Journey to the North

I realize that I'm a bit behind on the postings, but between having to sleep to get up at 6 and go to work, the 8-hr workday, the 2 hr commute, and being at the complete mercy of slow kitchens every night (dinner is a 2-hr affair – 1.5 hrs of waiting, 15 mins of eating), I've been having trouble finding time in the evening even just to do my assignment.

Time to talk road trip! We went on the first of our study tours a couple of weekends ago, driving north from Accra (southernmost of Ghana) to Paga (hrs away from the Burkina Faso border). The beauty of traveling by road is that you can see change in vegetation and building structures. As we drove north, the vegetation became less dense, tall grass and palm trees and banana trees are replaced by progressively shorter grass and shorter shea butter nut trees. The scenery was consistently green only because it's the rainy season, otherwise, I've been told that we'd be see a lot more of the red soil. Houses change from the typical low rises, single houses, and makeshift stalls in Accra to low mud huts, with thatch roofs, then round roofs, then flat roofs as you move north. The village structure also becomes clearer as you begin to see groups of mud houses forming a family compound for nuclear and extended families. Also interesting is that all the men in the villages are related, it is only the women that would marry out, though this is rapidly changing as people move south towards bigger cities such as Accra and Kumasi for jobs and opportunities. The problem with travelling by road is the road. Ghana's key highway connecting to Burkina Faso is in a constant state of construction/repair due to a combination of high usage and lack of attention from the ministry. Where the highway breaks off into offshoots into surrounding areas, the roads are often unpaved, and the rain and wear makes these roads extremely bumpy and terrible to travel on. It's the same within Greater Accra Region. To give you an idea of how bad the roads can be, it took us 2.5 hrs to travel 85km from Mole National Park to reconnect with the highway. Even the paved highways and roads are peppered with potholes that often couldn't be avoided. Driving to meet the speed limit may not even be possible due to the conditions of the roads. Most memorable is when we had to drive the van (think minibus, can carry about 20) across a wooden bridge over a waterway that was more than half the length of the bus – the bridge was made of planks, none of them seem to have been nailed down. Miraculously, we drove over it – twice.

We spent most of the first day driving north towards Tamale. We started at 6am-ish and arrived at our first destination roughly 10 hrs later - the Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary, where the villagers consider the black and white Mona and Columbus monkeys to be sacred animals. After a brief walk through a surprisingly lush forest, we were shown the monkey cemetery, where monkeys who come into the village to die and special priests/priestesses are buried. We saw mona monkeys everywhere, though none of the Columbus showed themselves as they tend to be a shyer breed. That night, we stayed at a hotel in Tamale – a bit of a sketch experience. The room we had was fairly large, though, probably because travellers don't often visit the north, the room was fairly musty. The key issue though was the bathroom. It was so dark in there that washing hair became a 3-person endeavour, one to soap and wash their own hair, one to hold the flashlight from behind, and one to hold the showerhead. We needed a headlamp just to use the bathroom. Interesting experience... We ended up staying at this hotel again on the 3^rd night, on our way back to Accra. Ironically, this hotel was called Life Hotel – not the life any of us were looking for I think.

On the 2^nd day, we went to Mole (pron. Mo-lei) National Park and went on a mini-safari ride in our trusty minibus. On our drive there, we came across a village – at the sight of our bus full of "obrunis" (the Twi term for "white man", used generally to refer to all non-Africans), the village kids came running, there was even this one kid who ran out of the yard naked b/c he was so excited to see us. After a brief introduction to shea nuts, which is apparently edible, though I can't say I liked the taste, we finally arrived at the Park. According to the guide, there are 8 species of mammals to be found in the park, and along the way, we saw antelopes, boars, baboons, and after a brief walk through the bush, we saw one of the park's prized elephants! At first, we weren't sure that we would see any elephants, as it was the hottest part of the day and the guide seemed reluctant to take us out at that time, but thanks to a skilled guide (with amazing eye sight), we all snapped at least a dozen shots and left relatively satisfied.

