Ghana

[jonesthecurl]

Accra day 3
I wake as soon as it begins to get light, my internal clock still confused.

Here, because we are so close to the equator, the length of the day varies little from season to season. I reflect how different this is to my trip to Iceland a couple of years ago, just after midsummer, where I sat outdoors at midnight reading by sunlight. I grew up in the south of England, and one of the things I still notice most back in California (and New Jersey before that) is that the winter days never get so miserably short as they did back in the UK.

 It’s Monday, and I know mrs theCurl has to get to work today, and leave early, so eventually I become that annoying person that asks you if you have to get up yet, five damn minutes before you actually do. I get up and make tea to apologise.

I see very little of Accra today, I spend most of the day catching up on various computer things, and attempting projects which I promised I’d have a go at while I’m here, only to find that most of the stuff can’t be accessed from outside the USA. I do manage to expunge several hundred irrelevant emails and unsubscribe from several people who are sending me theatre stuff from NYC which is no longer relevant to me.

I spend some while examining the local papers and slowly getting insights into the local scene – it is made difficult by all the confusing quadruple-barrelled local names. I decide to take a stroll, but am defeated by the front gate. Sephus the gatekeeper is off somewhere doing one of his other chores, and it looks like I need another key to exit. Later I learn that that lock isn’t used, and all I had to do was to draw back the bolt.

Never mind, I’ll do that another day.

Mrs tC returns from work to be greeted for the first time ever in Accra by the smell of cooking. She is very pleased, and I’ve made enough of the curried meat and Bombay Aloo to freeze a third portion so that she can still eat more than grilled chicken at least once after I leave.

We update each other with various pieces of news in the evening, and break out the Jekyll and Hyde Murder Rummy game.

End of Day Three

[KoolBak]

Just read this....you should publish a book on this Jonesey ;o) Very interesting.

First....WHY is Mrs. tC here? Work? Humanitarian? And I don't think your monkey is a bad one....just mischievous...wanna compare shit life throws at ya privately? And you could be the poor children playing in the poop and garbage.....

Also....you love pickled onions and miss them? Dude.....I did at least 100 jars of pickled goods last year, incluing onions. You can do them yourself, to your taste, in no time at all for far cheaper and more tasty, than I bet you could buy them....let me know if you'd like tried and true, very simple recipes.

Also....only other time I've EVER heard "house-proud" was in that great old song by Madness

I spent two weeks in St. Thomas once....beyond the 3 block radius around where cruise ships land, the joint was all abject poverty where people would damn near kill for a shower...homes were the shanties built from garbage, no electricity, no plumbing.....was a real eye opener to a simple Oregonian. Doesn't sound like it has anything on this place though...

Lastly...found this pic that brought your excellent descriptions to life (thank you for a pleasant, interesting post in this political nightmare of a forum my friend ;o)

Click image to enlarge.

[2dimes]

Is that an architectural rendering of the north Dekota pipeline they're fighting over?

[jonesthecurl]

Just read this....you should publish a book on this Jonesey ;o) Very interesting.

First....WHY is Mrs. tC here? Work? Humanitarian? And I don't think your monkey is a bad one....just mischievous...wanna compare shit life throws at ya privately? And you could be the poor children playing in the poop and garbage.....

Also....you love pickled onions and miss them? Dude.....I did at least 100 jars of pickled goods last year, incluing onions. You can do them yourself, to your taste, in no time at all for far cheaper and more tasty, than I bet you could buy them....let me know if you'd like tried and true, very simple recipes.

Also....only other time I've EVER heard "house-proud" was in that great old song by Madness

I spent two weeks in St. Thomas once....beyond the 3 block radius around where cruise ships land, the joint was all abject poverty where people would damn near kill for a shower...homes were the shanties built from garbage, no electricity, no plumbing.....was a real eye opener to a simple Oregonian. Doesn't sound like it has anything on this place though...

Lastly...found this pic that brought your excellent descriptions to life (thank you for a pleasant, interesting post in this political nightmare of a forum my friend ;o)

Click image to enlarge.

The mrs is there working - she's trying to help expand a local pharma company so that they can make and distribute their own medicines rather than import from the big guys. It was supposed to be six-month contract to begin with, but was extended by a few months.

I have made my own pickled onions, very successfully, before. In fact, pickles and sauces (and wie) were things I got into way back, before I did any other cooking. But the last coupla times I tried in the US, I got mould - and it's hard to find the right sort of onions. Besides which, I haven't had access to a decent kitchen most of the time in the last year or two. Next time I see some suitable onions, I should be able to have a go.

[jonesthecurl]

Accra days 4-6

I’m going to lump these together because, although each day tasted different to me, the pattern of each was essentially the same and it doesn’t matter to you what order things happened in or which day I discovered what. Besides which, I’m falling behind.

Each day I awoke a little earlier than I wanted to, which meant I could make tea (and hot-cross bun!) for the worker and then see her off. After that, a possible brief sneak back to bed then some time doing computer stuff and some writing which I’ve been meaning to get to for around to, and which various house moves and crises have gotten in the way of. Then out into the city just nosing about without any great plan except to become more familiar with it, and then home to welcome Mrs tC with that rarity, home-made food.

One day I went to visit her in her office, which is several stories up. From that vantage point I was able to appreciate for the first time just how flat the city of Accra is. From the ground level you only notice that the bit near you is flat, the view is broken up by people, buildings (finished or not) and an occasional tree. I can see how flooding here could be disastrous (as it did indeed turn out to be last year) – there’s nowhere for the water to drain off to, and the deep drains which border most of the roads would soon clog up especially where there is a lot of rubbish.

My initial forays are fairly timid, given that many of the streets have no street signs (cue U2 song?) and I can’t afford to get lost. Asking for directions to the apartments where Sephus is the gatekeeper, you know, where the goat and chickens are, and one of the houses has a flag outside? would be unlikely to produce good results. But after a while I begin to know where I am and get bolder.

The day that I visited the office, a driver picked me up to take me there. Actually, I’d walked right by it about 90 minutes earlier and could simply have asked to be let in, but believe me a long walk in Accra’s temperature had left me looking like an entrant in a wet t-shirt competition (I wouldn’t have won) and I had to go and change.

The weather, incidentally, has been uniformly HOT and dusty, but for the most part the sky has been overcast – a blue sky, or even a bit of blue in the sky, is rare. After all, this area was originally rainforest.

The carrying-things-on-heads saga continues – the two most astonishing I’ve seen are a small boy carrying a cardboard tray of eggs, which he is selling individually. We’ve seen eggs balanced already, right? So no surprise there… well, the thing is, all the eggs that have gone have gone from one side – the right side is empty and the left full. The damn thing should just fall off his head right away. How does he keep it balanced up there? The second is a woman carrying, I kid you not, a vacuum cleaner on her head. There has to be a punchline to that.

I’ve come to notice that many people actually put a cloth on their head to cushion the weight, or a little pill-box hat to provide a flat surface to make the balancing easier. By this time, I begin to feel this is cheating. “Why can’t you be more like egg boy?” I want to ask, “Why can’t you be more like vacuum woman?”.

I’m beginning to recognize the individual chickens near the apartment by now, which I guess answers my puzzlement about how you can just let them roam free. They seem to be rather territorial, so you can always find your own chickens. I guess you’d know their habits enough to know where to find the eggs too. They look smaller than the chickens I’ve seen in the UK and Europe – I guess that’s the result of deliberate breeding at home to change the body type to match modern tastes – at one point, everyone thought the chicken leg was the choice part, now they want the (no skin please! No bone! No taste!) white chicken breast and nothing else, unless it’s been reshaped into a dinosaur or something. Sorry, rant over.

I don’t have the same recognition factor with the goats, but they tend to move away when they see you coming.

I’m finding it a little difficult to decide when some of the shops etc are open. As I said, they range from a few sticks thrown together to purpose-built malls. In the mid-range, the first priority seems to be to claim that you’re open. I’m considering sitting and doing some sketching of the people and places around me, something I’ve not done in a long time, but I know that I stand out quite enough as it is, and I’d like to find a shady corner somewhere where I can observe without being seen, maybe purchasing an occasional tea or beer. This is proving difficult.

I start with a hotel a couple of blocks away. At least, it says it’s a hotel – a sign points to it from several adjacent streets, claiming that it’s a Hotel, Restaurant, and Bar. When I find it, it wouldn’t be suitable anyway, it’s a very quiet street it’s set in. Nevertheless, it’s near the apartment and if good would be a place we could nip out to in the evening. So I attempt to check it out. It doesn’t look very open, but I walk up to the door and try it. Encouragingly there is a chalkboard outside with “Today’s specials” chalked up – there’s tilapia. There’s various meaty things, there’s some of the local specialities. I try the door, it’s not open, but a guy who was hidden on the porch wakes up and greets me in a friendly fashion.

I should point out at this point that communication can be difficult – yes, everyone does speak English, but they all also have a tribal language which they speak better. I find the accents a little difficult, and they do mine, too. SO I try to get across that I’d be interested in tea, juice, or beer. He nods encouragingly and disappears. He comes back and points to the now-open door. A young lady appears around the edge of the door and lifts an eyebrow inquisitively. I once again try to say tea, juice, beer?, attempting to mime. All the mimes look a bit similar. I’m crap at mimes… Eventually she decides my mumbling and finger-waving is getting us nowhere, and she says “Fruit and Veg-et-ables”, very slowly. “No thanks, I’ve eaten. Just a drink of some sort?” “No, fruit and veg-et-ables.” I concede defeat and move on, exiting past the menu “Today’s Specials” which incidentally doesn’t mention fruit and veg-et-ables.

