Quick overview of what I've beeen up to since I got bored of writing this last time. So I spent a day chilling out here, think I was pretty exhausted, walked all along the beach, turns out to be not so nice when you get into the fishing part. On my return I bumped into an Aussie and a Brit who changed the course of things to come... Keith and Tamara (assign the nationalities yourselves, not hard) were volunteers in St Louis, my planned next port of call, but had come to Dakar to visit before Tamara flew out and Keith went to a festival in a (mini) desert. We went out to see the legenedary musician Suleyman Faye, 60 in Jan and going strong and attempted to do a motorbike tour of Dakar, but the guides never turned up. So we spent a pleasant afternoon wandering around the pretty island of Goree just off the coast of Dakar instead. And then I spent an unpleasant evening throwing up. But I figure one evening of that after ten weeks of travel, well, I was due it. Glad I've not had anything worse. Still, many thanks to Tamara and Keith who kept me company and well supplied with water, coke and toilet rolls!
One of the projects run by the organisation they were working with was working in a Talibé centre. The Talibés are young boys, I think probably from about 5 years up to being teenagers, who are in religious training from the Marabouts (local religious leaders). They live in Doras, houses together where the Marabouts supposedly look after them. The kids are always out on the streets hassling people for money, or going into houses asking for clothes. None of this is for them, it goes to the Marabouts. The work the volunteers were mainly doing was providing first aid for these kids. There were stories of them having huge infected wounds, and nobody had done anything. I find the whole thing pretty hard to get my head around. The kids don't go to school but they can sing prayer calls and recite parts of the Koran. They are always dressed in shabby old ill-fitting clothes.
Whilst we were waiting for the ferry to Gorée, we had a drink of (flat) coke in a cafe, and one of these kids came over, with his tell-tale yellow bucket, asking for money. Not wanting to send him off with cash for the marabout, Tamara gave him her coke. He looked uncertain, clearly knew this wasn't allowed, but eventually took it and hid uncerneath the next table. The proprietor came out, and before we could stop him, had shouted at the boy, who left the coke and ran off. We tried to invite him back, but he looked to scared and humilitated to come back. The proprietor seemed annoyed with us, explained the situation with the marabouts (yes, we know, that's why we gave him something to drink), implied that we were ignorant tourists and claimed it was all the parents fault. Perhaps, but why should that mean you bully this boy? We paid for our drinks and left without finishing.
The next day, feeling (somewhat) recovered from my episode, I jumped on the desert festival bandwaggon - quite literally - and headed to Lompoul. It is a strange small desert where, from the top of the highest dune, you can see the surrounding non-desert land. We stayed in a tent village and ate delicious meals in a beautiful Mauritanian style tent. I felt incredibly colonial and wouldn't have been surprised to see Poirot popping up to solve the troubles of the khaki-clad, bush-hat wearing colonial types. The music was like nothing I have ever seen, the only way I can think to describe it is "mysterious". But it was fantasic to see a guy dressed in full desert robes and Tuareg scarf, standing in front of a traditionally costumed guy - feathers and all - playing an electric guitar. Fortunately it was a cloudy day so it was not too hot during the day and not too cold at night.
I continued onto St Louis, as originally planned, on the Sunday. I stayed in a ridiculous hotel, with a pool and pretty much nobody there, hot water and my own little beachside hut. I really had expected to rough it a bit here. St Louis itself is beautiful, full of pastel coloured buildings, like someone dumped a bit of the med into Africa. It stinks of fish, but that is a pretty common occurrence here. I hung out with the volunteers that Keith and Tamara had worked with and it was really nice to be part of a community. From St Louis I took trips to the reserve de Gomboul where I held tortoises and chased warthogs, and to the parc national de la langue de barbarie - a pirogue ride between the mainland and the spit that comes around from the other side of the island of St Louis.
From St Louis I planned to break up the journey to Gambia (although I reckon it might have been possible in one day, just) by stopping in the town of Thies, which boasts an apparently world famous tapestry factory. And not much else. It was Muslim new year when I arrived, however, and everything, including the tapestry factory was shut. I got an early night and an early start the next day and arrived in Banjul by 2pm. I had been told the Gambian customs officers were pretty... thorough, shall we say, and so I was pleasantly surprised when at the border the customs guy just stared. "Do you need to see in my bag?" I asked. "Whats in it?" was his response, and when I said jsut clothes and normal things, he nodded me onto the next office where they served me tea and asked me to stay for Christmas. But it was after the ferry trip to banjul that they really kicked in. Hot, sweaty, tired, so close to my hotel, I had to stop and empty EVERYTHING from my bag. They wanted explanations of every drug and medicine I had with me. I will forever be haunted by the memory of having to explain the purpose of Canasten through mime.
Eventually, however, I did reach the world's most depressing hotel, low ceilings, dim lights, holes in the walls and swarming, I do mean swarming, with mosquitoes. I lit a whole packet of mosquito coils (I think thats 10) and nearly choked myself. I spent the afternoon wandering around Banjul, which is possibly the nicest capital city ever. Its about a quarter of the size of lincoln, and has a terribly English feel about it, not hindered by the cricket pitch in the centre. Take out the insane vehicules and you'd have a rather warm, coastal version on Midsomer. On a hint from the guidebook I visited the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital, where you can do a tour. Highly uncomfortable experience. I was impressed by the range of facilities; everything from a CT scanner to a physiotherapy ward to a blood bank. But I wouldn't want to be treated there. The blood bank has no staff, and a coca-cola fridge to keep the blood in, the sterilising unit was closed, the guy mopping the floor of the surgical theatre had left the doors wide open, one of the two people working in the path lab had gloves on - but they were filthy, the x-rays were developed hanging outside pegged to a washing line and the radioloogist was wearing a suit which suggested he was preparing for nuclear war, the doors to the morgue were broken and you could see the tables, but thankfully no bodies as it was a Friday afternoon, so all the staff were at the Mosque.
After visiting the national museum's entertaining displays of colonial photographs and watching a guy make silver-plated rings I headed off to the tourist coast. I took the public transport which was like a nicer, cleaner, more comfortable version of the ghanaian tro-tros. And cost one hundreth of the price of a private taxi. I cannot comprehend this. Stopped to ask a Gambian lady for directions, turns out she had lived in Leeds. Lovely. Walked the last leg of the journey from the cash machine to the hotel ( I treated myself to something in the Lonely Planet's "midrange") and a guy pulled up alongside me to offer me a lift because he doesn't like "to see women suffer". Poor young Toubab lady, obviously can't manage her own backpack. No thank you, I'm enjoying seeing everything. But, as usual, he didn't listen to what I wanted and cerb-crawled, insisting, until I told him he'd cause an accident. The traffic laws, well, they seem to exist in Gambia, and be enforced, I like it. If you're in the passenger seat of a taxi without wearing a seatbelt the police will stop you and fine you over 100 pounds.
Having chased him away two ladies called to me from across the road. They were very pleased with me. They had walked for miles from the big market back towards their place of work and had asked the guy for a lift, and he had apparently said that he didn't take passengers. He did however, park up down the road and chase me to chat to me, which gave me an opportunity to yell at him about his racial discrimination in only taking white girls and not Gambian girls in his car, and for lying to them.
The hotel I stayed in is run by an English couple totally committed to responsible tourism, they are currently building an eco-lodge and learning centre in a little village in the south of the coastal strip. The village has apparently become the first in the world to impliment their own tourist code. This threw me into a world of expats and other Europeans trying to make a positive impact in Gambia. I met a fabulous Dutch couple, Ellen and Fred who have been working on and off in the Gambia and Fred is currently working on an efficient and hygenic solar powered mango dryer. Anyone who can understand Dutch should check out their website:
http://www.stichtinggambiaproject.nl/
They recommended visiting the Gambia is Good farming project which is trying to encourage well planned crop planting and otherenvironmentally sensible techniques so that, for example, farmers inland can benefit from Gambia's tourist industry by producing the crops that the hotels want to buy in - e.g. cherry tomatoes. Dan, one of the top guys at the farm, kindly gave me a lift on his bike to the Kim Kombo distillery down the road which grows the majority of their own crops they use to make the liquers, gets you tiddly and then sells you fantastic selections of their delicious wares!
This was the day I really began to see the depth of Gambian generoisty; perhaps I jut hit lucky on this day, alternatively, there is more of it in Gambia than in any other of the West African countries I have visited. And there's plenty of it there. I bumped into a guy on the way to the bus stop who put me on the right bus and made a big deal out of ensuring that the driver took me to the right place. Dan, at the farm, went out of his way to take me to the distillery, waited there for me then took me to the bus stop. When I got off the bus I asked for directions and a guy told me I needed to get a taxi to where I wanted to go. I thought he was just trying to make money out of the Toubab so I told him I didn't have much money, I'd rather walk, could he please just give me directions. He practically shoved me in a taxi and gave the money for the ride to the driver, refusing my attempts to give him the amount back. The driver then went beyond his usual route to ensure I got the next connection. When I arrived at the last stop and was taking the short walk back to the hotel a guy sidled up alongside me. I put on my usual, its-dark-and-I'm-on-my-own pace and face but he was persistent and told me that if I came by to his cafe the next day he would give me a coffee for free. When I arrived back at the hotel I was informed that there was a package waiting for me. This was from Vera. I had bought a Sandwhich frim Vera in the street and we had got chatting as she's from Ghana. She took me to her church, made me a dress (and then went home and adjusted it because I'm "not like the skinny English girls", I am, apparently "a good, fat girl".) fed me lunch and then, having excused myself with a headache, turned up the next day at the hotel with food for me to make sure I was ok. She had been there again that day and had this time left me a dinner of fish and fried yam, clothes she had made for me and my parents, two pairs of shoes and a wall hanging. When I tried to give her a gift before I left the Gambia, she tried to pay for it.
Other activities included spending an afternoon walking along deserted beaches and scrambling over rocks to get to the next town, visiting a monkey park with a lovely dutch couple and getting a guided tour round the botanical gardens. The tour was all very.... nice, until the guide was showing me the medicinal gardens and stopped at one particular tree. "This one is good for curing AIDS". He announced. "For what?" I said, thinking I must have misheard, this was an intelligent guy. "AIDS." "AIDS?" I tried to reconfirm. "Yes, AIDS." In response to my progessively less and less gentle explanation that AIDS cannot, as yet, be cured he told me that the news about the tree had been told to them by their president.
Dear Mr President of Gambia, all your people seem to love you. I can't think why when you say things like this which can only harm them, and when you make your personal beef with the Senegalese president public by mouthing off at him in the papers and nearly causing some serious security probems.
I happened to be leaving Gambia the same day as Fred and Ellen, and our end destinations in Senegal were about 20km apart. So aftersome uncertainty about the security of the situation, they offered me a ride inthe back of their pickup. Only it had no back doors. But actually it was more comfortable than a sept-place taxi (yes, it may have 7 seats, but this bears no relation to the number of passngers that will be in it), and probably safer than most ofthe buses that have their doors hanging open and people hanging out ofthe back. Was quite significantly dusty though.
