Why Nature Should be for Speakers, not Binoculars

When I found that I would not be working the weekend, I quickly figured out a better way to spend my Sat/Sun than just hanging out under the mango tree (which is not necessarily a bad thing). I invited Lise (I feel bad that I have been knowingly spelling her name wrong this whole time, but it is pronounced “Liz”. From now on, though, I think I’ll spell it Lise) to go to Kintampo Falls, an attraction not too far away that sounded like a good getaway. We met up early, around 7:30, and headed to the tro-tro station. Lise led the way as she had scouted out where to go for the transit the day before. We got into our van/SUV thing, and rode for about 3 hours to Kintampo, a small town south of Tamale in the Brong Ahafo region. The drive was great, as we saw the landscape change from flat, dry savannah, to greener, lushly forested hills. It must have been ten degrees cooler here, and did not have the humidity that is so oppressive in the south.
Kintampo does not have a lot going on, and the town could have been any town in the region. It was weird though, and I could not shake the feeling that it felt like a dingy port town, and was just a bit sketchy. Also, I found that people were constantly trying to rip us off. I assume that this was because Kintampo attracts travelers just passing through, trying to avoid staying the night in town, never staying two nights. Lise also said that being two white people we are more likely to look like tourists, easily taken advantage of. True, I was usually alone, as was she, and we never had any problems.

The first thing we did in town was get some oranges (I am pretty sure we were overcharged a few pennies for them), and then we got some fried yams and pepper for lunch. We sat in the shade on the front step of a closed shop. When I got thirsty, I called out to a young girl selling sachets of water. She came over and I asked for one bag of water and handed her 20 pesewas. One water sachet is 5 pesewas, but she only handed me back 10 pesewas change. When I asked her for the rest of my change she acted like she didn’t understand me, and started to walk away. Two women sitting on the step a few feet away tried to say that she didn’t have change. I said, “fine, give me one more.” She gave me another one, and started to walk away, then turned and said, “one is 10 pesewas.” She was telling me to pay double! Then the women next to us echoed, “one is ten pesewas”. I couldn’t believe how blatant this was. I hate getting cheated like this. When I started to argue, a big man came up to try and solve the situation. He spoke to the girl in their language, and then says to me, “she says you gave her 5 pesewas for two waters, and so you owe her 5 more.” I explained to him the truth, and he seemed to believe me because, really, what reason did I have to rip this girl off for less than five pennies. I was sick of it at this point though, and I handed the girl 10 pesewas and told her to go away, she resisted taking the coin. “No, you must keep your balance,” the man said. I didn’t care about the money, I just wanted this scene to be over, and to let this girl know that you can’t just see white people and rip them off that easily. Ok, you can rip them off that easily, but it won’t work with me. You’ll have to have a better plan than that. “Just take it and go,” I told her. She eventually took the money, looking embarrassed, and walked away.

After our lunch (the yams, by the way, were the best ever!) we went to the falls. Surprisingly we only had to go to two different taxi drivers to get a good taxi fare, which was even lower than what the three-year-old guidebook quoted. Upon arrival, I was disappointed to see about three buses at the entrance. I had heard this was a nice, quiet little spot. At the entrance, we were surprised that there was an entrance fee. I had only brought 4 Cedis. The fees for non-Ghanaians were: 3 cedis, 2.5 cedis for students and 2 cedis for volunteers. We said we were both volunteers, and they asked for our “volunteer ID cards”. We basically laughed and said, “what? What the hell is a volunteer ID card?” We told them all about the NGO’s we work for, but they didn’t really care and showed no sympathy. “Ok, well, we are also students.” “Do you have your student ID cards?” “NO, why would I think to bring that to a freaking waterfall?!” It was really annoying, and even after quite a bit of arguing, these guys would not let us in for less than 3 Ghana cedis. I later talked to 2 different girls who had gone there without their proper ID’s and got in with the discount they asked for. I don’t know what our problem was.
We walked down the 156 stairs to the base of the waterfall where we saw about a hundred Ghanaians of all ages (though mostly school aged) playing in and around the waterfall. A big sound system was set up, playing Ghanaian Hip-life and American hip-hop, and a woman was selling drinks out of a cooler. My disappointment in the crowd quickly turned into excitement. I laughed at Lise, because she was wearing a white tank top and white linen pants. “Have fun swimming in that,” I laughed. “I’m not swimming,” she replied, saying that pretty much all water in Africa is not safe to swim in. True, maybe, but this looked too fun.

I climbed through the crowd of people and let the 25 meter falls pound down on my head. On one side of the falls, there was some smooth rock (it didn’t look smooth at all, actually) that people were sliding down, just like a water slide, but better. It was about 20 feet long, and curved into a 3 feet deep pool. It looked dangerous, but everyone was flying down so recklessly, that I knew I had to do it. People helped me climb up to the top of it, and showed me how to slide down. It was so fun, that I just kept going over and over. That night I found that I had ripped a couple holes in the back of my shorts, as well as bruised my thigh pretty bad, and bumped my tailbone. Totally worth it.