Another place looks pretty closed, but has invested in a large neon sign proclaiming the restaurant/café “Open!” which seems to be the important thing as I said. Closer inspection leads to a note which says “please use stairwell”. I walk up the stairwell, to an unfinished upper floor deep in cement bags and dust, where a guy is asleep in his chair behind a table. There are no other tables, or chairs, or food, or drink, or indeed anything but a radio and some building materials. I conclude that the neon sign was a vain boast.

Sometimes a place will be “open”, the door (if any) will not be locked, and there simply won’t be anybody there. Which makes it hard to get served…

One day, after the longest walk so far I find a place that’s actually open. I do enjoy just wandering about here, there’s always something new to be seen. But by now, after about two and a half hours in the oppressive heat I’m as hot as a very hot thing indeed. Beer is required. I try my second Ghanaian beer, called “Club”. It’s pretty decent. The other Ghanaian beer tasted like they tried really, really hard to make something as tasteless as Budweiser but have not quite succeeded. This one actually has a taste. Not that I notice all that much with beer 1, it hardly touches the sides, evaporating on the way down. Unfortunately, “Charlie’s” doesn’t have any suitable spots for observing the street life, so it doesn’t help with the sketching quest.

One thing I’m discovering is how important funerals are here. I already talked about the personalized coffins, but that’s just one aspect.
When you leaf through the local papers, there are many announcements that some beloved relative has been “Called to Glory”, or inviting us to “Celebrate the life”, or using one of several other stock phrases, all of which are basically optimistic in nature. There’s always a photo too, often of the deceased in traditional clothing. The advert will give details of the funeral arrangements – the whole affair lasts up to a week, with a lying in state, a family vigil, pre-burial service, burial service, thanksgiving service, and wake. Depending on various factors (mainly, I think, family finances), these announcements can be any size up to a whole page of the paper. They may list all the relatives (which can be a tidy few if the deceased was 100 or so, as is sometimes the case) including siblings, children and grandchildren (and great- etc), plus cousins, nephews and nieces. Then there are listed the chief mourners, up to about 50 people. Not only is this announced in the papers, but posters and banners will be put up in the streets, sometimes just the one or two, but for richer people sometimes dozens, up to 20 feet high.

For particularly important or wealthy people, new announcements will be placed in the papers on the anniversary of the death for one or more years.

Despite the poverty of some of the people of Accra, there are very few beggars. In fact, only once have I been approached, and that was by three small kids, who were very charming about it and not at all pushy. At the time I had no appropriate money (I had a 20 cedi note, but that would have been too much), or else I might have been tempted to part with some.

And, although there are plenty of people trying to sell you things, they don’t wave them in your face, or follow you while telling you all their merits, as happens some places. For the most part, everyone is exceedingly polite.

Most of our evenings are spent in the apartment. As mentioned, Mrs tC is finding that having me cook once again is a very welcome change. But one night we go out to a restaurant nearby which offers an eclectic mix of African, Chinese, Italian and burgers. Again, much of the menu is unavailable (even though this is a seriously business hotel). I order what I think is going to be a steak Diane from the description, but what turns up is a decent piece of steak somewhat overcooked, and swimming in a brown gravy which is more than passable. The mushrooms in the sauce are, I’m pretty sure, out of a can, which is a disappointment, as is the fact that the dessert menu seems to be completely unavailable.

We don’t however find this out all at once. The menu boasts cake, ice cream, and, um, cake AND ice cream. Mrs tC orders cake. “Sorry, madam, no cake today.” Ice cream then. “What flavour madam?” Chocolate. “Sorry, madam, no chocolate ice cream today”. Berry, then? “I will ask if we have any”. (the waitress leaves, to return with the news that no, there is no berry ice-cream). Very well, then, vanilla. “Very good, madam,”. There is a short wait before the waitress returns with the news that, you guessed it, there’s no vanilla ice cream…

END OF days 4-6.

For a change of pace, I’m gonna post something in a minute which is one of the long-put-off projects I’ve been working on.

[jonesthecurl]

So one of the things I worked on is this: some years ago, my Dad wrote some notes for one of the kids about one of his war stories - I believe there was some school project involved. I've been meaning to edit it and tidy it up ever since rediscovering it sometime relatively recently while packing for one or another house move. I finally managed to do so here in Accra. The words are all Dad's, (well, I did add ONE), but tidied up rearranged and with redundancies cut out, and with some details which he told me at other points added in.



An Incident at Sea by John Hall Jones

After I joined the army, we trained for several months, in what had been in peacetime a “holiday camp” in North Wales. Our specialization was Field Communications. That winter (1940-41) was extremely cold, which meant that staying in unheated chalets (they were previously only in use in the summer) made our training twice as hard. Flu was rampant, and those who suffered from it were not helped by the repeated directive “Just get on with it!”. It was truly said that “there’s no room in the British Army for softness or sentiment”. Hopefully this attitude has mellowed at least a little these days.
At last the training came to an end and we were moved to Colwyn Bay, a pleasant seaside resort. Not so pleasant a time for us, as the Army decided in July of ‘41 that we need to undergo a “toughening up” process. Long marches into the Welsh mountains, repulsing an invading force (actually Local Defence Volunteers, later to be known as the Home Guard).

We were on good terms with the townspeople, and we remembered our time there fondly when the time came to move on. When we left to be posted overseas, the streets were lined with cheering crowds, waving the traditional flags and emblems. As we proudly marched, in full tropical kit, to the train station, we were not really considering the fact that many of us would not see “Blighty” again for five years – and of course, many would never return.
On the train, as we left the town behind, most of us engaged in the traditional soldier’s pastime of catching up on sleep. The saying went “Don’t stand when you can sit, don’t sit when you can lie down. If lying down, go to sleep.”

After three hours we were shocked to see the extent of the devastation as we pulled into Liverpool. Three nights of heavy bombardment had left debris everywhere, and warehouses flattened. Smoke was still issuing from many a building.

We were marched to a giant troopship, which was a hive of activity as war materials were transported to its cavernous holds. We had no time to gape, as the order was “Gildy, Gildy” – army slang for “Hurry up”. More raids were expected that night and we’d be the prime target if we were still around.
Once aboard and having been allotted a berth, we all went to the ship’s rail to watch the stevedores working at an amazing pace. We slipped our mooring within the hour and silently began our journey. I have an abiding memory of a hail of envelopes being thrown to the dock with a last (and uncensored) message for families and loved one. Most had no postage on, and some fell into the murky waters below, but all of those that reached shore safely were picked up and sent on to their destinations.

On rising the next day we rushed to the rail to see where we were. The sea around us was as calm as can be imagined, and remained so for the rest of the journey, something which we did not know at the time would be our salvation.
There were 30 or so other vessels, forming a convoy. Our only protection salvation was a single Naval Corvette, circling the convoy like an eager Collie dog herding sheep in the Welsh mountains.

We sailed for several placid days in beautiful weather, attending lectures, map reading, and of course doing Physical Training.
The sixth day was much like the previous ones, and as we were ordered to our bunks a loud THUMP sounded from somewhere below. I will always remember the exact time, 9.55 pm. The ship shuddered, and we momentarily lost our balance.

The sergeant bellowed “IT’S PROBABLY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT! GET INTO BED!”

We were about to do so when we were flung across the room to the accompaniment of the loudest bang I ever heard, followed immediately by an ear-splitting shriek that seemed to go on forever.
Total silence followed, to be broken by a voice saying simply “I think we’ve been hit, chaps..”

“GET DRESSED! BOAT STATIONS!” was the bellowed order. We rushed to obey, but as we go to the cabin door an officer blocked our way.

He calmly informed us “Step through that door and you’ll fall straight into the drink.”

And so we learned what had happened. The initial “THUMP” was a torpedo hitting us, but luckily it had not exploded. But we were knocked off course and had wandered into the path of another troopship, which hit us at an angle of 30 degrees on the starboard side, ripping a great hole (the demonic screeching). The lifeboats and rafts were all destroyed, and our bow had sheared off.

All engines stopped, and it was only the complete calm of the water that saved us from sinking.

I could see the outline of the other vessel through the dark, and heard the peculiar “Hoot, hoot” of its Klaxon horn. Over a megaphone, this message was
delivered: “Your position has been notified, God Bless you all!”
The ‘hoot,hoot” sounded once again as they departed as swiftly as they could. Then, silence.

Orders were to proceed as far to the stern as possible. Throughout the night loud banging sounds gave evidence that carpenters were doing what they could to replace or restore the damaged bow.
Hour later, we heard the engines start back up, and we proceeded at between 4 and 8 knots, now heading westward. For around a week the elements were extraordinarily kind, a blessing since if there had been any swell at all, we’d have foundered.

Eventually we reached Halifax in Nova Scotia, where we stayed for about six weeks awaiting the arrival of further transport. Our stay in Canada is another tale.

[Symmetry]

That's interesting- your writing style kind of sounds similar to your father's in your accounts so far. Was that concious?

