Photo-essay - Ghana from various angles

The slave trade carried countless millions (estimates range from 13-16 million over 250-300 year period ending in the mid 1800's) to their deaths on perilous voyages across oceans and plantations. For those who survived initial capture, imprisonment in brutally inhumane conditions, even worse transportation without basic amenities for life, a life full of hard labour and maltreatment faced them. Recently I visited both Cape Coast and Elmina forts on Ghana's coast, former bastions of the Portugese, Dutch and British where they carried out their misdeeds. The tours were excellent and the museums very educational.

Dungeon passage at Cape Coast where the male slaves spent their days with little nourishment or water. Here, many last breaths were gasped in under the gaze of colonial soldiers.

A fetish priest pours libation in commemoration of the deceased who spent their last days at Cape Coast and for those whose suffering at the fort was coupled with more hardship once they left to be sold to help build America (North, Carribean and Brazil mainly).


'Door of No Return' at Cape Coast castle. An unsubtle reminder for those who passed through it during the slave trade era that there was no coming back once you saw this gate. To break this cursed door the bodies of two former slaves were taken back from the US and through these gates, so that it has now become a 'Door of Return'. Local fishermen can be found on the seaside part of the door, unravelling their nets and making a living for themselves. Their new nemeses are foreign trawlers that sweep up the best produce the sea provides through pair-trawling exercises using massive nets.


Many school tours like this one pour into Cap Coast fort every day to learn more about Ghana's history.

Wreaths left nearby the dungeons at Cape Coast by the descendants of 'slaves'


School children waiting to go to 'The Door of No Return', but to exercise their passage through it and back through the same 'Door of Return', helping break the terrible history that this door evokes. Cannons facing seaward warded off enemy combatants seeking to gain their foot in the door of the lucrative but wicked trade in human beings.




Elmina fort with a thriving fishing scene in the background. The guided tour at Elmina is excellent, as is the museum. The local historian gives a very insightful picture of how life was for the victims of Elmina's trade masters and soldiers. Similar to Oswiecim (or Auschwitz/Birkenau) in Poland, it is very difficult to imagine the horrors that have taken place at such sites. The preservation of Ghana's history seems to be in good hands both at Elmina and Cape Coast and thousands of school children, descendants of former slaves, foreign tourists converge to learn about how things really were (without the Hollywood dramatisation) and to be challenged to stand up for the downtrodden in today's society upon their departure.

Traditional clay fish ovens can be found all along the coast of Ghana. Here are some from Elmina.


Crocodile looking for prey around Hans Cottage Botel between Kakum and Cape Coast.

Don't worry, he's only breathing before he goes looking for his wife and kids

This Nigerian journalist we met on our travels got a bit of a shock (as we all did) when the crocodile decided to jump back into the water spilt seconds after this picture was taken.



Kwame Nkrumah was imprisoned at St. James fort under Governor Charles Arden Clarke before becoming Ghana's de facto leader upon release. He had to wait a few more years though before Ghana managed to kick the Brits out totally. This photo is taken from James fort looking towards Ussher's fort and a harbour full of fishermen's pirogues.




Kakum National Park and its famous canopy walk that gives you a great perspective of the surrounding environment

Diving into waves near Green Turtle Lodge. A well managed project has begun to conserve the green turtles from ending up on dinner plates to being a source of eco-tourism.

Ghana's coast has a litany of unspoilt beaches. Let's hope it remains that way.

The path from Busua to Butre is a beautiful 5 km walk through tropical forest and beaches as clean as a whistle.


The day before Ghana turned 52 - March 5th, 2009. I have no idea what the symbolism behind the construction is.


It certainly seems that this is the unknown soldier at Independence Square in Accra although there is no plaque or information around the monument.


Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Gardens in Accra - interesting museum, well worth a visit.



Ghana's Independence Leader, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, is buried alongside his Egyptian wife Fathia in Accra. One of their daughters is currently a Member of Parliament and the only MP of the former leader's Convention People's Party (CPP)
The Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Gardens in Accra with the burial monument in the background.

Fair Trade pineapples like this one can be found in a huge supermarket in Accra mall on the airport road. Fairtrade bananas are also on sell. They sell at a low price of 80 pesewas, about 20 pesewas cheaper than those sold by street traders. So what is fairer – increase the profit margin of a foreign owned supermarket (Shoprite) and its' bosses by buying an officially 'fairtrade' pineapple or purchase one from your local street trader outside the glamorous mall and help then eke out a living?

"Ghana is Freedom" - Made in China!

Just before I stepped into the internet cafe this evening a traffic warden shouts ecstatically at the passing white man: "Ghana is Freedom". It dawned on me that when I came to Accra 2 weeks ago the same traffic lights were also out of order. It also hit my tired brain that the traffic lights have the exact same colours of the Ghanaian flag.

Let's try link up all this trivia.

First independence leader, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, chose the name Ghana for sub-Saharan Africa's first post-colonial nation -state as an inspiration for the future. Meaning 'warrior king' it was to embody a great empire from centuries ago which existed in what is now Mauritania. The colours of Ghana's flag - green for the tropical vegetation; gold for the mineral-rich mines; red for the sacrifices made to achieve independence; and black for pan-Africanism - resemble somehow the current state of the defunct traffic lights outside this cafe.

