Wellsangels

Last Tuesday was a ‘community visit,’ a public health trip into a neighborhood of Sene to give shots and Vitamin-A supplements. At about 7, when I heard Tom greet the boy who brings our meals from the lady up the road who makes them, I clambered my way through the folds of our mosquito net and found my way to the breakfast table. We had the usual fried-egg omelets and tea (plain old Lipton, fantastic with condensed milk), and a small amount of the four soccer-ball sized rolls spread with margarine. Well before 8, the time we expected to leave, the medical team called on us and said they were ready to go, so we grabbed hats and sunscreen and headed out. (more…)

After a nice evening at our old digs in Kumasi, last Sunday morning we found our way to the Sene district. To get there, we took a taxi to yet another Kumasi tro-tro station, this one with only about five tro-tros waiting, and asked for the tro-tro to Atebubu, the hub town nearest Sene. One filled and pulled out just as we arrived, but it turned out we were in luck, since the next also filled quickly and was a nice new-ish van that for some reason had a lot of leg room. The van owners helped us jam our bags in the back, then tied the tailgate together because it didn’t all fit.

As we were sitting waiting in the van, a bookseller came by and tempted me into looking at a pamphlet he was selling on contemporary political leaders. We’ve been talking quite a bit about the state of Ghanaian politics—advertisements, mostly billboards, from the December 2008 elections are still everywhere—but we’ve only begun to get a grasp of them. Plus, the seller informed us that a certain Barack Obama had recently been elected as the first African-American president and we may have heard of him and want to learn more. We bought one for a cedi and a half.

The ride was happily uneventful and very pretty. We bounced through the outskirts of Kumasi and made a long climb up some hills from which we had vistas of the rainforest all around. At the steepest point there were nice views of a sort of butte a ways away, with a clean rock cliff on one side and smooth-looking green fields on top. It was sunny but not too hot, and sitting in the back we had a good breeze from windows on both sides. And the road was surprisingly smooth and empty almost the whole way, so we wound up making it to Atebubu in 2 hours instead of the predicted 3.

There, two fellows in a green hospital pickup truck met us. Kids grabbed our bags and tossed them in the back, and we climbed in. The trip from Atebubu to Kwame Danso, the town where the hospital is located, is only about 20 miles, but it took an hour because the road is dirt and pothole-ridden.

After passing through the coastal village of Elmina, it was only a short walk on a busy road to the castle. It was mostly like other roads in Ghanaian cities, with the usual street vendors everywhere, people carrying everything and anything on their heads, and the usual, surprisingly clean 3 foot cement rain gutters on each side. But it was also apparent we were in a coastal town: one side of the street was near the fish market, and we could see hundreds of drying racks, each about four feet off the ground and covered in small silver fish. And just after we turned off the road to the castle, there is Elmina’s main bridge, (more…)

Our one excursion away from the beach resort was a trip to Elmina Castle, about a mile and a half walk down the beach to the west of us. Most people don’t get there by walking, and a worker at the resort gave us good advice to wear shoes (most of us still didn’t), and we had read the guidebook, but we were still unprepared for what we encountered. The fact is that African beaches are not seen quite the way they are in the west. Rather, beaches here—at least those near towns—are essentially outhouses/cesspools for the townspeople. People target the wet sandy areas where the tide is sure to come and wash waste away, but that still leaves plenty of space (more…)

After a couple of days of showing the family around Kumasi, we all boarded one of the green STC coaches bound for the coast. We had a very nice ride: the air conditioning was most welcome (J actually got cold), J’s dad had a nice conversation with a Ghanaian man, and we saw lots of very pretty countryside and villages. And we weren’t subject to any more west African movies,

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Last week J’s family came to visit us for our last several days in Kumasi. They flew straight into Kumasi, on an Antrack Air flight from Accra. We had worried that they would be unable to make the flight leaving an hour and a half after their flight from JFK was due in, but it was right on time and they wound up with an unnecessary day in Accra, which they spent at a pool eating pizza.

Unsurprisingly, the family was a huge hit with Mama Julianna. They brought her some gifts, and she had had a surprise dress made for J’s mom. Julianna (more…)

If there’s one thing you can say about traveling in third world countries (at least this one), it’s that it is exhausting. It’s not any one thing, but there are so many that wipe you out over the course of even a five hour day. First of all, being the odd person out is tiring because it causes you to always be somewhat on guard—only slightly for pickpockets etc., but more because of the awareness that you’re being watched. People look at you and say hello just because you look different, and you want to be friendly, so you are always thinking about your behavior.

Second is the climate. The heat and humidity prevents anyone from moving faster than a modest pace for any more than a few moments. Ghana is a relatively formal country, and people dress (more…)

Ghana has a reputation for not having very good food, and that reputation is half deserved. The three main traditional Ghanaian dishes are fufu, banku, and kenke, all seem to be acquired tastes, as almost all the Ghanaians we have asked name fufu as their absolute favorite food, but we have had a hard time learning to like.

On Sunday afternoon, (more…)

Tro-tros are the go-to form of transportation for most people in Ghana, both for getting around cities and between them. Tro-tros are small vans—they look like they have about the volume of an American min-van—but they hold 15 people, five rows of 3. (The only reason people can climb into the back is that the far right seat of the middle seats are these clever jumpseats that fold up so you can climb around them.) Tro-tros are (more…)

Saturday was our first weekend day in Kumasi after getting settled, and we took a trip to Lake Bosumtwe, one of the main day trips out of the city. We got up before 7 and ate bread and peanut butter (here called ground nut) and jam and walked up to the main Edwenase road. It took us a little while to get an empty cab that could hold all four of us, (more…)