Eventually I arrived at the little town of Toubab-Dialo on Senegal's "Little Coast". It was undeniably beautiful, but my feeling on arrival were that I was not, as the guidebook had said, staying in a backpacker's haven, but a family resort, and that was not somewhere I wanted to be for Christmas. I tried to find a church to visit on Christmas day - but there were none, only several mosques. But in my search I stumbled across a lovely Gambian girl, Edwina, whose mother, who she was visiting for the holidays, owns a beach restaurant and rents a few rooms. If anybody ever wants to visit the Petit Cote I would thoroughly recommend Chez Baby, right on the beach, with some of the nicest and cheapest rooms in town, and excellent food - which she insisted on feeding me, every day, in vast quantities.
Eventually Edwina and I discovered a midnight service out on the main road and decided to head up to it. We arrived there and met a wonderfully kind missionary lady from Brazil, Ana, and her 7 year old totally multilingual daughter, Emily. The power went out for the service, but that kind of added to the Christmas atmosphere, although that's very different from any midnight mass I've ever been to!
I spent the next few days hanging out with Edwina on the beach, eating Tiemboudienne - the Senegalese fish and rice dish - served by Baby (her mother) and getting to know the inhabitants of the small village, so much so that when the power went off one afternoon and all the guys made the most by going to play football on the beach I was left babysitting. fortunately kids here are MUCH better behaved than English kids so I just read my book whilst they sat quiettly. Tehy seemed happy enough.
From The Little Coast I headed back to spend a few days chilling out on Gorée again. The harbour, being enclosed is great for swimming, with none of the huge waves and strong currents that the open beaches had, and the water was surprisingly clear. From there I headed back to Yoff, where I wrote my last entry. I have spent two days literally wiating to come home, passing the time on a gorgeous beach, and Yesterday I visited Dakar, including the crazy huge monument that has cost an insane amopunt of money, upset the majority muslim population by having a majorioty naked lady, and upset everyone else, by just not being that nice. As the lady in the hostel said, "it has no soul". That and from a female perspective I find it repugnant. if the monument represents the resurgence of Africa, then with women and children in the role the monument puts them, its not going to be resurging anytime soon.
So now I am hopefully a few hours away from home, desperately looking forward to it! Although this has been fantastic, unforgettable, rollercoaster that has zoomed past, its made me realise something that I would have vehemently denied before - England is home, and I'm a home bird.
Friday 31 December 2010
Thursday 9 December 2010
Senegal makes me happy
I am a chicken, it turns out, who likes a bit of luxury from time to time, and sometimes gets sick of "adventures". I could have taken the bus from Bamako to Dakar, a 36 hour journey (plus minimum 10% extra for breakdowns) on a bus with seats in the aisles on roads that would be better described as holes bridged (occasionally) by dirt, through areas the FCO says not to go, arrive at who knows what time ( but probably in the dark, buses only ever arrive places in the dark) into who knows where in a city described in the rough guide as needing "a degree of mental preparation" and then have to find my way, constantly hassled by "guides", with my big backpack to somewhere overpriced and rented by the hour. Alternatively, I could get up leisurely in Bamako, have a nice breakfast with the crazy brits taking motorcyles overland to cape town and back, go to the airport, read my book for a couple of hours whilst I wait for the clean, punctual little aeroplane to take me safely the hour and a half to the organised airport outside the city centre where I can be picked up and taken to a nice hostel in a calm area with enough daylight left to walk the 500m to the beach. So a chicken I may be, but a pretty smart one I think.
The flight was slightly surreal, it was with Kenya airways, so they were speaking English (of a quality rarely acheived outside of Eton - and, I suspect, with a politeness rarely seen in it). But flying between two Francophone countries the majority of the passengers were French speakers, leaving me pretty confused as to what I should be speaking. I am fairly sure I was served my chicken gristle in off-white gloop by the butler from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, with a badge labelling him as "Edwin".
Once satisfactorily installed and chilled out in the lovely little hideaway of Via Via in the small but lively fishing village of Yoff, about half an hour from Dakar on the North of the Cap Vert peninsula, I went for a little explore. There is not the same sense of poverty here as in other parts of West Africa, though I have yet to see what the more rural areas are like, and I'm not for a second suggesting that poverty does not exist here and that people aren't desperate. The shops are in actual buildings that you can enter and are well stocked with display cabinets brimming with patisseries and everything from batteries to body lotion. Fresh fruit is sold in big marketstall type stands arranged colourfully to show off the variety available. This is a stark contrast to previous places where fruit is bought from a pile at the feet of a woman sat on a wooden stool and you either by bananas from her,or oranges from the next woman.
I wandered through the streets (actual roads) past yellow taxis and horsedrawn carts, between pleasant and well-maintained appartment buildings, musing at the difference it makes when its sand beneath your feet not orange dust. The town slopes gently downhill until you can hear the sea, and the main road sneaks away to the side. The sun at 5.30 was still warm, though low enough in the sky to cast an orange glow over everything, and the sea breeze was pleasant to almost chilly. There is an extra hour of sunlight here (which baffled me for a while and caused me to wonder if there was a time difference) and the sunset lasts nearly an hour, not just 5-10 minutes. I knew I was near the beach when I turned the last corner as, unfortunately I could smell it. But that did not prepare me for what I was about to see. Coming around the side of the building I stopped dead. Ahead of me was the sea, to the right, some beachside shacks serving drinks and playing drums, and directly in front of me was a crowd of middle aged men in their underwear, covered in sand... wrestling. I took a moment to take in the scene and noticed that to the left also was a group of about 40 slightly younger men, dressed in football kits, and in a square formation jumping backwards up the slope of the sand with their hands behind their backs.
Beyond them, as the beach opened out, were more young men, jogging, jumping tyres, running around circles, doing push-ups, sit-ups, strange circuit-training type exercises. Three girls in their late teens jogged past at the edge of the water where the sand was hard. A white guy with a surf board wandered around. Some guys jogged along the waterfront, knee-deep, struggling to maintain some speed. It was like the biggest, prettiest, coolest gym ever.
Westward along the stretch of coast, the sun was setting over the onion dome of the Layen mausoleum, and the land stretched round towards the almost covered causeway leading to the small, green, Isle de Yoff.
For the first time in a few weeks, I feel like I can wait to go home.
The flight was slightly surreal, it was with Kenya airways, so they were speaking English (of a quality rarely acheived outside of Eton - and, I suspect, with a politeness rarely seen in it). But flying between two Francophone countries the majority of the passengers were French speakers, leaving me pretty confused as to what I should be speaking. I am fairly sure I was served my chicken gristle in off-white gloop by the butler from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, with a badge labelling him as "Edwin".
Once satisfactorily installed and chilled out in the lovely little hideaway of Via Via in the small but lively fishing village of Yoff, about half an hour from Dakar on the North of the Cap Vert peninsula, I went for a little explore. There is not the same sense of poverty here as in other parts of West Africa, though I have yet to see what the more rural areas are like, and I'm not for a second suggesting that poverty does not exist here and that people aren't desperate. The shops are in actual buildings that you can enter and are well stocked with display cabinets brimming with patisseries and everything from batteries to body lotion. Fresh fruit is sold in big marketstall type stands arranged colourfully to show off the variety available. This is a stark contrast to previous places where fruit is bought from a pile at the feet of a woman sat on a wooden stool and you either by bananas from her,or oranges from the next woman.
I wandered through the streets (actual roads) past yellow taxis and horsedrawn carts, between pleasant and well-maintained appartment buildings, musing at the difference it makes when its sand beneath your feet not orange dust. The town slopes gently downhill until you can hear the sea, and the main road sneaks away to the side. The sun at 5.30 was still warm, though low enough in the sky to cast an orange glow over everything, and the sea breeze was pleasant to almost chilly. There is an extra hour of sunlight here (which baffled me for a while and caused me to wonder if there was a time difference) and the sunset lasts nearly an hour, not just 5-10 minutes. I knew I was near the beach when I turned the last corner as, unfortunately I could smell it. But that did not prepare me for what I was about to see. Coming around the side of the building I stopped dead. Ahead of me was the sea, to the right, some beachside shacks serving drinks and playing drums, and directly in front of me was a crowd of middle aged men in their underwear, covered in sand... wrestling. I took a moment to take in the scene and noticed that to the left also was a group of about 40 slightly younger men, dressed in football kits, and in a square formation jumping backwards up the slope of the sand with their hands behind their backs.
Beyond them, as the beach opened out, were more young men, jogging, jumping tyres, running around circles, doing push-ups, sit-ups, strange circuit-training type exercises. Three girls in their late teens jogged past at the edge of the water where the sand was hard. A white guy with a surf board wandered around. Some guys jogged along the waterfront, knee-deep, struggling to maintain some speed. It was like the biggest, prettiest, coolest gym ever.
Westward along the stretch of coast, the sun was setting over the onion dome of the Layen mausoleum, and the land stretched round towards the almost covered causeway leading to the small, green, Isle de Yoff.
For the first time in a few weeks, I feel like I can wait to go home.
Tuesday 7 December 2010
Brief trip to Mali
I had planned to spend the best part of a month in Mali, but Al-quaeda have been running around and the government got scared. So I called my Dad to ask him to check the FCO advice on the internet, and apparently basically all of Mali is no-go zone. I think its just that my Dad looked up what was there and decided he wanted to go too. One day Dad. But for now, I'm skippping it.
After my awesome time in Western Burkina I was not looking forward to coming to Bamako, capital of Mali, as no guidebook or other traveller was exactly complimentary. But I sat down on the bus next to a nervous looking law student who was moving that day to Senegal and had his Mum waving him off. Made me feel kind of stable. And the woman behind me started throwing up, and I got to be the one to take her temperature, give her tissues and chewing gum etc and I felt no longer like the one who needed looking after.
Aware of my optimistic first impressions of Ouaga and how I'd been disappointed I decided not to like Bamako, even crossing over the brightly lit bridge across the niger with a friendly taxi driver and good, well surfaced roads. I arrived at the nunnery (these are GREAT places to stay) and Sister Jeanne, who is shockingly friendly and speaks flawless English welcomed me in to a very clean, secure place. I went to the cafe literally oppositte where they welcomed me, sprayed me with mossie repellent (very necessary here) and handed me a small beer and a huge plate of chips and sheep, and when they didn't have change, just gave me all my money back. The fan in the room didn't work and there was traffic noise. Enough reason to continue not to like the city. The next day I had a lovely breakfast, again, just across the road, and was joined by two lovely french women, one who took me in her taxi to meet her friends and find a surprisingly cheap plane ticket to Dakar, and the other who invited me to have dinner with her. But at lunchtime I had to walk for at least ten minutes to find the tomatoes I fancied putting in my laughing cow sandwhich, bought from the sweet lady with the shop on the corner with the lovely little child. There's dust in the dity 'la poussiere'. Not as much as the guidebooks that I have now butchered to weigh less suggest, but still. And the taxis are expensive, even as much as 2 pounds to get from one side of the capital to the other. And the well stocked bookshops with friendly staff in the big air-conditioned hotels serving cheap fresh fruit juice don't happen to have the senegal guidebook I want. But they do have others.
