a few volunteers spending the weekend in Kumasi, there did not seem to any actually working there, is this a reason for the more friendly attitude?  We arrived on a Sunday and as a result everything was closed, it was a trouble to find food but we saw a woman with a stall selling fufu (a thick mash of yams, cassava or plantains) with fish soup.  It looked amazing so we ordered a plate, only for her to suddenly whip out a spoon of everyone’s favourite rodent stew from under the stall!

'God is Great' Refrigeration and Electrical Engineering (Kumasi)

Whilst Kumasi is not exactly full of famous sights it is much nicer than Accra, mainly due to its having a geographical centre, the Kejetia market.  This market is one of the most intense and crowded I have ever seen, thousands of people walking in between the stalls buying and selling everything and anything imaginable, from yams to nappies to torches and fake football shirts. Unfortunately a lot of it was the usual rubbish imported from China, highlighting on of the challenges the African continent now faces (dealing with exploitation by China, which many claim is far worse than that they suffered from any European power).  Close to the market is the Palace where the Ashanti King is still living.  We took a tour of part of the Palace but were not able to see the main building.  As we left a long motorcade arrived, signalling the arrival of the king or some higher dignatory.

'What a Mighty God' Plywood and Art Supplies (Kumasi)

We also looked for a mock up Ashanti village in the Cultural Centre in Kumasi but if it was there it is no longer.  All we found were craft shops and workshops highlighting local arts and selling the various carvings, brass works, paintings and other goods at fairly high prices.

'Have fun, but think about AIDS' (Road sign, Lake Bosumtwe)

Close to Kumasi is Lake Bosumtwe, a crater lake that is safe for swimming, i.e. there are no crocodiles and no bilharzia.  We walked 4km around the lake from the main village of Abonu, leaving the group of rich Americans behinds as they started shoving their cameras in everyone faces, I did warn them but I was dismissed in a peremptory fashion. We found the Rainbow Garden Village, a nice small backpackers resort where they allowed us to camp in their garden.  We spent the day there relaxing and swimming and catching up with ourselves and at night had expensive food and the local home-brewed palm wine.

'House Party' Computers (Accra)

From here we headed back through Kumasi and up to Tamale in the north.  We arrived late and took a while in the dark to stumble upon a room in the Christian council guest house. The next morning we found a bus to take us across to Larabanga, close to Mole National Park.  We stopped just before Larabanga in the village of Dumongo.  It is one of the armpits of Ghana, the place where everyone is lying and cheating and treating foreigners like walking dollars.  The taxi drivers sit there all day and when a foreigner comes they try to charge them 250,000 to Mole (which is at least 5 times too much) and then don’t even try to bargain.. We found a pick-up which took us in the back but only after we agreed to sleep in out tent on somebodies roof in Larabanga.  A guy accompanied us and in Larabanga gave us a tour of the town, showing us the famous mosque and the not so famous mystic stone as well as typical African sights such as a game the children were playing with sinning nuts and the village lake where every one was collecting the water.  Instead of feeling like I was seeing “real Africa” I felt dirty and uncomfortable and felt almost as if these people were savages.  This was because I had the feeling the whole time that we were unwelcome intruders, only for the money. We ate dinner with the family of our guide, and the food was not so bad, there was a tomato sauce and fufu and another thicker stew that tasted OK.

Larabanga

'Wormplex' – your one-stop de-wormer! (Kumasi)

The next day in Mole National Park was amazing, we took a two and half hour walking safari and saw about 20 wild elephant, as well as many antelope, wild pigs and baboons.  At one point we were quite scared because one of the elephants became aggressive and attempted to charge at us, wild elephants are a different prospect to those you see walking the streets in Sri Lanka or India! Within the park was a small resort with a swimming pool and restaurant and we managed to spend the rest of the day lazing by the pool and watching the animals in the distance.  As we left we saw a elephant crossing the road just in front of us, outside of the park.  It was at once enthralling and scary.

Mole NP

'Police' Church (Accra)

Back in Larabanga we spent another night on the roof, I slept out of the tent watching the stars, and then left on the very early, 4:30am, bus back to Tamale. The German couple that we had met on our first night in Accra and that we had met again here told us that during the previous day they had had 2 million Cedis stolen from their room. (about $200).  Whilst I have at times felt threatened in Ghana I was very surprised at this as I found the people to be very proud of their honesty.  This couple left the village without even telling anyone. I felt sorry for them.  I would of kicked up a hell of a storm had it been me.

'Not by my strength' Salon (Accra)

On almost all of the bus journeys we have taken in Ghana there has been at least one major argument between passengers, normally about seats or space or crying babies or whatever.  However these arguments never escalate into physical violence.  On the one hand this is a good thing, but I find it a bit pathetic that the whole country is full of people that feel the need to complain but are just full of bluster and no guts. It seems to me like it is all for show, to try to give the impression to each other that they are stronger or whatever but it is not true, would they be so macho if there was a real threat of violence? This is the same for the women in the streets or the beauty salons.  They are all big women with big arses and bigger mouths, complaing about each and everything.  It just seems to me as though they are trying to make up for their lower status, both as women and as citizens of a developing country, fed images of the West.

'Jesus is Alive' Internet Café (Kumasi)

Today we are back in Tamale and on Monday we will hopefully cross into Togo. Tamale is a very friendly town, much nicer than Accra or the coastal regions. It is also predominantly Muslim which gives a different perspective on Ghanaian lifestyle.  The people here are much more welcoming and interested in why we are here and what we thought about Ghana, Africa and Islam.

Cinema, Tamale

In Ghana, as it was a British colony, Gold Coast, English is spoken everywhere, from now on all the countries we will visit were French colonies and as such we must brush up on our French skills. Ghana has been an interesting introduction to West Africa but I look forward to crossing into Togo tomorrow.