[jonesthecurl]

That's interesting- your writing style kind of sounds similar to your father's in your accounts so far. Was that concious?

Not particularly, but I guess that the editing process for me involves adjusting sentence length, word order, and a number of other things which to some extent imprint my personality on the text.
Many years ago, Steve Jackson (of SJG, not the British one) reviewed Black Mole, my games magazine, and he said something along the lines of "either this guy has attracted some really good authors, or he truly does edit." It was both, I think.

[Symmetry]

That's interesting- your writing style kind of sounds similar to your father's in your accounts so far. Was that concious?

Not particularly, but I guess that the editing process for me involves adjusting sentence length, word order, and a number of other things which to some extent imprint my personality on the text.
Many years ago, Steve Jackson (of SJG, not the British one) reviewed Black Mole, my games magazine, and he said something along the lines of "either this guy has attracted some really good authors, or he truly does edit." It was both, I think.

It was interesting after reading your fantasy writing- you have a great ear in your writing in both cases, but the narrative voice was kinda different. It made me wonder if it was related to working on your dad's experiences in foreign lands, if you like.

Do you think you'll work this into a book?

[jonesthecurl]

Probably something shorter. There's a number of writing competitions out there in various lengths and categories, I wanna have a try at a few.

[jonesthecurl]

Accra: the weekend odyssey begins.

So, Mrs theCurl has got a couple of days off, her boss has lent her the car, and we have our driver.

I see I haven’t mentioned the drivers’ names so far. The guy who picked me up from the airport at the beginning was Michael, but the next day he had to depart for his Mother’s funeral – which as we have seen absents him for some time. Since then, (and for this weekend) we have Yelbert. The drivers don’t belong to Mrs tC, no more do the cars. These guys have a number of duties to perform , driving and otherwise. We can borrow them if they aren’t otherwise engaged.

The day starts with a major hassle – Wells Fargo online page has decided to not recognize our sign-in. This happened a couple of days ago too, and then got better. Now we can’t get through at all, so we head into Mrs tC’s office instead of beginning our journey, to see if the computer in the office will work any better. It does not. A long, expensive, and frustrating phone call follows, the gist of which is that this is an intermittent fault with customers outside the US. WF tell us “It’s not your problem, it’s ours.” We politely point out that the fault may be at their end, but the problem most certainly IS ours. We find a convoluted way around the money stuff we want to arrange and we are finally off.

Our first call is several hours drive away, on the Cape Coast, at Cape Coast castle.
The drive is very interesting, and along about 50% very good roads. One interesting aspect is that whenever traffic is held up for any reason (congestion, traffic lights, toll booth, police control point), a stream of people will pass by offering to sell you stuff. It can be anything – chewing gum, footballs, lottery tickets, steering wheel covers, mango, table-cloths, shampoo, pottery, bread, you name it. It is interesting to see that when the queue moves forward, the vendor (if in the middle of a sale) will run after a customer to complete the transaction. Running while balancing half a shop on your head is an interesting sight. Toll booths especially attract these vendors, and there is a notice just before the point at which the toll is collected on the George W Bush Highway reading “No Hawking Beyond This Point”. Poor Stephen, I think, as if he hasn’t enough problems without a travel ban to add to them…

There are many posters along the road – some relating to the recent elections, some for funerals. Some commercial ads. At the bottom of some of the hoardings are inspirational phrases, suitable for a fridge magnet or a facebook meme, exhorting behavior and attitudes of various sorts. Most are fairly vapid, or tend toward the religious. One that I DO like says “Dreams won’t work unless you do”.

After a while, we come to the first hills I’ve seen in Ghana – called Mcarthy Hills. From this point on, although we see no real heights today, the
flatness of the Accra area is broken up but a certain amount of up-and-down.

These advertising/admonitory hoarding thin out in rural areas, where the quality of the roads also drops off. Instead, every few hundred yards we are greeted with “Overspeeding is dangerous”. Below this is a tally, “4 deaths have occurred here”, or “10 deaths have occurred here”, or “More than 12 deaths have occurred here”. They seem to stop counting at 12. These statistics are easy to believe. Over the course of the weekend we pass three overturned lorries – and on seeing the many which haven’t overturned, I suspect this is because they load them too high and then try to go too fast on unsuitable roads. None of them seem to have involved any other vehicle. Once we also pass an overturned car, which had obviously happened very recently because a lot of people are milling about. It doesn’t seem that adding three more people to the crowd would help, so we pass by, hoping that nobody is badly hurt and that more practical help will arrive soon. The car is upside down, but otherwise seems relatively unscathed.

Another thing which I notice beside the road as we travel is the termite mounds. These are amazing structures,, often taller than I am sometimes by a considerable amount. I had a mental image of these occurring in groups, probably gleaned from some old wildlife documentaries - but so far as I can see, each one tends to be at least a few yards from any others, usually further. Later I learn that the material of these mounds is immensely strong (they’re formed from the local red earth, bound with termite spit and poop) and are often ground up to strengthen pottery and building materials.

We pass through a large number of towns, villages and townships on our way. They are of varying size and prosperity. In some of the smaller places, everything seems to be constructed from bamboo packed with a clay mixture (no doubt including some of the termite mound material). This doesn’t look very sturdy, but some of the buildings look like they’ve been standing up to the climate for some time. I guess the other advantage of earth as a building material is that, if it falls apart, you’re surrounded by plenty more of it. All of the settlements have at least one church, often many more. These can be anything from a mud shack to an impressive large building. Several times we see enormous gathering places being built, seemingly for one or more of the enthusiastic evangelists which seem to thrive here. Did I mention that around half of the TV channels have names like “Praise TV”? Apart from the evangelists, we see (as well as the standard Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Jehovah’s Witness, Presbyterian, Baptist, Mormon, and 7th-Day Adventists) Church of God, Church of Christ, Holy Church of Christ, Lighthouse Chapel, Apostolic Church, NEW Apostolic Church, Church of the Apostles, Christ Apostolic, Assemblies of God, Victory Bible Church, and more.

We also see mosques of various sizes in some of the settlements, all of which seem to be built to a standard model. I don’t know what flavor of Islam they represent, or whether they are all the same, because I don’t read Arabic.

Everywhere is lightly covered with red dust.

All the settlements have their own stores of various sorts, many along the roadside to attract any passing trade. On the way in and out of each village there are usually a few people, either with stuff just piled up for sale, or with a table set out – sometimes a grass canopy held up by bamboo will give the vendors some shade. Many of them are selling food of various sorts – smoked fish, fresh coconut, grilled bananas, sliced mango, or the stodgy local specialities. Now and again, someone will be standing by the roadside holding up some sort of bushmeat for sale.
All but the smallest and meanest towns boast some sort of eatery/drinking place (not all sell alcohol though). They have various names: a “chop bar” will sell local foods plus perhaps more (not chops… I think that “chop” is a word for “eat”). A “Spot” I think is a bar, possibly with food. Then there are the places that call themselves “pubs”. These seem to sell alcohol to drink there and to take home too. Most seem to also do food. A “bar” can mean just about anything. From what I can see, all these places are pretty exclusively male hangouts.

After a few hours drive, we arrive at our first stop - Cape Coast castle. This was the administrative centre for the succession of European countries that set up trade in the area. Many things were traded, but the most memorable, and shameful, was slaves. I have read much of the slave trade in the past, when studying history. But never before have I seen the conditions under which these poor souls were kept.

We take a tour. The most memorable part is where we go down into the male slave pens. Dark, cramped, and immediately getting uncomfortably hot from the body heat of even a handful of tourists. In one room less than twenty feet by twenty, over a hundred captives would be kept, chained, filthy and in the dark, with totally inadequate sanitation, eating with only their hands once a day. Those that died (and disease caused by the appalling conditions took many) would just be dumped at sea. The slaves would be taken, after waiting perhaps several months, to their final destination, often America or the Caribbean. The conditions in the ships were even more appalling, and huge numbers never made it.

Ghana was one of the main centres for the slave trade.Sweden, Demark, Britain, Portugal, the Dutch and others were all a part of this disgusting trade at various times. The shame does not fall only on Europeans, though. The castle (and others like it) were built with the permission and support of the local peoples, and rents paid. Many of the slaves were sold to the Europeans by the locals, mainly prisoners of war. And those wars were often fought between various of the Akan tribes specifically to have access to the coast so as to benefit from the slave and other trades.

A couple of hours at this site is a sobering experience.

Before we moved on, we drove a mile or so down the coast to take a walk on the beautiful beach. In most parts of the world, this setting would be lined with tourist hotels. Maybe it will be yet.

From here we drove north to our overnight stop, the Rain Forest Lodge. There is no evidence of rainforest in its immediate vicinity, although this whole area was such a few hundred years ago. The Lodge is a fine place, and although the menu is not hugely varied (and not everything is available), my Thai Chicken Salad is a delight.

A party of young teen schoolchildren are also staying here that night, no doubt on their way to the same destination as us the next day. They are having a fine time. By coincidence they turn out to be from the school in Accra which is near the supermarket where we did our shopping.

