Departures....and mine near also

So the past few weeks have seen some of my friends going back home, which is sad as the place changes without them, but even stranger is that I myself will be leaving here soon, in like 10 days.....

Definitely will be nice to come back to a few things, namely people, food and running hot water! But it will be sad having to go and know that when they people left here to leave they will all go in different directions and even though I am sure I will see many of them again I hope, its having no idea when or where, in 1 year, or 30 maybe, which is hard for me to process

So the photos above, the one of the city is the slum which you can see from the 'park' down at the end of our road.

When I say park, I assume they want to open it up to public, as there are a few walkways, even lamps along some of them, and benches for people to enjoy the view.

But in reality the whole place currently has big fences up, and we only got in as we asked the guard, and after him asking us for money and we walked away, he did let us in to have a look.

Once you walk up the hill, you get that view across the 'lagoon' (it comes from, or goes to, the sea which is like 2km down the road, but its so disgustingly always filled with rubbish that its more a swamp, and I think it only has water when massive rain shower comes through), towards the CBD, but in the way is a slum area where I think a lot of the traders from the sides of the roads live.

There are apparently plans to relocate them soon, as I think a new road is meant to be built through there to help connect places and ease traffic, but as with anything here, that will take much time, apparently the park I think isn't scheduled to be open to public until 2012.....or something like that, not soon anyway.

And the other photo, from one of the airport goodbyes, this time of one of the people I lived with and who has been here the entire time I've been here, so the hardest one yet, until it comes to mine and I have to say goodbye to all!!

But always a plus, getting to travel, and getting to be back home for some time at least and catch up on NZ which I'm assuming has not really changed at all :)

Cape Coast Castle

Not many weekends left now and so I wanted to make a visit to the Cape Coast castle, this time to actually go inside rather than just around, and now even more so that Obama and family had been and made it so famous!

Cape Coast being reasonably close, its not too hard to make it in a day trip so left Accra at a reasonable 10am and made it in by 12pm to Cape Coast.

Having already been in Elmina castle, which is a few kms down the coast from here, I expected similar but this one even though it looks the same size, seems a lot bigger from the inside.

There are also a lot of Obama touches.....apparently they painted it for his arrival, although you can't see huge evidence of this until you see old photos of when the walls were more black than white. But he has layed a wreath in memory and also there is a plaque which someone has managed to throw up pretty fast, he was only there like a week ago I think it was....

So we finished at the castle and still had some time left in the day before making it back to Accra, so headed down to Elmina which is a nearby fishing village with another castle, but this one I had already been into so we just walked around the village instead.

The rainy season appears to have magically stopped now which is nice, the weather is still reasonably cold (24C) so its a good mix, but I think the temperature will start to rise again fast of the rain has stopped.

The home to Accra, in one of the more distracting tro tro rides I've been on. They always like to play music...mainly religious music....but this was LOUD, and then if the music is loud the people like to compete by seeing who can talk the loudest over it.....which in all does not make for the best sleeping conditions when all you want to do is sleep.

Back to Accra, and farewelling lots of friends at the moment, it seems to be the time when a lot of the people who I arrived with are heading back as well, so its a big changeover of interns.

Now with my time left, just fitting in going to all the places I haven't been in awhile and enjoy, buying up the last of my Ghanaian souvenirs which I can manage to fit into my bag to take home.

So three weeks this moment, I'll have just landed at Frankfurt airport......

Photos of the castle etc. http://picasaweb.google.com/emmajaynedavidson/20090718CapeCoastCastle#

Hockey

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/emmajaynedavidson/20090714HockeyTournament#

I think I mentioned awhile ago that Ghana was in the middle of constructing a new hockey stadium, well tonight I went to see some of the games in the African Cup of Nations tournament and it was very impressive.

Apparently the stadium holds 1200 and it would have been more people than that as there were people around the ground as well. Mostly packed because the huge majority of the seats were taken up with these massive fan club type things, I think they must have stolen them from soccer or something, as they were singing dancing and drumming the whole time, I got a bit of this on the video but impossible to get it all properly, and I couldn't get a photo from the right angle to show the big grandstand where they all were but they definitely made the atmosphere.

The two games on were the mens teams, South Africa beat Nigeria 8-0, was a pretty rough match, SA easily in control and were playing not so well I don't think.

Then Ghana came on to play Egypt, and Egypt definitely looked the better team but Ghana were the first to get the goal.

I went before the end so not sure if they managed to come away with a win, but I'm guessing Egypt would have come back to win...in theory they should play South Africa in the final.



Take note of the dnacing guy in front, I think hes from a school, and then shaky camera work I switch away to the play...

Beyin and Stilt Village

So I had decided a few weeks ago I wanted to go here, and at the time I had a work thing out of Accra on the Thursday and Friday before the weekend so it fit in nicely with continuing on my journey as this place is reasonably far away.....

But Ghana is Ghana and the people in charge, not at my work but our client, decided with a weeks notice to change the meeting thing, to shift it a day later, and then weren't even sure until the day before they'd have enough people attending!

But it went ahead and so I was in theory working til 12pm on Saturday which Ghanaian style pushed out to 2pm, by which time I could finally go and start on my journey west.

