Greetings from an English-speaking enclave in French West Africa.
The bus from Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire left late. When we arrived at the
border, Ghana customs officers decided they must inspect every item of
cargo that had been crammed on and in the bus. I don't know why as all we
were carrying besides passengers were things like rusty used auto parts,
bags of grain, live chickens, cartons of powdered milk and the like. My Yellow Fever inoculation records were
checked, something rarely done at other borders.
While we waited the hour it took the police to convince themselves we
had no contraband on board, hoards of hawkers tried to sell us things like
bulging clear plastic bags of water, music CD's, roasted yams, boiled
corn, etc. Eventually we were allowed to continue on our way. I will say
that the bus driver demonstrated his safety consciousness and driving
skills, especially considering what he had to drive.
When we got to the first large Ghana town the sun had long before
winked into darkness. Takoradi turned out to be the dinner stop for
passengers. Not anxious to travel in the dark I decided to abandon the bus
and search for someplace to spend the night. Near the bus stop I found the
Melody Motel with the help of a boy delighted to guide me for a few coins.
The $26 lodge offered most of the essentials, but required cash in Cedis
of which I had little. So, the next morning off I trotted looking for a
new place to live for a few days, one that would accept credit cards for
payment.
About 5-6km out of town on a hill overlooking the ocean I found the
Valley Beach Hotel. The $46 room rate could be paid by credit card, they
assured me. The rural setting made walking a delight and taxi rides to town
only cost 71 cents for exclusive use of the cab (after extensive
bargaining every-time) or a fixed 28 cents for shared rides. Feeling
comfortable and enjoying the ability to use my own language again, I
stayed a total of 7 nights in Takoradi and its twin city, Secundi.
I found it interesting that most mini-vans were decorated with
Christian religious slogans like "The lord is my protector. In his
arms I am safe." Many storefronts also carried such slogans. There
are a few Muslims in Ghana, too. One of the Muslim stores carried the
slogan "If Allah say no, nobody can say yes."
My biggest problem turned out to be cash. The ATM machines could only
dispense 40 notes at a time and my bank charges me $5 for EACH cash
advance transaction. The largest note in Ghana is the 5000 Cedis bill,
worth about 71 cents. That meant the largest cash advance I could get from
the machines would be about $28 resulting in my paying 18% commission each
time! Eventually I learned the main branch of Barkley's Bank could do a
manual credit card cash advance for larger amounts. Imagine my surprise
when they handed me a half inch thick stack of 140 notes a for my $100
payment. Stuffed in my front pocket everyone could see the huge bulge, and
on the street most people's eyes went right to that spot! Very few other
people carried that much cash where others could see it.
Hardly anyone in Ghana smokes. This contrasts dramatically with all the
surrounding French dominated countries in West Africa. Thoughtless smokers in
this part of the world have been the bane of my existence. Ghana is a
breath of fresh air... literally. I hope no tobacco company official
learns about this. I'd hate to see Ghana identified as an untapped market
for smoking products, ripe for exploitation.
Santa Barbara has gulls; Takoradi has vultures. They circle overhead
all day long. On several occasions I searched for the dead meat I assumed
they must have been stalking, but found none. I did see a garbage dump on
the edge of the city where a bunch of them were having a picnic, and
intimidating one another over particularly tasty morsels. The others just
seemed to enjoy soaring as far as I could tell.
Restaurants have not learned how to cut bread as every slice had a
crumbly surface, hard to butter. A bread knife merchant could make a
fortune around here. Waiters take forever figuring the bill, puzzling over
the arithmetic like they skipped that subject in school.
Generally speaking, I've been pretty lucky with health problems on this
trip. It's a good thing too, as medical assistance misses first world
standards by a wide margin. As luck would have it my old ear infection
reasserted itself. Fortunately I remembered the treatment we had used back
home and a q-tip with Goldbond antibiotic cream eventually did the trick,
but not before I'd gotten a similar infection inside my left nostril and
also began experiencing the symptoms of a full blown cold that kept me
miserable for the next three weeks as it migrated from head to lungs.
There were several news stories about the use of Private Military
Companies for "peace keeping" operations in some of the
countries still experiencing insurgencies. I'd always thought that
mercenary armies were a thing of the past. Not so, and some of the
arguments I read actually make sense. Why not privatize parts of the
national military activities. In any case, there already are plenty of
private security agencies providing rent-a-cops for businesses and private
individuals all over sub-Saharan Africa.
Television programs and several conversations with local residents made
it clear that slavery is far from dead around here. It is an active issue
at the moment in this part of the world. Parents sometimes
"sell" their kids into indentured servitude. Large numbers of
other kids are abducted and taken far from their homes where they are
offered food, shelter and protection in exchange for their labor. Parents search in
vain for their missing children. Still other kids without families are
taken in by exploitive farmers and convinced they have no other options,
but to work for their keep. Conditions usually are harsh.
The entire coast of Ghana is referred to as the Gold Coast. Large
quantities of the metal in addition to slaves were traded for European
manufactured goods in the early days. Takoradi was one of the main slave
terminus points in West Africa during the years of slave trade. Ancient
Fort Orange sits on the coast nearby as a grim reminder of man's
inhumanity to man during those miserable years.
The fort sits on a hill near the fishermen's harbor and market that has
been in continuous operation for hundreds of years. They still use the
traditional dugout boats in their ocean fishing. Talking to one of the
boatmen I learned a crew of men could make a new boat from a solid log
with about two weeks of hard work. I got some interesting pictures the day
I visited the place.
In town near the big two-block diameter circular market people greeted
me with "Hello fadda," a term of respect as best I could
determine. After taking a few pictures near the market a guy approached me
to say if a policeman caught me taking pictures, he would arrest me. I
never did figure out what that was all about, though I've heard many
people expect to be paid when tourists take their picture.
Peace,
Fred Bellomy 21 September 2001
