Ghana - You are welcome, Akwaaba!

For those of you who are a little unsure of where Ghana is, here's a google map image of Northern Africa: And a bit further zoomed in are the places in Ghana that we visited:

1. Accra
2. Kokrobite
3. Busua
4. Cape Coast
5. Kumasi

Ghana is the shining star of West Africa. Its governance is much better than its neighbours with much lower rates of corruption and better accountability. The infrastructure is manageable and they have not succumbed to civil war like many of its neighbours. For this reason Ghana is labeled by foreigners as "Africa for Beginners" as it gives you a taste of what Africa is like without any serious dangers. However, after spending two and half weeks in Ghana, I'm not sure how we would survive in the rest of Africa.

I think we should just admit it.... Ghana was a bit of an awkward destination for us due to some unforeseeable events that occurred. Perhaps we should have foreseen the hassle at customs when we thought we didn't need a VISA to enter the country. The border officials weren't exactly hospitable. Other challenges were generally unpredictable like when Chris ate shark and got food poisoning (Chris likes to call it: Ghana-rrhea) and like when I spent the last week and a half really sick with food poisoning/malaria/influenza. We still managed to have very cool experiences but if the blog doesn't make you want to fly off to Ghana, maybe get a second opinion!

Why would someone want to go to Ghana? A fair question given that the nature and sites for tourists to visit in Ghana are somewhat minimal compared to East or Southern Africa. Coming to Ghana then is really about meeting Ghanaians. Ghanaian people are extremely friendly and welcoming. In fact the phrase that we heard over and over again while in Ghana was 'you are welcome'. Usually 'you are welcome' is an expression that follows a 'thank you', however in Ghana it used to express to strangers or friends that they are welcomed in to a home, place of business, or for us, into their country. Sometimes Ghanaians say 'you are welcome' other times they say 'Awkwaaba' which means welcome in their local language.

Another reason to visit Ghana is for history, some good, some bad. Ghanaians were the first African nation to kick out imperialist Europeans and form the first independent African country, which came into being in 1957. But what Ghana is most likely to be remembered for is the numerous European forts that dot the coastline where unfortunate African slaves were held before being transferred to the Americas.

Today Ghana represents a link to Africa for many Africans that were brought to the Americas as slaves. We can understand this longing for a connection to their roots. We’re writing this blog in the United Kingdom (where both of our roots are) and there is a definite sense of belonging. Seeing African Americans touring around Ghana, visiting the forts, it is clear that we all want that sense of belonging and have a desire to know where we come from.

So our first stop in Ghana was the capital Accra, where we spent a couple of days before heading to the beach.

Statue in downtown AccraOne of the thousands of thousands of barbers all over Africa offering slight variations of haircuts.
rusted out VW bug, likely to become reworked into a brand new auto very shortly
needs no intro:
Obama fever had just ROCKED Ghana as we arrived 1 week after his visit. Obama had picked Ghana to be the first African country he was to visit after becoming the first black president of the United States of America. Everyone was talking about him and they were incredibly excited even after his departure. Every billboard had his face on it. Banners were hung everywhere welcoming him and Michelle. Sometimes it appeared as though he was actually selling products like this paper company below. I think even Obama would have been overwhelmed.
After Accra we went to a nearby beach called Kokrobite. At Big Milly's, the expat and volunteer holiday destination, live performances ran on the weekend. Here a group of drummers playing Ghanaian drums.
Some dancing followed: more drumming
acrobatics
fire acts
and me finding some time to read...
We took a drum lesson one day on the Atimevu drum....
Here is our drum teacher

a couple cute kids posing for a picture.
Boat on Kokrobite beach
near our hotel (we didn't actually stay at Big Milly's as it was full so ended up down the street)...
On the beach outside Big Milly's there were stacks of people selling souvenirs to the tourists but also selling cheap food and fish to the locals
We decided to support the locals rastas and bought a few hats. This girl was so nice to us. She generally seemed less stoned then her red eyed, matted haired brothers who sat outside the shop smoking pot all day long. They seemed pretty nice too. Unrelated to their rasta following you can see two tribal scars on her cheeks, these scars on people's faces were very common in this region.
The streets of Kokrobite
Fishing boats on the beach
crazy lamps made out of gourd type things.
The man who makes the lamps
We got a scarf made by this man. Here is is working away on his loom.
he even uses his toes to work!
From Kokrobite we decided to go to Busua beach where we heard there was surfing. Chris had caught a few waves in Kokrobite but the floating garbage bags and murky water didn't make anyone feel too comfortable to spend much time in the ocean.