But the finest thing about the Lodge is the outdoor pool. After a long hot day, it is the most refreshing thing ever. It’s not just a token pool like many hotels have, either. There’s a kiddie bit, a mini waterfall from the bridge which arches over the middle, and at its deepest I can’t touch the floor with my feet. We send a blissful half an hour in the pool, getting out the kinks from the long car journey.

In the reception is an attempt at an international air – three clocks give the time in New York, London and Tokyo (London is on the same time zone in any case). However, with the lack of follow-through which I have often noticed here, all have stopped, and at completely different times.

And so to sleep, ready for day two of our odyssey.

[DoomYoshi]

make sure you threaten the judges of the writing contests: "If I don't win, you're gonna be a ghana"

[KoolBak]

I must be on his ignore list

[jonesthecurl]

I must be on his ignore list

No, mate, look a few posts back for my reply. Who could ignore koolbak?

[KoolBak]

My bad ;o)

Weird you got mold.....as the ph of onion is around 3, there's no chance of botulism if pickled properly (botch dies under 4.6 and with say 75% onion and 25% brine at my ratio, it should be a blended ph of 3.7 or so...)...never had mold though.

I like the baby onions for looks but have used regular old white, yellow and sweet Walla Walla onions too. I just use a ratio of 5 : 2 : .3 of water, vinegar and pickling salt....maybe a pinch of sugar (for example, if doing a batch of say 3 pint jars, use a 1/4 cup measurer and do 5 of water, 2 of vinegar and 1/3 of it salt). I always add 1/4 t per pint of Citric Acid too when I don't pressure cook product, just to be safe. Have used plain old white vinegar (my preference) as well as Red Wine Vinegar and Apple Cider Vinegar....takes very little time, only cooking is dissolving the salt in the brine and cheap....try it again ;o)

[jonesthecurl]

My bad ;o)

Weird you got mold.....as the ph of onion is around 3, there's no chance of botulism if pickled properly (botch dies under 4.6 and with say 75% onion and 25% brine at my ratio, it should be a blended ph of 3.7 or so...)...never had mold though.

I like the baby onions for looks but have used regular old white, yellow and sweet Walla Walla onions too. I just use a ratio of 5 : 2 : .3 of water, vinegar and pickling salt....maybe a pinch of sugar (for example, if doing a batch of say 3 pint jars, use a 1/4 cup measurer and do 5 of water, 2 of vinegar and 1/3 of it salt). I always add 1/4 t per pint of Citric Acid too when I don't pressure cook product, just to be safe. Have used plain old white vinegar (my preference) as well as Red Wine Vinegar and Apple Cider Vinegar....takes very little time, only cooking is dissolving the salt in the brine and cheap....try it again ;o)

I shall. Haven't had regular access to a decent kitchen for some while though. One back I Cali I'll look out for the right-sized onions and try again. They're seasonal, and the nearest to what I used to know as "Pickling onions" are "Boiling onions". From time to time I do make Indian-style pickled onions, which are just red onions marinated in a spice and vinegar mix for a day or two.

Oh and yes, white vinegar ftw. It is almost impossible to get commercial pickled onions in white vinegar even in the UK except Basildon market. The only thing I miss about that crap town.

[jonesthecurl]

The weekend odyssey continues.

Overnight there is torrential rain, but it has stopped by the morning and the paths at least have dried out.
So we rise on Saturday morning, and breakfast. The extensive breakfast menu which we saw last night seems to have gone missing, and all we are asked is “How would you like your eggs?” The eggs are however delicious, and that’s from someone who doesn’t often eat them. Talk about free range, we can see the hens wandering about in the hotel grounds.


On, via somewhat scrappy roads, to the rain forest reserve at Kakum. We pass the monkey sanctuary which is I read mainly stocked by locals who have hunted the various primates for food, but bring the young ones to the monkey village. They do the same with crocodiles, apparently.

We are headed for the aerial walkway which, so we hear, goes through the canopy, the main level of the trees. Above this level, I read is the Emergent trees. The ones which break cover and grow even taller.
A visitor centre gives a lot of interesting information about the rainforest, and at 9am we set off for the canopy walk. First there is quite a challenging trek up a rough stone trail, leaving many of us pretty breathless and some older knees twinging. Then we are onto the walkways. Now the reserve is a vastly worthwhile project – we need to preserve what’s left of the rainforests, desperately. I salute the entire enterprise. You should give them money.

But it is at this point that we are informed we are unlikely to see any animals, they tend only to come out at night. The chimps, bonobos, elephants, grasscutters, etc etc will very likely not be in evidence. As it turns out there is more than one reason for this – the walk doesn’t go through the canopy at all, but is high above the tops of all but the trees on which the walkway is secured. You’d not spot anything much smaller than an elephant anyway. Our guide, having warned us of the lack of wildlife, imparts no further information.

So the main purpose of the aerial walkway is just to "do it". Basically it’s a rope bridge, with a plank at the bottom and netting on the side. There are seven or so sections, each 100-200 metres long.

Or about a mile each if you’re nervous of heights. Here is my advice for an height-averse individuals taking this trip:
1. Don’t look down. Unfortunately this means that you won’t see anything at all as there’s nothing to either side.
2. Try to follow the off-steps of the person in front of you. i.e. if they put their right foot down you put your left foot down, and vice versa. This helps prevent the alarming swaying which otherwise sets in.
3. If the person behind you is not following the same protocol, and you swing wildly from side to side, throw them off.
4. If you see a twig lying on the plank, do NOT step on it. The resulting loud “CRACK” will have everyone else thinking the plank has snapped and you’re all about to plunge to a horrible death, (although you might actually see some sleeping wildlife just before you hit the ground, I guess).
5. Go to the monkey forest instead

Seriously, there are better things to do here. You can I believe camp overnight, and you can also sleep in the tree house. Either of these will mean you actually encounter some of the charming wildlife. Or do the hike on the ground.

If like me, you have been wondering for the last few paragraphs “What IS a grasscutter?” I did ask Yelbert the driver. His answer was that it’s about “so big” (indicating something around eighteen inches long), and “it’s good meat”.
We later see some being bred for the table, and they are a large rodent, somewhat ratlike in appearance. Indeed their other name is the “cane rat”, because they eat crops including especially sugar cane.

Before we leave, we stop for some fresh coconut. These are straight from the trees, and a cheerful guy slashes them open with an alarmingly big machete. They don’t look like the image you probably have of a coconut – these are still encased in a green outer skin, the hairy surface which we are all used to is inside that. First, you drink the coconut water, which is cool and beautiful, and the best part of a pint of it too. Then our friend makes a spoon out of a bit of the shell with more delicate machete work, and breaks the whole thing open – we scoop the flesh out with the "spoon"' Again, it’s not like you’d expect, that fibrous white, brittle stuff- this is a thin coating of a gelatinous substance. Quite pleasing. I suspect that the insides harden and grow after harvesting, also absorbing much of the coconut water. As I enjoy this, I can’t help but have flashbacks to “Coral Island” which I read, enthralled, when I was a pre-teen.

Now we decide to head for Kumasi, main town of the Asante region (it used to be spelled “Ashanti”, but they changed it). There are a few things we’d like to see there, and it’s some distance away. We are NOT going to see the zoo, something I would normally like to do, because all the reviews say that it’s a dreadful, old-fashioned affair, with dispirited animals in tiny confined spaces, that will make you feel depressed. I had my share of depressed with the slave castle yesterday.
A couple of hours of more towns follows, much the same as before (I’m sure there are regional differences, but it’s too new for me to sort out my impressions). In this region, the locals make a lot of pottery, which is set out beside the road on tables, stall, or in posher actual shops.

Along the way we see several of the famous funerals – apparently Saturday is a big day for this. I’m not sure which part of the long process this is. Dozens of, and in one case over a hundred, people, dressed in red and black for the most part, ride in lorries or just walk to a public space where rows of seats are set up, obviously to hear inspirational talks praising the departed, imparting spiritual comfort, and reminding the audience of their own mortality and the need to live a moral life. Sometimes there is music – especially drums, calling one and all to the event. Many of the attendees wear the traditional clothes – a long cloth wound around the body in the manner of a toga, or the older type of kilt (not the modern one that hangs from the waist like a skirt). We have seen a few of these already, in various colours, but the funeral attendees’ garment is pure black, although often patterned.

We follow the directions to our first stop, the Manhiya Palace museum of the Asante. Unfortunately this takes us right through the central market of Kumasi. This is the most chaotic thing I have ever seen. Vendors have plots of between two and twenty feet wide, from which they sell an amazing variety of things. The goods are piled right to the edge of the pavement (“sidewalk” for US readers) and sometimes beyond. The milling crowds (yes, it’s a cliché but by God they are crowds and by God they are milling) are forced to walk in the road. The roads however are already gridlocked with cars, carts, buses, motor bikes, and other conveyances. People walk around and between the vehicles, apparently certain that they’re not moving any time soon and they’re safe from being run over. Most of the pedestrians are of course carrying things on their heads, many have loads wider than they are themselves. They are squeezing through spaces just inches wide, and it ought to be impossible for two load-bearers to pass each other without a collision. Disaster seems about to strike every few milliseconds. But somehow nobody ever drops anything, whether it be a basket of fruit or an eight-foot long piece of foam rubber.

We move at rate of inches per hour for a considerable time. Eventually we emerge from the other side and proceed to the palace. This still takes some time, for the traffic is heavy in Kumasi. Eventually we arrive about 20 minutes before the place is due to close.

