Photo report on Ghana

The door of return - the Cape Coast (former slave) fort guide explains how Ghanaians have reversed the curse of the infamous 'Door of No Return' where thousands of human beings weere shipped off to the Americas in brutal conditions.


Former president Kufuor had his priorities in place. I read that at least US $40 million was spent on this new presidential palace. From my previous blog you would have learned that he also spent $40 million on Ghana's 50th anniversary Independence
celebrations. US$80 million fizzled away on stuff that has little or no lasting impact for the Ghanaian people's welfare. No wonder Ghana joined the Heavily Indebted Countries initiative of the WB/IMF in 2002. And with ever increasing trade liberalisation rules being forced upon the public Ghana's days of debt are going nowhere fast.


Visually appetising enough for you? I've never seen a cow looking so happy promotinh himself as Sunday lunch! And what's with the name of the butcher? Well, as the hairdressing teacher at our centre explained to me yesterday we are all covered with the blood of Jesus and this is what protects us from harm's way. Let me give you some advice, if you are strictly vegan then you may find it hard going here!


Kwame Nkrumah, lionised in the 50's, demonised in the 60's, is regaining his head as visionary leader of pan-africanism and a leading light in Gha's history. The left want to make his birthday in September a national holiday. The right would rather that a national holiday is announced to commemorate independence leaders from both sides of their political history. This statue of Nkrumah was decapitated in 1966 when he was overthrown by a military coup. It now stands in the Kwame Nkrumah memorial park in Accra.


Ghana became 52 on March 6th 2009. It was colourful affair but not one you would want to stand and observe for others without shade. There was an interesting mix of Ghanaian society there - citizens, traders, military, diplomats, skaters, child labourers, les noveaux-riches, development workers, volunteers, tourists, etc.

I don't appreciate displays of war-voyeurism so when military aircraft overhead spewed out the colours of Ghana's flag instead of weapons it all semmed a little like a sanitising effort to the true nature of such weapons of violence and a means of appeasing critics of Ghana's wasteful military expenditure.

However, the day passed off peacefully and we didn't faint from the heat so that was a plus.