A young man, proud of his heritage, shouting a grammatically incorrect statement 'Ghana is freedom' is not a laughing matter. It doesn't matter a shit that it's not Oxford English. What does matter however, is that 2 years ago President Kufuor spent $40 million to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Ghana's freedom from Britain. Yet, 2 years later to the day, traffic lights on Accra's main road don't function and a man in a barely visible vest is stopping cars from one direction to let others fly by from another.

So while millions can continue to be spent on the myth that Ghana is freedom (why does it depend on so much aid if it is) every March 6th, few resources are channeled into things that really matter, like providing this traffic warden with proper equipment for his own safety and to conduct his important task for traffic.

Ghana has been strangled for decades by the West and it's own corrupt elite. It's traffic lights, as many other prominent Ghanaians have been saying over the past few weeks, are just not functioning well. So lets take off the rose-tinted glasses and let's stop the crap talk. Ghana is not freedom!

Postscript - Due to lack of time I did not write anything above which would justify the second part of the blog title: 'Made in China'

Well, wandering around the celebrations at Independence Square on Friday last it was obvious that an abundance of the Ghanaian "hats, scarves and headbands" etc. were leftovers from two years ago when it celebrated its 50th anniversary. It appears the patriotic wear had been mass produced in factories throughout China. Surprise, surprise. Nothing like abandoning your own indigenous industries when it comes to proclaiming your independence from other nations.

While warplanes spewed out red, yellow and green smoke above the applauding masses, the irony that the city authorities still hadn't fixed Kojo Thompson's traffic lights crossed my mind. If they can't afford to be bothered to fix them, it would have been far more useful if they just used these smoke theatrics on the top of the traffic lights. Green smoke unloads, traffic moves towards Nkrumah circle; orange smoke bellows, traffic slows down; red smoke flows outward, traffic ceases. The patient line of traffic adjacent can then proceed onwards as their smokey system kicks into operation.

I await calls from entrepeneurs to patent my classy idea.

Not to appear too cynical though, of course it is great Ghana can and does celebrate they day it kicked the Brits out. But as Ghanaweb point out, when your economic purse and people are worse off now than they were at Independence, some serious questions need to be asked and answers need to come fast. Nkrumah may have inherited the title of a great visionary, but it doesn't change the fact that in 1957 his gvt. had US $1 billion in foreign reserves -then, by the time he was ousted in 1966, Ghana's foreign reserves were depleted and the country primed for disastrous governance and corruption for decades after.

A little touring of Ghana

My peepers have had a welcome break from the screen recently as I've been playing tourguide for my girlfriend's parents over the past week. We managed to visit the Kwame Nkrumah (Independence leader) Memorial park and museum; Cape Coast and Elmina castles, both of which were used by Ghana's former slave traders (Dutch and Brits mainly) with their sinister 'Doors of No Return' leading out to the Gulf Of Guinea whereupon countless millions over decades crossed perilous waters and conditions to become slaves in the Americas and beyond. We also managed to get to the fishing and tourism villages of Akwidaa, Butre and Busua where the local people's hospitality was great and the refreshing swim in the sea a welcome change to city life.

When I get a chance I will upload photos to give you a sense of how seeped in history Ghana is and hoe beautiful and diverse is the natural environment here. We spent a beautiful day in Kakum national park where I learned that one biologist discovered more species of ant living on one tree than can be found in the whole of Ireland and Britain. This has been my first chance to see Ghana in a bit more depth as for the first four months Dorota and I decided to base ourselves solely in Kumasi and concentrate on our work.

So it has been interesting exploring the coastline, meeting Ga, Ahante, Fante, Ewe peoples and trying to bend our Ashanti Twi dialect to encompass other Akan languages. I was surprised to find out that a lot of people understood our quests at communicating. I also learned a lot from Kobina Sekyi's parody 'The Blinkards' which is written in Fante and English. It is successful piss-pulling comedy play on the elite of Cape Coast attempting to become more English than the English themselves, at the turn of the 20th century.

So as Bug's Bunny would, that's all folks! We haead to the Northern region tomorrow to see Tamale and Larabanga. We were pleasantly surprised to see the staff had already started making to wheelchair ramps at our school from the Christmas project money. Before we left for Accra last week we bought a good range of Ghanaian educational books for the library we hope to start building in 2 weeks. The plumbing has also been fixed in the school from the xmas cards funds. Lots done and looking forward to seeing the students again next week.


Until then, nante yie (goodbye)!

First Impressons after 6 Days in Ghana

Dublin to Accra

I was lucky to be sitting beside the woman in seat 28A. Gloria, a nurse educator and Ghanaian native has been living in Virginia, U.S.A., for the past 17 years. A Barack Obama supporter and woman acutely aware of African American history and the undercurrents of racism in US society, the paralysis of their media, the corrupted nature of their political system that spouts freedom on one side of its mouth and blows innocent people asunder from the other side.

