GIVE ME MONEY!

New albums of the GWI Projects in Nadowli District, the Burkina border and a SILC Project. 

After leaving the small village, Lise and I made it back to Hohoe before dark. We picked up our bags, and caught a bus to Ho, just a couple hours south. When we arrived, it was dark and pouring rain. I was able to lead us to a guesthouse near by the bus station, but it was full. The guy there made a phone call, and said he found a place with a room at a decent price, although it was on the other side of town. In most other countries, I would have been a lot more skeptical of this guy's helpfulness. He waited in the rain to help get us a taxi and then rode with us and led us right to the place. To be honest, though, I was a bit nervous when he led us down a dark alley in a less-populated part of town. For the most part, Ghanaians are incredibly helpful and friendly, though there have been just enough instances of being cheated to keep me on my toes. Luckily, though, this guy was cool and we got a place. 

We didn't really make a plan, but the next morning, we decided to keep moving south, and hit the beach. 

I really would have liked to explore this eastern part of the coast more, but we only had one night before we wanted to get back to Accra. We decided to go to Ada Foah, a small, spread out beach town. Getting there was kind of complicated and required two tro-tros and a shared taxi. 

When we got to the town, we decided to go to the Sunset Beach Lodge, which was cheap, but really far out of town. We arranged a deal with the taxi driver to take us there, but when we arrived, he tried to overcharge us. With help from the hotel staff and another dude standing by, we were able to stand up to him and get our price...after plenty of arguing. 

After checking in we headed down to the beach. Every kid we passed yelled out to us, what I think was "Abrafuno!" which I correctly assumed meant white person. Another peculiar thing they were also calling out was, "give me money" in a very demanding way, yet it was obvious they didn't know how rude it sounded. It was the first time since my first days in Ghana that I had been called "white person" so much, and the first time I had encountered this kind of begging. It was really weird, and I am really curious where they learned it. This town was not touristy in the least, and begging is not necessarily bred out of poverty. I later learned that this is a hotspot for turtles laying eggs, an event that undoubtedly will attract droves of tourists and biology students. That month or two of outside attention could be the answer to why this kind of begging is so common here.

We wandered around the waterfront for a bit, walking through shells of buildings on the shore that looked straight out of a war zone. Curious kids yelled at us, and equally curious adults asked us questions as we passed. Eventually we sat down on near the water. There was only about 20 feet separating the water's high point from the closest buildings. The water looked really intense with a ridiculous undertow. Lise headed back to our place for something, I can't remember what, but while she was gone, I slowly attracted a small group of children. 

One of the girls taught me the local words for good morning/afternoon/evening, what is your name, how are you, black person, etc. I asked if she swam, and she said, "no, it will take me away!" She also said that almost nobody in the village swims, and when I told them I was going to swim, nobody believed I could. Most Ghanaians I have met don't know how to swim. Boss, our guide for the caves said, "I hate swimming!! I hate it FIRST CLASS!!" 

By the time Lise got back, there were about ten kids around me and a few guys in their young 20's. When she returned, I was excited to find that she had brought a couple of big beers. About halfway through mine, one of the young 20's guys asked for a drink, so I gave him one. I drank a bit more, then all of a sudden, a middle-aged woman came out of nowhere, as if she had smelt the beer. She was wearing a skirt and a bra. She asked me for a drink, so I handed her the bottle. She went bottoms up and chugged almost the whole thing like a champ. The last couple drinks, though, she handed to her kid of maybe 6 years, who drank it eagerly. I was kind of annoyed, but at the same time, it was pretty hilarious.

I went swimming, to everyone's surprise, and found the water to be pretty ridiculous. Probably the strongest waters I've ever been in. I couldn't really go in to far, or it seriously would have taken me away. 

That night we caught a moto-taxi in to town and found some banku, then found some beer. The tiny main street was pretty lively with several little spots blasting hip-life at high volume. It was fun.

Play Boys AND Girls

Two more albums. One is here. The other is here.

And I think I left off arriving in Hohoe, a small and beautiful town in the Volta Region.

Things I remember of this town:
-Amazing kebabs
-A bar with more character than most in the north
-A guy who liked Bush because he is "fighting the Muslims", who he described as "wicked people"
-A guy trying to sell me a red winter hat with a poofball by saying that it is a "chief's hat"
-A shop labeled "The Lord Will Provide Ent."...For a long time I thought "ent." stood for entertainment, which is a lot funnier than enterprise in this context
-An amazing view of green hills, an old church and an expanse of corrugated metal roofs.

The next morning we went to some caves nearby. There are quite a few attractions nearby, including some ginormous waterfall, but apparently the entrance fee is pretty steep at nearly $10. So we decided to go to a village called Likpe Todome where they've got some caves.

We took a tro-tro to the village, which dropped us off exactly where we were supposed to be. We had thought we would have to walk the last couple km, but nope!

There was a little wooden building (an old church apparently) that housed their tourist office. We waited around until word traveled through the village that the white people were here for a tour, and the guide, "Boss" came to assist us. It dawned on me that this was the first actual tourist attraction I had been to in Ghana, unless you count Kintampo Falls.

Boss told us that his Christian name was "Boneyface".

He was pretty old, probably in his late 50's, but of course very strong and a great guide. We walked at a steady pace (he kept telling us that he can go slower if we needed to...giving us the impression that he has guided some pretty weak people in the past) for about an hour up into the hills. We got a great view of the village down below and a vast stretch of green jungle surrounding it.