Nevertheless, although we are the only people there, we are welcomed. They sit us down in front of the introductory video, and when that’s finished we have our own personal guide to the whole thing. We see royal paraphernalia, we see effigies of various previous kings and their wives (all are dressed in funeral black robes, because the Queen Mother died a few months ago. Royal descent is matrilineal, with the new king often being the nephew of the old one. The Queen Mother holds a very important place). We are shown maps, personal belongings, told stories, and all-in-all have a very interesting tour for a half-hour or so. Even after this, they are not anxious to get rid of us, and are happy for us to tour the gift shop, where I buy a little something for my (embarrassingly large) collection of folk tales from around the world. This little booklet deals with the adventures of Anansi the spider.

Of course, the consequence of all the delays is that we aren’t going to get to see anything else of Kumasi on this trip. A pity. So we head to the next destination, the one that I have been the most interested to see ever since the idea of my visiting Ghana was proposed. Lake Bosomtwe.

This an almost-circular lake which fills the impact site of an ancient meteor, which hit about a million and three quarter years ago. It’s around five miles across, and is surrounded by hills which are at least partly splash from the original impact. This idea fascinates me, and when Mrs tC first said “what would you like to see while you’re in Ghana", this was item no 1.

The plan was to arrive a little before sunset which is renowned as being a very fine thing. Unfortunately, the traffic in Kumasi (and several instances of congestion between there and Bosomtwe) have scuppered that plan. The roads again are of varying quality, and get progressively worse as we near our destination. The last couple of miles are increasingly rough and in the now-complete dark, the last few hundred yards feel like a goat track. We arrive finally in the middle of an electric storm, The power is out, and the only lights are some battery-powered affairs in the reception/restaurant. This is open to the elements, with no door and no glass in the windows. The local mosquito population head for the only light to be seen. We are swarmed by the little blighters. Luckily we’ve all been taking our malaria tablets, but the bites quickly add up. Later I will take an anti-allergen to calm the reaction to the bites. I always carry such due to decades of hay fever, but I’ve avoided them since taking various jabs and pills against the local nastinesses since I already feel a bit weird. But extreme measures are required. Power is soon restored and the mozzies wander off, thankfully. We have a passable dinner, and a few drinks.

We have a lovely room, literally a grass hut (but with all mod cons), and after a much-needed shower, we are soon fast asleep.

END OF SATURDAY

[jonesthecurl]

Sunday

We are awakened by bird call. I try to identify the culprit but, although I can tell which tree the call is coming from, the bird is concealed. And so we rise to see the aftermath of the storm – bits of trees everywhere. Not big bits, but lots of ‘em. We breakfast (more very fine eggs: the menu promised “Ham and eggs”, or rather to be completely accurate “Han and eggs”, with toast, butter and jam. Butter and jam are absent, the “Han” is the size of my thumbnail, or less.) We then head for the private bit of lakefront beach which the hotel owns.

The hotel dog adopts us, and charges about excitedly. He’s digging holes, rolling in the sand, viciously attacking dead palm fronds, and nesting in the fisherman’s nets. I find a nice stick for him, the handle of a dead tennis racquet. I fling it as far as I can, Dog watches it go, and looks pointedly at me as if to say “YOU threw it. YOU go get it.” Maybe “fetch” isn’t a game Ghanaians play with their dogs.

The view from the waterfront is spectacular, Damn, I think, something that makes a hole in the ground five miles across must’ve made a helluva noise. The water is fresh and clean. We contemplate a swim, but we’re not entirely sure what lives in the water. Drawn up close to us is what I would describe as a plank, about eighteen inches across and eight foot long, tapered at either end and painted white. Yelbert assures us that this is a fishing boat. Basically, you sit astride it with your legs in the water, and paddle out to where you’ve left your fishing nets. We ask Yelbert if he’s ever done this, but he also agrees he’d be nervous about having his legs dangling in unknown waters – who knows what’s down there?

This prompts me to ask, is the crater in the path of previous river channels? If not, how did the fish get in there? God must have put them there, suggests Yelbert. I wonder how isolated the lake is from other waters and whether there are any unique species here. I don’t have an answer to this one yet, but Google may help me find out once I’m home.

Incidentally, this is where we see the grasscutters being bred for the table.

We pack up and head out along a path which, while rough, doesn’t seem anything like the hell-ride we came in on. We drive further around the lake to the next village, a dry and dusty place. We learn that it has a population of just a few hundred people. There is an information hut which is surprisingly well kept, and covered with posters about the lake and the crater which contain hugely detailed information which a geologist would find fascinating, but which is far too technical for me. We negotiate a boat ride, and Paul our guide also persuades us to donate 60 cedis to a project to seed the entire shoreline with coconut palms. The reason for this is that the main local crop is cocoa, which has roots that spread quickly and which take up a lot of water – so much so that the lake, after centuries of expansion, is now beginning to recede. The palm trees will help prevent the cocoa trees from getting too near the shore.

We are obviously the most exciting thing to happen here in days – a bunch of lads, maybe 8-15 years old, gather around. One wears an England football t-shirt, which he is anxious we should notice. The boys insist that while we are out in the boat, they’ll give the car a good wash. True, it does need it, but we’re going to be trekking through miles more dust before we get back to Accra, and thus it’s a little pointless. But we don’t have the heart to turn them down, and when we return from the boat trip, the car is positively gleaming. We give them a few cedis for their sterling work.

As we board the boat, we see another “fishing boat” nearby. This makes the first one look like the Queen Mary II. It obviously was a plank at one time, but it has seen better days, and is now warped, mis-shapen and worn in various places, with just the vaguest suggestion of paint still clinging to it. At heart, it is just a large stick. Maybe this is why the locals don’t play “fetch” with their dogs – they’re afraid they’ll keep bringing the boats back to shore. Nevertheless it still floats and no doubt does the job for which it is intended.

Our excursion boat is a little more seaworthy, but still appears to be the result of years of random patching-up with whatever materials are to hand. Our guide would be happy not to give us lifejackets once we assure him we can swim, but Yelbert insists we wear them, afraid perhaps of returning to the Boss without Mrs theCurl.

From the water we see more muddy villages, and also some impressive houses here and there. The surrounding hills are misty with distance and covered in trees of various sorts. It is a beautiful setting. Here and there, a hundred feet or so from the shoreline, are tall trees, mostly dead now, which have been submerged over the years as the lake expanded. One of them has a new young tree growing from its jagged top. This seems symbolic of something, though I’m not quite sure what.

After the tour, we move on, having admired the thorough job that the youngsters have done with the car. We are not intending to do any more touristing, other than looking out the windows, before we get back to Accra.

It’s Sunday, and attending to us has kept Yelbert from his regular churchgoing, so he tunes into a religious broadcast in which an enthusiastic lady drones on about faith, death, the afterlife, God’s grace and… I don’t know, that’s when I fell fast asleep until she’d done.

Ever since the GPS landed us, no, “stranded us” in the middle of Kumasi market, Yelbert has had no time for our directions. I point out that we seem to be heading north towards Kumasi once again, whereas Accra is south, but what do I know? Sure enough, 40 minutes later, after asking directions from a local, we turn around and head south.

Incidentally, unlike the classic Brit or US male driver, he is not averse to asking for directions. At times, he stops every few minutes, and carries on a conversation in Tri to determine which way we should go. Suggestions from me, Mrs tC or the GPS are treated with the contempt they deserve. Actually, I don’t speak Tri, so maybe he’s not asking directions – who knows what he might be plotting?

Passing up the roadside offers of bush meat, we decide we need a quick trip to the supermarket before returning to the apartment. As we leave the supermarket, we discover that it has started raining. And when I say “raining”, I mean that someone has just opened up a huge tap in the sky (that’s a “faucet” for US types), Although the rain has just started, it’s already coming through the front door of the supermarket. A lady worker is busily trying to sweep it back out, and mop up where arriving customers are leaving a watery trail. A team of supermarket employees with huge umbrellas are ushering customers to and from their vehicles. Even so, being exposed to the torrent for no more than two seconds as we get into the car, we are thoroughly soaked.

Driving home we realize that Accra is not quite as flat as it looks. Everywhere there is the slightest incline, the road becomes a stream and the gutters a raging river, gushing up into the air every time there is the smallest obstacle.

Shops and dwelling are already being flooded. When we reach the apartment, our area is not so badly affected, but a little later the news informs us that most roads in the city are now impassable. Mrs tC says that, so long as it stops raining, everything will be fine tomorrow, the water simply evaporates as soon as the sun comes out. Aware of the dreadful floods last year, which took many lives, I’m not so convinced. But the rain stops and the next day everything has returned to normal as she predicted. Well, not everywhere, but I’ll tell you more about that in the next episode.

END OF THE WEEKEND

[jonesthecurl]

Back in Accra

I’m going to bundle the next few days together again, partly for the sake of time (I’m only here another day) and partly because, although full of interest, they do again follow the pattern of working a bit, going for a wander, welcoming Liz home from work. It’s also an opportunity to mention a few things that somehow got forgotten in previous installments.