I think Lise was super jealous of me, and pretty soon she was joining me under the waterfall. When she wanted to go down the slide all the boys were excited to help her up, but they did not seem overly forward. She even said she was surprised that she did not attract more attention with her all white clothing. Everyone seemed pretty relaxed about it. I know that this situation in other places I have been simply would not have worked, and Lise would not have been able to swim comfortably. We also climbed behind the waterfall where a group of students from Kumasi were chanting and drumming on their legs. It was a really cool experience.
I expected this waterfall visit wouldn’t be more than an hour, but we stayed until it closed at 5:00, about 4 hours total. Everyone was dancing in the waterfall. At one point there was a pseudo-dance contest, though it mostly consisted of one guy who was good at popping and locking and acrobatics showing off with his friends throwing leaves and dirt on him. We noticed a few other white people come while we were there, but they just came down, snapped a few photos and left. They totally missed out. It was really one of the best days I had had in a long time, and really revived my excitement about Ghana. It also made me think about how maybe the northern regions just aren’t that fun. Anywhere I have been south of Tamale, everything just seems like a party all the time.

Is this how we should enjoy nature? There is a reason that, I am sure, that in our national and state parks in America, we don’t set up a sound system near a cool natural attraction and have a party. I mean, first of all, that just doesn’t sound very American, but also, it might destroy the attraction. But still, I really admired how people seemed to be enjoying this waterfall much more than I ever have, and I am sure most Americans ever have. And yeah, there was a bit of garbage on the ground by the end of the day, but that problem could have been solved by putting a garbage can down there, right? Maybe. Apparently this party is a weekly thing. One guy said it was always like this, but I think he just meant on Saturdays because I talked to people that had been there on a Sunday and a Friday who were alone at the falls. I was glad that we came when we did.

The next morning we got a breakfast of yams and pepper. When we opened our bag, though, we found that the woman had given us half the amount we had asked for (or charged double this amount). I was not all that hungry and did not make a big fuss, but I was glad that Lise was strong enough to go back and tell the woman. While she was gone, a woman came up to me, sitting with my meager portion of yams and said with a smile, “am I invited?” It is polite in Africa (I only say Africa because I know the custom at least reaches to Ethiopia) to “invite” people to you food if they are not eating. However, nobody has ever invited themselves to my food. Normally, I would have said fine, sit down, but already missing half my yams I didn’t know what to say, and it’s not like this woman was starving. “Uhhh,” I stuttered, “I…umm, I guess so.” She took the hint and walked away laughing. Right after that, Lise came back with the correct amount of yams without much hassle and we were again annoyed at the lame attempts to rip us off. We weren’t able to finish them, so we took a few of the yams in the bag to a very old and unhealthy looking man just sitting alone near us. As soon as we did this, another guy ran after us, and started telling us some story about how he needed a surgery on his leg (he showed us the scar on his leg, whatever that meant) in Kumasi, but didn’t have the money to get there. “I don’t want money, I just want a bus ticket.” We handed him the rest of our yams, and kept moving. Then the woman who sold us the yams came up to us and said to Lise, “1 yam is 10 peseway”, telling us that she had given us all these extra yams, and expected us too pay for them. Lise basically told her no, and we just walked away. It was crazy how just trying to be generous to the poor man attracted two more opportunists in about 8 seconds. Kintampo was a silly town but it was time to leave.

Lise agreed with me that it would be better to not take a tro-tro or bus, and instead try to find a ride on the top of a lorry. The main road in Tamale is full of huge trucks carrying goods between Mali, Burkina, Kumasi and Accra, and they always have a dozen or so guys riding on top. We went to the road where they lined up, and asked around for a while, but we were repeatedly denied, or told they were not going to Tamale. Eventually we gave up and decided to go in a tro-tro because we wanted to get back in time for a big game on TV.

Somehow we ended up on the same tro-tro as these two Dutch girls that live down the street from us. Oh yeah, Lise moved out of her homestay, and moved into a different place just down the street from me, which is cool. So yeah, 4 people on the tro-tro all on the same street. Crazy. There was a guy next to me on the ride dressed in a long blue shiny robe and a white cap, and carried a plastic water bottle that looked like it was filled part way with something green and seaweedy. He was also definitely not Ghanaian, though his skin was about as dark. His face looked more Arab, and I could see that, although it was shaved, his hair was straight. Lise thought he might be from Mauritania, but he did not understand my inquiry in English or hers in French. He just shook his head. Then I showed him the picture of Africa on the back of my guidebook and pointed at it, asking where he was from. He kind of pointed in the vague area of West Africa, but didn’t point at any single country. I figured he was not familiar with the map, or that he was a Fulani (his facial features fit the description), a nomadic tribe of cattle herders that can be found across the Sahelian region of Africa, from Sudan to Senegal. Here in Ghana everybody hates them. I always ask people about them and they just say what bad people they are. I don’t buy into it, and assume that they are an easy target for blaming problems. As we rolled into Tamale, I saw a Fulani woman, with straight dark hair, long and braided, tapping at our window, showing a big smile with missing teeth, asking for money. I was curious to see if the guy next to me would acknowledge her, but no luck. Where this guy was from would remain a mystery Charlie Brown.

Back in Tamale, we found a chop bar to watch the game. It was the championship match of the African Nations Championship (or something like that). It’s basically soccer tournament for African countries and the rule is that you can only include players from your own country. It was Ghana vs. DR Congo, who we beat 3-0 earlier in the tournament. It was pretty sad this time, though, because Ghana lost 2-0.
I really can’t say much more after that.