As of Monday, March 29th, I'll switch back to my Burkinabe number:
011 226 7500 2125
I look forward to hearing your voices!
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Burkina-bound after a malarial scare
After seeing the hippos I booked it down from Tamale to Accra on a mission for Mama Zida. Coolers (you know, what you keep beer in at a BBQ) are useful items in sub-Saharan Africa, and she asked me to pick some up for her while in Ghana. Apparantly they are cheaper in Ghana than in Burkina. I had intended to buy the coolers in Tamale and continue to Ouaga from there (it's only a few hours from the border), but the people in Tamale assured me that even with the price of bus tickets there and back, it would still be cheaper to buy the coolers in Accra.
One twelve hour bus ride later, I arrived at the Volunteer Abroad house in Accra on the evening of Thursday, March 25th. It was planned as a surgical strike: I would buy the coolers on Friday and by Saturday morning I would be Burkina-bound.
But life always has its own plans for you. On Friday I got the coolers at a store called Melcom (with fixed prices, it was shopping heaven!!). I decided to take them back to the VA house and drop them there before buying my bus ticket to Burkina.
Upon my return I developed a headache. Then my joints and muscles started to hurt. I felt feverish. And I was nauseated. "Great," I thought, "this is probably malaria."
I waited a few hours just to see if the symptoms would pass on their own, and when they didn't I dragged myself to the closest clinic. It was an interesting glimpse into Ghana's health care system.
First I had to register with the clinic, which cost 6 cedis (approx. $4 CDN), and only after that did I get to sit and wait to see the doctor. Everyone, including Ghanaians, has to pay this "user fee" to access healthcare here. This might explain why there was absolutely NO line of people in front of me waiting to see the doctor. After working in my Dad's busy Canadian clinic where patients routinely wait an hour for their appointments, this experience with a pivate (or possibly public-private) healthcare clinic was a bit of culture shock. I wondered how many people felt as awful as I did but couldn't afford the 6 cedis.
The doctor asked a few questions, checked my vaccination record, and prescribed a malaria test. The test cost 8 cedis (about $5-6), which locals would also have had to pay.
The nurse used a rather large needle to pierce my vein and withdraw my precious bodily fluids, but after that the process was really cool. The clinic had this neat little centrifuge, about as big around as a dinner plate, that spins the blood super fast to separate the serum from the cells. Then they check the serum for malaria and have the results in a matter of minutes. Normally one has to wait at least a day for bloodwork results, so I was thrilled.
My malaria test was negative, thank goodness, and the doctor figured I was probably suffering from mild heat stroke and exhaustion. I had travelled far and hard over the last week, and for the last five nights I hadn't slept in the same town two nights in a row.
Still, he prescribed malaria meds just in case and forbade me to travel on Saturday as I had planned.
So I bought my ticket for Monday (tomorrow) and spent the weekend resting and eating. And today (Sunday) I went with everyone to watch Ghana's national soccer team, the Black Stars, play against Burkina Faso's Etalons. Ghana won, of course, but the score was only 1-0. Considering the Black Stars made it to the final game of the Africa Cip of Nations and will represent their country in South Africa this year, the Burkinabe team did pretty well.
I leave tomorrow at 10am and I am really excited about going back to Burkina. Time for Easter and a wedding - it'll be party time! And church time, too. I'm not kidding myself on that one.
One twelve hour bus ride later, I arrived at the Volunteer Abroad house in Accra on the evening of Thursday, March 25th. It was planned as a surgical strike: I would buy the coolers on Friday and by Saturday morning I would be Burkina-bound.
But life always has its own plans for you. On Friday I got the coolers at a store called Melcom (with fixed prices, it was shopping heaven!!). I decided to take them back to the VA house and drop them there before buying my bus ticket to Burkina.
Upon my return I developed a headache. Then my joints and muscles started to hurt. I felt feverish. And I was nauseated. "Great," I thought, "this is probably malaria."
I waited a few hours just to see if the symptoms would pass on their own, and when they didn't I dragged myself to the closest clinic. It was an interesting glimpse into Ghana's health care system.
First I had to register with the clinic, which cost 6 cedis (approx. $4 CDN), and only after that did I get to sit and wait to see the doctor. Everyone, including Ghanaians, has to pay this "user fee" to access healthcare here. This might explain why there was absolutely NO line of people in front of me waiting to see the doctor. After working in my Dad's busy Canadian clinic where patients routinely wait an hour for their appointments, this experience with a pivate (or possibly public-private) healthcare clinic was a bit of culture shock. I wondered how many people felt as awful as I did but couldn't afford the 6 cedis.
The doctor asked a few questions, checked my vaccination record, and prescribed a malaria test. The test cost 8 cedis (about $5-6), which locals would also have had to pay.
The nurse used a rather large needle to pierce my vein and withdraw my precious bodily fluids, but after that the process was really cool. The clinic had this neat little centrifuge, about as big around as a dinner plate, that spins the blood super fast to separate the serum from the cells. Then they check the serum for malaria and have the results in a matter of minutes. Normally one has to wait at least a day for bloodwork results, so I was thrilled.
My malaria test was negative, thank goodness, and the doctor figured I was probably suffering from mild heat stroke and exhaustion. I had travelled far and hard over the last week, and for the last five nights I hadn't slept in the same town two nights in a row.
Still, he prescribed malaria meds just in case and forbade me to travel on Saturday as I had planned.
So I bought my ticket for Monday (tomorrow) and spent the weekend resting and eating. And today (Sunday) I went with everyone to watch Ghana's national soccer team, the Black Stars, play against Burkina Faso's Etalons. Ghana won, of course, but the score was only 1-0. Considering the Black Stars made it to the final game of the Africa Cip of Nations and will represent their country in South Africa this year, the Burkinabe team did pretty well.
I leave tomorrow at 10am and I am really excited about going back to Burkina. Time for Easter and a wedding - it'll be party time! And church time, too. I'm not kidding myself on that one.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Hippo Hunting (With My Camera)
After getting dropped off in Wa I took a tro-tro to Wechiau. I had to buy food before leaving because the hippo sanctuary will cook food for you but they don't provide the ingredients. This is because there are no stores. Villagers near the sanctuary grow their own food and anything they don't grow they bring in from Wechiau.
In Wechiau I went to the Hippo Sanctuary Centre to register and get a guide. Strangely, it was full of knickknacks and bags with Calgary written all over them. I wouldn't find out why until later. Two British volunteers - Alice and Iona - were sitting there waiting to leave and I joined them for the weekend.
Eventually our guide arrived and we boarded the back of a suspensionless pick up truck for the 18km trip to the hippo sanctuary. Half of the road was paved, but the other half made the road to Mole feel like an eight-lane super-highway.
We arrived around 4:30 took a look around. The sanctuary's excursions are based from a tiny village thirty minutes walk from the Black Volta River, where the hippos live. The village is so small that if you turn in all four directions, this is what you see: .......nothing........a tree!.......nothing.........a donkey! Certainly no stores. On a busy day you will see kids playing xylophones ingeniously constructed from bamboo stalks suspended over a hole in the ground.
Our guide, Adams, was only 18 and possibly the most adorable person I have ever met. He asked our permission before going to pray, bless him, as though we had any right to say no. Once he'd finished praying and we'd finished packing our overnight bags, we set off for the Hippo Hide, where we would spend the night.
