Saturday 25th July
Woke up with a hangover. Not a real stinker, all-day-in-bed, hurts to move your eyelids type of hangover, but I definitely felt like I’d had a drink, and in a way that gentle headache was welcome because it meant I’d had a good evening out. I’d missed just going out to the pub and getting slowly tipsy. Happy Days.
I still did my Saturday duty and attended the optional weekly meeting with Helen, Ahmed and Small Paul, although to be honest, we didn’t get that much achieved. We are though sending letters to all of the local churches to offer our services. .. Which made me realize just how many various places of worship there are in Achiase – it’s like the ‘People’s Front of Judea’ scene from A Life of Brian.
Spent the afternoon in Kumasi with Laura and Bridie – internet & lunch in Vic Baboos, which was fairly standard until a fight broke out between two Indian men on the table next to us. I’ve no idea what it was about, but there were raised voices, then a scuffle, and punches thrown. Both men were in their 30s, one skinny, the other fat (think Bal vs. Roop for those in the know – sorry Vohra, you got dominated this time). Never a dull moment.
We bumped into Enoch on the trotro on the way home who was carrying a live rooster which he’d been sent to collect – the family’s lunch for tomorrow – just one of the unusual sights that are becoming second nature now.
Sunday 26th July
Took the Sunday, day of rest, mantra to heart today and did very little indeed. It was extra quiet at the compound as all of the Jehovah Witnesses were off at a God convention in central Kumasi (including Big Paul & Theresa, as well as the whole of Bernice / Ahmed’s family).
Ended the day with a bit of a sad and uncomfortable conversation with Big Paul who showed something of a new side to himself and opened his heart about his problems with Theresa to me… I listened, but didn’t really know what to say in response, although I suppose it’s nice that he feels he can confide in me…
Monday 27th July
We’ve been warned several times, both before setting off, and on arrival in Ghana that we can all expect to feel sick at times, especially early on in our stay, as our bodies get used to the change in conditions. And I’m pretty much expecting to get hit with malaria at some stage (some people I speak to claim to have had malaria multiple times, although given the tendency for doctors to treat anything more than a sneeze upwards as malaria ‘just in case’ I’m sceptical about the authenticity of many of these cases).
That said I managed to convince myself in the middle of the night last night that I’d come down with the disease. I was hit by a strong fever – one minute boiling hot, the next shivering with the cold – plus some interesting visits to the bathroom, and constantly feeling only a couple of breaths away from vomiting.
After a fitful night’s sleep, I woke up ready to drag my sorry behind to the hospital, but actually felt a little better so decided to ride it out and see what happened. In the end I slept most of the day, missing work but getting up in time to force some dinner down my neck, finally getting back to sleep feeling washed out but a lot more like myself.
Tuesday 28th July
Feeling much better today, I woke up slightly weak, but put that down to hardly haven eaten the day before. I decided that since it clearly wasn’t malaria and that I was feeling pretty much back to full health, to put the episode down to a bug of some sort. Not that surprising really given the hygiene levels here (which isn’t something that I’m used to complaining about), but with the propensity of flies around the food, and the questionable cleanliness of the kids – who you see handling ‘rabid’ dogs, playing in the dirt, or relieving themselves by the street seconds before running up to you for a big hug, hold hands, or worse help you with your plate – even the most diligent are going to get hit from time to time.
It’s partly being an Obroni I’m sure, but as soon as you’re ill here the entire community rallies round – I imagine like pre-war Britain. I was visited yesterday by Small Paul, Eugene, Big Paul, Helen and Fresh – all to see how I was, if I needed anything, and to persuade me to go to the hospital. It’s very nice to be cared about, but sometimes when you’re ill and trying to sleep it all gets a bit much.
Today we visited Amoumang, where we managed one community presentation to around twenty locals before calling on a friend to drink Pito (a maize based wine). We soon found ourselves getting through large calabashes of wine with the local Roman Catholic priest Eugene, despite it being only 10.30 in the morning. The quite un-priestly Eugene got himself to quote ‘a little bit tipsy’ which was very funny to watch, and lengthened the walk back to Achiase considerably.
I popped into the SYTO office to see Helen who was submitting an application form for a child support grant for the Tiyah project in Northern Ghana, and was pleased to be able to help correct the spelling and grammar, which was a bit of a shocker. Think I’ve found another area in which I can offer a bit of ‘added value’.