The highlight of the trip for me is definitely Paga, where we visited the crocodile sanctuary. There, we bought some small chickens to feed to the crocodiles. I must say, watching them eat the birds was a little fascinating, though a little morbid as well. The crocodile that was called out of the pond was approximately 80yrs old, the 2^nd oldest one in the pond. Then we did the tourist thing, and sat on the crocodile to take pictures. Other than opening its mouth, the crocodile didn't move at all the whole time – pretty crazy.

We spent the last day in Kumasi, where they are known for their weaving, called kente. The clothes were beautiful, though the experience was a little mired by the unbelievably pushy tradesmen. We went to the local weaving center, thinking that we would be able to see weavers at work, and have a chance to purchase a few things. Instead, we were herded into a building that was roughly the size of a small barn, with the walls all draped with various pieces of clothes that were being sold by what must be about 20 traders, each with their own stall. We spent a few minutes watching a demonstration, after that, we were grabbed left and right by people eager to sell their clothes. But given that most of the room was taking up by looms, the aisles were small, and the room was stuffy, we could not wait to get out of there. Except outside, we're met with a different wave of vendors – the "black market", operating right outside of the "formal market" – trying to sell us random trinkets and clothes. We got out of there as soon as we could. Not that this type of thing is uncommon, but I definitely felt a little trapped with all the crowding.

All in all though, a great trip. More updates to come!

Obrunis in Accra: Tour de Tro-Tros, Markets, Antelopes and More

Sunday Jun 6: Fairly eventful day. We began the morning by getting up at 7am to following Justice (he is our guide/babysitter/troubleshooter/everything extraordinaire for the next 6 weeks) to his church for mass. Though I have never been religious, I have always found religious ceremonies and rituals very interesting – this one was no exception. Picture one of those movies based in the American South, a scene in a black church, though this time with churchgoers dressed in a mix of Western or African clothing. The church was really a shelter, the pews were simple plastic chairs, but all this was temporary while the real church is being constructed right next door. For now, the children are having their Sunday school lessons in the half constructed church. We took a few pictures with the kids, who were clearly openly curious about us – staring and smiling – and seemed perfectly happy to pose for us. Quite frankly, we were just as curious about them. The church we went to was a Pentecostal Church. The people are clearly devoted to their religion – a few were openly crying as they were praying, many were rocking back and forth to some inner rhythm, and everyone sang and dance to the hymns (and interestingly enough, also on their way to the collections box to pay tithe and to give donations for missionaries). Interesting too is that it seems like people here likes to give really religious names to their businesses – like "God is Good Bakery" and "His Lordship's Photo House".

After that, we met Mavis, one of the University of Ghana students that will be accompanying us when we're not with Justice, and I think also on some of our weekend trips. She took us on a tour of Accra and surrounding areas on tro-tros. Tro-tros are essentially refitted vans that contain upwards of 10 people depending on their size (and the size of the people in them). Just imagine a van, one up from the 7-person caravan that we usually see in Canada, usually pretty beat up, especially on the inside, and lined on the inside with random materials like pieces of carpet or vinyl house sidings, just to name a few. Don't be deceived though, these tro-tros are actually very hardy – at one point, we were driving for at least half hr on dirt roads with giant potholes, there were so many that it was pretty much impossible for driver to avoid them. Very bumpy ride, as you can well imagine, but not so different from the "three legged chickens" that I used to ride when I was visiting my grandparents in rural China, which were essentially 3-wheel mini-pickups with a canvas top over a metal frame in the back, which will carry both people and cargo.