I found a good reason not to like Bamako. I went out of town to the big market where the locals go to shop. Its immense, dirty, swarming with flies, I stepped in some vile greenish liquid streaming from under the meat section, I accidentally stumbled into a horrid public toilet, and I nearly got run over several times by people reversing motorbikes through the tiny lanes between the stalls. But nobody hassles the white girl there, they're all to busy getting on with their own lives. And its so interesting. And there's a woman in the corner making amazing crumpet-like cakes on a griddle. And I've never seen so many vegetables in one place in West Africa - beetroots, chives, ginger (that was so fat and un-rooty I thought they were stones), big, fresh lettuces, carrots, yams, chillies piles of oranges taller than people.
So I think I kind of like it, after all. Still, I'm looking forward to chilling out by the beach in a little fishing village in Senegal.
After my awesome time in Western Burkina I was not looking forward to coming to Bamako, capital of Mali, as no guidebook or other traveller was exactly complimentary. But I sat down on the bus next to a nervous looking law student who was moving that day to Senegal and had his Mum waving him off. Made me feel kind of stable. And the woman behind me started throwing up, and I got to be the one to take her temperature, give her tissues and chewing gum etc and I felt no longer like the one who needed looking after.
Aware of my optimistic first impressions of Ouaga and how I'd been disappointed I decided not to like Bamako, even crossing over the brightly lit bridge across the niger with a friendly taxi driver and good, well surfaced roads. I arrived at the nunnery (these are GREAT places to stay) and Sister Jeanne, who is shockingly friendly and speaks flawless English welcomed me in to a very clean, secure place. I went to the cafe literally oppositte where they welcomed me, sprayed me with mossie repellent (very necessary here) and handed me a small beer and a huge plate of chips and sheep, and when they didn't have change, just gave me all my money back. The fan in the room didn't work and there was traffic noise. Enough reason to continue not to like the city. The next day I had a lovely breakfast, again, just across the road, and was joined by two lovely french women, one who took me in her taxi to meet her friends and find a surprisingly cheap plane ticket to Dakar, and the other who invited me to have dinner with her. But at lunchtime I had to walk for at least ten minutes to find the tomatoes I fancied putting in my laughing cow sandwhich, bought from the sweet lady with the shop on the corner with the lovely little child. There's dust in the dity 'la poussiere'. Not as much as the guidebooks that I have now butchered to weigh less suggest, but still. And the taxis are expensive, even as much as 2 pounds to get from one side of the capital to the other. And the well stocked bookshops with friendly staff in the big air-conditioned hotels serving cheap fresh fruit juice don't happen to have the senegal guidebook I want. But they do have others.
I found a good reason not to like Bamako. I went out of town to the big market where the locals go to shop. Its immense, dirty, swarming with flies, I stepped in some vile greenish liquid streaming from under the meat section, I accidentally stumbled into a horrid public toilet, and I nearly got run over several times by people reversing motorbikes through the tiny lanes between the stalls. But nobody hassles the white girl there, they're all to busy getting on with their own lives. And its so interesting. And there's a woman in the corner making amazing crumpet-like cakes on a griddle. And I've never seen so many vegetables in one place in West Africa - beetroots, chives, ginger (that was so fat and un-rooty I thought they were stones), big, fresh lettuces, carrots, yams, chillies piles of oranges taller than people.
So I think I kind of like it, after all. Still, I'm looking forward to chilling out by the beach in a little fishing village in Senegal.
Saturday 4 December 2010
Adventurizing
Just spent a fantastic week around the lovely town of Bobo-dioulasso in the south of Burkina Faso. Compared to Ouaga, its incredibly green. From this town I took an hours bus ride to Banfora, as much of a tourist hub as exists in Burkina, and for good reason as the surrounding areas are something pretty special.
I took an early morning bike ride along a dusty path past ox carts, donkeys, people on motos and the occasional unicef 4x4 which makes everyone stop to cover themselves from the dust, to lake tangrela in a beatiful and very rural village full of stereotypical mud huts. I took a pirogue ride on the lake. I knew that it was possible to see hippos, but that wasn't really my objective as the lake itself is beautiful and apparently you have to be there at sunrise to see thelm, and also they're the biggest killers in Africa. But I did see them. I was pretty terrified, but also pretty impressed, big pink toothy mouths sticking out of the water with a hige shadow underneath showing the sie of the beasts.
That afternoon I went with some swedish girls I'd met to an amazing harmattan-formed rock formation which has incredible views over the flat land below. I don't think Ive ever seen such a vast expanse of land. Hard to really comprehend the size of the land mass that is Africa. We also went to see some really stunning waterfalls; we made it there an hour before sunset and were splashing about on the warm rocks as the sky turned orange over the surprisingly green landscape.
The following day all four of us, a guide, a driver and our bags piled into a battered old merc to go to the village of niansongori at the corner of burkina where cote d'ivoire meets Mali. We climbed a huuuuuge hill to see a village that had existed tehre since the 14th century and had been deserted in colonial times when the French had eventually persuaded them life might be easier if they didn't have to climb a huge cliff face every day to get water, or harvest crops. It was pretty special. We stayed in a eally chilled out campement at the bottom of the hill with no electric or running water, just hammocks, mud huts, stars, and more couscous than anyone could ever eat.
I'm heading to Mali tomorrow, but because al-quaeda have decided to spoil my fun ,its just a stop off on the way to senegal.
I took an early morning bike ride along a dusty path past ox carts, donkeys, people on motos and the occasional unicef 4x4 which makes everyone stop to cover themselves from the dust, to lake tangrela in a beatiful and very rural village full of stereotypical mud huts. I took a pirogue ride on the lake. I knew that it was possible to see hippos, but that wasn't really my objective as the lake itself is beautiful and apparently you have to be there at sunrise to see thelm, and also they're the biggest killers in Africa. But I did see them. I was pretty terrified, but also pretty impressed, big pink toothy mouths sticking out of the water with a hige shadow underneath showing the sie of the beasts.
That afternoon I went with some swedish girls I'd met to an amazing harmattan-formed rock formation which has incredible views over the flat land below. I don't think Ive ever seen such a vast expanse of land. Hard to really comprehend the size of the land mass that is Africa. We also went to see some really stunning waterfalls; we made it there an hour before sunset and were splashing about on the warm rocks as the sky turned orange over the surprisingly green landscape.
The following day all four of us, a guide, a driver and our bags piled into a battered old merc to go to the village of niansongori at the corner of burkina where cote d'ivoire meets Mali. We climbed a huuuuuge hill to see a village that had existed tehre since the 14th century and had been deserted in colonial times when the French had eventually persuaded them life might be easier if they didn't have to climb a huge cliff face every day to get water, or harvest crops. It was pretty special. We stayed in a eally chilled out campement at the bottom of the hill with no electric or running water, just hammocks, mud huts, stars, and more couscous than anyone could ever eat.
I'm heading to Mali tomorrow, but because al-quaeda have decided to spoil my fun ,its just a stop off on the way to senegal.
Sunday 28 November 2010
Lifetime goal checklist: visit Ouagadougou. Done.
So after a 27 hour bus journey next to the most odious man I've possibly ever met, whose favourite topics of conversation included; why have you got so many spots?; that bread you gave me was awful; and, what presents are you going to give me to remember you by? I landed in Ouaga. Under the watchful eye of two lovely young Algerians who kept trying to speak English I made it safely to the clean, cheap, quiet and friendly hostel attached to the nunnery at the cathedral. Where they served amazing food, all the time!
On the way into Burkina I was enamoured by the sahelian landscape, dustry, dry, the odd tree marking the way between the round compunds of mud and thatch huts, interspersed with chickens, donkeys, cows and old men with bicycles sat under trees. And after we ran out of petrol for the second time (you would think you'd learn first time round to keep some in the bus) and eventually arrived in Ouaga at night, something about its bright lights, tall buildings and wide roads reminded me of Berlin.
Then Thursday struck, and with it daylight, and the realisation that there isn't much to do in the dusty town. So I set about getting visas. At the Malian embassy I got my visa in 20 minutes, the fastest I have ever seen anything (including making a sandwhich) done in Africa. He called it the 'Elizabeth Special'.
But after a few days of milling around I got on an incredibly comfy bus to Bobo-Dioulasso, the second town. The bus departed one minute late, which ironically seemed to distress the driver, and even arrived early. I found it somewhat disconcerting.
I have discovered that Mali is going to be a bit of a no go area due to Al-quayeda threats so that knocks some time off my trip, and I'm now hoping to be back in England in January. And then hoping to leave again for sunny climes pretty quickly!
On the way into Burkina I was enamoured by the sahelian landscape, dustry, dry, the odd tree marking the way between the round compunds of mud and thatch huts, interspersed with chickens, donkeys, cows and old men with bicycles sat under trees. And after we ran out of petrol for the second time (you would think you'd learn first time round to keep some in the bus) and eventually arrived in Ouaga at night, something about its bright lights, tall buildings and wide roads reminded me of Berlin.
Then Thursday struck, and with it daylight, and the realisation that there isn't much to do in the dusty town. So I set about getting visas. At the Malian embassy I got my visa in 20 minutes, the fastest I have ever seen anything (including making a sandwhich) done in Africa. He called it the 'Elizabeth Special'.
But after a few days of milling around I got on an incredibly comfy bus to Bobo-Dioulasso, the second town. The bus departed one minute late, which ironically seemed to distress the driver, and even arrived early. I found it somewhat disconcerting.
I have discovered that Mali is going to be a bit of a no go area due to Al-quayeda threats so that knocks some time off my trip, and I'm now hoping to be back in England in January. And then hoping to leave again for sunny climes pretty quickly!
Saturday 20 November 2010
Food Blog of Ghana.... for Charlie!
Before Ghana leaves my head totally I must record this very important part of my stay there, it was always a source of conversation between volunteers and sometimes of contention also!
Volunteers were provided with dinner, but had to sort breakfast for themselves. On my induction by the "senior" volunteer I was told she had eggs and avocados for breakfast every day which seemed nice and I liked the idea of getting fresh avocados, but on a closer inspection of the village it seems they had gone somewhat out of season. So for 6 weeks I ate porridge with nuts and bananas for breakfst. Apart from when we were travelling, in one particularly lovely resort I had a lovely fresh fruit salad by the sea, under palm trees!
Lunch, whilst volunteering was suggested to us by the boys, they had a favourite place, a green and white striped hut with a glass box in which was kept the fried chicken and two cool boxes, on with rice and one with "salad" (shredded cabbage and spring onions). Frank's chicken was pretty good, but there is only so many days in a row a person (other than the boys apparently) can eat friend chicken with copious amounts of fried rice. Especially when all other food is swimming in a litre of palm oil. Frank's chicken never made anyone sick though, unlike the fried chicken in our local village (Frank was in the town where we worked).