Meanwhile all the others had left Accra early early morning and were already there waiting for me.

Got to the tro tro station to get first bus I needed to take, thought it would take forever as only three people in a 14 seat van and generally they don't leave until full, thankfully they seemed to have sense in this place and left with the three, and it didn't take long to fill up as they picked up people along the way.

So at around 4.30 got to my changeover point and next tro tro I was on filled up fast and left at 5pm, and this beach, village is maybe 50km away from the city I was in......but in the end took me about 3 hours to get there!!

Unfortunately this was a very slow slow ride, and also people getting on and off constantly, including one guy who got on in one village, jumped off briefly at another village to yell into the trees and houses and bring running out another guy with panes of glass that were then loaded in with us til he got to yet another village and got out.

But I finally arrived, although in the darkness, but which was probably a good thing as rainy season seems to destroy the beaches here worse than normal. In the morning when I woke up and could see, the water is not blue but brown and rubbish is everywhere, possibly washed in from the rivers and washed up all over the beach, so not so tempted to go swimming or lie on the beach!

Although there was one funny point where there was a woman sweeping, and Ghanaians love to sweep, they will fanatically sweep all the rubbish into piles and sweep this into drains or ditches, but this is the best I've seen as the woman was sweeping the beach! And for like at least 4 hours, we went out and when we came back she was still going, but I will give it to her, that but of beach did look a lot more appealing than before.

But the main point of coming this far, was to visit the village one particlar tribe or whatever has built on stilts on a lake, or on wooden platforms on the edge of a wide wide section of river.

You canoe out from the village you stay in, for about an hour, and then can walk around on this village which is, not floating so much, but built over the water. Its pretty impressive just as it would have taken some effort, and there's a section near the end which has nicer looking half built rooms which is apparently some Spanish dude building a hotel.....but don't know how far off that is.

So once back from the village on the water there wasn;t much left to do but go back to Accra as the beach wasn't nice, and the shop had not drinks left as they'd run out.....

So waiting in the village for a tro tro....which can sometimes take a lot of time....we waited half an hour and one came, and said he was going where we needed to go, but once we got on he then headed in one direction for awhile before finally picking up a tyre, washing the car, and changing drivers, before actually heading in the direction we needed to go! Very round about way, but if you ask them why, they cannot explain and just say, we're on the way, we're on the way.

But it was a pretty fast journey back in the end so all good.

Not many weekends left now in Ghana, I have less than a month left here! Very strange, and also a lot of the people who arrived around same time as me or a bit before me are leaving now also.

So next weekend Cape Coast I think, to visit the castle which I haven't been to yet but which was prettied up for Obama;s visit!

Beyin pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/emmajaynedavidson/20090712BeyinAndNzulezu#

Obama

As an update.....he has been!

He arrived will I was out of Accra, luckily I think for me as apparently the traffic hold ups were actually terrible, and this is impressive considering there have been petrol shortages for the past few days....some say so there would be less cars on the road when Obama is here.....

But it was all shown on tv on all the channels, including CNN, the channel I could watch due to reception had picture but no sound...I'm not sure why...no one commentating on whose and he was shaking or even background music, just picture.

But the Air Force One flew in around 9pm and the whole family stepped off the plane and shook about 100 people's hands before getting in their cars and driving off.

The next day all the papers were obsessed with his visit, most hadn't even taken their own photos, just taken from international agencies, not even buying them as you could still see the water mark thing on the photo!

His speech was also televised but I missed and then was away so don't know what he said yet...

But I am pretty sure I saw his helicopters on the way to Cape Coast castle as I was travelling on the road in that direction, so I did see a fraction of Obama!

And sorry no photos that I got to take of him.....

The Wedding

On Saturday went to a colleague at works wedding, was about a 3-4 hour trip away so we were told to be ready to go at 5.30am.....finally left at 6.30am.....arrived to the church just after 10am, when the wedding was supposed to start at 10am, but Ghanaian time it didn't begin til 11am.

At 10am there were actually like only 20 people even in the church, but by the end of the service at 1pm there were maybe like at least 200, it was hard to tell exactly but it was a pretty big church.

Wedding was accompanied by lots of singing and praying, the best part when the band started up and the whole church got up row by row and danced to the front and back to their seat for the contribution. This was amazing though as it gave an excellent view of the amazing amazing clothes people were wearing, so very bright and colourful, it was like being at a day at the races, some of the hats and scarfs, and the bright bright materials they wear, hopefully I should have lots of photos to show some of this because it was amazing.

Then went to the reception, which was really nice, overlooked the beach, and actually a clean looking beach with plam trees and grass, but we were up on the hill above so couldn't go down to it.

Reception had a dancing performance from the Sunday school kids who were very cute in their matching costumes and danced very well, so talented Ghanaian children in dance.

The cake was also incredible, this massive structure, with like a hundred of those plastic couples all over it, and none of them black.....but sadly I didn't get to taste the cake cos my colleagues who we came with were moaning about wanting to get back to Accra so we had to leave really early which was annoying.

Photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/emmajaynedavidson/20090705RitaSWedding#

Obama

Hey,

Forgot this in the last post, but am so reminded of it lately there is no where I can forget..

