We arrived in Bolga just before sunset. I would be meeting a couple people from work here, but had not yet gotten word of where they were staying. Also, my cell phone was dead. A one-armed man helped Awine and I find a place for me to charge my phone. He took us down a stinky dirt alley and into his dingy drinking spot, where I knocked over a huge stack of sachets of water with my bag. Luckily none of them broke, but I was definitely being a nuisance. I got the phone working and found they would be at the Presbyterian Guesthouse. I didn’t know where this was (only passed through Bolga once, stopping for lunch) and it was not in my crappy guidebook. As we walked out of the one-armed man’s drinking spot, I was surprised he had not tried to get us to buy him a drink. He followed us back to the bus station where I said goodbye to Awine as he boarded his tro-tro. I now assumed that the one-armed man was waiting for Awine to leave before asking for his compensation. Not that he didn’t deserve it. He had showed us exactly what we needed and was extremely helpful, but the whole time I knew it would be help with a cost, which I can’t stand. It annoys me when people are friendly simply to get something in return. Then he asked where I was going. I mumbled something vaguely, and he kept walking with me. He said, “ok, so, should I leave you here?” I told him yes, and that I would be fine, waiting for him to ask for something…And it never came. As I walked away quickly, trying to figure out my next move for how to get to the guesthouse of an unknown location, I cursed myself for being so cynical about this man that apparently simply wanted to help a couple of travelers. It made me want to go back and buy him a drink, but he was already long gone.
I went to a shop and asked the man if he knew where the guesthouse was. The man pointed to a man sitting under an umbrella next to the street, selling cell phone minutes. I knew that I could wait for the co-workers to get back to town in half an hour and come pick me up, but I felt like getting there now. I asked this plump young man if he knew. He said yes and told me that it was much too far to walk to. He said he was closing soon and would take me on his motorbike in a few minutes if I waited. That sounded like a good idea, so I waited for five minutes, then hopped on the back of the guy’s bike. I worried that me+backpack+shoulderbag+heavy lunch would be too much, but he said it would be fine.
About halfway to the guesthouse, I started thinking, hey, I accepted that ride way too easily…where are we really going? But I feel that I have gotten good at gauging the situations in which somebody is trustworthy. For instance, if somebody (not a taxi driver) had come up to me at the bus station and asked me where I was going, then offered me a ride, I would have said no. But since I approached this mild-mannered guy, I think it is much safer. Of course, this is not foolproof, but if you live your life doing only what you KNOW is safe, that is super boring…and in fact not always safe. For example, a tangent: in
We arrived safely at the Presbyterian Guesthouse, and the guy refused to accept payment from me. It was completely out of his way, but he still refused money. And this is the kind of guy who deserves the money more than anyone. It turned out that the guesthouse was full, though, so I waited inside until my co-workers arrived and drove me to a different guesthouse where I had to pay double what they were paying, lame. It was nice looking, but as usual with the more expensive options in developing countries, it is never worth it. The attached bathroom was nice, but the fan barely worked and I was hot all night. There was also only one outlet, and I needed to charge my phone, computer and camera. The next night I moved to a super cheap guesthouse run by the ministry of forestry. Shared bathroom, yes, but the fan worked great and I had THREE outlets! Sweet.
The next day we had a conference at my hotel to train people in how to conduct interviews for a baseline study for a maternal healthcare and child survival project. I didn’t really do much other than sweat as the power was out on the top floor and we had no fans or AC.
After the conference I went to my new guesthouse and started washing my clothes before it got dark. I was washing them outside, and as I was about to start washing my last bucket of clothing, two guys came up and introduced themselves, and said they wanted to help me. They must have seen the poor job I was doing and felt bad. I welcomed them and they just wilded out all over my clothes. I couldn’t even do anything since they were crowding the bucket and doing such a good job. I stated to realize just how incompetent I was in clothes washing. They even double rinsed them, “so we get the detergent out and the colors don’t fade.” Haha, like I care about colors fading, I thought. Their names were Gilbert and Banaldi, and they work next door. They said that if I ever need a ride anywhere on their motorbike, just to come by during their work hours and ask.
I quickly learned that the Farfar people of Bolgtatanga are basically rad and extremely friendly. I really enjoyed the town itself too. It is probably a quarter of the size of Tamale, but doesn’t feel any smaller, since it is so much more compact. It is very lively and seems to have a lot going on, despite its reputation as just a transit hub of the Upper East Region. I wouldn’t mind really exploring the town for a while. Oh, and the food is much better than in Wa, the place I have spent most of my time in the field.
That evening I went to a “spot” near my guesthouse to get a beer. It was a very comfortable open air bar that was basically 10 tables spread out in a big open dirt space. Each table had a bell on it to summon the server. They also played really good reggae music and I found this spot more enjoyable than most I have been to in Tamale.
I JUST REMEMBERED SOMETHING FUNNY THAT I FORGOT TO MENTION BEFORE. That was not meant to be in Caps, but seeing that it is, I am not going to change it. Anyways, a month ago when I was going through customs at the Burkina border, a Ghanaian official looked at my passport and said, “you have a Mexican background?” I was confused. “Umm, yeah, how do you know?” I asked. “Your name,” he said. I told him that most people in
The next day was pretty non-descript. More preparation for the baseline. Visited some communities within Bolgatanga for an exercise in interviewing. Blah blah blah.