We arrived at a quaint little cleared out green area on the top of the hill that serves as a place for celebrations in the community. There was a swing hooked up to a tree that Boss swung us around on for a bit as we rested. We then headed down a steep slope toward the caves. Boss insisted that these are the best caves in the world. I have been to many caves and always am amazed. These were...not amazing, though the tour as a whole was really great.

The caves were small, and were just like pock marks in the side of a mountain. There were 6 of them, and they all had some sort of interesting historical significance to them. During the time that the Ashantis were going around Ghana and West Africa to capture slaves to sell to the white men (or use themselves) the village of Likpe Todome (meaning under the mountain) had to find a way to escape. They hid up in the caves whenever invaders were threatening. From the "lookout cave" you could see for miles, though it would have been impossible for anybody below to see any of the caves. Each cave served a different purpose for the people in hiding and the caves basically saved the village. Boss was exceptionally informative and, after 27 years of leading tours to the caves, still excited about them.

After the caves, we continued to descend rapidly down the side of the mountain until it was back to the muggy jungle. There was wild cocoa trees and avocado growing. Boss led us to a great waterfall with a small, shallow pool. There was not a lot of water coming down it though, and it didn't so much "fall" as it did pour down an 88 degree slope. To get the full refreshing effect, we had to push our bodies up against the rock and let the water run over us. Good enough for me though!

Boss had gone ahead of us on the way back to get an avocado. As we got closer to him, he started yelling at me to hurry, and something about ants. I was like, yeah, yeah, Boss, I'm coming, ok. Then he started to get more urgent and telling me to run because of "Driver Ants". That was about the time that I felt an intense stinging on my hand. I looked down and saw a huge black ant wriggling its body, its head pressing hard against my skin. Then I felt it on my feet. On my leg. I tore off my shoe to find a few more of these ants on me. I was under attack and Boss kept telling me to run. I didn't know what to do but these things hurt like hell. I would run for a few feet, then stop, forced to flick more of these things off my body since they had a crippling stinging effect.

I finally ran far enough (like 30 yards) to not be in the lair of these evil ants and Boss helped me get them off. He said, "they climb up into your uniform so fast, they will be all over your body!" This is one more reason that the jungle can be described as "green hell". Seriously, this felt like something out of Jumanji. The ants were ruthless. Lise got one bite.

Boss said that some tribes used to use "juju" to control the ants against their enemies. When opposing forces would try to invade, they would be attacked by the driver ants and immediately drop their weapons and run. I can totally understand this.

When we got back to town after the 4 hour hike, we decided we had earned a beer, so we asked Boss to show us where the "spot" was. I think there was only one in town, so we went there and treated him to a beer. I ate the rice that I had brought and Lise got some banku from across the street. At the bar there was a ridiculous poster for a locally made liqueur that looked like it was
supposed to be pretty high class. It was called "Playboy's" and it had a picture of a kind of well-dressed young guy sitting on a couch with too girls. When we commented on the poster, Boss pointed out there is something wrong with it and that he is going to write a letter to the company. "You see," he said,"if you look at the poster it is not just boys. They should change the name to Play Boys and Girls." We decided it would be better if we agreed with his point, and encouraged him to write the letter.

IT'S NOT OVER YET!

Because there's photos! Here is a link to the album!

Also, I will probably go into more detail about my last 1.5 weeks of traveling...hey, why not start now? It has been a while, so I don't know how I will remember, but lucky for you, I will make it brief.

So after Lise all of a sudden ditching work to come travel with me, we had to wait in the bus station for like 3 hours waiting for our tro-tro to fill up. As Lise sat with the bags I went around and did some investigating, and discovered another tro-tro in a random lot half a km away that was also going our direction, and they were showing more promise of leaving sooner. I went back, and we grabbed our bags off the top of the tro-tro, and we probably got on our way at least an hour earlier than we would have.

Our destination was Bimbilla, a small town south east of Tamale, near the border of Togo and the Volta Region.

The bus ride was pretty long, I think 5 hours, most of it on really rough dirt road. We were taking a VERY unconventional route back to Accra, and we were not sure how long it would take.

Just before arriving in Bimbilla there was a downpour that soaked our bags sitting on top of the tro-tro. They stopped and brought them inside for us, but it was too late. Most everything was already wet.

We wanted to move further south to Nkwanta, but we were unable to find a vehicle going there that day. We didn't mind too much as we were both tired and needed some real food (not just $.15 kebabs of organ meat shoved into our window at village stop) and a rest.

Lise had been trying for a long time to find some of the campaign shirts from the recent election. As we walked past the headquarters for the local chapter of the NPP, I suggested we just go and ask them if they knew where to find their party's t-shirts. The guys playing mancala outside were really friendly and they sent somebody to get one, and they just gave it to her, brand new. I was offered one, but declined it, as I am really more for the NDC party.

We found a chop bar (against the suggestion of a guy we asked, who said it would be best if we ate at the guesthouse) which had pretty good banku and cheap beef, though only two of the three pieces were edible.

The bar we found afterword to get a beer was being operated by a kid who could not have been more than 12.

The next morning we fenagled our way into the last two spots on a packed bus heading all the way to Accra (my heart goes out to those making the journey the whole way), though we were just going to Hohoe. The trip took maybe 7 or 8 hours and it was almost entirely dirt road. But the change in scenery was amazing. We had already left savannah and gotten into some greener views, but when we got to Hohoe, we found beautiful lush hills, the first non-flat terrain I had seen in Ghana. It even looked...mountainous.

I'm gonna finish this later I guess.