Wednesday 29th July
A slightly stressful day socially, and at Tiyah. I’ve kind of taken on the mantle of coordinating all of the travel arrangements for our trip to the Cape Coast starting tomorrow, which has been complicated no end by the only available bus leaving at 4.00 in the morning.
Somehow end up with Stacey and Becky staying with us, and having to arrange with the bus driver to pick up Duncan on the way through… lots of questions come my way that I really don’t have the answer to, but we got there in the end.
With Tiyah we were due to appear on the local Achiase ‘radio’ station tonight, but a bit of a breakdown in communications between Small Paul and Ahmed meant we didn’t give the presentation after all, which in turn led to a falling out between the two. Ahmed had set up the radio session and wanted us to go ahead, while Paul felt that we weren’t prepared enough – which considering we were talking through exactly the same topic areas as we’ve been delivering every day was way too cautious. All this was had out in raised, fast Twi whilst we all sat around like lemons and waited for them to sort themselves out.
With the tension in the air, maybe it’s for the best that we’re getting away from it for a few days in the Cape Coast – 3.00AM taxi ride awaits…
Thursday 30th July
What a day. Hard to know where to start. How can you be standing at a bar in a little know music festival in a medium sized Ghana town, and just bump into someone you know from London? Crazy, small world.
I know Johnny Fozard from three months freelance work at Exposure around 18 months ago, and then he turned up at the Cape Coast Panafest today – teaching and volunteering in the summer before resuming a law conversion course – and apparently we even flew over on the very sane flight!
The day started with our early morning bus ride meaning we hit the Cape Coast at about 7.30, when we discovered that we’d managed to coincide our visit with a music festival, Panafest which is linked into Ghana’s Emancipation Day celebrations and only takes place once every two years. An added bonus.
Cape Coast is a smallish town on the southern coast of Ghana which is quite well equipped for the tourist market with several beach resorts, guesthouses and sea-front restaurants. But the main focus here, and my main reason for wanting to travel is Cape Coast Castle – a large European built fort that was the main port of transit for the British slave trade out of West Africa (it was also the only place other than Accra that Obama came to in Ghana).
We did the tour of the World Heritage Site in the afternoon, and while it’s not something that you exactly ‘enjoy’, more endure, but it’s a very important place to visit sobering, harrowing and fascinating all at the same time. Emotionally it’s probably similar experience to visiting somewhere like Auschwitz in that it brought the full horror of the atrocities committed here to life in a way that no book or TV documentary ever can.
The numbers vary, but it’s believed that at least a couple of million slaves passed through Cape Coast Castle under British colonial rule, and it was probably most harrowing standing in a dungeon roughly the size of a tennis court with virtually no light or ventilation and be told this room housed 250 slaves for up to three months at a time – that’s eating, sleeping, urinating, vomiting – everything, until those that survived passed through the ‘door of no return’ and on to a fate of slavery in the new world. Symbolically two descendants of slaves recently became the first people to pass back through the door – renaming it the ‘door of return’.
In a bitter irony obviously not appreciated at the time, the Brits built their church – their place of worship – directly above the male dungeon… All in all the tour brought out expected feelings of horror and guilt – especially for the Brits in the party. It makes me feel even more humbled by the welcome we get here in Ghana as Brits. I for one wouldn’t blame them for much stronger feelings of bitterness and aggression.
While the rest of us were at the castle, Becky and Stacey stayed by the beach at the Oasis resort, making friends with some of the performers from the festival including King Bobo, X-Man and Skippy – dancers, singers and acrobats. King Bobo then hosted us into the festival, which was set up much like similar gigs in the UK; one big stage, with stalls, bars and fast food outlets scattered around. So we sank a couple of Stars and watched the various performances until King Bobo and his team of acrobats came on. They were nothing less than sensational, building all manner of human pyramids, performing outrageous flips and eating fire.
It was after that I bumped into Johnny at the bar, similarly to me, he was surrounded by locals plying him with shots of the rough local drink Bitters. High on excitement, the next few hours were spent in a haze, keeping up with the Ghanaians in the Bitters, and catching up. Steaming drunk I eventually crawled home and into bed at 3.30 – by far the latest and largest night in Ghana to date.
