Hello darlings

It’s about time I told you about life in Ghana again. The reason (or actually, my excuse) I haven’t been writing is that my father visited me two weeks ago to celebrate my birthday and the week after that I have been traveling with Sanne.
It was a bit strange, seeing my father in Africa, all of a sudden, but we had quite a good time. I had lots of fun celebrating my birthday at a jazz concert with him and the girls. The girls even bought me a birthday cake!
My father arrived on a weekday, so I had to work the first few days he was here. He joined our team, going to the field, though. I liked showing him what I did over here and he even helped out a bit, weighing and measuring children! For the weekend we went to Xofa Eco lodge at Lake Volta. It is a green (and leafy ;) ) and tranquil place with cute dogs and chicken walking around (trying to steel your food…). We had a nice little hut to stay in with a double bed and a hammock, which my father tempted to conquer (see pic. below).

(Sorry dad! But I think you would prefer this picture published in stead of that photo of you wearing a beaded African helmet!)

He also brought lots of very Dutch gifts which we all enjoyed. (I especially refer to the joyous moments Annemiek had with the ‘osseworst met mosterd’ my father brought us :) ) It was too bad he had to leave only after a week, but it did enjoy this very special birthday gift.

As I said, after that, Sanne and I found time to travel a bit more since some things at work needed to be reorganized. We set off thinking we would spend a short week at a lodge at Lake Bosumtwi, canoeing, hiking, swimming, etc. A bit of exercise would have served us well. Unfortunately, the lodge was temporarily closed. It was three in the afternoon and we had walked quite a while in the burning sun to get there so we weren’t keen on going all the way back. It was the only spot by the lake and there wasn’t much else to do in the vicinity. So eventually we decided to camp under a tree at the lake. We didn’t get to do any activities but did see our very first African snake (eek!), had a spidery toilet (which we quickly decided to swap for the ‘outdoors lake side toilet’) and had to eat a ‘fishy’ meal surrounded by mosquitoes. But it was quite worth it. The lake was absolutely beautiful and it was very nice to sleep outside. It was very quiet there, as the lake is considered sacred. Even the fishermen aren’t allowed to disturb the water by splashing their oars, so they have to row with their hands.
Seeing as there was absolutely nothing to do there, we decided to travel to the coast the next day. It took us all day, but we found a very nice beach close to the border with Ivory Coast. There wasn’t much to do there either, except lying at the beach and getting a tan.
The resort at which we stayed, however, did offer a guided canoe ride in a mangrove nearby. So we dragged our bodies off the beach and folded ourselves in a canoe with two guides. At first we just saw the mangrove from the river, but at a certain point we actually went into the mangrove, through little canals, which was so enchanting. There were roots beside us and above us and little crabs and snails crawling on them. And the sun was shining through the foliage; quite magical.
But the best part was when we arrived at a little plain in the mangrove where a family lived. Their home consisted of a room made of bamboo and leaves and a kitchen of the same making. We were invited to taste some of their food, which was fufu with mini-crab and giant-snail. I took a bite out of the snail, but it tasted pretty much the way grass smells…so I left the rest of it for the guide to feast on. What I did enjoy was the local gin that they made out of juice from the trunk of a palm tree. Too bad it was ten in the morning, so a few sips was all I took.
After these exciting few days it was back to work again. Accra as usual.

Magical mangrove

Ah, one other thing I haven’t told you about is the Aboakyer festival in Winneba, a town 40 km west of Accra. It was about a month ago that we went there. We were told it was one of the biggest festivals in Ghana. It was certainly a big festival and the main event was two groups competing against each other in catching a deer in a nearby forest. The thing is that the hunt obviously happens out of sight of the public, so what is left of the festival are people standing around a soccer field with important chiefs on one end and the rest of the people on the other end. There they had some entertaining dancers until the two groups of hunters walk in with one of them carrying the prey. After that the groups and their supporters, dressed/painted in red or blue ran around Winneba.
It wasn’t too much of a stirring event, except that my wallet got stolen! I was so disappointed, because we were all focused on checking each others bags, seeing as we knew that there were pickpockets around. Too bad one of them was smart enough to get to mine…I wasn’t even too upset by my visa card and cash being stolen; I could block my visa anyway. I was more upset by losing my pretty blue and yellow, kente wallet, which matched my blue and yellow backpack so nicely…

Hmm, I think this is enough for you to read for now :). I only have one more thing to add: Pictures of me with braids! Yes, people have been asking for them, but I only had them for a week, so it’s not really representative of how I look at the moment…I did like them, though, but they irritated my scalp too much…

Yes, I know. I still have to write about our grand trip through Ghana…but you know what a great procrastinator I am, so you’ll have to be patient with me.

