These were heavy, wooden, handmade canoes made from thick scraps of
wood sealed with tar. Some were only wide enough for one person to sit one in front of
each other, and others could sit two side by side. Our guides had to
pole the craft from the back down a drainage ditch for the first leg of
our journey.
Bill and Iva were eager to paddle again, since it had been
so long, but we could not because each boat had just one paddle used by
the guide in the front. Fortunately an incoming boat slid us a second
paddle so Bill and Iva could paddle the heavy wooden hunk of wood
through the water until we tired. We were heading for a water village 5
miles into a swamp which turned into a large lake where the tribe of
people have lived for several hundred years.
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| The "No Swimming" sign |
It is said that they
escaped other tribal invasions by following the Snail God, who brought
them to this place. The huts are built on stilts, and all of the village
is interconnected with wooden walkways.
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| Some of the boats in dry dock |
There were about 400 people
living here. The village has electricity and Bill spotted a nice stereo
system in one of the huts. We could hear the World soccer match on out-of-sight TVs. It took us about an hour to get there
across a wide lake with our group spread among 6 canoes. When we
arrived, we unloaded from our boats and took a short walk to have a
audience with the chief of the tribe. You will note from the sign you
pass prior to paddling out, what the chief's payment for the visit is, a
bottle of gin. The villagers danced and sang for us, and we again had
to ask permission before taking pictures of anyone, and we were often
told no.
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| Dancing girls with a school in the background |
There is a large covered open room at the end of the village
where the chief was to greet us- but he was not available and had sent
another member of the tribe, who looked like any other 20 year old in
Ghana.
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| "Chief "on right |
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| A lot of trash under the village |
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| A collapsed hut |
While he didn’t speak English to us, our guide translated the
story of the tribe’s arrival there while the bottle of gin sat on the
table in front of the chief. We were able to ask questions and after
about an hour, we got back into the canoes for the trip back. We are
glad we went, if only to get some paddling in again, but it felt a bit
touristy to be worth doing it again. It was interesting that on our way
here, in a very rural part of Ghana and on the lovely shore of the
Atlantic, the Chinese have entered into a partnership with Ghana and
were building a gas refinery and adjoining housing for the workers.
We
were told that India and China are becoming quite interested in African
territory because it has what they lack- lots of land to grow food and
lots of space. The beauty of the beaches there would please any hotel
chain, but tourism is still a developing economy there.
After we loaded up in the bus, we began a VERY long drive to our hotel.
We think the tour operator had been asked to ensure that no one got
sick, so instead of staying at 2 different hotels as planned, we made a
longer drive this day so that we could stay at the same place for 2
nights. Unfortunately that meant we drove until about 8:30 PM before
arriving and getting dinner. We were famished, but the buffet was good
and the setting first rate. Our hotel was the Coconut Grove Resort in Elmina
and was located on a pristine beach with an outdoor pool, crocodile
pond, rabbit pen (with a monkey in it), golf course, horseback rising,
tennis courts, and a gym- African style.
This meant that the golf course
had the horses tethered in the middle of it, goats would wander
through, the crocodile pond was a hazard and that the holes went one
direction on a fairway and the next hole was the same fairway from the
other direction. The horses could be ridden on the beach, and one member
of our group did that, and was bitten by the horse in the adjoining
pen. While we did not take advantage of these amenities, we had a lovely
room, and very nice meals. In fact all S@S field trips that were
anywhere in the area came here for lunch, which we think was as a result
of a promise that all food would be properly prepared for our
unsophisticated GI tract.
The next morning we set out by bus for a walk on the tree canopy in the
rainforest at Kakum National Park. The drive was not far, so we were
there by 10 AM. It is a popular spot because it's the only canopy walk
in Africa.
They feature wood and rope swinging bridges suspended by
steel cables up to 130 feet in the trees above the rainforest
floor. As might be expected in a rainforest, it did start to rain on us
while we were crossing the bridges. There were lots of groups there,
including several students who had hired a taxi from the ship and
braved their way with the wild taxi drivers in Ghana. The park guide
explained the park layout (145 square miles) and that elephants, large
cats, and lots of other animals could be seen better by either spending
the night in the Treehouse they had, or hiking the trails on the
rainforest floor.
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| Way too many people on the bridge! |
We both thought that those were attractive options,
but unfortunately not ones offered to us this day. So we walked the
canopy bridges, in the rain at times, and it was over quicker than we
would have liked. With other groups coming through, we were only there
about an hour. We headed back to the bus where Iva saw Meredith and some
of her friends who had just arrived by taxi to enjoy this adventure also. We
returned to the Coconut Grove for lunch and a glorious afternoon to do
as we pleased. Some folks headed to the Cape Coast Castle to change
money and buy some gifts, while some of us took a nice nap during the
heat of the day.