Friday 31st July
After the previous night’s escapades it was a bit of a slow start to the day, involving swapping hotel for a cheaper option and a hair of the dog over lunch at a rooftop guesthouse bar. We then took a trip to Elmina, the next town along the coast – the site of another slave fortress, although this one was used mainly by the Dutch and Portuguese.
It’s churlish to say, but after Cape Coast yesterday, the conditions whilst barbaric weren’t quite as horrific so the impact was lessened ever so slightly. Becky, who didn’t visit Cape Coast yesterday because of her claustrophobia did venture in this time and was rewarded with a panic attack when our guide locked us into the pitch black of the condemned slaves dungeon, then took his time to let us out again. Still not really our place to complain eh?
We followed this up with a quick stroll around Elmina’s busy fishing port and market, although the general atmosphere didn’t feel as welcoming as everywhere else I’ve been.
In the evening we went back to the Oasis resort and spent the night drinking and chatting. Again we were with King Bobo and the various other friends we’d made the previous evening. The more time spent with the King as he shall be known, the cooler this man gets. A true Rastafarian, he is also the chief in his village (hence ‘king’), he and his troop are the dance champions of Africa, and he’s a genuinely lovely man to boot. So quite why he seems to love hanging out with a white students from England is beyond me. Anyway, we’re already making plans to hook up again in Accra.
A very entertaining night rolled on with singing, dancing on tables, downing whisky and general frivolity into the small hours. We rolled back to our hostel at around 2.00AM after a fantastic night, and no doubt slightly off of our general guard. With most of the group further ahead and just about to reach the hotel two men came running out of nowhere, ran past Bridie and snatched her bag away, pushing her to the ground in the process. I gave chase, but starting from behind, and wearing only flip-flops it was a forlorn hope and they were gone in a trice.
Bridie lost her phone, a little cash and most upsettingly of all her camera with all the photos of her time in Ghana – as well as Laura’s phone, and was obviously extremely upset by the whole incident which tarnished an otherwise great day. I guess all she can do now is try not to let it hit her confidence going out and about, and we all need to be a bit more aware of our surroundings. Ghana has been such a friendly country so far it came as a huge shock.
Woke up with a hangover. Not a real stinker, all-day-in-bed, hurts to move your eyelids type of hangover, but I definitely felt like I’d had a drink, and in a way that gentle headache was welcome because it meant I’d had a good evening out. I’d missed just going out to the pub and getting slowly tipsy. Happy Days.
I still did my Saturday duty and attended the optional weekly meeting with Helen, Ahmed and Small Paul, although to be honest, we didn’t get that much achieved. We are though sending letters to all of the local churches to offer our services. .. Which made me realize just how many various places of worship there are in Achiase – it’s like the ‘People’s Front of Judea’ scene from A Life of Brian.
Spent the afternoon in Kumasi with Laura and Bridie – internet & lunch in Vic Baboos, which was fairly standard until a fight broke out between two Indian men on the table next to us. I’ve no idea what it was about, but there were raised voices, then a scuffle, and punches thrown. Both men were in their 30s, one skinny, the other fat (think Bal vs. Roop for those in the know – sorry Vohra, you got dominated this time). Never a dull moment.
We bumped into Enoch on the trotro on the way home who was carrying a live rooster which he’d been sent to collect – the family’s lunch for tomorrow – just one of the unusual sights that are becoming second nature now.
Sunday 26th July
Took the Sunday, day of rest, mantra to heart today and did very little indeed. It was extra quiet at the compound as all of the Jehovah Witnesses were off at a God convention in central Kumasi (including Big Paul & Theresa, as well as the whole of Bernice / Ahmed’s family).
Ended the day with a bit of a sad and uncomfortable conversation with Big Paul who showed something of a new side to himself and opened his heart about his problems with Theresa to me… I listened, but didn’t really know what to say in response, although I suppose it’s nice that he feels he can confide in me…
Monday 27th July
We’ve been warned several times, both before setting off, and on arrival in Ghana that we can all expect to feel sick at times, especially early on in our stay, as our bodies get used to the change in conditions. And I’m pretty much expecting to get hit with malaria at some stage (some people I speak to claim to have had malaria multiple times, although given the tendency for doctors to treat anything more than a sneeze upwards as malaria ‘just in case’ I’m sceptical about the authenticity of many of these cases).