The other lunchtime option was the 'red-red lady'. Also in a green and white striped wooden hut, but this time with space to sit and eat off plastic plates. Red-red is made from boiled pinto beans (lots of them) coated in crushed up cassava (gari) and then miwed with several large spoonfuls of palm oil (which gives it the red look). Usually served with fried plantains, it became my favourite ghanaian food, but again I had oil issues, so started eating it with steamed rice and tomato sauce. Yum. But repetitive.
The evenings were always something of a gamble. We could be given red-red (but with meat), cabbage stew (much more appealing than it sounds, and its full of veg!), cocoyam stew (kind of spinachy leaves) jollof rice (rice in a tomato paste) all good. Or we couldbe given groundnut stew. Very Very bad. Some people liked it. I honestly couldnt stomach it. and when you think that its basically a sauce made with peanut butter, litres of palm oil, goat bones and garden eggs (pale squelchy white peppers), served with rice balls (mushed up huge balls of gooey rice) its pretty easy to see why.
For Groundnut stew nights I kept a secret stash of things from the amazing supermarket in the mall. There you can buy many exciting things, including cheese, cadburys chocolate (I found rum and raisin cadburys - its the best thing ever, dopes this exist in the uk?) and pringles. AND VEGETABLES! one night i ate a whole packet of raw french beans. It was great. Another night I ate a whole tin of peas. Not so good. Also had a packet minestrone soup, which came out pink. Alternatives were camambert and crackers, or cheddar sandwhiches (with bread from the mall, the bread you buy in normal shops is terrible).
In fact theere are several types of bread. brown bread is ok but not available in very many places; sugar bread, tastes like bad brioche, theres another kind i forget the name of which is equally bad,b ut in my last couple of weeks i discovered teabread, amazing! Teabread is often sold in the morning at street stalls with omlettes filled with peppers and onions - delicious. this is usually accompanied by nescafe or lipton with condensed milk or milo, sort of like ovaltine.
Unfortunately it was only in the last weeks that i discovered street food, because it is amazing, and so cheap! The man at the bottom of our road bbqd goat steaks every night and coated them in pepe, a spice mix. At the top of the road, outside the bar with the TVs for watching football a man sold similar but with so much pepe eating them became a bit of a challenge. other kebabs were beef ones (bought by the man whose son i shared my seat with on the 12 hour journey back from tamale) and some kind of sausagey type spicy thing. all excellent. Since being in Togo Ive eaten many giant bbqd steak sandwhiches (on baguettes hooray) for about 1 pound or less. Other good street food in ghana is roasted plantain with ground nuts (peanuts). not so good are meat pies. I had one inAccra on the advice of another volunteer. It was a hunk of dry crumbly pastry and about halfway down was a think strip of colour (the meat, supposedly). That went in the bin. But then I was encouraged to try again, Sam, the American girl had not eaten one, and the ladies at Kpobiman had made some and gave her one (had she already tried this she probably wouldnt have), and apparently it was good. So I agreed tot ry again and was sent off from Ghana with two bags of delicious beef and onion pasties (which i didnt make iot through!).
Another key sign of mytime in Ghana was fanmilk, and icecream company which sells its wares in sachets sold my boys on bicyles with horns. They have various different options (and in Togo different still) including fanyogo (yogurt and my personal favourite, but a disturbingly luminous pink, i discovered when a baby spat it all over my socks); fan ice (described as being like mcdonalds ice cream) and fan choco (gives a nice little bit of chocolate flavour to an otherwise chocolatelessworld!). There were days when we would sit in the office waiting to hear the fanmilk horns, and times when the boys on bicycles were literally chased down the road by us. Amazing.
I did manage however, in one week, to eat spag bol, fillet steak, pizza, chicken curry, and bbqd chicken with mango salsa. Its amawing what you can find when pushed.
Volunteers were provided with dinner, but had to sort breakfast for themselves. On my induction by the "senior" volunteer I was told she had eggs and avocados for breakfast every day which seemed nice and I liked the idea of getting fresh avocados, but on a closer inspection of the village it seems they had gone somewhat out of season. So for 6 weeks I ate porridge with nuts and bananas for breakfst. Apart from when we were travelling, in one particularly lovely resort I had a lovely fresh fruit salad by the sea, under palm trees!
Lunch, whilst volunteering was suggested to us by the boys, they had a favourite place, a green and white striped hut with a glass box in which was kept the fried chicken and two cool boxes, on with rice and one with "salad" (shredded cabbage and spring onions). Frank's chicken was pretty good, but there is only so many days in a row a person (other than the boys apparently) can eat friend chicken with copious amounts of fried rice. Especially when all other food is swimming in a litre of palm oil. Frank's chicken never made anyone sick though, unlike the fried chicken in our local village (Frank was in the town where we worked).
The other lunchtime option was the 'red-red lady'. Also in a green and white striped wooden hut, but this time with space to sit and eat off plastic plates. Red-red is made from boiled pinto beans (lots of them) coated in crushed up cassava (gari) and then miwed with several large spoonfuls of palm oil (which gives it the red look). Usually served with fried plantains, it became my favourite ghanaian food, but again I had oil issues, so started eating it with steamed rice and tomato sauce. Yum. But repetitive.
The evenings were always something of a gamble. We could be given red-red (but with meat), cabbage stew (much more appealing than it sounds, and its full of veg!), cocoyam stew (kind of spinachy leaves) jollof rice (rice in a tomato paste) all good. Or we couldbe given groundnut stew. Very Very bad. Some people liked it. I honestly couldnt stomach it. and when you think that its basically a sauce made with peanut butter, litres of palm oil, goat bones and garden eggs (pale squelchy white peppers), served with rice balls (mushed up huge balls of gooey rice) its pretty easy to see why.
For Groundnut stew nights I kept a secret stash of things from the amazing supermarket in the mall. There you can buy many exciting things, including cheese, cadburys chocolate (I found rum and raisin cadburys - its the best thing ever, dopes this exist in the uk?) and pringles. AND VEGETABLES! one night i ate a whole packet of raw french beans. It was great. Another night I ate a whole tin of peas. Not so good. Also had a packet minestrone soup, which came out pink. Alternatives were camambert and crackers, or cheddar sandwhiches (with bread from the mall, the bread you buy in normal shops is terrible).
In fact theere are several types of bread. brown bread is ok but not available in very many places; sugar bread, tastes like bad brioche, theres another kind i forget the name of which is equally bad,b ut in my last couple of weeks i discovered teabread, amazing! Teabread is often sold in the morning at street stalls with omlettes filled with peppers and onions - delicious. this is usually accompanied by nescafe or lipton with condensed milk or milo, sort of like ovaltine.
Unfortunately it was only in the last weeks that i discovered street food, because it is amazing, and so cheap! The man at the bottom of our road bbqd goat steaks every night and coated them in pepe, a spice mix. At the top of the road, outside the bar with the TVs for watching football a man sold similar but with so much pepe eating them became a bit of a challenge. other kebabs were beef ones (bought by the man whose son i shared my seat with on the 12 hour journey back from tamale) and some kind of sausagey type spicy thing. all excellent. Since being in Togo Ive eaten many giant bbqd steak sandwhiches (on baguettes hooray) for about 1 pound or less. Other good street food in ghana is roasted plantain with ground nuts (peanuts). not so good are meat pies. I had one inAccra on the advice of another volunteer. It was a hunk of dry crumbly pastry and about halfway down was a think strip of colour (the meat, supposedly). That went in the bin. But then I was encouraged to try again, Sam, the American girl had not eaten one, and the ladies at Kpobiman had made some and gave her one (had she already tried this she probably wouldnt have), and apparently it was good. So I agreed tot ry again and was sent off from Ghana with two bags of delicious beef and onion pasties (which i didnt make iot through!).
Another key sign of mytime in Ghana was fanmilk, and icecream company which sells its wares in sachets sold my boys on bicyles with horns. They have various different options (and in Togo different still) including fanyogo (yogurt and my personal favourite, but a disturbingly luminous pink, i discovered when a baby spat it all over my socks); fan ice (described as being like mcdonalds ice cream) and fan choco (gives a nice little bit of chocolate flavour to an otherwise chocolatelessworld!). There were days when we would sit in the office waiting to hear the fanmilk horns, and times when the boys on bicycles were literally chased down the road by us. Amazing.
I did manage however, in one week, to eat spag bol, fillet steak, pizza, chicken curry, and bbqd chicken with mango salsa. Its amawing what you can find when pushed.
Tuesday 16 November 2010
Fete du Tabaski
I promise to finish the blog I started before, I also will finish the Ghana section off properly but for now I will write about Togo, whilst its fresh.
I decided not to travel from Accra to the capital of Togo, Lome, but to go from a town in the lake area in Ghana over the mountains to a place called Kpalime. It was a very good decision, coming down through stunning scenery and greenery, in a truck that looked like it had fallen straight from 1940s India, and certainly raised the bar for my definition of rustbucket. considering the terrain and load on the roof (including a sheep, which we had to stop at one point to reattach when legs appeared through the window) Im surprised we made it. Immediately everything felt different... a definite French influence - they have roads, pretty buildings, signs selling sanwhiches (today I had a ham and cheese baguette and nearly cried!). I went into the mountains on a taximoto (little moped, no helmet, no speed limits - but my driver was very good about slowing down or putting his phone away when I asked!) to visit waterfalls etc. I stayed Saturday till Tuesday (today) then came to Lome. The place Im staying is gorgeous, near the beach, but not so close as to be unsafe, with a gorgeous roof terrace. Today is the Muslim fete du tabaski, problematic from the perspictive of going to banks and embassies but fascinating for a walk along the long stretch of beach at the front of the town. The beach reminds me of Brighton, only, I have to wear suncream here. Ive even spotted a couple of rickshaws. On the beach are people playing silly summer fete style games, riding horses and building sand sculptures. Its a really great atmosphere, and not a single white person other than myself (my hostel is another matter, being owned by a swiss guy and expat central - Im tuning in to English speakers though, I befriended an american simply because of her weird french accent).
Only four days in to the travelling alone bit of this trip and Im finding it pretty hard already. Its such an emotional rollercoaster between wondering why I am here and having a knot in my tomach to thinking iim in the best places in the world several times a day. I think Ghana may have been a little too easy on me, if I didnt feel culture shock there, Im certainly feeling it here.
p.s; apologies for typos cant use french keyboard!
