Akwaaba, from Ghana!!

While English is the official language in Ghana, Akwaaba is the Akan word for "welcome" of the indigenous people.

After an eight day sail from Morocco, we arrived in Takoradi, Ghana. Our visit here was to be spent with 3 days of 3 different adventures to include: riding in a handmade wooden canoe to a water village, a trip to the tree top canopy in Kakum National Park, and a visit to the slave castles at Cape Coast near Accra. In preparation for our arrival here, the entire ship had to take malaria medication as a precaution. Further, a requirement for boarding the ship back in England was proof of a yellow fever vaccine, which is an additional yellow card carried in your passport. No one was allowed to disembark in Ghana without the yellow fever card. We were encouraged to wear long sleeves and pants, use DEET bug spray, and avoid mosquito infected areas as much as possible. After the rampant GI distress in Morocco, all were advised again to take Pepto before each meal, avoid ingesting local water, and to only consume peeled or cooked food. Our group of students, faculty and staff disembarked heading for a bus to start our first activity- canoeing.

We drove through the Ghanaian countryside which was lush and signs were refreshingly written in English.  The business signs had a lot of Christian words and themes in them which created some very usual combinations. 

Ghana has received a lot of financial support from Europe and the US, and was originally a Dutch and Portuguese colony, later taken over by the British. It has only been a presidential republic since 1992, so while extremely rich in resources, including gold, petroleum, natural gas, diamonds and cocoa its economic development is still in its infancy. It has miles of lovely sandy coastline, palm tress, and tropical vegetation. It was hot and humid, since it's very close to the equator. The transportation is rough- roads are in terrible shape and poorly laid out. While we traveled on the dirt country roads, we often had to slow down for pot holes and rough spots. After a few hours drive we arrived for lunch at an unlikely spot. The restaurant was off a dirt road on a wooden walkway which led to the canoes we would take to the water village. It was a shady, pleasant spot, with a parrot and cat walking around and the World Cup soccer match of Ghana against Egypt on a wide screen TV.

 The food was very nice, and despite assurances that the lovely green salad had been rinsed in water that had been boiled, we did not risk eating it. Those who did later were fine, so we were sorry we missed it. The meal was very tasty of either fish or chicken. Afterward we headed down to the end of the wooden walkway where we were issued our life vests and got into the canoes.

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

"Chief "on right

A lot of trash under the village

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.

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.

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.

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.

  

It's always "Miller Time" somewhere in the world!