Roundtrip (2)

Brenu beach (just before a storm)

Brenu Akyinim. Very relaxing. Brenu is a tiny village by the sea and has one resort. It’s a cute little resort (approx. 5 rooms) at a nice beach lined with palmtrees. And, surprisingly, they had excellent food. Also, while in Ghana it’s customary that they don’t actually have everything that is on the menu, here they always had what we ordered. And more! One day they even brought us bread with garlic butter before dinner. We went mad! This place had so much more than we had expected. So cool.
During our stay in Brenu, we made daytrips to Elmina and Kakum national park.

In Elmina there is a fort, just like the one in Cape. It had been ruled by the Dutch for quite a while and there is even some Dutch text on the walls. It had a similar feel as Cape Coast Castle, but it was a bit smaller. They also had a chamber where contemporary artists were selling their paintings. What a good use of this old fort. I bought one of the smaller paintings. It portrays two Africans in traditional wear playing drums and what seems to be a didgeridoo (?!). But it’s a bit of an abstract painting, so I could be wrong :)

Kakum national park lies a few kilometers north of Cape. It is very well preserved and the rangers are quite knowledgeable. We did a two hour walk through the park and learned (and forgot) a lot about poisonous and medicinal trees, the way the trees defend themselves against animals and how people used to live in the forest (between the roots of very very large trees, with very very large leaves as a roof).
We also did the canopy walk. Woohoo! I didn’t like the idea much of walking around on a tiny board, high..very high, above the forests ground level….but I did it anyway.
It was absolutely gorgeous to see. All those huge trees, the magnificent sight… But it was still scary. You won’t find any pictures of me walking the canopy walk or of the view, because I was only focused on getting to the in between platforms as soon as possible :S (There is a photo of my back, on one of the platforms, though ;) )

After four days, with pain in our hearts for leaving the good food, we left Brenu and headed towards Busua. Yes, another beach area…

Enjoying the delicious Sole ala Ole

Kakum Canopy walk

Roundtrip (1)

Kaneshie bus station (1/8 of it..)

Kokrobite, just before sunset.

Ha! The moment you’ve all been waiting for (or dreading…). I’m finally going to write about our trip.
We left Accra on Saturday the 25th of March. All of us were excited to leave this crowded town and head off to, ehm, well, we didn’t really have a plan, but Kokrobite would be our first destination. We didn’t know much about the place, except that it was at the beach. Good enough!
First thing was getting out of Accra. Not too difficult, but when it’s your first time at the Kaneshie bus station in west Accra, it can be quite a challenge. After being redirected for the millionth time and having walked half an hour around the bus station with our backpacks, we finally found our tro tro. Time to leave the bustle! And what a relief it was. We found a place, right at the beach, with nice little bungalows, called The Dream. Aaahh. There wasn’t too much to do in the place, except for a drum show at a nearby resort. Naturally we arrived just in time to see the last group of visitors leaving…No stress; we had one more attraction to go to: Kokrobite garden restaurant, supposedly serving the best Italian food in Ghana. I’m not sure it was the best, but it was definitely very special. I actually had a barracuda pizza! Who’d have thought?!

After a day or two at the beach, we decided to go to Cape Coast. Cape coast is one of the larger cities in Ghana and was one of Gold Coasts trading centers for Europeans from the 17th to 19th century. The fort that was being used for trading is called Cape Coast Castle and has been used by the Danes, Swedes, Dutch, British and Portuguese. Unfortunately this fort (as many others along the coast) hasn’t been used merely to trade gold, fabric or weapons, but people as well. Apparently as soon as the Europeans discovered that certain African tribes owned slaves, they decided to also trade in slaves. So it happened that they set up a deal with the Ashanti (a tribe north of Cape Coast) that their captives of war, from neighboring tribes, could be traded for European goods.
The museum in C.C.C. illustrates the history of the slave trade very well. It shows objects and drawings from the area around Cape, from that period. They also have a whole section devoted to the life of the exported slaves and their descendants in America.
It’s a confusing experience, visiting such a fort. To walk around and realize how many men and women were tortured and killed right at the spot where you are standing. It wasn’t even a case of deliberately torturing these people; they just didn’t care about them. They were left in dungeons, chained, without food or water, in the dark, dying in their own waste, just for the traders to be able to pick out the ones that were strong enough (alive enough) to work in the fields in America. It just confirms my idea that sometimes ignorance is even worse than intolerance.
At the same time the fort was absolutely gorgeous. It is all white, with a charming courtyard (if you ignore the piled up cannonballs…), nice view of the ocean, a beach lined with palm trees and a fishing harbor and large chambers with high ceilings… Experiencing beauty and cruelty simultaneously is very disturbing.