We went to quite a few of the major markets: Makola Market, Kaneshi Market, and Medina Market. First stop was Makola Market – clearly an older area, judging from the buildings, I'd say it probably saw some good times in the 60s (really reminds me of some of the really old areas of HK, which dates to around that time period). The key thing I remember was the main tro-tro terminal that's located there. The markets are essentially a collection of makeshift and permanent stalls and shops, selling everything you can imagine, including in one case, individual packets of flavoured condoms – a big mop bucket of them with very graphic packaging. Our guide tells us that a lot of the hawkers (legal or illegal) tend to be migrants from other parts of the country who come into the city to find work and make money. The pattern seems to be that wherever there is a market, there'll be a squatter district/shanty town – it could be a collection of people just sleeping on one patch of land together, or it could be a labyrinth of makeshift houses that just stretches on. Interesting that these people seem to be on pretty good terms with the local police – at Makola Market at least, I saw them smiling and waving at each other, also not uncommon according to our guide. Apparently, there were efforts to remove the shantytowns and illegal stalls a few years back, but there were so many people doing it and there was such a large political backlash that the government decided that it's better to just let them be, and let them make their living rather than try to make them leave.

At Kaneshi Market, we saw live snails. Big ones. They were the size of my hand, and roughly the thickness of a roll of loonies – at first I thought they were already dead and was just sitting on the tray. Then I saw their little eye tentacles move, and started to see them move forward on each other's shell, which kind of weirded me out. We'll meet their brethrens again later on, in a bowl of soup, when we went to Adenta, where Mavis's aunt and uncle lives. They made a big bowl of soup with crab, antelope, snail, and fufu in it – fufu is a doughy food that's made from cassava roots, which had been boiled and pounded into dough form. The antelope was farmed, the meat was kind of tough, not really sure what the flavour was because it was overwhelmed by the taste of crab (and what I can only assume is the taste of the snail – I couldn't bring myself to trying it once I saw the live ones). I can't say I was a fan, really wasn't fond of the texture of fufu (which was really sticky), and I just can't handle the snails. We spent some time at the house, playing with the kids and talking to Mavis's uncle, who is a lawyer and had studied in Norway, then we took the tro-tro back into town.

My apologies for the lack of pictures. Internet here is kind of slow at times, but I'll be working on uploading some pictures as soon as I can. In fact, I'll try in 5 minutes. To be continued.

The Revival of a Blog in Ghana

It's been a few months since my last post... in fact, I haven't written since I started the MPA program back in October. I am now two months away from finishing my degree – and I'm spending it in Ghana! For the next 6 weeks, myself and 9 of my classmates will be living in Accra, Ghana and doing work placements in a local non-profit organization or government departments. I have been placed at a local non-profit called SEND West Africa, I have no idea what my assignments will be yet, but I should know more once I meet my supervisor on Tues or Weds.

The plane ride here was most interesting... We were flying with Delta Airlines, but had no seat assignments until just before we boarded. It was a full plane, and the seating arrangement was so disorganized that they were bumping people from their seats to other areas of the plane just to put us on the flight. At first, I was placed at the end of the plane, bumping the lady who was in my seat to first class. Then, within 5 minutes of me sitting down, the air attendant came by and started looking for single travellers – and so, for the first time ever, I was bumped into first/business class!! My 11 hr plane ride from New York began with a glass of champagne, and a chair with more buttons than I knew what to do with. The food was alright – the highlight was the appetizer to my dinner – a sampler with shrimp and palm hearts (tasted a bit like artichoke hearts). Unfortunately, it ended with a broken luggage – instead of cutting my padlock, someone decided it'd be better to cut my zipper clasp instead. Hopefully Delta will agree to fix it.

We arrived at around 9am, and pretty much just spent the day settling in and learning some of the nearby routes. The evening ended with live music at a local bar and finally tried some of the "red-reds" (fried plantains) that we've heard so much about – very tasty with the savoury sauce they serve it with (can't remember what it's called...), it's sweet but not as sweet as the baked bananas with honey that I used to eat when I was little. Tomorrow morning, we'll be going to a Ghanaian church for mass and will be exploring the city a little more. Stay tuned!