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!
Sunday 28 November 2010
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)