The Hippo Hide is a tree platform built in a giant tree like the one Rafiki lives in in The Lion King. It's about 6 metres off the ground and sleeping there was so cool! We got set up, ate dinner, applied near lethal amounts of deet, and chatted with Adams about hippos and his family. We watched the river change colour as the sun set and went to bed when the bats in our tree woke up for their nightly hunt. The Black Volta separates Ghana from Burkina, and as night fell we could hear Burkinabe fishermen on their own nightly hunt.
The best time to see hippos is very early in the morning. They're nocturnal creatures, leaving the river at night to feed on nearby grasses. When morning comes they lumber back to the safety of the water and scuffle around before going to sleep.
We woke up at the crack of dawn to go on our canoe safari. The bats were going to sleep above us and the birds in our tree had just started their morning songs. We got into the flat-bottomed canoe without disaster, though Iona nearly capsized us all, and started heading upstream. We weren't even on the water for five minutes when we saw hippos!
They were a family of six - four adults and two babies - just hanging out in the water. We could see their nostrils, eyes, and ears, and then one of them lunged at another. Then I got a clear view of their teeth and truly appreciated just how huge these animals are. Adams said it was either an adult male asserting himself over a younger male, or a tussle for dominance among two females. Apparantly males and females do not fight each other unless a male from a different family of hippos attacks the young.
Hippos are sacred to the people of Wechiau, but their numbers are very low due to poaching (for ivory and meat), slash and burn agriculture, and loss of habitat. There are around 20 hippos in the sanctuary; they are one of only two wild hippo populations in Ghana. Their status as a protected species clearly wasn't enough to protect them.
So in 1999 a consortium of village chiefs decided to do something to protect their sacred hippos. Eco-tourism was the perfect solution as it made the presence of living hippos a cornerstone of the local economy.
Here's where Calgary comes in. Somehow the Calgary Zoo got wind of this project and it partnered with the chiefs to make it a reality.
Alice, Iona, Adams and I went back to Wechiau that afternoon and had traditional Moroccan tea with Adams' friends. If you've never had it, you should. You prepare three or four tiny pots of tea from the same leaves, each one sweeter than the last. You drink it from large shot glasses, and somehow it brings out the best in you.
This entry is already really long, but our tro-tro ride back to Wa is worth reading about because I got peed on by a sheep. Tro-tros are large minivans that seat 13-15 people. Ours had 17 adults in it, 2 babies, 3 goats, and a case of chickens. Eight more men were on the roof, as well as our bags. I thanked my lucky stars that I was sitting next to an open window.
About half way along the bumpy road to Wa - after our driver hit a pig on the road without even trying to avoid it (so sad as it dragged itself away) - I felt something dripping on my leg. I looked at the window in confusion and saw a stream of urine flowing down the side of the tro, much of it onto me.
I freaked out a little. I couldn't believe that one of the men on the roof was peeing down the side of the tro. I didn't make a scene, but I was so visibly grossed out that a kindly passenger explained what was going on. His sheep was tied to the roof of the tro, and this was the most likely source of the urine. I thanked him and dibsed the first shower when we got to the hotel in Wa.
In Wechiau I went to the Hippo Sanctuary Centre to register and get a guide. Strangely, it was full of knickknacks and bags with Calgary written all over them. I wouldn't find out why until later. Two British volunteers - Alice and Iona - were sitting there waiting to leave and I joined them for the weekend.
Eventually our guide arrived and we boarded the back of a suspensionless pick up truck for the 18km trip to the hippo sanctuary. Half of the road was paved, but the other half made the road to Mole feel like an eight-lane super-highway.
We arrived around 4:30 took a look around. The sanctuary's excursions are based from a tiny village thirty minutes walk from the Black Volta River, where the hippos live. The village is so small that if you turn in all four directions, this is what you see: .......nothing........a tree!.......nothing.........a donkey! Certainly no stores. On a busy day you will see kids playing xylophones ingeniously constructed from bamboo stalks suspended over a hole in the ground.
Our guide, Adams, was only 18 and possibly the most adorable person I have ever met. He asked our permission before going to pray, bless him, as though we had any right to say no. Once he'd finished praying and we'd finished packing our overnight bags, we set off for the Hippo Hide, where we would spend the night.
The Hippo Hide is a tree platform built in a giant tree like the one Rafiki lives in in The Lion King. It's about 6 metres off the ground and sleeping there was so cool! We got set up, ate dinner, applied near lethal amounts of deet, and chatted with Adams about hippos and his family. We watched the river change colour as the sun set and went to bed when the bats in our tree woke up for their nightly hunt. The Black Volta separates Ghana from Burkina, and as night fell we could hear Burkinabe fishermen on their own nightly hunt.
The best time to see hippos is very early in the morning. They're nocturnal creatures, leaving the river at night to feed on nearby grasses. When morning comes they lumber back to the safety of the water and scuffle around before going to sleep.
We woke up at the crack of dawn to go on our canoe safari. The bats were going to sleep above us and the birds in our tree had just started their morning songs. We got into the flat-bottomed canoe without disaster, though Iona nearly capsized us all, and started heading upstream. We weren't even on the water for five minutes when we saw hippos!
They were a family of six - four adults and two babies - just hanging out in the water. We could see their nostrils, eyes, and ears, and then one of them lunged at another. Then I got a clear view of their teeth and truly appreciated just how huge these animals are. Adams said it was either an adult male asserting himself over a younger male, or a tussle for dominance among two females. Apparantly males and females do not fight each other unless a male from a different family of hippos attacks the young.
Hippos are sacred to the people of Wechiau, but their numbers are very low due to poaching (for ivory and meat), slash and burn agriculture, and loss of habitat. There are around 20 hippos in the sanctuary; they are one of only two wild hippo populations in Ghana. Their status as a protected species clearly wasn't enough to protect them.
So in 1999 a consortium of village chiefs decided to do something to protect their sacred hippos. Eco-tourism was the perfect solution as it made the presence of living hippos a cornerstone of the local economy.
Here's where Calgary comes in. Somehow the Calgary Zoo got wind of this project and it partnered with the chiefs to make it a reality.
Alice, Iona, Adams and I went back to Wechiau that afternoon and had traditional Moroccan tea with Adams' friends. If you've never had it, you should. You prepare three or four tiny pots of tea from the same leaves, each one sweeter than the last. You drink it from large shot glasses, and somehow it brings out the best in you.
This entry is already really long, but our tro-tro ride back to Wa is worth reading about because I got peed on by a sheep. Tro-tros are large minivans that seat 13-15 people. Ours had 17 adults in it, 2 babies, 3 goats, and a case of chickens. Eight more men were on the roof, as well as our bags. I thanked my lucky stars that I was sitting next to an open window.
About half way along the bumpy road to Wa - after our driver hit a pig on the road without even trying to avoid it (so sad as it dragged itself away) - I felt something dripping on my leg. I looked at the window in confusion and saw a stream of urine flowing down the side of the tro, much of it onto me.
I freaked out a little. I couldn't believe that one of the men on the roof was peeing down the side of the tro. I didn't make a scene, but I was so visibly grossed out that a kindly passenger explained what was going on. His sheep was tied to the roof of the tro, and this was the most likely source of the urine. I thanked him and dibsed the first shower when we got to the hotel in Wa.