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| The locals way to carry loads, rooms in background |
Afterward Iva walked for 2 hours on the beach with Sara
Olson. We walked up to an ocean side fishing village where we were
surrounded by children begging us to take their pictures. They danced
around us and jumped in front of one another- very unlike the children
we had met in Morocco and the water village, who had been told not to
let us take their pictures. We obliged and returned back to our hotel
for dinner, hoping we had not upset any of the children's parents who
were not ocean side.
African drumming, dancing, acrobatics, and fire
eating followed our delicious dinner. Another group from S@S had joined
us at the hotel, so there were plenty of friends to enjoy the
entertainment.
Our final day we headed to Cape Coast Castle. It is one of the many
forts that housed African slaves before they were sent to America and
the Caribbean. It was a somber and shocking place, as the dungeons that
housed these unfortunate people was under the castle and church of the
British governors at the time.
While the Dutch and Portuguese
originally established this fort for timber and gold trading, since it
is on the then-named Gold Coast, the Brits were able to conquer and
maintain control, during the height of slave trading. The conditions
here are deplorable- dark, crowded, rock walled rooms, with no
sanitation. The slaves lived in these awful spaces for several weeks,
until they were traded and shipped west through the "Gate of No Return"
which leads to the sea docks. Tours allow us to stand in these dank
places, which still have several feet of dried straw and excrement on
the floors which over time turned almost rock hard. Men and women were
separated and if they refused to cooperate, they were chained in a rock
cell without even a sliver of light left to die. There is a plaque at
this UNESCO heritage sight commemorating the Obamas visit here years
ago. It is a very popular tourist site, but also an important religious
one still as while we were there a yearly memorial ceremony took place.
There are many other similar places along the Ghanaian coastline, but
the Ghanaian people have an interesting way of dealing with the fact
that their strongest and healthiest ancestors were enslaved and removed
to parts of the world, never to see their families again. Based on the
amicable European influence in this region in the mid-15th century for
trading goods, many of the people here are very devoutly Christian. Many
have European names too since there were many offspring from the
soldiers and merchants who moved to the area. Many modern day Ghanians
deal with the enslavement of their people, by saying it was God’s will.
While a tragic period of events, they it find solace in their devotion to
God, and they choose to not dwell on the events of the past. There is no
doubt that the removal of tens of thousands of strong, young, healthy
individuals for decades has greatly slowed progress for these people, but since their recent independence from Britain in 1957,
they have made great strides. VERY rich in resources, Ghana still
struggles with an undeveloped infrastructure. An example were the traffic jams around Accra which made it impossible for us to get there on our last day in Ghana. We feared we wouldn’t make it back to the ship before it left! Many houses
are without electricity and proper sanitation (here is an open sewer in
Tema)
As you can see from many of these pictures taken in the port town of Tema, everyone in Ghana
sells something. There are endless stands everywhere you go selling used
shoes, clothes, cooked food, appliances, TVs, stereos, bikes, fruits, soft drinks, plastic buckets, toys, coffins,
anything you can imagine.
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| An Old Town in good shape that Iva wanted to paddle |
Because the traffic is so bad, as you sit in
traffic, hawkers approach from every direction to take advantage of the
trapped vehicle. It worked well for a S@S busload of hungry students, as
they invited the guy on the bus and bought him out of his food on the
way back from a field trip! Ghanaian people are kind and helpful, but they can be pushy, persistent
at selling things. They all will call to you, tell you what a great deal
they will give you, pull your arm to keep you in their store/space,
tell you that you remind them of their sister- whatever it takes to sell
you what they have. It is intimidating and not for the light of heart.
One has to really power up when entering a market. We coped by going to
less challenging places, like going to a grocery store which was like a
mini Super Walmart as they sold just about everything. We tended to travel as a
group and while the merchant was giving the hard sell to one person, the rest of
us could at least look. A very noticeable skill of the Ghanaian women is their ability to
balance huge loads on their heads. They walk beside the highways with
tall loads and no hands!
Ghana was a very lovely spot to visit, with incredible coastline and
vegetation, but the disparity between its rich, untapped natural
resources and the standard of living of its people is glaring. While
still very young at charting its own destiny, the people are
understandably wary of its international friends based on past
experiences. The US has provided lots of money to help with the highway
system and has made loans to Ghana for its development. We hope that it
finds its way to bettering the lives of the people and not lining the
pockets of the officials, which seems to be a prevalent problem in
Africa. We were glad to see the sights here and know that it can be even
more popular with more economic development.
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| It's always "Miller Time" somewhere in the world! |