I decided not to travel from Accra to the capital of Togo, Lome, but to go from a town in the lake area in Ghana over the mountains to a place called Kpalime. It was a very good decision, coming down through stunning scenery and greenery, in a truck that looked like it had fallen straight from 1940s India, and certainly raised the bar for my definition of rustbucket. considering the terrain and load on the roof (including a sheep, which we had to stop at one point to reattach when legs appeared through the window) Im surprised we made it. Immediately everything felt different... a definite French influence - they have roads, pretty buildings, signs selling sanwhiches (today I had a ham and cheese baguette and nearly cried!). I went into the mountains on a taximoto (little moped, no helmet, no speed limits - but my driver was very good about slowing down or putting his phone away when I asked!) to visit waterfalls etc. I stayed Saturday till Tuesday (today) then came to Lome. The place Im staying is gorgeous, near the beach, but not so close as to be unsafe, with a gorgeous roof terrace. Today is the Muslim fete du tabaski, problematic from the perspictive of going to banks and embassies but fascinating for a walk along the long stretch of beach at the front of the town. The beach reminds me of Brighton, only, I have to wear suncream here. Ive even spotted a couple of rickshaws. On the beach are people playing silly summer fete style games, riding horses and building sand sculptures. Its a really great atmosphere, and not a single white person other than myself (my hostel is another matter, being owned by a swiss guy and expat central - Im tuning in to English speakers though, I befriended an american simply because of her weird french accent).
Only four days in to the travelling alone bit of this trip and Im finding it pretty hard already. Its such an emotional rollercoaster between wondering why I am here and having a knot in my tomach to thinking iim in the best places in the world several times a day. I think Ghana may have been a little too easy on me, if I didnt feel culture shock there, Im certainly feeling it here.
p.s; apologies for typos cant use french keyboard!
Wednesday 3 November 2010
...continued...
So eventually we arrived safely in Kumasi, tired, hungry and absolutely frozen by the AC. We were ripped off by a taxi driver and dropped our things in the dingy hostel dormitory before heading out to see if it was possible to get food in Kumasi at 10.30pm. We found a street bar with live music at the normal volume (it seems Ghanaians believe that if the sound isn't so lound its distorted you can't tell that the sound system is working), with a small "fast food" joint outside. Basically a small box with a young pregnant lady inside serving rice. We had just been beaten there by a couple who had been on our bus, and therefore became our friends, seating us and ordering food. However, they had got the last two bits of friend chicken, a fate which we resigned ourselves to more than contentedly, as we eat fried chicken almost every day for lunch. There was a table of Obronis in the corner, with whom we didn't have the energy for conversation but it did explain the cryptic comment by the receptionist at the hostel as we left.
"Go down the street and there will be your colleagues taking alcohol."
In my mind this had conjured an image of a bunch of partners from my future firm performing some sort of heist on a bar, which would have been altogether more entertaining.
Other than these the place was swarming with locals who were mainly dancing and shouting at a crazy man to leave. The friendly and non-threatening barman challenged us to a dance competition for a bottle of Star (Ghanaian beer, pretty good). As he had installed himself as the judge and we could barely lift our feet to walk, we declined and went home to bed.
Saturday
Over breakfast (at which we somehow managed to order double of everything) a man came to take photos of our Bradt guide. He turned out to be from Leeds. This made me very happy, a little overexcited, and got me thinking about Yumtaz (Actually called Mumtaz, an amazing curry house in Leeds), and other things there that I missed. One of the other volunteers had been playing soul music in the compund the other day and that had got me thinking of an awesome bar called Smokestack (and I also read a book that mentioned them, but in the conext of global warming). So now I have an urge to go for dinner at Yumtaz and go dancing in Smokestack. Could be tricky. And I still would rather be here than in England.
Our plan for the day was to venture to a town just outside of Kumasi and visit a museum about Yaa Asantewa, the queen mother who had led a war against the British, and to visit a local Ashanti shrine. Ashantis comprise the largest tribe in Ghana making up about 40% of the population, and if my sources are correct, you can tell one by the scar on his cheek, given at birth. We were unsure where to get the bus to the town from and asked someone. Error. Somehow (and I don't think it was entirely coincidence) the nearest person happened to be a "tour guide" called Collins. He was nice enough, but he didn't know anything. He took us to three different locations, asking several locals (we could have managed that ourselves) before showing us a small statue and declaring that the museum didn't exist. We then went on to visit the shrine. These are built as a four-sided compound around a central courtyard with rooms on three sides (one for drumming, one for singing and one for the priest. The rooms are thatched and the walls are carved ornately and painted orange up to about waist height. The little old caretaker man was possibly my favourite Ghanaian yet. He was probably well into his 70s, spoke no English with great enthusiasm and told us how when the first aeroplanes came to Ghana they thought the world was ending, and how when he was a boy, if you couldn't reach one hand over your head and touch the opposite ear, you weren't old enough to go to school.
Walking back we managed to shake off Collins who had overstepped the line of annoying and entered plain nuisanceland when he called me fat, put his hands on my stomach as if I was pregnant and told me that he liked it. We had to pay to get rid of him, but it was well worth it. ("I don't want to charge you, we are friends, just something from your heart" has become a phrase to which I just want to announce "I don't usually pay for my friends"!).
We spent the afternoon walking through the shady expanse of the National Cultural Centre, basically a collection of craft shops selling beads, carvings and paintings. I found it trying to explain in every shop that if I only bought one necklace, only bought one painting, only bought one small wooden giraffe it would all soon become very heavy and I couldn't carry it all for the next few months. After this we explored the HUGE Kejeta market, apparently the largest open market in West Africa. Bizarrely, being huge does not mean that there is a greater variety of things on sale. You can still only really buy flip-flops, biscuits, bread and plastic bowls - the same things the women we work with sell on their heads in the street. We then followed at least 5 different sets of directions to the Ashanti King's Palace, taking an interesting tour of the backstreets, and once being stopped by a car pulling up to us, the driver winding down his window and saying
"You remember last night. Hahaha. The bus. Hahaha." before driving off. Eventually we got our final set of directions from a man who offered to take us in his taxi. When we told him no, we knew we were close, he admitted that it was the big white building, just across the street.
The palace is surreal. It was built as a gift by the British as some kind of compensation, and as such is incredibly Western, full of teacups, sideboards and drinks cabinets. The Ashantis refused the gift and bought the palace. And then turned it into a museum and filled it with ceremonial stools, lifesize models of past kings, photographs of celebrations and other traditional relics. It is a totally unusal juxtapositioning of two cultures. Probably not worth the entrance fee.
Returning to our hostel, and discussing the relative merits of bucket vs. real showers as the water was off, there was a knock on the door. It was a 6 bed dorm, so we assumed a new person had arrived and called them in. It was Collins, come to give us his address. We declined to answer his questions about what our plans were for the evening or where we were having dinner and he left. Sam went downstairs to fill the bucket up. She saw Collins again, who asked where her friend was, and on finding out I was still in the room, he suddenly appeared again. This time he was telling me that he had a problem, he had to go to TAmale the next day (although earlier he had told us he had to visit a "project" in the town we had visited that day) but he was broke. I cut him off and firmly told him to stop talking, it was not going to happen when Sam came in, breathless from rushing up the stairs to save me with a huge bucket of water, and he started the routine again. When I told him again to leave her alone and told her what I had said to him he practically told me to shutup. We complained to the receptionist about him, who informed us that he would be banned now as he had had problems with him before. The next day at breakfast, however, Collins and the receptionist were there, having a friendly chat. We still don't know for sure how he knew where our room was, but have our suspicions.
Internet is about to run out so I'll leave this for now.
"Go down the street and there will be your colleagues taking alcohol."
In my mind this had conjured an image of a bunch of partners from my future firm performing some sort of heist on a bar, which would have been altogether more entertaining.
Other than these the place was swarming with locals who were mainly dancing and shouting at a crazy man to leave. The friendly and non-threatening barman challenged us to a dance competition for a bottle of Star (Ghanaian beer, pretty good). As he had installed himself as the judge and we could barely lift our feet to walk, we declined and went home to bed.
Saturday
Over breakfast (at which we somehow managed to order double of everything) a man came to take photos of our Bradt guide. He turned out to be from Leeds. This made me very happy, a little overexcited, and got me thinking about Yumtaz (Actually called Mumtaz, an amazing curry house in Leeds), and other things there that I missed. One of the other volunteers had been playing soul music in the compund the other day and that had got me thinking of an awesome bar called Smokestack (and I also read a book that mentioned them, but in the conext of global warming). So now I have an urge to go for dinner at Yumtaz and go dancing in Smokestack. Could be tricky. And I still would rather be here than in England.
Our plan for the day was to venture to a town just outside of Kumasi and visit a museum about Yaa Asantewa, the queen mother who had led a war against the British, and to visit a local Ashanti shrine. Ashantis comprise the largest tribe in Ghana making up about 40% of the population, and if my sources are correct, you can tell one by the scar on his cheek, given at birth. We were unsure where to get the bus to the town from and asked someone. Error. Somehow (and I don't think it was entirely coincidence) the nearest person happened to be a "tour guide" called Collins. He was nice enough, but he didn't know anything. He took us to three different locations, asking several locals (we could have managed that ourselves) before showing us a small statue and declaring that the museum didn't exist. We then went on to visit the shrine. These are built as a four-sided compound around a central courtyard with rooms on three sides (one for drumming, one for singing and one for the priest. The rooms are thatched and the walls are carved ornately and painted orange up to about waist height. The little old caretaker man was possibly my favourite Ghanaian yet. He was probably well into his 70s, spoke no English with great enthusiasm and told us how when the first aeroplanes came to Ghana they thought the world was ending, and how when he was a boy, if you couldn't reach one hand over your head and touch the opposite ear, you weren't old enough to go to school.
Walking back we managed to shake off Collins who had overstepped the line of annoying and entered plain nuisanceland when he called me fat, put his hands on my stomach as if I was pregnant and told me that he liked it. We had to pay to get rid of him, but it was well worth it. ("I don't want to charge you, we are friends, just something from your heart" has become a phrase to which I just want to announce "I don't usually pay for my friends"!).
We spent the afternoon walking through the shady expanse of the National Cultural Centre, basically a collection of craft shops selling beads, carvings and paintings. I found it trying to explain in every shop that if I only bought one necklace, only bought one painting, only bought one small wooden giraffe it would all soon become very heavy and I couldn't carry it all for the next few months. After this we explored the HUGE Kejeta market, apparently the largest open market in West Africa. Bizarrely, being huge does not mean that there is a greater variety of things on sale. You can still only really buy flip-flops, biscuits, bread and plastic bowls - the same things the women we work with sell on their heads in the street. We then followed at least 5 different sets of directions to the Ashanti King's Palace, taking an interesting tour of the backstreets, and once being stopped by a car pulling up to us, the driver winding down his window and saying
"You remember last night. Hahaha. The bus. Hahaha." before driving off. Eventually we got our final set of directions from a man who offered to take us in his taxi. When we told him no, we knew we were close, he admitted that it was the big white building, just across the street.
The palace is surreal. It was built as a gift by the British as some kind of compensation, and as such is incredibly Western, full of teacups, sideboards and drinks cabinets. The Ashantis refused the gift and bought the palace. And then turned it into a museum and filled it with ceremonial stools, lifesize models of past kings, photographs of celebrations and other traditional relics. It is a totally unusal juxtapositioning of two cultures. Probably not worth the entrance fee.