Face to Face With an Elephant
The road to Mole National Park in northern Ghana is undoubtedly one of the worst in the country. It is 170km from Tamale, the northern regional capital and closest big town. At least half of the road is unpaved ruts, craters, and sink holes coated in a thick layer of red-brown dust. The drive took 5 hours.
I had left Kumasi on the STC bus at 10am that day (March 21) and arrived in Tamale around 5:00. On the way I made friends with the German girl sitting next to me and we decided to team up and hire a taxi to take us and her parents to Mole that same night. By the time we finished bargaining it was nearly 6:00 and getting dark, but we headed out nonetheless.
I have never been filthier than when we pulled up in front of the Mole Motel that night. The dust was caked so thickly onto my skin that I looked like I'd rolled in it. The dorm was full and I thought I might have to sleep on the floor of the Motel Reception, but thankfully the German family was kind enough to let me sleep in their room.
It was all worth it for the animals. Mole Park is home to warthogs, baboons, monkeys, bushbucks (small deer), kops (antilope), and elephants. There are also lions (haven't been spotted since 2004), crocodiles, and several hundred bird species. We weren't sure how long it would take, but we were determined to see all the animals - with the exception of the lions.
It turned out that we really didn't have to work too hard to see the animals. We woke up before dawn the next morning to go on a walking safari, and walked out the door to find a warthog and its baby rooting through our trash. Then a monkey stole the German father's toast off of his breakfast plate.
We joined the safari group and followed Christopher, our guide, into the bush. We saw baboons clambering through trees, bushbucks staring at us as they chewed the foliage, and kops fleeing like deer from our approaching footsteps. Then, after an hour of walking, we arrived at the watering hole to find ourselves staring at an elephant on the other side of it, about 200 metres away.
It was a young adult male, Christoper said, because his tusks were still small. The elephant looked at our excited group, considered us briefly, and went back to drinking. I had known that elephants drink a ridiculous amount of water, and our elephant friend confirmed that by drinking non-stop for forty minutes, plus whatever he had had before our arrival. A small posse of white egrets followed his every move, snapping up the insects he disturbed with his movements. Finally he tired of drinking and moved off around the water hole, which brought him even closer to us. I scrambled to get closer, but Christopher only let us get within 100 metres of the elephant. Young males can be unpredictable. Still, I got some great photos.
We moved on to the crocodile pond, where floating logs turned suddenly into crocs lunging at passing fish. They seemed pretty small and never came out of the water. After visiting the sacred crocodiles near Ouagadougou though, any other crocodile experience is anticlimactic. In Ouaga enormous crocodiles bask on the muddy shore, gorging on the live chickens visitors are required to purchase for them. Some measure up to 2 metres long, but they're so well fed that you can squat over them and hold their tails, which I did.
After the crocodiles our walking safari was over. My plan was to sleep in the dorm that night and continue to the Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary in the extreme north west of Ghana the next day. This would entail another trip on the evil road leading to Mole, only this time in a crowded bus leaving at 4am. I went to reception to see if I could get into the dorm that night, and found a guy who was driving a Canadian and a Brit to Wa (the transfer point for Wechiau) in a 4x4. They had an extra space and took me with them that afternoon! As I relaxed in air condioned comfort with my new friends, I felt that I had never made a better decision in my life.
I had left Kumasi on the STC bus at 10am that day (March 21) and arrived in Tamale around 5:00. On the way I made friends with the German girl sitting next to me and we decided to team up and hire a taxi to take us and her parents to Mole that same night. By the time we finished bargaining it was nearly 6:00 and getting dark, but we headed out nonetheless.
I have never been filthier than when we pulled up in front of the Mole Motel that night. The dust was caked so thickly onto my skin that I looked like I'd rolled in it. The dorm was full and I thought I might have to sleep on the floor of the Motel Reception, but thankfully the German family was kind enough to let me sleep in their room.
It was all worth it for the animals. Mole Park is home to warthogs, baboons, monkeys, bushbucks (small deer), kops (antilope), and elephants. There are also lions (haven't been spotted since 2004), crocodiles, and several hundred bird species. We weren't sure how long it would take, but we were determined to see all the animals - with the exception of the lions.
It turned out that we really didn't have to work too hard to see the animals. We woke up before dawn the next morning to go on a walking safari, and walked out the door to find a warthog and its baby rooting through our trash. Then a monkey stole the German father's toast off of his breakfast plate.
We joined the safari group and followed Christopher, our guide, into the bush. We saw baboons clambering through trees, bushbucks staring at us as they chewed the foliage, and kops fleeing like deer from our approaching footsteps. Then, after an hour of walking, we arrived at the watering hole to find ourselves staring at an elephant on the other side of it, about 200 metres away.
It was a young adult male, Christoper said, because his tusks were still small. The elephant looked at our excited group, considered us briefly, and went back to drinking. I had known that elephants drink a ridiculous amount of water, and our elephant friend confirmed that by drinking non-stop for forty minutes, plus whatever he had had before our arrival. A small posse of white egrets followed his every move, snapping up the insects he disturbed with his movements. Finally he tired of drinking and moved off around the water hole, which brought him even closer to us. I scrambled to get closer, but Christopher only let us get within 100 metres of the elephant. Young males can be unpredictable. Still, I got some great photos.
We moved on to the crocodile pond, where floating logs turned suddenly into crocs lunging at passing fish. They seemed pretty small and never came out of the water. After visiting the sacred crocodiles near Ouagadougou though, any other crocodile experience is anticlimactic. In Ouaga enormous crocodiles bask on the muddy shore, gorging on the live chickens visitors are required to purchase for them. Some measure up to 2 metres long, but they're so well fed that you can squat over them and hold their tails, which I did.
After the crocodiles our walking safari was over. My plan was to sleep in the dorm that night and continue to the Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary in the extreme north west of Ghana the next day. This would entail another trip on the evil road leading to Mole, only this time in a crowded bus leaving at 4am. I went to reception to see if I could get into the dorm that night, and found a guy who was driving a Canadian and a Brit to Wa (the transfer point for Wechiau) in a 4x4. They had an extra space and took me with them that afternoon! As I relaxed in air condioned comfort with my new friends, I felt that I had never made a better decision in my life.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Sometimes you just need a break
The signs that you need a break from shoestring travelling are easily recognizable. First, you start to lose your sense of humour. Instead of shrugging amusedly when the pipes stop carrying water to your shower on the third floor while you are covered in soap - for the third time - you get frustrated.
Then you start to lose your temper. Like when the jerk who is supposed to be sitting behind the front desk (but is instead sitting by the tiled stairway) complains that the sound of your flip flops coming down the stairs disturbs his conversation with the pretty cleaning lady, you forget that proper protocol is to speak to his superior and instead go ape sh*t on him, embarassing him in front of his love interest, for which he punishes you by taking extra long to do everything from then on.
The third and final sign is cravings for western standards of living. These can be deadly for your wallet.
Yeah, Sammo's Guest House in Cape Coast kind of took it out of me. Normally it would have been fine - I was only paying 10 cedis (about 7.50 CDN) per night and I didn't expect five star service. But after two months on the road living as cheaply as possible, I finally reached my limit.