The trip of 6 hours from Heathrow passed by like a soft cool breeze, a rare act of nature in Kumasi where I currently reside. I have now been in Ghana for 6 days and after calling Gloria yesterday it seems like she will come to Edwenase Centre to give some First Aid training for the teachers and talk on a range of other necessary health and safety issues for the betterment of the project.

Accra

Dorota met me at the airport and she was grateful for myt swift arrival as a number of men had already apporached her to talk about Jesus. It seems the locals are not so good at the chat up lines when it comes to European women. We got a taxi to Date Hotel (a hostel that has dropped the 's' for marketing purposes), stayed 2 nights in the Adabraka district, had some lovely street food from the local roadside eatery, picked some shells and stones on a beach walk and soaked up the rays, though we were a little roasted afterwards.

I was hesitant at first, as the only way we seemed to be able to get access to the beach was through the Afia village hotel. Naomi Klein's tales in her wonderful book on disaster capitalism, 'The Shock Doctrine', sprung to mind as I pondered whether I should ruin a nice sea side walk as a result of my angst against privatised beaches.

Thankfully the beach was public so no such worries came into play.

It's silly to even begin giving impressions of a place one has only visited for a 36 hour period and I have no intention of falling into the usual trap that visitors, volunteers and journalists from the west fall into, as Binyavanga Wainana writes of in my last blog.

So suffice to say that Accra is alive and kicking, buzzing with colour a friendly smiles and a hectic rythymn that would put the fastest of Irish music to the test.

Accra to Kumasi

The tro tro (minibus transportation) station was about a 20 minute walk from our accommodation, so well sweated I arrived and Dorota found us our link to Kumasi. We waited 45 mins for it to fill up, had to endure a Christian preacher barking at us with a bible aloft for the first 20 minutes of the journey (3 or 4 passengers enjoyed his speech and gave him some money at the end), 6 police checkpoints to check the driver's licence and monitor his speed, a good few dozen overtakings performed by our good but fast driver, heat pelting down upon us like we had hit the earth's core. And its not even dry season yet.

All in all it took 5 hours. We arrived at Kumasi around 2.30pm and a short walk brought us to another tro tro en route to Edwenase, my present home until August next. Dorota both me a vanilla icecream on the way so that helped cool the body temperature. They cost 25 pesewas (about 16 euro cents) from the traders who walk around with them on their heads. They are stored in a special wooden casket with a transparent screen and taste like heaven (if heaven has a flavour) when your boiling up.

Edwenase

I have just being at Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre for 3 full days now, but already things are going well for me. There are about 70 residents who learn tailoring, dressmaking, shoemaking, practical agriculture, rural craft, hairdressing, as well as common life skills and a wide variety of games. I will write more about my activities and post some photos taken by the students over the coming days.

I am happy that I have concentrated totally on the life of the Centre thusfar and slowly integrating, getting to know the students special needs. Some are deaf, others blind, quite a number have mobility difficulties, while many have multiple disabilities. Despite the mnay challenges they face they are inspiring people to look at in training, intelligent in mnay ways, some not so obvious from the outset.

The best drummer in the centre, for example, is blind and almost completely deaf.

From Wednesday to Friday I helped organise class activities for what is usually the 'rural craft group', as their teacher had left to attend a family funeral. The class became more a games and activities centre including making paper airplanes, playing bowling, basketball, drawing and colouring, card games to help with numeracy and colour recognition. All games focused on student participation and positive affirmation as the norm unfortunately ends up that many are just unable to perform their class activities without special assistance and constant repetition.

The challenges and needs are many at Edwenase. Due to the fact that it is a Dept. of Social Welfare project the funding is sporadic yet the land and dedication of the staff is really great. The participation of the students in the everyday life of the centre is fantastic and they are always willing to help 'obroni' ('European' or 'white person') find his or her way.

Passport arrives, Visa and Flight Ticket on the way

The Passport Office have a great service in Dublin. One can log in online and check the status of their application by entering the reference code underneath the bar code on their receipt.

So I was happy to see that my renewed 10 year passport (obligatory for travel to West Africa) is 3 days early and ready for collection.

That opens all doors for me to get a 6 month visa in the Ghanaian consulate open between Tuesday and Thursday (opening hours 10-12 noon for those interested) and also for me to get to Dublin airport in order to pay for my ticket.

As posted earlier, British Airways flights to West Africa only accept Mastercard or Visa with 'secure code' (This is not the 3 last digits on the back of our card) which Bank of Ireland for one do not even offer their customers. Most British banks do provide the service but one needs to upgrade to Silver, Executive or Gold membership. A bit of a pain really.

Anyhow, things finally seem to be working out ok, and I'm looking forward to heading off on Thursday Oct. 16th. I never realised I would have had to scale so many obstacles just to get there though.

Cheapest travel to Accra from Dublin/London?

If you have any information as to how I can travel to Accra from Dublin by land and sea please add a comment below with relevant information. Personal experiences preferable or at least interesting wewbsites. I have done research myself but would like some fresh insights. The cheapest airfare I can get at the moment is €959 with British Airways Dublin-Accra Oct. 16th rtn. July 15th. I would rather retutn August 2009 but unfortunately the fares are not yet available for purchasing through travel agents I have visited. Thanks for your help.