Returning to our hostel, and discussing the relative merits of bucket vs. real showers as the water was off, there was a knock on the door. It was a 6 bed dorm, so we assumed a new person had arrived and called them in. It was Collins, come to give us his address. We declined to answer his questions about what our plans were for the evening or where we were having dinner and he left. Sam went downstairs to fill the bucket up. She saw Collins again, who asked where her friend was, and on finding out I was still in the room, he suddenly appeared again. This time he was telling me that he had a problem, he had to go to TAmale the next day (although earlier he had told us he had to visit a "project" in the town we had visited that day) but he was broke. I cut him off and firmly told him to stop talking, it was not going to happen when Sam came in, breathless from rushing up the stairs to save me with a huge bucket of water, and he started the routine again. When I told him again to leave her alone and told her what I had said to him he practically told me to shutup. We complained to the receptionist about him, who informed us that he would be banned now as he had had problems with him before. The next day at breakfast, however, Collins and the receptionist were there, having a friendly chat. We still don't know for sure how he knew where our room was, but have our suspicions.
Internet is about to run out so I'll leave this for now.
I have a day with nothing to do in it and a cheap internet cafe, so buckle your seatbelts, this could be a long one...
I have now begun the "alone" section of my travels. Perhaps not technically started as I am going back to Accra tomorrow to do one more week of volunteering, but certainly have had a foray into the world of travelling alone. I like it. I have met some lovely, interesting and crazy people this week, but I have also had time to myself to explore, read, write and act on instinct without having to consider anybody else. Right now, I do feel somewhat as if the sun and the heat have sucked all the life from me and visualise myself as sort of shrivelled and dried up, like the chillies that are drying on the pavement outside. I think this has a lot to do with being kept awake all night as a dog chased a pig around and around my building for hours. Lucozade, however, is readily available in Ghana, and right now feels like a lifeline!
I'm going to do this one journal style I think.
Friday
After doing the first of the computer training sessions with my favourite women's group (difficult when the power is off) Sam and I commenced a totally ridiculous journey to Kumasi, the second biggest town. It's maybe 1/3 of the way up the country and should be a 4-5 hour journey from Accra. It took us, door to door, 11 hours. Firstly, we had to travel away from Accra in order to get a bus into Accra. We were very pleased when we practically walked off that bus and onto the Kumasi bus (if a little disappointed that we didn't get one of the shiny new red Kia coaches with aircon and massive seats). We were less pleased when we woke up an hour later to find ourselves sat in a petrol station in a massive rainstorm in the town where I had been that morning which is half an hour from our home, which we had already driven back past. Even less fun was the 4 hour traffic jam a further ten minutes down the road in our nearest big town. As the air on the bus was blowing and we were dressed for Accra heat most of the passengers left the bus to walk around the town. Some of the men tried to get Sam and I to get back on, but we didn't feel like it so carried on walking. A moment later we realised why they had done this, as we passed a crazy naked guy in the street. We got back on quite quickly then. When we finally passed the road blockage (which a roundabout would have solved easily) roughly half the passengers were still not on board. The driver seemed unfazed, but the passengers who were present were up in arms. Turns out the driver had good reason. After travelling for a few minutes we caught up with the others, who had walked a few miles beyond the town by the time we had got through the traffic. By this point we had already passed our supposed arrival time and still had 4 hours to travel.
The bus continued smoothly. It shouldn't have. It should have stopped at a police checkpoint.
"There is a problem with the brakes, and a toilet." we were told when we eventually did stop. The toilet was actually a wall, against which white people would have been a bit too distinguishable in the dark. The brakes, apparently were fine for us to continue. Both of these issues would have been non-existent had we been given a shiny new red coach. We held tightly onto our seats as the driver tested the brakes every few yards. Granted, they did seem to be working fine, but we wouldn't know if they weren't. Not stopping is the point of a long distance journey. Finally, 7 hours after leaving Accra we arrived! Kumasi seemed much smaller and more rural than I had expected. The man behind us then explained "Someone is getting off here, we have maybe one and a half more hours." Excellent. We had heard some unpleasant stories about travelling this road in the dark and were both eager to arrive. Although we knew it was probably still too early for anything much to happen, both Sam and I had been running through in our heads how we would react should armed robbers attack the bus (dear parents, please be advised that Ghana is generally very safe, and there is debate over whether these stories are in fact real). Sam's approach would be to hide in a ball and hope to not be seen. Mine would be to grab my debit card and tuck it into the padding pocket in my sportsbra. I maintain that mine is a slightly more useful approach. There was a loud popping sound and the bus leant to one side and stopped. This was it. They had shot the tyres. People started standing up and leaving the bus. I reached for my debit card.
"Come on," said the man behind us, " the driver has driven off the edge of the road. We will get another bus."
Unsure whether this was a fact or a plan we followed him into the dark. We were out of town, there were no taxis, or even houses. Ahead of us another bus run by the same transport company had stopped and was letting us all get on board. It was a big shiny red Kia coach.
I'm going to do this one journal style I think.
Friday
After doing the first of the computer training sessions with my favourite women's group (difficult when the power is off) Sam and I commenced a totally ridiculous journey to Kumasi, the second biggest town. It's maybe 1/3 of the way up the country and should be a 4-5 hour journey from Accra. It took us, door to door, 11 hours. Firstly, we had to travel away from Accra in order to get a bus into Accra. We were very pleased when we practically walked off that bus and onto the Kumasi bus (if a little disappointed that we didn't get one of the shiny new red Kia coaches with aircon and massive seats). We were less pleased when we woke up an hour later to find ourselves sat in a petrol station in a massive rainstorm in the town where I had been that morning which is half an hour from our home, which we had already driven back past. Even less fun was the 4 hour traffic jam a further ten minutes down the road in our nearest big town. As the air on the bus was blowing and we were dressed for Accra heat most of the passengers left the bus to walk around the town. Some of the men tried to get Sam and I to get back on, but we didn't feel like it so carried on walking. A moment later we realised why they had done this, as we passed a crazy naked guy in the street. We got back on quite quickly then. When we finally passed the road blockage (which a roundabout would have solved easily) roughly half the passengers were still not on board. The driver seemed unfazed, but the passengers who were present were up in arms. Turns out the driver had good reason. After travelling for a few minutes we caught up with the others, who had walked a few miles beyond the town by the time we had got through the traffic. By this point we had already passed our supposed arrival time and still had 4 hours to travel.
The bus continued smoothly. It shouldn't have. It should have stopped at a police checkpoint.
"There is a problem with the brakes, and a toilet." we were told when we eventually did stop. The toilet was actually a wall, against which white people would have been a bit too distinguishable in the dark. The brakes, apparently were fine for us to continue. Both of these issues would have been non-existent had we been given a shiny new red coach. We held tightly onto our seats as the driver tested the brakes every few yards. Granted, they did seem to be working fine, but we wouldn't know if they weren't. Not stopping is the point of a long distance journey. Finally, 7 hours after leaving Accra we arrived! Kumasi seemed much smaller and more rural than I had expected. The man behind us then explained "Someone is getting off here, we have maybe one and a half more hours." Excellent. We had heard some unpleasant stories about travelling this road in the dark and were both eager to arrive. Although we knew it was probably still too early for anything much to happen, both Sam and I had been running through in our heads how we would react should armed robbers attack the bus (dear parents, please be advised that Ghana is generally very safe, and there is debate over whether these stories are in fact real). Sam's approach would be to hide in a ball and hope to not be seen. Mine would be to grab my debit card and tuck it into the padding pocket in my sportsbra. I maintain that mine is a slightly more useful approach. There was a loud popping sound and the bus leant to one side and stopped. This was it. They had shot the tyres. People started standing up and leaving the bus. I reached for my debit card.
"Come on," said the man behind us, " the driver has driven off the edge of the road. We will get another bus."
Unsure whether this was a fact or a plan we followed him into the dark. We were out of town, there were no taxis, or even houses. Ahead of us another bus run by the same transport company had stopped and was letting us all get on board. It was a big shiny red Kia coach.
Wednesday 27 October 2010
Plotting...
I'm coming up to a month in Ghana. The time has flown past. So I'm staying a bit longer. This weekend I plan to go to Kumasi, Ghana's second town with one of the other volunteers. When she returns to Accra after the weekend I am heading North for a week. I'm planning to go as far as the border with Burkina Faso. And then come back. Which seems ridiculous, even to me but I have a couple of reasons.
I'm about to start doing computer training with one of the women's groups and I need to come back so that I don't just visit them once and then leave. Also I have got my Togo visa and it was not the most fun day getting it, so I intend to go there and not just straight to Burkina Faso. I am, however, cutting Benin off my schedule due to an outbreak of Cholera in the capital city.
We said goodbye to another volunteer today, leaving just three girls, who will be leaving Ghana about the same time as me, in another two weeks. It makes the thought of properly starting my travels that much harder for the fact that the last few weeks everyone has been gearing up for going home. Discussing what they will eat when they get there (Pork belly and olives are high on various lists), what they will do (watch sports, look for places to live) and who they will see (family, friends etc) has switched my thoughts in that direction. I have to keep reminding myself that when I leave I am not going to be going home but instead will be lugging my backpack around in the incredible heat, alone. Fortunately West Africa appears to be one of the friendliest places on earth, and my backpack is not really that heavy, the sun is (almost) always shining, and there's so many interesting places to go, things to see and people to meet.
The weeks have continued in much the same vein, training and taking repayments and even processing new loans. The only real difference is that I feel more confident, less like I'm working in the shadow of previous volunteers and the people who stop me in the street to say Hi, I've often spoken to before and know their names. The weekends are travel time. Last weekend Sam and I went to the Volta region, dominated by a large lake and therefore very lush and green. The lake is famous for the two hydroelectric dams instituted by former president Kwame Nkrumah. These appear to have made the region fairly wealthy. All the houses (actual houses, made of bricks, with roofs and windows) have satellite dishes, the roads are all paved and don't have potholes, the cars are very nice, and the Ghanaians all live in New York and London. We played tourists and went on a scenic ferry trip up the lake to an island which for the hour that the boat is docked is inhabited by pestering children who demand pens, or money for pens, or if you claim to have neither, call you a liar. The island part of the trip was not fun. For Sam, whose stomach was still adjusting to her travels, neither was the ferry trip. So we cancelled our onward travel plans to a very tall waterfall and stayed another night in the port town of Akosombo. Sam stayed in our bathroom all night whilst I chatted with the locals and visited a gospel church, which was disappointingly unstereotypical.
The previous weekend was the wedding of VPWA's director, Hayford, so the volunteers were all on drinks serving., balloon blowing up duty. The Sunday we spent being all Western and went to the mall which contains restaurants with beef, supermarkets with chocolate and vegetables, lots of air con and a cinema showing hollywood films. A nice break from the reality of Ghana, which I felt lucky (and a bit guilty) to be able to take.