The rest of Cape Coast was not too interesting. Except, of course for the total eclipse! Yes, we were there! And it was very strange. It gradually grows darker and colder; it gets windier; birds go to sleep in the middle of the day, people start screaming (it’s coming, it’s coming!). It doesn’t get totally dark, but it does get dark enough for it to be eerie. Actually Cape is quite a charming town with its dilapidated colonial 3 storey buildings, winding roads and view of the ocean. However, we were looking to get out of the maddening crowds of big cities. So after a visit to Brenu beach, some 30 km west of Cape, we decided to go back the next day and stay at the beach again, for a couple of days.

Cape Coast Castle

Accra life (1)

Before I will drown you in my stories about our roundtrip, I’m going to tell you a bit about what we did this week.
Tuesday, Sanne and I returned to Accra from traveling. We were supposed to prolong our visa at the immigration office the next day. Seeing as we still needed a letter from the institute to bring to the immigration office, we set off to Noguchi. In all ignorance we thought they would have finished the letter by now. They had been going over it since we left. But of course they needed yet another document from us to get the head of the administration to sign the letter. So after providing them with this document, we thought it would be just a matter of minutes to get this letter signed. Hmm, no…try coming back tomorrow…
So the next morning we were there again, hoping to get our letter. It was almost finished, but the person typing the letter (which is three sentences long, by the way) was ‘away’. Maybe we could come back in two hours? Sure, we thought, we still had some errands to run, get something to eat, no worries. So after two hours, we returned again. No letter. It would be finished in about 2 hours… ‘Luckily’ it actually was finished by then. Welcome to the world of bureaucracy.

It didn’t end there, though. Remember; we still needed to go to the immigration office. It was all so typical. It starts at the gate, where they try to make you go back and enter through the pedestrian-gate when you entered through the car-gate by accident. Very funny… Inside the building, of course, you will be pestered some more. The incidents are actually too many to mention. My favorite one is when Sanne, Annemiek and I handed in our visa request forms (which another clerk stapled together) at the payment counter. The woman had very much trouble with us paying our fees separately. Not because she assumed that we had a shared bank account, or because she didn’t have any change…no, it was because we were stapled together.
Anyhow, the days after this adventure we decided to enjoy the rest of our free time in Accra and go shopping and swimming :) and celebrate the Dutch Queensday!

We were invited to the Queensday celebration of the Dutch embassy on Friday night. It was being held at the embassy residence in Accra. For days (no actually weeks…) we had been speculating about what Dutch snacks there would be. Well, it was beyond our expectations. Gouda cheese, sausijzenbroodjes, frikandelletjes, erwtensoep met rookworst (!), bitterballen (I missed those, unfortunately), herring, eel…mmm! And we had a lot of fun dancing to a Belgian (why?!) DJ the rest of the night. I’m ashamed to say that I even let myself be seduced to do the conga…
Oh, and yesterday evening Sanne, Susan and I had a wonderful time at the movies. Well, actually a bar where they show illegal DVDs every Sunday :S We had a very nice dinner, saw two movies (Rumor has it and Memoirs of a Geisha) and were pretty pleased with the fact that the movie theatre was also a bar (three more Martinis please!).But of course, after all this fun we will have to go back to work again on Monday. The next days we will be trying to enjoy our last bit of holiday and analyze some data for our studies at the same time. No really.

'Dutch girl' with herring.

La, la, la, la, laa, la, la, la, la, la ,laa, la, la, la, laaa, la, la, la, la, la, laaa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, laaaaaaa.

Back 'home'...

Just letting you know that I'm back in Accra from traveling around Ghana. It was a great experience and the country is so beautiful. But it's going to take a while before I have everything written down for you, so you will have to be patient...

Accra - Kokrobite - Cape coast - Brenu Akyinim - Busua - Takoradi

That is where we have travelled so far. On the way we have seen old forts and castles (eerie), visited a national park, including canopy walk (scary) and relaxed at the beach (chill). We've had lobster, barracuda, sole (apparently a fish) and many more delicious dishes.
At the moment we are in Takoradi. From here we'll catch the night train to Kumasi, stay there for a day and travel further north to Tamale. From there it's a 4 hour drive to the biggest national park in Ghana, where we will stay for a couple of days, hoping to see some wildlife.
Right, I have seven minutes left on the internet and one more email to send, so this is it for now.

beach hopping

The past few days were very relaxing..We started our trip in Kokrobite, a tiny beach village. We stayed at a place called the Dream. No really! After 2 days at the beach we moved on to Cape coast. We visited the castle the europeans used for trading and of course, went to the beach. We are going to make a jungle tour tomorrow and visit some other castles and forts the day after.
And today? Well today we are actually moving to the beach. Yesterday we saw a nice place to stay, right by the ocean. We just couldn't resist :)