That said I managed to convince myself in the middle of the night last night that I’d come down with the disease. I was hit by a strong fever – one minute boiling hot, the next shivering with the cold – plus some interesting visits to the bathroom, and constantly feeling only a couple of breaths away from vomiting.
After a fitful night’s sleep, I woke up ready to drag my sorry behind to the hospital, but actually felt a little better so decided to ride it out and see what happened. In the end I slept most of the day, missing work but getting up in time to force some dinner down my neck, finally getting back to sleep feeling washed out but a lot more like myself.
Tuesday 28th July
Feeling much better today, I woke up slightly weak, but put that down to hardly haven eaten the day before. I decided that since it clearly wasn’t malaria and that I was feeling pretty much back to full health, to put the episode down to a bug of some sort. Not that surprising really given the hygiene levels here (which isn’t something that I’m used to complaining about), but with the propensity of flies around the food, and the questionable cleanliness of the kids – who you see handling ‘rabid’ dogs, playing in the dirt, or relieving themselves by the street seconds before running up to you for a big hug, hold hands, or worse help you with your plate – even the most diligent are going to get hit from time to time.
It’s partly being an Obroni I’m sure, but as soon as you’re ill here the entire community rallies round – I imagine like pre-war Britain. I was visited yesterday by Small Paul, Eugene, Big Paul, Helen and Fresh – all to see how I was, if I needed anything, and to persuade me to go to the hospital. It’s very nice to be cared about, but sometimes when you’re ill and trying to sleep it all gets a bit much.
Today we visited Amoumang, where we managed one community presentation to around twenty locals before calling on a friend to drink Pito (a maize based wine). We soon found ourselves getting through large calabashes of wine with the local Roman Catholic priest Eugene, despite it being only 10.30 in the morning. The quite un-priestly Eugene got himself to quote ‘a little bit tipsy’ which was very funny to watch, and lengthened the walk back to Achiase considerably.
I popped into the SYTO office to see Helen who was submitting an application form for a child support grant for the Tiyah project in Northern Ghana, and was pleased to be able to help correct the spelling and grammar, which was a bit of a shocker. Think I’ve found another area in which I can offer a bit of ‘added value’.
Wednesday 29th July
A slightly stressful day socially, and at Tiyah. I’ve kind of taken on the mantle of coordinating all of the travel arrangements for our trip to the Cape Coast starting tomorrow, which has been complicated no end by the only available bus leaving at 4.00 in the morning.
Somehow end up with Stacey and Becky staying with us, and having to arrange with the bus driver to pick up Duncan on the way through… lots of questions come my way that I really don’t have the answer to, but we got there in the end.
With Tiyah we were due to appear on the local Achiase ‘radio’ station tonight, but a bit of a breakdown in communications between Small Paul and Ahmed meant we didn’t give the presentation after all, which in turn led to a falling out between the two. Ahmed had set up the radio session and wanted us to go ahead, while Paul felt that we weren’t prepared enough – which considering we were talking through exactly the same topic areas as we’ve been delivering every day was way too cautious. All this was had out in raised, fast Twi whilst we all sat around like lemons and waited for them to sort themselves out.
With the tension in the air, maybe it’s for the best that we’re getting away from it for a few days in the Cape Coast – 3.00AM taxi ride awaits…
Thursday 30th July
What a day. Hard to know where to start. How can you be standing at a bar in a little know music festival in a medium sized Ghana town, and just bump into someone you know from London? Crazy, small world.
I know Johnny Fozard from three months freelance work at Exposure around 18 months ago, and then he turned up at the Cape Coast Panafest today – teaching and volunteering in the summer before resuming a law conversion course – and apparently we even flew over on the very sane flight!
The day started with our early morning bus ride meaning we hit the Cape Coast at about 7.30, when we discovered that we’d managed to coincide our visit with a music festival, Panafest which is linked into Ghana’s Emancipation Day celebrations and only takes place once every two years. An added bonus.
Cape Coast is a smallish town on the southern coast of Ghana which is quite well equipped for the tourist market with several beach resorts, guesthouses and sea-front restaurants. But the main focus here, and my main reason for wanting to travel is Cape Coast Castle – a large European built fort that was the main port of transit for the British slave trade out of West Africa (it was also the only place other than Accra that Obama came to in Ghana).