I started to crave spring mattresses, functioning plumbing, a private bathroom that doesn't smell like used toilet paper (the pipes can't handle toilet paper), and a swimming pool. I craved hotel staff that didn't leer at me or ask for my contact info, staff so obliging that they almost make you feel guilty, but not quite.
So I decided to take a break for one night. I'm overnighting (March 20-21) in Kumasi on my way to see the elephants in Mole National Park, and I checked in to the Golden Tulip Hotel and Resort. They told me the price of their cheapest room, I closed my eyes, held my breath, and gave them my credit card.
Now that the part where I blew my budget to smithereens is over, I feel pretty good. My room at the Golden Tulip has everything I had been craving, plus air conditioning! And the staff... they're not just obliging, they're downright obsequious. I could rhapsodize about them all night.
So for one night and one night only I will travel in style, and cheerfully go back to my budget tomorrow. I figure that making it halfway through my trip without breaking is pretty good, and I should be able to get through the other half without splurging like this again.
Then you start to lose your temper. Like when the jerk who is supposed to be sitting behind the front desk (but is instead sitting by the tiled stairway) complains that the sound of your flip flops coming down the stairs disturbs his conversation with the pretty cleaning lady, you forget that proper protocol is to speak to his superior and instead go ape sh*t on him, embarassing him in front of his love interest, for which he punishes you by taking extra long to do everything from then on.
The third and final sign is cravings for western standards of living. These can be deadly for your wallet.
Yeah, Sammo's Guest House in Cape Coast kind of took it out of me. Normally it would have been fine - I was only paying 10 cedis (about 7.50 CDN) per night and I didn't expect five star service. But after two months on the road living as cheaply as possible, I finally reached my limit.
I started to crave spring mattresses, functioning plumbing, a private bathroom that doesn't smell like used toilet paper (the pipes can't handle toilet paper), and a swimming pool. I craved hotel staff that didn't leer at me or ask for my contact info, staff so obliging that they almost make you feel guilty, but not quite.
So I decided to take a break for one night. I'm overnighting (March 20-21) in Kumasi on my way to see the elephants in Mole National Park, and I checked in to the Golden Tulip Hotel and Resort. They told me the price of their cheapest room, I closed my eyes, held my breath, and gave them my credit card.
Now that the part where I blew my budget to smithereens is over, I feel pretty good. My room at the Golden Tulip has everything I had been craving, plus air conditioning! And the staff... they're not just obliging, they're downright obsequious. I could rhapsodize about them all night.
So for one night and one night only I will travel in style, and cheerfully go back to my budget tomorrow. I figure that making it halfway through my trip without breaking is pretty good, and I should be able to get through the other half without splurging like this again.
Surfing with Slavery's Ghosts
You might not expect a surfer's paradise to be steeped in the history of slavery, but that's the combination that awaits you on Ghana's Gold Coast.
I pulled up to Busua Beach on the afternoon of March 10th and promptly fell in love. The beach is a long ribbon of clean golden sand protected by Abokwa Island, a small atoll covered in palm trees. The people are a mix of eccentric ex-pats and friendly locals. Little hotels dot the beachfront, seeming to grow naturally from the sand. The intimate scale of tourism in Busua brings locals and obrunis (white people) together with an ease I have not experienced since leaving my friends in Burkina. The sound of crashing surf welcomed me and I felt the deep peace that only the ocean can evoke. After sweaty, grabby, frenetic Accra, Busua was heaven.
It was the work of a moment to rip through my backpack, clothes flying everywhere, and find my swimsuit. I was on my way to the ocean when some very happy Rastas called me over to join their table. This proved to be the first of many memorable and wonderful encounters I would have with the motley crew that populated Busua.
Our table was soon joined by an intriguing bearded man on a motorbike. He was really cool and promised me a ride on his bike. He fishes in the area and he told me that he once caught an eighty pound stingray off the promontory, and he frequently catches sharks. They all lit up and I went for my swim, not at all convinced that I would come out with the full complement of limbs.
The next day I went to Black Star Surf Shop and signed myself up for two hours of surfing. I'm not too sure why I thought I was capable of two hours, especially given that I neglected to wear board shorts and ended up with an extraordinarily painful rash on my thigh. I admit here and now that I never used the second hour.
Some of the moments and memories that stand out from my week in Busua are swimming in the ocean under the full moon, discussing the finer points of Nayabingi philosophy with a hard core Rasta who addressed me as "Empress" (I think all men should address me as Empress), and getting hammered (sorry mom) on 20p gin shots with the most diverse group I've ever drunk with. There was Will, the Kiwi P.E. teacher turned anthropologist who is studying private military companies, aka modern day mercenaries. There was Ekke, the strapping German farmer who's lived all over North and West Africa working for an NGO that teaches sustainable farming techniques. There was Ben, the spindly, hard-drinking 19 year old British gap-year backpacker. There was Clement, the Ghanaian surf instructor who got sucked into this and was too polite to leave even though he was bored out of his mind. And finally there was Abby, the brash 20 year old American whose verbal jousting was just barely on the right side of the line between amusement and shocked outrage. So we drank a lot of cheap gin and talked politics. Just try explaining the difference between human security and national security when your slurring your esses.
Busua's idyllic present contrasts sharply with the region's tragic past. From the late 1400s to the mid 1800s, Ghana was the port of passage for an estimated 32 000 000 slaves sent to work the cotton and sugar plantaioms of the New World. Busua is unsuitable for harbour, but its two neighbours - Dixcove to the west and Butre to the east - are overshadowed by the remains of European slave forts. In their lifetimes they sent thousands of Africans to a life of slavery.
These forts were relatively small, sending approximately 1000 slaves a year to the Americas. The three big forts were in Elmina, Cape Coast, and Accra, which are further east. Each of them shipped between 3000 and 4000 slaves to the colonies every year. Most of the slaves came from Ghana; many were prisoners from intertribal wars whose captors sold them to the slavers. There were also organized slave raids as far north as Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso.
This is one reason why Ghana's coastal inhabitants have such a diversity of family names and skin tones. The other is that European slavers stationed in the forts raped their captives at will. If slaves became pregnant they were freed (to give birth and raise a child without any support, yay!) and the child took the father's last name. One of my tour guides in Cape Coast Castle was 100% Ghanaian and named John Morgan.
Sometimes the Europeans would take slaves or local women as mistresses. The genesis of Ghana's formal education system was the need to educate the children born of these unions without sending them back to Europe where the wife and legitimate children lived.
Of the four forts I visited, Elmina Castle is the one I most recommend. Built by the Portugese between 1471 and 1482, it is the oldest European structure in sub-Saharan Africa. It strikes the right balance between giving you the facts and chilling you to the bone. The last time I was so powerfully moved by a tour was in the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. After Elmina, I found Butre's fort to be the most poignant. It is the only one of the four not to have been restored, and the jungle is taking it back. It overlooks the dirt poor fishing village, the uncared for remains of an unwanted history.
It was hard to leave Busua, but I eventually made my way to Cape Coast on the 18th. From there I visited Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle, and I also took day trips to the canopy walk in Kakum National Park and Monkey Forest primate rescue shelter. Monkey Forest was awesome! The owners are a middle-aged Dutch couple with quirky senses of humour. Their monkeys were named things like Spok and Captain Kirk, and one of the cats was named Hannibal the Cannibal. They have civet cats and other abused wild animals as well as monkeys.