The rains: Sunday’s rain had indeed pretty well dried up by the next day, as Mrs tC had predicted. But when I was wandering in an area new to me (and was, to be honest, a bit lost for a while), I found that this wasn’t true everywhere. A whole street was almost impassable, being still flooded on one side and a sticky red mud elsewhere. One poor guy was standing outside his “pub” (read, “wooden shack”) trying to find some way to restore access. However, the deep drains on either side of the road had overflowed – and had obviously been watery even before the torrential rain, for the green scum which had been growing in them had now spread out over the road. There was also a distinct smell of poop – someone’s cesspit had probably overflowed. It would take a lot more than a couple of planks laid over the mud to get me to drink in THAT pub, I can tell you…

Power: I mentioned that the power was out when we arrived at the crater lake – I haven’t mentioned power cuts before, but they are very common here. There was one while we were in the supermarket when it rained, although only momentary. And there’s one in the apartment every day or so. There’s a generator here, but someone has to go and get the fuel (and someone has to pay for it). It’s just a fact of life here. I was just congratulating myself one day on the fact that we cook with gas here, and thus power cuts don’t stop mealtimes – but then the gas gave out. And we’ve had no water now for several days – we persuaded someone to bring us a couple of buckets full, so it’s not desperate, but it is annoying. Now even a COLD shower would be a luxury. I was wondering why solar power isn’t hugely popular here – it would seem to be an obvious answer to the erratic supply (and I’m sure that more rural areas have far less reliable power, if any). I’m informed that solar panels attract a luxury tax, which puts people off. This may change soon – the new government does seem to be doing good things, or at least making the right noises.

Names: I said right at the beginning that it was hard to tell a church from an eating place, due to the habit of naming them “Jesus Love” or “God be Praised”. This actually extends to just about any sort of business. Now, although I can imagine getting a haircut at “God is Great Barber”, I’d hesitate before getting a haircut at “Trust in God”… I think I’d rather find a barber with a little more confidence in themselves. I’ve yet to see a “Jesus Saves” Bank, which is a shame, because you’d have an obvious advertising campaign – “Jesus Saves. So can you, with our high-interest deposit account.”

More about names: I hear that the crater lake, Bosomtwe, means “fetid antelope”. There is some odd Asante fable about this.
“Accra” is a corruption of a word which means “driver ants”. These are a variety of army ant. Often moving about in numbers up to several millions. Apparently when the Gar people arrived in the area, the Fante thought there were so many of them that they were like the ants. In fact “Gar” is from the word “gargar” which also means “driver ant”.
The Golden Stool: Many of the tribes, especially among the Akan, have a sacred stool in which the power of kingship is invested. When a king is officially installed, they don’t have a “coronation” (which literally means “crowning” of course), the have an “enstoolment”. The Asante royal stool is gold-plated and descended directly from heaven early in the 18th century due to the magic of Okomfo Anyake, a Merlin-like figure who served several powerful kings in succession. He seems to have been quite a character. The arrival of the stool in a thick cloud of smoke, was seen by many witnesses. In 1900 the British demanded to be given the stool, which led to the War of the Golden Stool. One story is that eventually they were given a copy, while the original was so well hidden that the Asante themselves couldn’t find it for some while. This last story was told to Mrs tC by someone at the Asante museum, but I can find no trace of it in official sites.
The king (Asantehene) never actually sits on the stool, which is too sacred. He hovers over it at this ascension. It never is allowed to touch the ground, but must always sit on a blanket.

Buses: I wondered how the locals know which of the many little mini-buses which run around the city to get on: It seems that there is a hand-signal which tells you where the bus is going. The driver, or someone else, leans out the window and gestures appropriately. Or the hopeful passenger will make a sign to say “are you going to x?” – and the bus will stop if it is. Later I realized that taxi drivers employ a similar code – as I walk past a stationary cab, the driver will make hand gestures at me. I have to wonder if, before I realized they weren’t just trying to attract my attention, my waving of the hand palm-out in a “no thank you” gesture actually meant “please take me to the airport” or something. It would explain the puzzled expressions.
Now I just smile and shake my head. This puts me in mind of a scene in Greece many years ago. A tourist appeared to have learnt just one word: “Neh”. Unfortunately, she thought this meant “no”. It actually means “yes”. To compound this, when a Greek shakes their head, it can also mean “yes”.So when a shopkeeper offered her something and she backed out of the shop shaking her head and saying “Neh, neh, neh”, it confused the hell out of him. Why on earth was this crazy woman leaving the shop while muttering “yes, yes, yes” and giving him the nod (or rather giving him the shake).

Expaturbia: We were invited to dinner one evening in a different part of town, where the houses are much bigger and most of people are expats. As it happened, out hostess was herself a local, but I suspect this is unusual in that area. It was a very different part of town, and everything (except the roads) had a far more finished and permanent look to it. It was at that (very fine) dinner that I heard about the solar panel “luxury tax”.

Bookshops: anyone who knows me at all well will know that I am extremely fond of books, and am always reading. And that one of my favourite things to do in a new town is to visit the bookshops. Obviously this is of less interest in non-English-speaking places, but here the lingua franca is indeed English and I was hoping to spot some stores.
I have seen several, one of them being quite close to the apartment. But all of them are Christian bookshops, and their stock appears to consist almost entirely of Bibles, or of texts telling you how to read the Bible, or live your life according to the Bible, or illustrated childrens’ Bibles, etc etc. There are also book stalls, but when I stopped to look at one, the ONLY thing it had was Bibles. Some were beautiful leather-bound editions, some paperback for everyday reading, and all grades in between. But books as such are simply absent. I’m told that the posher European-style malls may have a bookshop in, but it seems that the local folk simply do not read anything other than Bibles and newspapers.

Crime: The larger, more affluent houses in the area all have formidable gates, and walls topped either with barbed wire or electric fences (the latter would be small use – just wait for a power cut. There’ll be one today or tomorrow). Many (like our apartment block) employ gatekeepers. So I have to deduce that property crime is common. But as I wander through the neighborhood, I have never felt any sense of personal threat. Obviously, people notice me, I’m the only white guy they’ve seen all day. People will nod, or smile, or ignore, but I have never felt any hostility. Maybe I’m naïve. But I think I have a fairly good inbuilt trouble meter – I grew up in a town (Basildon) where it paid to keep your eyes and ears open, and nevertheless I was beaten up for no reason more than once. I felt somewhat nervous when walking around the poorer parts of Baltimore, and distinctly edgy in Camden, NJ. But here my trouble-radar has not pinged once.

The shops: I have told you of the shops here, ranging from ramshackle scrapwood stalls to posh shops. I don’t know how strictly regulated these things are – but there is some sort of control – you might see a “for rent” sign on even the scrappiest of these structures, and I have often seen the word “remove!” written on the side of some, even quite elaborate, street shops. This seems to be official, although whoever is in charge of the operation is either not working very hard or is taking bribes. The notice is usually followed by a date, and I’ve seen several still in operation with a 2015 date. On others, though the date is more recent, and they are simply abandoned. Why would you bother to pull it down if there’s nowhere to move it to (and the authorities don’t know who you are)?
I see that I haven’t mentioned the bicycle-driven vendors so far. These are guys (so far as I’ve seen, always guys, though I don’t know if this is universal) with a bike and some food to sell. Usually it’s a variety of things that look a little like Cornish pasties, carried in a glass case. There may also be a cool box, which I think contains ice creams. These guys sell mainly to shopkeepers, and they announce their arrival by sounding an old-fashioned bicycle horn. Or you may have seen clowns with these – there’s a rubber bulb at one end, and a sort of tiny megaphone attached. They sound rather like the “honkers” from Sesame Street.

Not for sale: I was puzzled to see, painted on signs or on the walls surrounding small pieces of land, the notice “This land is NOT for sale”. In one case that was followed by “Buyer Beware!”. It seems that this is what this is about: when someone dies, the disposition of their property, if there is no indisputable will, is a matter for the whole family. Naturally there are sometimes disputes, and of course sometimes someone will try to pull a fast one, and sell the land without the permission of the rest of the family. The sale might or might not hold up legally, hence the notices, and hence “Buyer Beware!”.

White faces: In our immediate vicinity, there are none. I’ve seen white people when shopping at the European-style supermarkets, and in hotels and restaurants, but otherwise, except for our dinner in expaturbia, none. Actually, that’s not quite true – the other white faces I’ve seen have been on tailors’ mannequins. Quite why nobody has decided to make black mannequins for black countries is a puzzle. It’s probably a good commercial idea for an entrepreneur out there somewhere.
Children, especially of the pre-school age, find me fascinating. When we ate at an outdoor restaurant in Tema, one adorable little girl passing by could not take her eyes off me - when I waved at her, she broke away from Mother and ran over to simply stare at me, smiling angelically. Slightly older kids will give you a huge smile, a wave, and very wide eyes. It is charming.


I’ll try to get time before I leave tomorrow to relate our trip out to the river Volta, but if I don’t get time I’ll wrap the whole thing up when I’m back home in California. In a while, I’ll edit the whole thing and maybe add pictures, and put it on another blog page.

END OF WEEK TWO

[jonesthecurl]

Well, I'm going home later today, so I may have to finish this off when I get back. Meanwhile, it's Independence day here. If I'd known, I'd have stayed the extra day to see if there were any celebrations. It's 60 yeaars to the day - I've seen nothing to mark that anywhere so far though.