We did the tour of the World Heritage Site in the afternoon, and while it’s not something that you exactly ‘enjoy’, more endure, but it’s a very important place to visit sobering, harrowing and fascinating all at the same time. Emotionally it’s probably similar experience to visiting somewhere like Auschwitz in that it brought the full horror of the atrocities committed here to life in a way that no book or TV documentary ever can.
The numbers vary, but it’s believed that at least a couple of million slaves passed through Cape Coast Castle under British colonial rule, and it was probably most harrowing standing in a dungeon roughly the size of a tennis court with virtually no light or ventilation and be told this room housed 250 slaves for up to three months at a time – that’s eating, sleeping, urinating, vomiting – everything, until those that survived passed through the ‘door of no return’ and on to a fate of slavery in the new world. Symbolically two descendants of slaves recently became the first people to pass back through the door – renaming it the ‘door of return’.
In a bitter irony obviously not appreciated at the time, the Brits built their church – their place of worship – directly above the male dungeon… All in all the tour brought out expected feelings of horror and guilt – especially for the Brits in the party. It makes me feel even more humbled by the welcome we get here in Ghana as Brits. I for one wouldn’t blame them for much stronger feelings of bitterness and aggression.
While the rest of us were at the castle, Becky and Stacey stayed by the beach at the Oasis resort, making friends with some of the performers from the festival including King Bobo, X-Man and Skippy – dancers, singers and acrobats. King Bobo then hosted us into the festival, which was set up much like similar gigs in the UK; one big stage, with stalls, bars and fast food outlets scattered around. So we sank a couple of Stars and watched the various performances until King Bobo and his team of acrobats came on. They were nothing less than sensational, building all manner of human pyramids, performing outrageous flips and eating fire.
It was after that I bumped into Johnny at the bar, similarly to me, he was surrounded by locals plying him with shots of the rough local drink Bitters. High on excitement, the next few hours were spent in a haze, keeping up with the Ghanaians in the Bitters, and catching up. Steaming drunk I eventually crawled home and into bed at 3.30 – by far the latest and largest night in Ghana to date.
Friday 31st July
After the previous night’s escapades it was a bit of a slow start to the day, involving swapping hotel for a cheaper option and a hair of the dog over lunch at a rooftop guesthouse bar. We then took a trip to Elmina, the next town along the coast – the site of another slave fortress, although this one was used mainly by the Dutch and Portuguese.
It’s churlish to say, but after Cape Coast yesterday, the conditions whilst barbaric weren’t quite as horrific so the impact was lessened ever so slightly. Becky, who didn’t visit Cape Coast yesterday because of her claustrophobia did venture in this time and was rewarded with a panic attack when our guide locked us into the pitch black of the condemned slaves dungeon, then took his time to let us out again. Still not really our place to complain eh?
We followed this up with a quick stroll around Elmina’s busy fishing port and market, although the general atmosphere didn’t feel as welcoming as everywhere else I’ve been.
In the evening we went back to the Oasis resort and spent the night drinking and chatting. Again we were with King Bobo and the various other friends we’d made the previous evening. The more time spent with the King as he shall be known, the cooler this man gets. A true Rastafarian, he is also the chief in his village (hence ‘king’), he and his troop are the dance champions of Africa, and he’s a genuinely lovely man to boot. So quite why he seems to love hanging out with a white students from England is beyond me. Anyway, we’re already making plans to hook up again in Accra.
A very entertaining night rolled on with singing, dancing on tables, downing whisky and general frivolity into the small hours. We rolled back to our hostel at around 2.00AM after a fantastic night, and no doubt slightly off of our general guard. With most of the group further ahead and just about to reach the hotel two men came running out of nowhere, ran past Bridie and snatched her bag away, pushing her to the ground in the process. I gave chase, but starting from behind, and wearing only flip-flops it was a forlorn hope and they were gone in a trice.
Bridie lost her phone, a little cash and most upsettingly of all her camera with all the photos of her time in Ghana – as well as Laura’s phone, and was obviously extremely upset by the whole incident which tarnished an otherwise great day. I guess all she can do now is try not to let it hit her confidence going out and about, and we all need to be a bit more aware of our surroundings. Ghana has been such a friendly country so far it came as a huge shock.
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