Today I travelled to Kumasi and tomorrow I'll continue to Mole National Park. I'll also see the hippo sanctuary in the extreme north-west before going back to Burkina for Easter. Also, one of my host sisters is getting married and I'll be there for that, no question!
I pulled up to Busua Beach on the afternoon of March 10th and promptly fell in love. The beach is a long ribbon of clean golden sand protected by Abokwa Island, a small atoll covered in palm trees. The people are a mix of eccentric ex-pats and friendly locals. Little hotels dot the beachfront, seeming to grow naturally from the sand. The intimate scale of tourism in Busua brings locals and obrunis (white people) together with an ease I have not experienced since leaving my friends in Burkina. The sound of crashing surf welcomed me and I felt the deep peace that only the ocean can evoke. After sweaty, grabby, frenetic Accra, Busua was heaven.
It was the work of a moment to rip through my backpack, clothes flying everywhere, and find my swimsuit. I was on my way to the ocean when some very happy Rastas called me over to join their table. This proved to be the first of many memorable and wonderful encounters I would have with the motley crew that populated Busua.
Our table was soon joined by an intriguing bearded man on a motorbike. He was really cool and promised me a ride on his bike. He fishes in the area and he told me that he once caught an eighty pound stingray off the promontory, and he frequently catches sharks. They all lit up and I went for my swim, not at all convinced that I would come out with the full complement of limbs.
The next day I went to Black Star Surf Shop and signed myself up for two hours of surfing. I'm not too sure why I thought I was capable of two hours, especially given that I neglected to wear board shorts and ended up with an extraordinarily painful rash on my thigh. I admit here and now that I never used the second hour.
Some of the moments and memories that stand out from my week in Busua are swimming in the ocean under the full moon, discussing the finer points of Nayabingi philosophy with a hard core Rasta who addressed me as "Empress" (I think all men should address me as Empress), and getting hammered (sorry mom) on 20p gin shots with the most diverse group I've ever drunk with. There was Will, the Kiwi P.E. teacher turned anthropologist who is studying private military companies, aka modern day mercenaries. There was Ekke, the strapping German farmer who's lived all over North and West Africa working for an NGO that teaches sustainable farming techniques. There was Ben, the spindly, hard-drinking 19 year old British gap-year backpacker. There was Clement, the Ghanaian surf instructor who got sucked into this and was too polite to leave even though he was bored out of his mind. And finally there was Abby, the brash 20 year old American whose verbal jousting was just barely on the right side of the line between amusement and shocked outrage. So we drank a lot of cheap gin and talked politics. Just try explaining the difference between human security and national security when your slurring your esses.
Busua's idyllic present contrasts sharply with the region's tragic past. From the late 1400s to the mid 1800s, Ghana was the port of passage for an estimated 32 000 000 slaves sent to work the cotton and sugar plantaioms of the New World. Busua is unsuitable for harbour, but its two neighbours - Dixcove to the west and Butre to the east - are overshadowed by the remains of European slave forts. In their lifetimes they sent thousands of Africans to a life of slavery.
These forts were relatively small, sending approximately 1000 slaves a year to the Americas. The three big forts were in Elmina, Cape Coast, and Accra, which are further east. Each of them shipped between 3000 and 4000 slaves to the colonies every year. Most of the slaves came from Ghana; many were prisoners from intertribal wars whose captors sold them to the slavers. There were also organized slave raids as far north as Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso.
This is one reason why Ghana's coastal inhabitants have such a diversity of family names and skin tones. The other is that European slavers stationed in the forts raped their captives at will. If slaves became pregnant they were freed (to give birth and raise a child without any support, yay!) and the child took the father's last name. One of my tour guides in Cape Coast Castle was 100% Ghanaian and named John Morgan.
Sometimes the Europeans would take slaves or local women as mistresses. The genesis of Ghana's formal education system was the need to educate the children born of these unions without sending them back to Europe where the wife and legitimate children lived.
Of the four forts I visited, Elmina Castle is the one I most recommend. Built by the Portugese between 1471 and 1482, it is the oldest European structure in sub-Saharan Africa. It strikes the right balance between giving you the facts and chilling you to the bone. The last time I was so powerfully moved by a tour was in the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. After Elmina, I found Butre's fort to be the most poignant. It is the only one of the four not to have been restored, and the jungle is taking it back. It overlooks the dirt poor fishing village, the uncared for remains of an unwanted history.
It was hard to leave Busua, but I eventually made my way to Cape Coast on the 18th. From there I visited Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle, and I also took day trips to the canopy walk in Kakum National Park and Monkey Forest primate rescue shelter. Monkey Forest was awesome! The owners are a middle-aged Dutch couple with quirky senses of humour. Their monkeys were named things like Spok and Captain Kirk, and one of the cats was named Hannibal the Cannibal. They have civet cats and other abused wild animals as well as monkeys.
Today I travelled to Kumasi and tomorrow I'll continue to Mole National Park. I'll also see the hippo sanctuary in the extreme north-west before going back to Burkina for Easter. Also, one of my host sisters is getting married and I'll be there for that, no question!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
One Week in Accra
Tuesday, March 2: arrive in Accra with aforementioned Catholic sisters, eventually get to Volunteer Abroad house, meet the indefatigable Poppo, go to bank, resist urge to kill slow teller. Am surrounded by exposed legs, in sharp contrast to majority Muslim Burkina Faso where only children and nasaras show skin below the knee. I can see why the missionaries chose Ghana for their HQ: their work here is done.
Humidity is 75%; my hair feels like a limp blanket. Sweat pours from areas that have never sweated. The VA house has wifi!!!
Wednesday, March 3: go to bank again because they can't cash all my traveller's cheques on the same day. Drop by Kyle's gym (Kyle is the Canadian VA coordinator) and drool over the air conditioning and hardwood floor (so good for dancing salsa). Have best smoothie of life at gym resto-bar. Get one week free trial pass and promise to return the next day.
Go to Reggae Night at La Badie Beach with Kyle, Poppo and volunteers. Reggae Night is a bohemian expat dream come true: a stage set up on the sand, live reggae music, a cool breeze off the crashing surf a hundred metres away, cheap and delicious local food, and enough pot smoke wafting around to make me feel right at home.
Thursday, March 4: Thursday is gospel day in Accra. Self-styled preachers prostletise (in Twi) through megaphones to anyone who might be able to hear. Some of them stay put and attract small crowds, while others prefer to walk the streets blaring the Word.
Go to gym with Kyle and undergo my free training session with Kyle's personal trainer, Foster "Serious and Wicked" Twum. He chose those middle names for himself after I informed him that my middle name was "Danger." After the session I suggest that he substitute "Sadistic" for "Wicked," and he readily agrees. Am sore for four days and do not go back to gym, not even for the smoothies.
Friday, March 5: get my hair braided (relief!) and do my laundry by hand (pain). In evening meet Boris Zida, Mama and Papa Zida's second child, who is here studying English.
In afternoon went to bank to cash final traveller's cheque. All my transport within Accra is by public transit, which means tro-tros. Tro-tros are rickety, stripped-down minivans that travel fixed routes at speeds suitable for Nascar rallies. They are emblazoned with stickers and decals, most of which say something Jesus-related. However, I did see a tro-tro with "Harry Potter" written in stickers and another that said "FEAR WOMAN." Feminists, make of that what you will.