The next day, Wednesday, we finally made it into the field to begin the research. I had planned to only spend Monday and Tuesday with them before heading back to Tamale Tuesday night so I had three days back in the office to organize my departure. However, since they were not going into the field until Wednesday, I was obligated to stick around for the morning. I was told that after doing some quick work, I could catch a bus back to Tamale. I expected to be back in the office by around one or two…but nope, somehow I got left in a tiny little village not far from Awine’s village. They dropped me off with the people conducting the research, and said they’d be back for me. This was at about 10:00 and I assumed within an hour they would be back. First of all we were informed that this was a bad day to conduct the research because they did not get the word that we would be coming (bad etiquette in the small village, even though they HAD been informed, but word didn’t reach everyone) plus it was their market day.
So there was very little research and interviews being done. At around 1:30, bored out of my mind, I got a call from the people that were to pick me up. “When do you want to go back to Tamale?” I resisted just saying 2.5 hours ago, and told them I’d at least like to be back before dark. They said, “ok, see you soon.” With a one hour drive from the village to Bolga followed by a three hour drive to Tamale, it was looking bad.
Fast forward to 6:00. It is getting dark in the village, and the researchers are finished. Two of them have motorbikes, and after speaking on the phone to our ride, they said to get a ride to the market in Kandiga. So the two guys picked us up (4 of us) on their motorbikes and drove us, three to a bike, to the market about 15 minutes away. This put me in a better mood, as the dusk was really beautiful there.
I was pretty excited when we got to the market. It was dark by now, but this little village was BUMPIN! It was a very compact village, with the vendors crowding the road, selling their wares by lantern and candlelight. There was a bar at the center of it all that was playing loud hip-hop and reggae music. A fluorescent light illuminated the area in front of it where young guys congregated to dance and actafool. This was where we would be waiting for our ride to come pick us up. I got some rice while I was there because I had not eaten all day. I can deal with hunger. I was more annoyed that I had been left without being told, “yeah, we might not come get you for like nine or 10 hours”.
I also took a calabash of pito outside the bar, while the played the Barack Obama song three times. I was surprised at how little attention I attracted as I wandered around the narrow streets. Some people didn’t even seem to notice me, some greeted me in English, some in Kaseem, but nobody seemed surprised at my presence. This was odd, as it was after dark, I was alone (the other guys were waiting near the junction) and white. This was definitely unusual for them. One guy did ask who I was there with, as it is not protocol to be in a small village without being accompanied by somebody. It was difficult to simply get across that I was waiting for a ride and there was two other people waiting with me around the corner.
We finally got picked up at 8:00. They asked if I wanted to stay in Bolga another night, and I said, no, take me to the bus station. They assured me it still wasn’t too late to get on a nice A/C bus. I said I didn’t care and just wanted to get on the first one leaving. We pulled into the station at nine, and sure enough, there was a big fancy looking charter bus just about to leave. I couldn’t really argue against it, and the price was not bad at about $4.00, only a little more than the tro-tro price. This was, hands down, the nicest bus I have ever been on. It was brand new, Korean made. Still had all the plastic wrappers on the seats. By the time I got on, the only seats left were the ones all the way in the back that don’t recline. The A/C was blasting, and provided quite a relief. Two big screens were playing music videos. These comforts, predictably all had their drawbacks. About ten minutes into the ride, the A/C either broke or was turned off. The digital thermometer showing at the front of the bus jumped from 73 to 90 degrees. The windows on these buses don’t open. Then the music videos, which were mediocre, but tolerable, were turned off in exchange for a Nigerian horror film turned up at full volume. This was far more torturous than any cramped tro-tro ride. Plus on tro-tros we can open the windows and buy water and snacks from vendors when we stop at check points and toll booths. As I started to fall asleep, I felt a painful crunch, something destroying my knees. It was the guy in front of me who had violently dropped his seat back all the way on to me. It hurt so bad and I yelped in my drowsiness, not realizing what was going on. My seat, being all the way in the back could not recline. Lame.
I arrived at 11:30 and took a taxi back home.
So it is currently 4:52 on my last day of work. I’ve gotta get home soon for dinner, so I can’t go into a sappy story about how much I love it here and will miss the people. Just know that I am leaving some great people and I will miss many of them dearly. However, as I have been on the move so much in the last two years, I have learned to not get too attached to anything and look forward to the next thing when necessary. So on that note, can’t wait to see yall in just over a week! It’ll be great to be back! Woot!
*Update: I am leaving Tamale tomorrow morning. I am using an internet cafe for the first time in order to post this. I will be traveling to Accra this week through the Volta Region, the narrow strip of land between the ginormous man-made (biggest man-made lake in the world) Lake Volta and the border of Togo. It is pretty rough traveling for the first half of the journey which I am excited about. I won't be able to write a blog since I sold my laptop to someone at work, and probably won't be on the internet much. Back in Accra by Friday probably, and then flying out on Sunday. HOLLAH!
you sold your laptop?! are you that low on cash?
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