[KoolBak]

Thanks Jonezy....safe travels....enjoying your thread ;o)

[jonesthecurl]

So I’ve been back at home for a few weeks now, and (for reasons which are not relevant here) I’ve effectively moved house three times in the last few months, so there has been much organizing and unpacking to do – but I thought I should update this journal/blog/whatever you want to call it before the details get too vague in my memory.

So we were now approaching my second weekend. Mrs thecurl again wangled the Friday off from work, and we borrowed the driver for a couple of days. The plan at this point is, Mrs tc is due to leave on the Saturday evening, so this is a slightly rushed outing. She’s stopping off in the UK to see her Mum, and we’ll reunite in California .

There’s again a slight snag at the beginning of trip. Mrs tc attempts to buy an electricity card on her way home (that’s how you top up the meter), but there’s such a queue she decides to do it the next day before we go. Unbeknown to us, and important figure has just died and all the shops will be closed in mourning for three days. It was an important local priest, apparently. I’ve been trying to find more information on this, so far unsuccessfully.

On Saturday morning, Yelbert goes off to find somewhere open. He has to drive some way, but eventually is successful. When we leave, we see that most places are indeed closed until we get some considerable distance away.

This time we headed East, to the Volga river, and the town of Akasumbo. The landscape was more interesting than much of the country, but the villages are the same mixture of dusty, often ramshackle, places with a plethora of churches. We pass an army base and a training barracks. At the training place is the motto “Train Hard, Battle Easy”, which I thought should be the title of the next Bond movie. We do see more street (or rather road) vendors than we’ve seen before. In one area, there are several miles of stalls (well, mainly benches) selling some basic, but good-looking pottery. All the vendors appear to be selling exactly the same range of goods. I can’t help but wonder why someone would stop and buy from the 36th stall, rather than the 3rd or 4th.

We pass a nature reserve, and the road is lined with troops of what I believe are some sort of baboon. They sit, idly, watching the traffic go by, and now and again there will be some small argument within a troop.

The people here look a little different to Accra, I think, somewhat lighter in skin tone and often taller.. The food being sold by the road side gradually changes too. The local “shrimp” are much in evidence. They are the size of langoustines, or bigger. Liz had some at one meal in a restaurant. I don’t think I’d like to try the street version, they’ve been carried around, maybe for hours, on these ladies’ heads . Shrimp and similar crustaceans are notoriously susceptible to salmonella and other gut-busting bacteria.

Another local delicacy is the snail kebab. I’m not talking about delicate little Escargots here, like you’d get in France (or in Cornwall). These chaps are the size of a clenched fist. They’re a big item in the local cuisine , and this seems to be where they come from. Again, there are dozens of people with a head full of these peculiar snacks. And again, who knows how long they’ve been sitting atop a vendor’s head in the hot sun?

On the subject of food, I have been forced to ditch my plan to try some of the local street food – I had decided to risk the slightly worrying fact that most of the guys have no water or refrigeration, but I had a slight but definite case of tourist tummy this week anyhow, and thought that upping the ante was a silly idea. Memories of staying close to the facilities for some days in Kenya many years ago surface.

As we approach Akasumbo, we are obviously in a seriously touristy area, at least for Ghana. There are more hotels and lodges, many of them actually completed, than I have seen before, Also more eating places, some looking pretty tempting. And casinos (though don’t imagine Las Vegas here, more a gambling den from the Wild West) - and, wonder of wonders! Public toilets!

We pass through the town itself, to a hotel right on the river. We didn’t choose it ourselves – this is Yelbert the driver’s recommendation. He spent his honeymoon here, and remembers it fondly. The room we take is not that amazing in itself, though it is a nice one, But it is literally right on the river. There is a little balcony outside. And beyond that a platform floating on the river itself. You can swim in the river here, they say, and I see people doing so – also using it for laundry. It is fast-flowing, and looks clean enough. Again, perhaps I’m too fussy, but I’m not sure what the sanitary arrangements are here, or where the sewage goes, so I’m a little wary. Nevertheless, I sit on the jetty with my socks and shoes off, and my feet dangling in the water.

On a hot day (and there’s no other sort in Ghana so far), it is heavenly.

There has obviously been considerable rain recently, and the river is higher than normal – you can tell simply because some of the riverside pavilions where people can be served food looking out over the river are flooded to a depth of several inches. One guy is taking advantage of this as a way to cool off. He’s sitting in a chair, shoes and socks off, trousers rolled up, feet in the water and fast asleep.

The hotel has considerable grounds, and very nicely laid out. All the rooms are single-story affairs in huts. The reception is also the bar and restaurant, and is obviously used for enterainment and dancing too – I expect there’ll be a fair amount of that for the wedding. At the center of the thing is a remarkable set of drums, formed it seems from single hollowed-out tree trunks. One is taken from the place where the trunk divides in two, and is adorned with a carving of a face.

Liz and I decide to hire a canoe for a paddle (is that the correct term technically?). It was fun, though harder work coming back against the current than it was going with it. It was a lot harder to steer too than I thought. I guess the only other times I’d been in one of these was in a lake or boating pond, with no current. They also had what we Brits call a pedallo, a pedal-boat, which are a thing I’ve loved since I was but a small person. I’m quite glad I didn’t have to pedal one of those against the current, or indeed attempt to steer it.

At the hotel preparations for a wedding are in progress. Tables and trees are bedecked with ribbons, a whole area is marked out for the celebration – there are a number of women busily engaged in numerous tasks for the ceremony the next day. All are giggling and having a fine time as various decorative things are made for tables and the whole area. Or maybe it’s the trees who are getting married- who can tell? We won’t be there for the ceremony, which’ll take place on Saturday afternoon. I’m rather sorry about that, I’d love to see it.

We eat at the hotel in the evening, another good but not remarkable meal. In the evening, a remarkable noise issues from right outside our room (and thus directly in or over the water). At first I think it’s ducks, sitting right outside the window. U.S. readers will know what I mean if I say it sounded like an ongoing live “Afflac” advert. It was extremely loud (and this is a pretty deaf person saying so)

But the noise doesn’t move., like a duck or goose would in the water. Eventually, we guess that it’s probably some variety of very noisy frog – and when we ask the next morning, this guess turns out to be right.

While we’re here we do two other things: on the driver’s advice, we first go next door to another hotel, where they have some local wildlife on display. We are sorry that we did this, they are not in good conditions. Ok, so you can keep crocodiles in fairly basic conditions, they spend most of their lives just sitting still anyhow – the same goes for snakes. But there’s some kind of wildcat I’ve not seen before in a concrete room with no distractions, looking lonely and sad, and a very pathetic monkey alone in a cage with only a stick to climb. It’s impossibly cramped, and the poor little chap seems incredibly grateful for someone just stopping to chat with him. I wish they’d let these guys go. Nobody but us is here to look, the whole thing seems completely pointless.

Our other outing is rather more rewarding – a trip along the river in a powered boat to see the hydro-electric dam. Mrs tc has seen this before from above, but now we approach it from below. It is an impressive sight, and along the way we see a number of other things too. There are islands in the middle of the river which the little boy who still operates a lot of my psyche wants to get off and explore, especially if nobody lives there. We see enclosures in the river which I assume are some sort of “stews”, i.e., places where you raise fish in captivity. And the air is full, absolutely full, of some sort of pollen, or seed system. For a crazy moment I think it’s snowing. I don’t suppose any of the local languages even have a word for “snow”. There are puffballs of a feathery, cottony, I don’t know how to describe it, material – from snowflake size up to apple size, each of which (when I capture a few) have a single black dot in the middle, which with the first one I assume is a speck of dirt. Soon I figure that this is the actual seed, the reason for the whole shebang. In places the river is almost covered with these seed distributors.

The air above is full of some sort of kites (the raptors, not the toys), and they almost look to be guiding the rush of seedlings into the air -they appear to be becoming airborne from a single source just out of sight. Really, of course, the kites are hovering (or rather gliding and wandering around a fixed point– they don’t hover in one spot like, say, a kestrel) and waiting for prey. Our boat guy stops to pick up a fish which one of the kites has tried to pick up, too ambitiously, the weight has proved too much and the raptor let it drop. Which would have been lucky for the fish (it looks like a tilapia – but we’re pretty far up into freshwater territory here, so maybe not.), except the poor thing was already dead.

We ride out to the hydro-electric dam which supplies a huge percentage of Ghana’s electricity. It’s an impressive sight, though Mrs tc says it looks even more impressive from the upriver side. During this ride, there are a number of fishing boats, usually long kayak-like affairs with two fishermen in. They fish with small nets, and they seem to be out all day and all night.

This is a great spot, and I wish we could stay a little longer and spend some time in the town too, but I’m going home shortly and Mrs tc is coming back for a while too, to celebrate her birthday, so it’s just a short visit.

We drive back on Saturday, and make three stops. The first is to buy some bananas. The second is to distribute them to the baboons. I don’t know if this is why they sit by the road, I don’t know if a lot of people do this, but the troop (is that the right word?) seem excited by the prospect, although not hugely surprised. They seem very organized, in a I’m-bigger-than-you-are sort of way. When a banana lands near several of them, the smallest one charges in desperately, and tries to eat it before someone bigger cuffs him, or just bares teeth and looms. If the smaller one is bold or desperate enough, it will run like hell with the ‘nana, eating all the time (“Never run while you’re eating", my mother always told me. Well, she wasn’t gonna get the lunch taken away by large and aggressive relatives, was she?).