Saturday, March 6: Ghanaian Independence Day, the country turns 53. Accra is jumping. I go to Independence Square with the volunteers. We arrive at 11 am, just in time to see everyone leave. This must be the one Independence Day where they started and ende on time. Apparantly we missed a lot of marching and the Presidnt's speech.
While walking around Square, got informally interviewed by Ghanaian journalists who ask if I think Ghana is truly independent. I say no, but that no country is truly independent under globalization and that eco-footprint analysis shows just how dependent the neo-colonizers are upon the neo-colonized, blah blah tied aid blah blah political corruption etc. They laugh and give me a high five.
Ghanaians do not respect one's personal space like Burkinabes do, and nowhere is this more evident than in a crowd. They do not grab anywhere inappropriate, but they grab often and determinedly. One overzealous young man grabbed my elbow after I ripped my hand away, and then he kissed it. Weird.
We walk to a beautiful beachfront bar about 20 minutes away, passing random groups of rollerbladers skating the streets in tight formation. I get sunburned despite SPF 60. The humidity just melts the sunscreen right off.
At night I stay home and nurse my sunburn, but Accra is thumping all night long.
Sunday, March 7: am awoken at 6 am by the church across the street, where people are speaking in tongues over the PA system. I do NOTHING all day. Except read Paradise Lost and hang out with Boris.
Monday, March 8: International Women's Day passes without much fanfare, which surprises me a little because they've been preparing for it in Burkina for over a month. But I guess preparing for Independence Day is enough work by itself.
I go clothes shopping in Makola Market with Patience, the sassy girlfriend of Michael the building manager. Makola Market is a sprawling warren of densely packed stalls selling everything from cabbages to King's Hair Pommade. The clothing vendors are found on the streets surrounding the actual market. Patience and I wander through mounds of second hand clothes shipped from developed countries and I get a new, humidity-resistent wardrobe plus a skirt for Patience for under $25.
We go home and I wash my new acquisitions by hand (pain).
Tuesday, March 9: go to Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Museum and, after a long, circuitous walk, also visit the National Museum in the morning. After lunch go to La Badie Beach Resort and pay the 15 Cedi (approx $12) fee for an afternoon of poolside bliss. I am writing this blog from there.
Tomorrow I leave for the coast and I'm really excited to get out of the city. I'll write to you again when I next have Internet!
Humidity is 75%; my hair feels like a limp blanket. Sweat pours from areas that have never sweated. The VA house has wifi!!!
Wednesday, March 3: go to bank again because they can't cash all my traveller's cheques on the same day. Drop by Kyle's gym (Kyle is the Canadian VA coordinator) and drool over the air conditioning and hardwood floor (so good for dancing salsa). Have best smoothie of life at gym resto-bar. Get one week free trial pass and promise to return the next day.
Go to Reggae Night at La Badie Beach with Kyle, Poppo and volunteers. Reggae Night is a bohemian expat dream come true: a stage set up on the sand, live reggae music, a cool breeze off the crashing surf a hundred metres away, cheap and delicious local food, and enough pot smoke wafting around to make me feel right at home.
Thursday, March 4: Thursday is gospel day in Accra. Self-styled preachers prostletise (in Twi) through megaphones to anyone who might be able to hear. Some of them stay put and attract small crowds, while others prefer to walk the streets blaring the Word.
Go to gym with Kyle and undergo my free training session with Kyle's personal trainer, Foster "Serious and Wicked" Twum. He chose those middle names for himself after I informed him that my middle name was "Danger." After the session I suggest that he substitute "Sadistic" for "Wicked," and he readily agrees. Am sore for four days and do not go back to gym, not even for the smoothies.
Friday, March 5: get my hair braided (relief!) and do my laundry by hand (pain). In evening meet Boris Zida, Mama and Papa Zida's second child, who is here studying English.
In afternoon went to bank to cash final traveller's cheque. All my transport within Accra is by public transit, which means tro-tros. Tro-tros are rickety, stripped-down minivans that travel fixed routes at speeds suitable for Nascar rallies. They are emblazoned with stickers and decals, most of which say something Jesus-related. However, I did see a tro-tro with "Harry Potter" written in stickers and another that said "FEAR WOMAN." Feminists, make of that what you will.
Saturday, March 6: Ghanaian Independence Day, the country turns 53. Accra is jumping. I go to Independence Square with the volunteers. We arrive at 11 am, just in time to see everyone leave. This must be the one Independence Day where they started and ende on time. Apparantly we missed a lot of marching and the Presidnt's speech.
While walking around Square, got informally interviewed by Ghanaian journalists who ask if I think Ghana is truly independent. I say no, but that no country is truly independent under globalization and that eco-footprint analysis shows just how dependent the neo-colonizers are upon the neo-colonized, blah blah tied aid blah blah political corruption etc. They laugh and give me a high five.
Ghanaians do not respect one's personal space like Burkinabes do, and nowhere is this more evident than in a crowd. They do not grab anywhere inappropriate, but they grab often and determinedly. One overzealous young man grabbed my elbow after I ripped my hand away, and then he kissed it. Weird.
We walk to a beautiful beachfront bar about 20 minutes away, passing random groups of rollerbladers skating the streets in tight formation. I get sunburned despite SPF 60. The humidity just melts the sunscreen right off.
At night I stay home and nurse my sunburn, but Accra is thumping all night long.
Sunday, March 7: am awoken at 6 am by the church across the street, where people are speaking in tongues over the PA system. I do NOTHING all day. Except read Paradise Lost and hang out with Boris.
Monday, March 8: International Women's Day passes without much fanfare, which surprises me a little because they've been preparing for it in Burkina for over a month. But I guess preparing for Independence Day is enough work by itself.
I go clothes shopping in Makola Market with Patience, the sassy girlfriend of Michael the building manager. Makola Market is a sprawling warren of densely packed stalls selling everything from cabbages to King's Hair Pommade. The clothing vendors are found on the streets surrounding the actual market. Patience and I wander through mounds of second hand clothes shipped from developed countries and I get a new, humidity-resistent wardrobe plus a skirt for Patience for under $25.
We go home and I wash my new acquisitions by hand (pain).
Tuesday, March 9: go to Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Museum and, after a long, circuitous walk, also visit the National Museum in the morning. After lunch go to La Badie Beach Resort and pay the 15 Cedi (approx $12) fee for an afternoon of poolside bliss. I am writing this blog from there.
Tomorrow I leave for the coast and I'm really excited to get out of the city. I'll write to you again when I next have Internet!
Friday, March 5, 2010
Body Imaginings
Staying at the Volunteer Abroad house in Accra is great, though I must admit it's a little strange to find myself surrounded by white people, Canadians no less.
The majority of the volunteers staying in Accra right now are girls between 18 and 22, and they spend a great deal of time obsessing about their weight. Have they gained weight? Where have they gained weight, and when? Did they lose weight from other parts of their bodies? Are they just retaining water? The food is so oily! Why oh why are their stomachs bloated? Oh, how can they go back to Canada looking like this?! (I shouldn't make too much fun, I was worse than them at their age).