Ghana is getting ready to welcome Obama for the like 12 hours or something he will actually be touched down in Africa, and there is material printed with Obama's face on it, t-shirts being made, paintings being drawn, and as of yesterday that I have started to see, massive billboards neing put up welcoming him to the country from various businesses and church groups.

Will have to try take a photo if I have my camera with me at the time, I don't think I'll be in the city when Obama jets, but there seems to be excitement everywhere anyway!

Off to a wedding today, apparantly there is around 500-600 guests.......I'm interested to see how that will work......hopefully photos tomorrow.

The Video.....

So this is the moneky eating the banana.....

And the next is monkeys running around, sorry but the wobbliness but hand held, what can you do

Visit from Home

People visiting over the past couple of weeks means I got to take some small small holiday time and see Ghana, this time with people new to it, my Aunt and Mum and Dad.

Started off touring around Accra, visit to the Arts Centre as they call it, but pretty much a tourist market where people follow you around the second you step inside and try to sell everything overpriced. But as we found for a Sunday, was a good place to find a money changer as all the banks and forex are closed....

Also took a tour to where I live and a market nearby, however the market was closed and found out why in the paper a few days later. Apparently on Friday night there was some rain, and I wasn't surprised cos when I was out (on the other side if town, but not that far away, 10-15mins by car) it rained some and we got a little wet but nothing major. However coming later that night when we went through this area it looked like a tsunami had come through, there was debris and dirt and rubbish everywhere across the road. Found out later that where we were had 2mm of rain while the area near where I lived had had 318mm!!! Apparently 7 people actually lost their lives when some houses/shacks collapsed and washed away, so unbelievable that this happened and we didn't even realise the extent.

I then sent them off to Cape Coast area to walk through the canopy and the castles and I joined up later in Busua, which is a beach I visited in February and found very nice.

However rainy seaosn had seemed to have completely changed the whole beach and somehow all the sand had disappeared and waves were washing up right to the buildings at high tide almost. So would be interesting to see if it goes back to the way it was in another 6 months.

Also here we started to see a lot of the Ghanaian customer service in that they never ever ever have any change whenever you buy something, they always make a big deal out of you handing them money and anything bigger than a 5cedi note ($5) they always have to go dig the change out of the back of somewhere.

Our next place was onto Kumasi, having to go by road, and this a road I have not travelled before, so unsure of its quality. The km distance is about 300km but the overall journey took us about 7 hours start to finish.......
The area has a lot of the mining towns and the first part of the journey was good, the mining town is huge and has a lot of transport and people going through it, however pretty much the second we left the town the roads turned to dirt tracks pretty much, added to the rain, they were mud tracks, and these are main roads which thousands of public transport buses and vans and cargo trucks cross every single day. A tiny stretch of road took us about 3 hours, mainly due to a huge hold up where two big trucks had gone off the side of the road causing traffic jams on narrow roads.

So eventually made it to Kumasi, which is the stronghold of the King. He's the king of the biggest tribe in Ghana and is reasonably influential although doesn't really get involved in politics thaaaat much....
Visited the Kumasi Fort which I hadn't been to before, and it houses a whole heap of old weapons, from their army, navy and air force. Plus they also have this small room which was keep sealed for 91 years by a single Danger sign and someone saying it held explosives.....but when they finally opened it in 1987 (with the bomb squad present) discovered it held huge amounts of gold, which was then deemed to belong to the King.

Next place was the Volta region, which is a hilly and green area in between the Volta Lake and Togo, and somewhere I hadn't been before. Went to a waterfall which was impressive but kinda like home with the forest paths, although we don;t have baboons swinging around in the upper levels of the trees....
Was going to climb the tallent mountain in Ghana (885m) but it decided to come down with a huge amount of rain for an hour so that killed that plan, instead went straight to a village which historically had a monkey fetish and worshipped the monkeys in their forest, and despite the influence on Christianity nearly having the villagers kill off all the monkeys, the Peace Corps, or some volunteer guy at the time stepped in and made them realise they could turn them into tourism.
So you can go to this village and walk around with all the monkeys who run around and play in the trees. Best part, as can hopefully be seen in the video if it loads, is you hold a banana and they come to you and peel it and eat it right out of your hand.

We then made our way back to Accra, traffic again making the journey much longer than it should have been. The motorway was perfect for a stretch outside the city and then all of a sudden it just stops and goes back to dirt road which weaves through thousands of houses and shops in a round about way to avoid where they are in progress of building the new motorway, which is unlikely to finish for quite sometime.....

So back in Accra, just relaxed for the last day, visited an Art Gallery set up by artists who are established, I think more internationally, ie. the painting were quite expensive, but they also had rooms filled with old artefact looking wooden statues and drums, kente cloth, brass ornamants, old currency, so it was fascinating to walk through.

Visited the shopping mall, as must be done just to see the constrast between market life, and to enjoy the air conditioning, but they have a good bookstore where you can get Ghanaian history books.

So a quick overview of the country, but definitely a different place than home!

Photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/emmajaynedavidson/20090701MumAndDadVisit#