A guy who is obviously Alpha-male, Big Boss, the Don, whatever you want to call it, turns up. He is a bad-tempered little dictator (well, not all THAT little actually – he’s far bigger than the others, probably because he gets to eat more). He’s stronger, meaner, and has some alarming-looking teeth. We start to throw the bananas in random directions, as far as we can. The others rush to get them and eat them practically in one bite, then run like hell as King Nasty bears down on them like an express train. He gets about half the bananas, no matter what we do.

And no, we don’t leave the car while we’re doing this. I for one am not going to argue with King Nasty.

The third stop is for some food – Mrs tc will be leaving in the evening, and who knows if there’ll be power, gas, water?

We get most of the way back before stopping, at an intriguing place, which covers several acres and contains a number of different restaurants serving a wide variety of foods – the most elaborate arrangement I’ve seen yet here. Not all of them are open at this point. We eat outside which is very pleasant. The food is ok, except that I order a steak, and they don’t seem to realize in Ghana that some cuts of steak can be grilled or fried, others need to be stewed. When I first started cooking, this was a mistake I made too, and of course if you fry the tough one it might taste nice, but you need steel dentures to actually chew the darn thing. The driver has foofoo, which still doesn’t look very appetizing.

At one point a lady walks by with a very cute little girl, about two years old. She can’t help staring at me – I don’t think she’s seen a white guy before, except on TV. I give her a wave, and she breaks away from her momma and runs over to me to touch my arm and just stare at me with her huge eyes. It’s a very touching moment.

When we get home we have gas and power, but the water has run out and the standpipe outside is dry too.

Our driver promises to find some water for us, later. Meanwhile, Mrs tc gets ready to leave, and we bid a fond farewell. I’m not fated to see her quite as soon as planned, because her mother is not well, and Mrs tc stays on in the U.K. there a few days. In the meantime, I’m in Accra on my own for about 36 hours.

That final stint will be the subject of the next entry.

[jonesthecurl]

Last days in Ghana

In a way, it is a lot easier for me to become acquainted with the everyday life of the city of Accra than it has been for Mrs thecurl. After all, she works during the day, and it is a different proposition for a single, very noticeable woman to go out in the ill-lit streets in the evening than it is for a guy to go out during the daytime. She has walked about a bit when she had a specific place to go such as the gym, but hasn’t wandered about a lot just for the sake of nosing around like I have.

But having said that, I’ve not been out of an evening except when driven, so I’m curious to see what the nighttime is like here.

So, feeling slightly smelly since I’ve only been able to wash in the water from the bucket, I head out.

In the area immediately around the apartment, it’s very quiet. A few people are sitting outside in the (relative) cool of the evening, chatting or sewing.
One of the tiny one-room beauty businesses has a customer, the girl is doing her hair. They’re sitting outside to do so.
The goats and chickens are still wandering about busily or lazily depending on individual temperament.
As I get nearer to the main street of Spintex Road, things begin to liven up. Food stalls are busy, and many establishments which I haven’t seen open before reveal themselves to be bars or snack bars. The traffic is almost completely gridlocked.

I decide against the “Hook Me Up” Lounge, which doesn’t sound like the sort of place I want to visit. Maybe it’s just a singles bar (which is not what I want anyway…), but maybe it’s something a little shadier. I wander for a while, just taking things in. Some people are just wandering, like I am I guess, others are dressed up for a night out.

I end up in the bar which I found on my first outing. It’s a friendly place, though it looks a little different in the evening. Firstly, there’s a British football match on the TV. It’s a big TV, much more state-of-the-art than you usually expect of things here. But then, they do LOVE their football. I’d tell you who was playing, but as I say, I take no interest in that.

The odd thing was that it was by now very dark, and there were no lights in the bar so the audience could see the TV more clearly. I couldn’t see how many people were ranged around the TV set – dark people in a dark place, after all. There was a lot of loud cheering and other encouragement – the fans seemed about equally divided between the teams. I sat on the other side of the bar.

Those who know me well will remember that, if I go into a bar, and don’t become involved in a conversation or (less likely) engrossed in the TV, then I’ll sit and read. Currently I was deep in the History of Ghana.

But here conversation is impossible (everyone else is deep in the footie) and there’s not enough light to read, so I only stay for a while before heading back to the apartment.

Next morning, Yelbert has brought us a huge container of water from somewhere, bless him, and left it on the doorstep. I can barely drag it into the apartment.
Later in the day, it turns out someone has managed to arrange for a tanker to come and replenish the tanks. Naturally, this involves parting with some cash, but I’m happy enough to do that. Much of the day is taken up with packing and other preparations for the return home. Sorting through papers, deciding what food will last until Mrs tc gets back, tidying and cleaning, that sort of thing.

I take a little wander, I visit the little store around the corner for a couple of things to eat, and I return to the apartment. Most people I see are in go-to-church clothes, either because they’re on their way there or on their way back. Every so often I hear church singing. It’s more enthusiastic than we Brits are used to, and involves clapping too. Brits tend to pretend to sing, or mumble quietly. I’ve always thought that if God wants us to praise him, he’ll probably think more of people who do it happily rather than as if they’re slightly embarrassed...

That evening I venture out again. I visit a place I’ve walked past often enough, but not been in before. As I approach it, I’m hearing a number of happy conversations, which tempts me to go in. This is a place which has a menu outside that promises all sorts of things, but every day (if you walk past at the right moment) the real menu is revealed by a chalked notice … “foofoo ready now.”

Inside it’s a small bar/restaurant, about the size of someone’s front room. there’s a really friendly atmosphere – I think many of these people are family. For the first time, either going into, or walking or driving past, anything which looks at all like a bar, there are a lot of women here as well as men, relaxing. I think some of them are related to the girl who seems to be running the place. A small girl, maybe three or four, comes over and talks to me, shows me her phone, and her purse which featured “Dora Explorer”. She was amazed I knew who Dora was. I give her the set of colored pencils I brought in case I got a chance to do some sketching (that’s not gonna happen now, and we have tons at home). She rewards me with the biggest smile ever.

After a while, and some fairly-clear conversations (despite the language/accent problems), I decide to move on.
I find a bar which looks quite pleasant from the outside, but which has always been dark during the daytime. I don’t think I passed it last night, or if I did it wasn’t open yet.

Inside, it’s brightly lit, and has several pool tables, all in use and with a queue of coins laid by people waiting a turn. I consider adding myself to the queue, but decide against it. I do enjoy playing pool, but I’m pretty awful at it – and seeing the standard these guys are playing to, I’d only embarrass myself. I realize that I’m paying more for a beer here than I’ve done anywhere in Accra before (it still only works out at about $2.50 a beer). For the second time tonight, this place has several females in it. But, um, they seem a little underdressed, and a little friendly (not towards me, I’m the weird white guy reading a book). After one rather nervous drink, I head to the place where I watched the soccer last night for a final beer, where I am greeted warmly, and then back to the apartment.

One thing which has surprised me this weekend is that there is no fuss at all about the upcoming Ghanaian Independence Day on Monday - 60 years to the day since they became independent. I've noticed a couple of posters, normal commercial adverts with an added line of congratulations, and there's a logo on some TV programs - but I see no parties, or decorations, or anything else. Initially when I found out that I was going home on Independence Day, I was a little disappointed - I wanted to see how it was celebrated. The answer seems to be, hardly at all. I think there will be some dull speeches from politicians, but I was expecting a lot more fuss.

And... I guess this blog is done. I’m gonna revise it, pretty it up, and add pictures, then republish elsewhere. At that point I’ll add some general observations which don’t seem to have fitted in anywhere convenient so far.

Meanwhile, if you’ve enjoyed my writing style, be aware that there’s a novel out there which you can buy from Barnes & Noble, or from Amazon, print version or e-book. It’s The Dragon’s Run by Gareth John Jones. There’s also my first “panto”, called Arrr! which New Jerseyans may well remember. My second panto. Wotcha! Gotcha! is available too, though from elsewhere.

THE DRAGON’S RUN
At Barnes & Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-dra ... 1533007261
At amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Run-Gare ... john+jones
and in the UK
At amazon.co.uk https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dragons-Run-Ga ... john+jones

ARRR!
At Barnes & Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/arrr-ga ... 1533333131
At amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Arrr-Pantomime-G ... john+jones
and in the UK
At amazon.co.uk https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arrr-Pantomime ... john+jones

And the script of Wotcha! Gotcha! Can be obtained from Off the Wall plays. http://offthewallplays.com/2015/10/07/w ... pantomime/

[jonesthecurl]

So the updated, edited, more coherrent version of this with pictures too, is now bewginning to appear. There were a lot of technical difficulties, but I managed to find a way around them.
If you go to my website and click on "trevel blog", you should get to part 1. Please feel free to subscribe, there's lots more to come.
http://www.garethjohnjones.com

Direct link to the blog is https://itsjonesey.wixsite.com/mysite

[jonesthecurl]

https://itsjonesey.wixsite.com/mysite

New entry in the updated, edited, illustrated version of my Ghana adventures. Please subscribe- the more people that do, the easier it'll be for me to get writing work.