Africans don't have these hang ups in the same way. When I was in Yako I attended the Miss Puge-Bedre competition, which literally means Miss Big Woman. The winner weighed 120 kg, close to 300 pounds. Burkinabes admitted that 300 pound is a little excessive, but there is a deep appreciation for well-built women in West Africa. They are strong, healthy, and impervious to life's difficulties and dangers. All of the tailors here have postets of women modelling the various fashions they can sew for you, and not one of those models has an hourglass figure. When people here tell me I've gained weight, I take it as a complement because it means they think I look good.
And that is the point I'm trying to make. So much of our relationship with our bodies is based on what we imagine our weight signifies. Our body image - that mixture of self-perception and self-esteem - depends utterly on the meaning we attach to weight. If we live in a place where love handles are a sign of health and wealth, then their presence ceases to be a problem.
I think the biggest difference between Africans' and North Americans' relationships with their bodies is that Africans tend to accept their bodies as they are and not sweat it. North Americans almost always want to change something, and our relationships with our bodies are so often tainted by dissatisfaction, self-hatred, and envy/resentment of others' figures. Our campaigns to convince girls that every body is beautiful don't work because, as a culture, we don't believe it.
The idea behind Miss Puge-Bedre was to celebrate everybody, and to make sure the African body image keeps going strong.
The majority of the volunteers staying in Accra right now are girls between 18 and 22, and they spend a great deal of time obsessing about their weight. Have they gained weight? Where have they gained weight, and when? Did they lose weight from other parts of their bodies? Are they just retaining water? The food is so oily! Why oh why are their stomachs bloated? Oh, how can they go back to Canada looking like this?! (I shouldn't make too much fun, I was worse than them at their age).
Africans don't have these hang ups in the same way. When I was in Yako I attended the Miss Puge-Bedre competition, which literally means Miss Big Woman. The winner weighed 120 kg, close to 300 pounds. Burkinabes admitted that 300 pound is a little excessive, but there is a deep appreciation for well-built women in West Africa. They are strong, healthy, and impervious to life's difficulties and dangers. All of the tailors here have postets of women modelling the various fashions they can sew for you, and not one of those models has an hourglass figure. When people here tell me I've gained weight, I take it as a complement because it means they think I look good.
And that is the point I'm trying to make. So much of our relationship with our bodies is based on what we imagine our weight signifies. Our body image - that mixture of self-perception and self-esteem - depends utterly on the meaning we attach to weight. If we live in a place where love handles are a sign of health and wealth, then their presence ceases to be a problem.
I think the biggest difference between Africans' and North Americans' relationships with their bodies is that Africans tend to accept their bodies as they are and not sweat it. North Americans almost always want to change something, and our relationships with our bodies are so often tainted by dissatisfaction, self-hatred, and envy/resentment of others' figures. Our campaigns to convince girls that every body is beautiful don't work because, as a culture, we don't believe it.
The idea behind Miss Puge-Bedre was to celebrate everybody, and to make sure the African body image keeps going strong.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Ouaga to Accra in 22 hours flat
First things first, my Ghanaian phone number is 011 233 276 050 372. Hope to hear from you all!
My last week in Ouagadougou was fairly uneventful. I spent time with friends, did laundry, bought a bag in which to store souvenirs, and lay down every day from 12 to 4 and waited to die from the heat. It was hitting 44 degrees with frightening ease, and the human body is set at 37.5. To add insult to injury, there were power outages for at least several hours every day. Imagine 44 degrees without a fan. Burkina can't produce enough power through its own power plants - mostly diesel generators with a very small amount of hydropower in the south - to meet domestic demand. The Burkinabe government recently signed a deal to buy hydro-produced electricity from Cote d'Ivoire, but this isn't working very well. I think the deal is stupid in both the short- and long-term. It's stupid in the short-term because Cote d'Ivoire is politically unstable and its infrastructure is neglected and vulnerable to attack. It's stupid in the long-term because seasonal rain patterns are changing as the plane heats up, already they're coming later and lasting shorter periods of time. Why would you become dependant on a politically unstable country that uses a power source vnerable to global warming? I still agree with Papa Zida that the best option for Burkina and all Sahelian countries is to invest heavily in solar and wind-power technology and supply renewable energy to Europe.
I got my visa for Ghana without mishap. There was one frightening moment at the end though, when I was walking out the door with my visa. At the door an official looking man called me back, checked my passport and said, "Mademoiselle, my boss needs to see you before you can leave." He ushered me into an air conditioned office and said to his boss with a significant look, "She's from Canada." I concentrated on not sweating too hard. "Ah," said the boss, "I see. You know, I've always wanted to marry a Canadian!"
I bought my bus ticket soon thereafter and Monday, March 1st saw me on my way to Ghana. The bus line was called STC, it's Ghana's state transport company and there are two things travellers should know. First, it runs on time. Someone was 5 minutes late for take off and they almost didn't let him on the bus. Second, you cannot leave your assigned seat and sit in one that is closer to the air conditioning or has a less overweight/more interesting seat mate. I tried to do just that and experienced the trilingual wrath of the conductor, who was determined that I would understand his displeasure whether I spoke English, French, or Twi.
Crossing the border at midday was like walking through an oven. For some reason we had to get off the bus and walk three times, each time releasing precious air conditioning. Foreigners had to go through a few extra hurdles, but this ended up being a blessing because I met Teresa and Leontine whil getting my passport scanned. Teresa and Leontine were Catholic missionaries who had just finished a mission in Bamako, Mali and were on their way to HQ in Accra before continuing on to Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Apparantly they don't send white missionaries to Cote d'Ivoire any more because Ivoiriens are lashing out at French people as well as at each other, and they won't stop to check a white person's nationality before getting violent. Teresa and Leontine are both black and should hopefully be safe; Teresa is from Grenada and Leontine from Benin. They were the sweetest, kindest people one could imagine. When we learned that Chile had been rocked to its foundations by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake, they shook their heads and said, "We have been warned of exactly this. It is time keep working and pray."
We spent the afternoon driving south through the Ghanaian countryside. At first it looks and feels much like Burkina, with massive baobab trees and small mud-brick villages. But Burkina is the world's third poorest country and Ghana is a middle developed country, and I soon began to notice differences. For one thing, there were bulldozers by the side o the road. All the construction I had seen in Burkina was done with manual labour. Another difference was the houses in the villages. A much larger percentage of the Ghanaian village houses were of brightly painted concrete, distinguishing them from their poorer mud-brick neighbours.
A long and uncomfortable night ensued during which my large seatmate confessed his love for me. At 6:30 am, after 22 hours of travelling, we pulled up in Accra. I realized that I had no idea how to get to the Volunteer Abroad house, where I was supposed to be staying. I tried phoning them to no avail, and so Teresa and Leontine invited me to come with them to the mission house.
The mission house is in a neighbourhood called Kaneshie, which gets a sea breeze even though th Atlantic is far away. The house itself is small, cute, and very clean, which was such a relief after the nasty facilities we'd been using on the road. The other missionaries were just as lovely as Teresa an Leontine. They came from all over the world; Florence, who did the cooking, was from Ireland and treated us to a full Irish breakfast. It was of the most charming and surreal experiences to be sitting at a little outdoor table with a sea breeze in the company of people from five different countries in the middle of West Africa eating porridge, sausages, fried eggs and toast.