I'm about to start doing computer training with one of the women's groups and I need to come back so that I don't just visit them once and then leave. Also I have got my Togo visa and it was not the most fun day getting it, so I intend to go there and not just straight to Burkina Faso. I am, however, cutting Benin off my schedule due to an outbreak of Cholera in the capital city.
We said goodbye to another volunteer today, leaving just three girls, who will be leaving Ghana about the same time as me, in another two weeks. It makes the thought of properly starting my travels that much harder for the fact that the last few weeks everyone has been gearing up for going home. Discussing what they will eat when they get there (Pork belly and olives are high on various lists), what they will do (watch sports, look for places to live) and who they will see (family, friends etc) has switched my thoughts in that direction. I have to keep reminding myself that when I leave I am not going to be going home but instead will be lugging my backpack around in the incredible heat, alone. Fortunately West Africa appears to be one of the friendliest places on earth, and my backpack is not really that heavy, the sun is (almost) always shining, and there's so many interesting places to go, things to see and people to meet.
The weeks have continued in much the same vein, training and taking repayments and even processing new loans. The only real difference is that I feel more confident, less like I'm working in the shadow of previous volunteers and the people who stop me in the street to say Hi, I've often spoken to before and know their names. The weekends are travel time. Last weekend Sam and I went to the Volta region, dominated by a large lake and therefore very lush and green. The lake is famous for the two hydroelectric dams instituted by former president Kwame Nkrumah. These appear to have made the region fairly wealthy. All the houses (actual houses, made of bricks, with roofs and windows) have satellite dishes, the roads are all paved and don't have potholes, the cars are very nice, and the Ghanaians all live in New York and London. We played tourists and went on a scenic ferry trip up the lake to an island which for the hour that the boat is docked is inhabited by pestering children who demand pens, or money for pens, or if you claim to have neither, call you a liar. The island part of the trip was not fun. For Sam, whose stomach was still adjusting to her travels, neither was the ferry trip. So we cancelled our onward travel plans to a very tall waterfall and stayed another night in the port town of Akosombo. Sam stayed in our bathroom all night whilst I chatted with the locals and visited a gospel church, which was disappointingly unstereotypical.
The previous weekend was the wedding of VPWA's director, Hayford, so the volunteers were all on drinks serving., balloon blowing up duty. The Sunday we spent being all Western and went to the mall which contains restaurants with beef, supermarkets with chocolate and vegetables, lots of air con and a cinema showing hollywood films. A nice break from the reality of Ghana, which I felt lucky (and a bit guilty) to be able to take.
Monday 25 October 2010
A post I meant to post two weeks ago...
Well this was supposed to be an honest blog, so I'm about to vent some things. Please bear in mind however that I am very happy being here and feel absolutely safe and definitely would not rather be in England.
Things I am sick of after a week:
A wardrobe of 10 items
It being considered rude if you don't stop to speak to everybody who says Hi in the street
The same people wanting your phone number as if you were suddenly great friends
Rice, fried chicken, tomato paste
Dirt.
Things I miss already:
Vegetables
Make up
Hair conditioner and mousse (I look like I've been electrocuted. Brief interesting story - a bunch of volunteers were watching rip off DVDs one night last week and the owner of the laptop we were using went to plug it in an got electrocuted, comic style, literally went up in the air and back down onto the floor for quite a few minutes. He's fine.)
Personal space
Musical instruments I rarely touch.
I'm figuring that if these things are bothering me so soon that within another week or so I'll just become desensitised. I hope.
So other than that.... I had a great weekend. We somehow did not get on the nice comfy spacious and air conditioned ford 4x4 to Cape Coast but instead got on a two and a half hour tro tro ride. Some tro tros I've been in this would not bother me but in this case the space between the back of my seat and the seat in front of me was less than the measurement from my hip to my thigh. Which got beyond uncumfortable, to painful, to numb within about 30 minutes. But this was all made worth it by our arrival at a gorgeous guesthouse which was right on the beach, palm trees abounding, and even some other Obronis. Many of them were volunteers as well away for the weekend, and it turns out we have the best accomodation with electricity, ceiling fans and running water. Its certainly made the transition very comfortable.
We visited the castle. It was a bizarre experience. The holding cells still have a terrible stench about them. Its incredibly hard to grasp what went on there. I find it very hard to comprehend that people were able to behave the way they did, or even that it was considered acceptable for so long. the castle didn't upset me as much as a display at the Ghana national museum that we had seen during the previous week. In the cabinet was information about the slave trade, artists impressions and some pieces of elaborately decorated plates which the Europeans had. Somehow the shock of the life we were living off the backs of other people, when most Ghanaians now don't have plates like that made me angry. When I asked the guide if it made her angry she just shrugged, smiled, and said it was just part of their history which they shouldn't forget. To my surprise I just totally welled up right in the museum. What makes the castle even more bizarre is the parade of brightly coloured shops selling brightly coloured gifts made by bright and colourful and cheery and friendly Rastas right outside.
In the evening we had a lovely dinner at the guesthouse and watched an astonishing African drum and dance group. We met up with some of our new Rasta friends who tried to teach us to play African drums and a xylophone on the beach. When that failed they lined up the three Obroni (we had adopted a rather worse for wear Aussie), and facing us, tried to teach us African dances. I would have loved to have been an onlooker.
We got up early on Saturday to visit Kakum national park to walk through the forest canopy on a rope bridge 40m high suspended between 7 trees. I am usually happy with hights but this was so unstable that even when we were back on solid ground I felt dizzy and had sealegs. Pretty amazing sights though. We hopped in a taxi with some brits and went to touch crocodiles at a crocodile sanctuary, an experience I did not take much pleasure in and would not go out of my way to do again.
Having had enough of the touristyness and the amazing helpfulness of our new friends we escaped 15Km down the coast to Elmina, which hosts another slave trading castle. The town is a huge fishing town and walking around the castle there are long wooden fishing boats as far as the eye can see, all with brightly coloured flags and people being busy. We didn't want anymore busyness so we went to our new beach hut hotel - which we had to ourselves - and crashed in hammocks. We attempted a swim, but before we got knee deep got hit by pieces of wood with rusty nails sticking out of them so abandoned that plan. It was really fantastic to just get some peace and quiet, a sea breeze and clean air. I knew Accra was dirty and noisy and smelly and hot, but it didn't hit me quite how much until we weren't there.
We managed to get the nice, comfy, air conditioned 4x4 Ford back home.
Things I am sick of after a week:
A wardrobe of 10 items
It being considered rude if you don't stop to speak to everybody who says Hi in the street
The same people wanting your phone number as if you were suddenly great friends
Rice, fried chicken, tomato paste
Dirt.
Things I miss already:
Vegetables
Make up
Hair conditioner and mousse (I look like I've been electrocuted. Brief interesting story - a bunch of volunteers were watching rip off DVDs one night last week and the owner of the laptop we were using went to plug it in an got electrocuted, comic style, literally went up in the air and back down onto the floor for quite a few minutes. He's fine.)
Personal space
Musical instruments I rarely touch.
I'm figuring that if these things are bothering me so soon that within another week or so I'll just become desensitised. I hope.
So other than that.... I had a great weekend. We somehow did not get on the nice comfy spacious and air conditioned ford 4x4 to Cape Coast but instead got on a two and a half hour tro tro ride. Some tro tros I've been in this would not bother me but in this case the space between the back of my seat and the seat in front of me was less than the measurement from my hip to my thigh. Which got beyond uncumfortable, to painful, to numb within about 30 minutes. But this was all made worth it by our arrival at a gorgeous guesthouse which was right on the beach, palm trees abounding, and even some other Obronis. Many of them were volunteers as well away for the weekend, and it turns out we have the best accomodation with electricity, ceiling fans and running water. Its certainly made the transition very comfortable.
We visited the castle. It was a bizarre experience. The holding cells still have a terrible stench about them. Its incredibly hard to grasp what went on there. I find it very hard to comprehend that people were able to behave the way they did, or even that it was considered acceptable for so long. the castle didn't upset me as much as a display at the Ghana national museum that we had seen during the previous week. In the cabinet was information about the slave trade, artists impressions and some pieces of elaborately decorated plates which the Europeans had. Somehow the shock of the life we were living off the backs of other people, when most Ghanaians now don't have plates like that made me angry. When I asked the guide if it made her angry she just shrugged, smiled, and said it was just part of their history which they shouldn't forget. To my surprise I just totally welled up right in the museum. What makes the castle even more bizarre is the parade of brightly coloured shops selling brightly coloured gifts made by bright and colourful and cheery and friendly Rastas right outside.
In the evening we had a lovely dinner at the guesthouse and watched an astonishing African drum and dance group. We met up with some of our new Rasta friends who tried to teach us to play African drums and a xylophone on the beach. When that failed they lined up the three Obroni (we had adopted a rather worse for wear Aussie), and facing us, tried to teach us African dances. I would have loved to have been an onlooker.
We got up early on Saturday to visit Kakum national park to walk through the forest canopy on a rope bridge 40m high suspended between 7 trees. I am usually happy with hights but this was so unstable that even when we were back on solid ground I felt dizzy and had sealegs. Pretty amazing sights though. We hopped in a taxi with some brits and went to touch crocodiles at a crocodile sanctuary, an experience I did not take much pleasure in and would not go out of my way to do again.
Having had enough of the touristyness and the amazing helpfulness of our new friends we escaped 15Km down the coast to Elmina, which hosts another slave trading castle. The town is a huge fishing town and walking around the castle there are long wooden fishing boats as far as the eye can see, all with brightly coloured flags and people being busy. We didn't want anymore busyness so we went to our new beach hut hotel - which we had to ourselves - and crashed in hammocks. We attempted a swim, but before we got knee deep got hit by pieces of wood with rusty nails sticking out of them so abandoned that plan. It was really fantastic to just get some peace and quiet, a sea breeze and clean air. I knew Accra was dirty and noisy and smelly and hot, but it didn't hit me quite how much until we weren't there.
We managed to get the nice, comfy, air conditioned 4x4 Ford back home.
Monday 18 October 2010
Pokemon Women's Group
... Is actually called Kpobiman... but its pretty much pronounced as Pokemon, and that's vaguely entertaining.
I had an amazing morning this morning with this group. For the last two weeks we have been to provide bookeeping training but this coming Wednesday is their 10th anniversary celebration so they were too busy today. Instead we got an incredible insight into an exemplary group. I spent half an hour or so with their feisty leader, Julila chatting about the group. She told me that in the ten years they have existed each of the 42 members has increased their living standard so that they are now able to send their children to school, know their legal rights on marriage and divorce and are less dependent on men who are often less than dependable.
As a group these spectacular women ensure that teenage girls who get pregnant (often through bribery) are looked after and the parents given support and encouraged not to disown their daughters. Where these pregnancies are as a result of rape they ensure this is reported to the appropriate authorities. They keep their eyes open for child labour, orphans and children suffering neglect. They have set up a group savings scheme which they use to help each other out in times of difficulty, they have set up 4 similar groups elsewhere and they make use of local NGOs to get regular training to further their own skills.
