Tema and Ada Foah

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

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

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

Highlight of my VSO experience?

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

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

"She is not correct"

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

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

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

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

Street Food

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wli Falls and Hohoe

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

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

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

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

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

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

End of the Line

Last time I was in Accra, I visited the Survey Department near 37. This is almost the only place in Ghana where you can buy large scale maps. Near the back of the compound I found a large dusty room shelved throughout and full of maps. I only knew about the place because Dave Beautyman, one of the new volunteers in the Volta Region had been there soon after he arrived. There were no obvious attempts to market the maps and I half expected to have to show some ID before they would sell me anything. However ten Ghana Cedis later I had two 1:50,000 sheets of the Koforidua area – like the Ordnance Survey, the places you always want, seem to be on the edge of two sheets. The maps were based on aerial photographs taken in the 1970s but other than the development of the town itself little would have changed in the intervening years. The eastern sheet ends at the Greenwich Meridian, suggesting that if you travelled directly north from Koforidua you would end up in west London.

Armed with the information contained in the maps, but not the maps themselves as they came rolled at about a metre in length, I felt confident to experiment with some walks around Koforidua. On Saturday I decided I would try to find Kentenkiren Falls. They were not marked on the map, but they were mentioned in a brochure about the New Juaben Municipal Assembly as a tourist attraction that should be promoted. There was also a photograph, which was even more encouraging. I tried to extrapolate where the falls lay from a sketch map in the Assembly’s Medium Term Development Plan. I decided that following the defunct railway line would be the easiest route.

Koforidua railway station still stands near the Foster Bakery, not far from the Old Estate. It is not quite clear what the building is used for now and I have not investigated closely. The substantial canopy, projecting from the main building, continues to defy gravity and remains in position. Large signs marked KOFORIDUA welcome the goats that wander through. There is a hoarding on the platform advertising Polos, “the Sweet with the Hole”. It is many years since Koforidua has seen a train and probably as long since Polos were easily available here. The line ran from Accra to Kumasi and for much of this distance the single track is still present. It occasionally appears beside the road to Kumasi and where they cross it creates another set of bumps for the tro tros to negotiate. The trains were apparently scheduled to take six hours to do the entire journey but eventually they could take more than a day and finally they didn’t even do that. The line is only operated out of Accra as far as Nsawam now. The only reason I know this is that, unfortunately, there was a recent rail accident near Nsawam. It was blamed on a combination of poor track and rolling stock.

With huge pressure on the roads in Ghana, particularly Accra, there is occasional talk of reopening the railways. So far, there is a new commuter service bringing passengers from the Tema direction to the capital. With no immediate prospects of reintroducing trains in the Eastern Region, I felt the line would make for easy walking and reduce the chance of getting lost. Things started well. I left the town. The line was obviously used as a footpath between the smaller outer lying settlements around Koforidua. Having lost its original use, it felt a bit like walking along Hadrian’s Wall, the remnant of another empire and in some ways just as irrelevant in the present day. The only difference was that at Hadrian’s Wall, I would represent the colonised and here I was the coloniser. As I walked the undergrowth thickened. There were a few people about. I met a man tending his crop on a small plot. He told me that this was his weekend activity. During the week he was a railway engineer based in the transport police office at Koforidua station. I didn’t feel I could ask him what engineering was required on the railway line that was, at this point, knee deep in rushes and small bushes.

The line was now less a means of transport and more of a nature reserve. With patience I am sure I would have spotted plenty of exotic birds and butterflies. I glimpsed a few. I was impressed by the neat little grass birds’ nests I encountered at one point. The rushes by now were considerably taller than me and when the bushes began to scratch me regularly I decided it was time to give up. I was also hoping not to encounter any snakes in the undergrowth. I took a promising looking track west. It brought me out on the southern bypass near the New Capital View Hotel. I would need to try a different approach to the waterfall. Eventually I will give up and ask one of my colleagues at work the best way to get there.

It had been sunny all morning and I took a shady break at a container shop for a ‘mineral’. As I drank my Sprite from the bottle, the manageress’ brother tried to match me up with his sister. She had expressed a desire to marry a white man and to paraphrase him she wasn’t getting any younger. When he had seen me approaching it seemed like his, if not her, prayers had been answered. Any volunteer will tell you that this type of encounter is an occupational hazard. The only thing that was remarkable on this occasion was that I must have looked even more of a scruff than usual, scratches on my arms and legs, sun burn on one arm, black marks all over my shirt and white marks on my now very faded shorts.

I had a far more touching encounter with the taxi driver who took me back into town from Mile 50. He picked me up. I checked to make sure his was a shared taxi and that by inference he would take me for a low fixed fee with any other passengers who would hail him en route. He confirmed he was, but when we reached Koforidua he refused to take any payment. He had picked me he said. I insisted on paying and he reluctantly took the money. I think he would have taken me all the way home if I had let him. Sadly the regular reaction to ‘obrunis’ is to try and charge them a little extra on the grounds that they can afford it. You gradually get to know the local prices and challenge any request for more. This becomes hard though with the relentless price rises. This experience was therefore a very pleasant surprise.