With the help of the missionaries' Blackberry, I managed to get a hold of Poppo at the Volunteer Abroad house and he came to pick me up. The first thing he said to me was, "Woooow, you look so much like Hillary! You're sure you're not her?" He had known my sister when she volunteered here in the summer of 2008.
He and I then went on a long and somewhat frustrating adventure to cash my travellers' cheques. We went first to Osu, an upscale neighbourhood where expats and government workers live. They couldn't cash my cheques that same day, so we peeked into Koala - a grocery store for expats with prices that boggles the mind ($80 for smoked salmon) - went to the Internet cafe, and then took a tro-tro to High Street.
The route to High Street took us through Jamestown, the oldest part of Accra. The lighthouse in Jamestown was built by the British in 1830. High Street is also home to old colonial buildings, like the Court of Justice and an Anglican cathedral that looked so much like Christchurch Cathedral in Vancouver that I almost believed myself at home.
My first impressions of Accra are mostly positive. It's a big, crowded, bustling, confusing city. It's not hot, at least not compared to Burkina, but it's humid. The humidity settles upon you like a second, oily skin. You can get some beautiful views of the ocean and the old city, but you have to watch out for open sewage. And there are a lot of nice cars here. The missionaries told me that banks here are encouraging people to take loans and lines of credit in order to buy cars and other big ticket items when many people may never have had a bank account before. It just seems like another sub-prime mortgage crisis in the making. And last but not least, Obama is everywhere. He was big in Burkina, but in Ghana he's huge! I heard a song on the radio today commemorating his visit.
My last week in Ouagadougou was fairly uneventful. I spent time with friends, did laundry, bought a bag in which to store souvenirs, and lay down every day from 12 to 4 and waited to die from the heat. It was hitting 44 degrees with frightening ease, and the human body is set at 37.5. To add insult to injury, there were power outages for at least several hours every day. Imagine 44 degrees without a fan. Burkina can't produce enough power through its own power plants - mostly diesel generators with a very small amount of hydropower in the south - to meet domestic demand. The Burkinabe government recently signed a deal to buy hydro-produced electricity from Cote d'Ivoire, but this isn't working very well. I think the deal is stupid in both the short- and long-term. It's stupid in the short-term because Cote d'Ivoire is politically unstable and its infrastructure is neglected and vulnerable to attack. It's stupid in the long-term because seasonal rain patterns are changing as the plane heats up, already they're coming later and lasting shorter periods of time. Why would you become dependant on a politically unstable country that uses a power source vnerable to global warming? I still agree with Papa Zida that the best option for Burkina and all Sahelian countries is to invest heavily in solar and wind-power technology and supply renewable energy to Europe.
I got my visa for Ghana without mishap. There was one frightening moment at the end though, when I was walking out the door with my visa. At the door an official looking man called me back, checked my passport and said, "Mademoiselle, my boss needs to see you before you can leave." He ushered me into an air conditioned office and said to his boss with a significant look, "She's from Canada." I concentrated on not sweating too hard. "Ah," said the boss, "I see. You know, I've always wanted to marry a Canadian!"
I bought my bus ticket soon thereafter and Monday, March 1st saw me on my way to Ghana. The bus line was called STC, it's Ghana's state transport company and there are two things travellers should know. First, it runs on time. Someone was 5 minutes late for take off and they almost didn't let him on the bus. Second, you cannot leave your assigned seat and sit in one that is closer to the air conditioning or has a less overweight/more interesting seat mate. I tried to do just that and experienced the trilingual wrath of the conductor, who was determined that I would understand his displeasure whether I spoke English, French, or Twi.
Crossing the border at midday was like walking through an oven. For some reason we had to get off the bus and walk three times, each time releasing precious air conditioning. Foreigners had to go through a few extra hurdles, but this ended up being a blessing because I met Teresa and Leontine whil getting my passport scanned. Teresa and Leontine were Catholic missionaries who had just finished a mission in Bamako, Mali and were on their way to HQ in Accra before continuing on to Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Apparantly they don't send white missionaries to Cote d'Ivoire any more because Ivoiriens are lashing out at French people as well as at each other, and they won't stop to check a white person's nationality before getting violent. Teresa and Leontine are both black and should hopefully be safe; Teresa is from Grenada and Leontine from Benin. They were the sweetest, kindest people one could imagine. When we learned that Chile had been rocked to its foundations by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake, they shook their heads and said, "We have been warned of exactly this. It is time keep working and pray."
We spent the afternoon driving south through the Ghanaian countryside. At first it looks and feels much like Burkina, with massive baobab trees and small mud-brick villages. But Burkina is the world's third poorest country and Ghana is a middle developed country, and I soon began to notice differences. For one thing, there were bulldozers by the side o the road. All the construction I had seen in Burkina was done with manual labour. Another difference was the houses in the villages. A much larger percentage of the Ghanaian village houses were of brightly painted concrete, distinguishing them from their poorer mud-brick neighbours.
A long and uncomfortable night ensued during which my large seatmate confessed his love for me. At 6:30 am, after 22 hours of travelling, we pulled up in Accra. I realized that I had no idea how to get to the Volunteer Abroad house, where I was supposed to be staying. I tried phoning them to no avail, and so Teresa and Leontine invited me to come with them to the mission house.
The mission house is in a neighbourhood called Kaneshie, which gets a sea breeze even though th Atlantic is far away. The house itself is small, cute, and very clean, which was such a relief after the nasty facilities we'd been using on the road. The other missionaries were just as lovely as Teresa an Leontine. They came from all over the world; Florence, who did the cooking, was from Ireland and treated us to a full Irish breakfast. It was of the most charming and surreal experiences to be sitting at a little outdoor table with a sea breeze in the company of people from five different countries in the middle of West Africa eating porridge, sausages, fried eggs and toast.
With the help of the missionaries' Blackberry, I managed to get a hold of Poppo at the Volunteer Abroad house and he came to pick me up. The first thing he said to me was, "Woooow, you look so much like Hillary! You're sure you're not her?" He had known my sister when she volunteered here in the summer of 2008.
He and I then went on a long and somewhat frustrating adventure to cash my travellers' cheques. We went first to Osu, an upscale neighbourhood where expats and government workers live. They couldn't cash my cheques that same day, so we peeked into Koala - a grocery store for expats with prices that boggles the mind ($80 for smoked salmon) - went to the Internet cafe, and then took a tro-tro to High Street.
The route to High Street took us through Jamestown, the oldest part of Accra. The lighthouse in Jamestown was built by the British in 1830. High Street is also home to old colonial buildings, like the Court of Justice and an Anglican cathedral that looked so much like Christchurch Cathedral in Vancouver that I almost believed myself at home.
My first impressions of Accra are mostly positive. It's a big, crowded, bustling, confusing city. It's not hot, at least not compared to Burkina, but it's humid. The humidity settles upon you like a second, oily skin. You can get some beautiful views of the ocean and the old city, but you have to watch out for open sewage. And there are a lot of nice cars here. The missionaries told me that banks here are encouraging people to take loans and lines of credit in order to buy cars and other big ticket items when many people may never have had a bank account before. It just seems like another sub-prime mortgage crisis in the making. And last but not least, Obama is everywhere. He was big in Burkina, but in Ghana he's huge! I heard a song on the radio today commemorating his visit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)