Many of the husbands of members disapprove of the group, preferring to keep their women reliant on them. Julila's response is to invite them all to a group dinner to include them.
We joined them in learning a dance for the celebration, and I was invited to sit at the front with Hajia another powerful force who was offering information about the Rights of Spouses Bill that will hopefully provide some more protection for partners when a spousal relationship ends.
Its pretty amazing that these women want a pair of twenty-something girls to come and teach them... seems pretty backward to me.
I had an amazing morning this morning with this group. For the last two weeks we have been to provide bookeeping training but this coming Wednesday is their 10th anniversary celebration so they were too busy today. Instead we got an incredible insight into an exemplary group. I spent half an hour or so with their feisty leader, Julila chatting about the group. She told me that in the ten years they have existed each of the 42 members has increased their living standard so that they are now able to send their children to school, know their legal rights on marriage and divorce and are less dependent on men who are often less than dependable.
As a group these spectacular women ensure that teenage girls who get pregnant (often through bribery) are looked after and the parents given support and encouraged not to disown their daughters. Where these pregnancies are as a result of rape they ensure this is reported to the appropriate authorities. They keep their eyes open for child labour, orphans and children suffering neglect. They have set up a group savings scheme which they use to help each other out in times of difficulty, they have set up 4 similar groups elsewhere and they make use of local NGOs to get regular training to further their own skills.
Many of the husbands of members disapprove of the group, preferring to keep their women reliant on them. Julila's response is to invite them all to a group dinner to include them.
We joined them in learning a dance for the celebration, and I was invited to sit at the front with Hajia another powerful force who was offering information about the Rights of Spouses Bill that will hopefully provide some more protection for partners when a spousal relationship ends.
Its pretty amazing that these women want a pair of twenty-something girls to come and teach them... seems pretty backward to me.
Friday 15 October 2010
Briefly...
Hi,
I spent an hour typing a message earlier in the week then the internet cut out. So I'm going to skip an update on last weekend and try to post it again when I'm on that same computer.
This week I went to the rather understated Ghanaian Supreme Court (because I am a law geek). It's three flights up a back staircase with the words "Supreme Court" having a coat of paint over them. The law is just like English law. So we didn't stay too long.
The Director of VPWA is getting married today and having a reception tomorrow so that should be really fun and an interesting cultural experience.
The number of volunteers is slowly decreasing, and as I'm finding my feet in Ghana I'm beginning to feel that I will be ready to move on as planned in 3 weeks. I'm going to spend another fortnight on the project and then travel up to the North for a week before coming back to the coast to lie on the beach with the last of the volunteers for a weekend. Then Togo it is. I went to the embassy this morning to get my visa and am picking it up this afternoon, before heading to the pan African dance competition tonight. That should be amazing. I saw African dancers last weekend and was stunned. As I can't dance it really amazes me what people can do!
Anyway thats probably the most interesting thing to report for now so take care everyone.
XXX
I spent an hour typing a message earlier in the week then the internet cut out. So I'm going to skip an update on last weekend and try to post it again when I'm on that same computer.
This week I went to the rather understated Ghanaian Supreme Court (because I am a law geek). It's three flights up a back staircase with the words "Supreme Court" having a coat of paint over them. The law is just like English law. So we didn't stay too long.
The Director of VPWA is getting married today and having a reception tomorrow so that should be really fun and an interesting cultural experience.
The number of volunteers is slowly decreasing, and as I'm finding my feet in Ghana I'm beginning to feel that I will be ready to move on as planned in 3 weeks. I'm going to spend another fortnight on the project and then travel up to the North for a week before coming back to the coast to lie on the beach with the last of the volunteers for a weekend. Then Togo it is. I went to the embassy this morning to get my visa and am picking it up this afternoon, before heading to the pan African dance competition tonight. That should be amazing. I saw African dancers last weekend and was stunned. As I can't dance it really amazes me what people can do!
Anyway thats probably the most interesting thing to report for now so take care everyone.
XXX
Thursday 7 October 2010
Obrani!
Heeeyy!!
I love Ghana. I spoke to a woman in a shop yesterday ( I say shop, I mean tin hut by the side of the road, but that means shop here) and she told me she wanted to go to England. I quite honestly answered her that I didn't think she would like it. Its cold, and the people are rude. In Ghana the people are amazing. So friendly, everywhere you go people stop you and ask "How are you?". Or the children will run up to you yelling "Obrani! Obrani", meaning white person. But its totally friendly, they want to welcome you. One cabbage farmer in a tro tro (minibus service, very rickety, door held on by tape but I had the good seat up front where you don't get coated in dust) offered me the choice of his 23 or 25 year old sons as a husband. I let him write down the name of his church so I could contact him when I decide. I probably won't do that.
The Volunteer Partnerships for West Africa (VPWA) compound where I am living is owned by Numo, the chief of Greater Accra - a VERY important man. Who happens to be in England for 6 months, so I won't meet him. His wife (I think 3rd, but he takes them one by one and divorces them rather than accumulating, which seems sensible) Princess, lives there and demands chocolate from every volunteer who arrives. Her son, Prince, is about a year and a half old and just toddles happily around all day and gets hit by numerous footballs kicked by his older half brothers Nwabe (ADHD) and Papate (sweet little legend). There are 4 other volunteers here from UK, US and Oz. Its incredibly chilled out and the working environment is slightly surreal. I have been sat in the microfinance office for two days reading. On Monday, however, we visited a Women's group in a villiage north of here to give bookeeping training, and in the afternoon went to visit two ladies who are being given loans, Grace and Veronica, to check their books. They let me help (possibly hinder) make Banku which is a kind of stodgy sour staple eaten with a spicy fish sauce. It is mixed with a wooden spoon in a tin pot over a charcoal fire, and it is SO thick you have to hold the pot onto the stove with your feet using metal poles whilst you (attempt to) stir. I was a massive failure at this. I'm planning to go with some local government workers to visit some more women's groups to find out how they work and how we can help as there are now 4 microfinance workers which is more than is necessary.
This weekend I am going with an American girl to visit Cape Coast - an infamous slave trading port with a huge castle, we are staying in huts by the beach, and to Kakum national park where you can walk on a rope bridge through the canopy.
Will update soon. Miss you all, but having too much fun to really notice!
I love Ghana. I spoke to a woman in a shop yesterday ( I say shop, I mean tin hut by the side of the road, but that means shop here) and she told me she wanted to go to England. I quite honestly answered her that I didn't think she would like it. Its cold, and the people are rude. In Ghana the people are amazing. So friendly, everywhere you go people stop you and ask "How are you?". Or the children will run up to you yelling "Obrani! Obrani", meaning white person. But its totally friendly, they want to welcome you. One cabbage farmer in a tro tro (minibus service, very rickety, door held on by tape but I had the good seat up front where you don't get coated in dust) offered me the choice of his 23 or 25 year old sons as a husband. I let him write down the name of his church so I could contact him when I decide. I probably won't do that.
The Volunteer Partnerships for West Africa (VPWA) compound where I am living is owned by Numo, the chief of Greater Accra - a VERY important man. Who happens to be in England for 6 months, so I won't meet him. His wife (I think 3rd, but he takes them one by one and divorces them rather than accumulating, which seems sensible) Princess, lives there and demands chocolate from every volunteer who arrives. Her son, Prince, is about a year and a half old and just toddles happily around all day and gets hit by numerous footballs kicked by his older half brothers Nwabe (ADHD) and Papate (sweet little legend). There are 4 other volunteers here from UK, US and Oz. Its incredibly chilled out and the working environment is slightly surreal. I have been sat in the microfinance office for two days reading. On Monday, however, we visited a Women's group in a villiage north of here to give bookeeping training, and in the afternoon went to visit two ladies who are being given loans, Grace and Veronica, to check their books. They let me help (possibly hinder) make Banku which is a kind of stodgy sour staple eaten with a spicy fish sauce. It is mixed with a wooden spoon in a tin pot over a charcoal fire, and it is SO thick you have to hold the pot onto the stove with your feet using metal poles whilst you (attempt to) stir. I was a massive failure at this. I'm planning to go with some local government workers to visit some more women's groups to find out how they work and how we can help as there are now 4 microfinance workers which is more than is necessary.
This weekend I am going with an American girl to visit Cape Coast - an infamous slave trading port with a huge castle, we are staying in huts by the beach, and to Kakum national park where you can walk on a rope bridge through the canopy.
Will update soon. Miss you all, but having too much fun to really notice!
Tuesday 28 September 2010
Sunny Engerland
I have two days left in England before I commence my little adventure so I'm setting this up in order to create an impersonal method of communicating to the greatest possible number of people using the least possible amount of time, money and internets (definitely a real unit of measurement).
Hopefully whilst I'm away wandering fairly aimlessly the vast expanses of West Africa I will be able to keep the good people of Sunny Engerland up to date with when, where, and indeed whether, I am. In return I imagine that any replies you good people post will make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, thus enhancing my experience with the knowledge that I have somewhere to return to. If you choose not to... I'll probably still come back anyway.
The following is what I can inform you of so far in terms of itinerary etc.
1st October - fly to Accra, Ghana. Do some volunteering.
31st October - maybe leave Ghana for Togo, maybe not.
1st November - 16th February - wander around a bit.
Aim for Timbuktu for Christmas
17th-18th February - fly from Dakar, Senegal to Lahndahn.
Right now I'm somewhere in between wanting to hibernate because I know this trip is going to be stressful - travelling always is, and I imagine doing it alone will be even more so - and desperately excited to see some sunshine. England has definitely given me good reason to leave it. I am ready to get away for a while, push myself to new limits, learn new things, and come back to start the next little adventure - a foray into the grown up world of work.
I do feel a little bit sick.
Hopefully whilst I'm away wandering fairly aimlessly the vast expanses of West Africa I will be able to keep the good people of Sunny Engerland up to date with when, where, and indeed whether, I am. In return I imagine that any replies you good people post will make me feel warm and fuzzy inside, thus enhancing my experience with the knowledge that I have somewhere to return to. If you choose not to... I'll probably still come back anyway.
The following is what I can inform you of so far in terms of itinerary etc.
1st October - fly to Accra, Ghana. Do some volunteering.
31st October - maybe leave Ghana for Togo, maybe not.
1st November - 16th February - wander around a bit.
Aim for Timbuktu for Christmas
17th-18th February - fly from Dakar, Senegal to Lahndahn.
Right now I'm somewhere in between wanting to hibernate because I know this trip is going to be stressful - travelling always is, and I imagine doing it alone will be even more so - and desperately excited to see some sunshine. England has definitely given me good reason to leave it. I am ready to get away for a while, push myself to new limits, learn new things, and come back to start the next little adventure - a foray into the grown up world of work.
I do feel a little bit sick.
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