At Busua beach we found a small surf shop called the Black Star Surf Shop. Here are a couple local boys playing around on one of their broken foam boards. Give them a couple years and they will be giving Chris a run for his money. Busua beach... very pretty rain or shine.
One of the huts we stayed in at Busua.
There were some waves there!

Inside our hut
Below is Frankie who runs the surf shop. Chris didn't want to cart around his board anymore so he gave it to Frankie to use however he wanted. We were impressed with Busua because it was one of the few places in Africa that had home grown black surfers rippin' it up on the waves.
From Busua we went to Cape Coast. Cape Coast is famous for being a port for slave trade. This white castle in the picture is where many slaves were kept before they were shipped away to places like South America and North America. Many people come from overseas to Cape Coast to remember or learn about their ancestors.
Looking over the town of Cape Coast


The castle alternately occupied by the English or the Dutch who battled it out for years to gain a stronghold on this port. Of course it was the Ghanian people who were the first of Africa to kick out their colonizer, the British. More Barack... he also came to Cape Coast.
This is the room where all the slaves were packed in until a ship came to take them away. This room was specifically for male slaves and they often were so packed in that they would just have enough room to lay down to sleep. The lights are a recent addition, in the past it only had a small hole to let in light. The line in the middle of the room is where the men had to go to the bathroom. It eventually drained into the ocean.
This was the "door of no return." Once the slaves stepped through here they were put into a boat and never saw Africa again. However, today, the other side says Door of Return meant to welcome all those people who are ancestors of the slaves taken to distant lands.Luckily cape coast isn't such an unhappy place anymore.

A scene from the Castle


Another view of Cape Coast's town:



Cape Coast was very interesting due to the slave trade but I did have some trouble appreciating it due to what was likely food poisoning. After a day spent in our hotel room we did manage to get out of town. Close to cape coast is a nature park called Kakum National Park which had a tree top walk and explored different plant species in the area. This is out guide walking across first to show us it was safe. Unlike our tree top walk in Australia, we weren't all that confident that this bridge was safley engineered.
I was pretty scared...

I wasn't the only one. This woman was being lead inch by inch over the bridges by her boyfriend.
Check this out spider lovers... poisoness spider but what's all that brown stuff around it???... hundereds and hundereds of little baby spiders that have just hatched. siiiick!!

From Cape Coast we went the way of Kumasi, which is a huge city inland. In the city we met up with a contact from Engineers Without Borders who was working on an unaffiliated projected in the Suame Magazine. He was working with an organization called SMIDO http://www.smidoghana.org/ . The magazine is a giant sort of metal works yard a couple kilometers square.

Here Florin is talking about one of the projects they undertook for a local mining company. Many people who worked on the project had never seen blueprints before but by the end of the production they could understand and read them themselves.The next project they are working on is going to be used to house fire hoses. Despite not having all the tools that we have in the west, these workers are capable of tolerances within 1mm.
We got a little insight into some of the complications of working in the Magazine. Here some of Florin's co-workers are trying to negotiate different wages.
After checking out Florin's specific projects we went to look at a few different things in the Magazine. Here scrap metal is heated until it becomes molten and can be reshaped into other metal products. This is an example of what usually does not happen, the packs of sand in the hole of the chimney are starting to give way and molten metal is beginning to spray everywhere. Gloves are all that stand between this man and magma.
The red hot liquid metal is attempted to be saved as it starts to pour out far to fast and in too many directions.
Finally they get it under control and pour the liquid into molds
These disks are the finally product... supposedly some are used to process gold illegally.The day after we visted the Magazine we checked out a culture village. This is one spot where they were making drums.
This is the lunch before I decided to get really sick. Perhaps the glistening sweaty face was a bit of a sign.

And here is where the pictures get cut short. Generally pictures of a girl suffering with fevers and stomach issues aren't very exciting. I did have a nice hotel room as we upgraded from the hotel that didn't have running water for most of the day when the test results came back POSITIVE for malaria. I spent the rest of my days in bed watching TV and eventually losing all of my appetite completely. We did manage to get a flight to Accra and then fly to Germany even though my fevers weren't getting any better.... we just wanted to be out of Africa at this point.

In Berlin, the doctors said I also had Influenza A, but not the swine flu version, another one. They were sceptical that my malaria positive was true and that many of my symptoms could have been related to Influenza. However, I was treated for malaria, so who the heck really knows. I will never know, but as our friend Dave, the doctor from Manchester says... just say you had malaria, you probably did and now that you're ok it sounds way cooler.

As most of you know we are coming home in a few days. Since Ghana we have made a made a mad dash through Europe. Our final blogs will probably show in the the next couple weeks. It is hard to believe we are going home so soon. How did this year go by so fast? For those friends in Vancouver, we can't wait to see you! Hope you can help us settle back into real life!

Love,

Em and Chris