DAY 5
Akosombo - Asougyaman - Atimapoku
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| Banana farm |
The fruit I
definitely consume the most of at home is and has always been the banana. I am
sure this also applies to many of my friends. I want to see myself as a
relatively conscious consumer (no fundamentalist though, even a bit failed),
but I have to plead guilty to not always giving too much thought to the flows,
structures and processes responsible for providing to me this particular after-work-out
snack that is fun to eat, costs virtually nothing and tastes delicious. In Asougyaman,
we got to get to know the grass-roots level production of some everyday
products of ours. Honestly, a banana farm offers few surprises for a visitor.
Bananas grow in banana trees and are collected at a predetermined point in
time. They are washed in big pools of water, stored in a cool space, packaged
and exported.
Exported… A striking 99% of the production
on the farm we visited is exported, mainly to Europe. The remaining per
cent is what is deemed below standards. This is sold locally to be consumed as
it is instead of processed in any way (A lot of fruit juice is imported to
Ghana). The obvious reason for the perverse ratio is the huge differences in prices
that will be paid for the bananas in Europe compared to in Atimpoku or
elsewhere in Ghana. This is an embodiment of the neocolonial relationships based on near-complete
extraction of raw material to be processed elsewhere that is so often the
object of complaint in development discussion. Surprisingly and a bit disappointingly,
I heard no criticism of those relations either from the guides or workers on
the farm or the smart and educated locals I’m travelling with (who often like
to criticize the west, France, Sarkozy of just that: trying to controlling progress and development in Africa).
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| Mango farm |
Our visit to
the banana farm (Which, yes, was in sphere of the fair trade program and where,
no, the workers did not seem to work
under subhuman conditions or be particularly unhappy) was followed by,
naturally, a visit to a mango farm. What was notable here was the impressive level of
organization, a feature not often heard in descriptions of African
agricultural activity. The owner and director of the farm very much emphasized
the importance of applying for and receiving certificates of appropriate
conduct. He further maintained that the whole system is very much characterized
by transparency and accountability, concepts usually met only in plans and
advice concerning Africa. In short, I got the impression of the mango farming community
in Asougyaman as being very professional and well organized. Be this an
exception in the big picture or not, it seems to be a more genuine way of
developing the agricultural sector than the top-down structures of, for
instance, the fair-trade movement.
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| Party Boat |
The day was
rounded up by a boat ride on the Volta. In Finland, the only word to describe
the experience would be yuppie. The boat ride was organized on shiny new boats
by a shiny, expensive high-class beach resort owned and led by the prototype of
a Dutch businessman (Which was very evident in everything in the resort).
Ironically, those most excited about the boat ride were the Africans, who
insisted that everybody dance and shake it to the R&B playing of big
loudspeakers on board, just like on MTV… I guess this is one of the places
where rich Europeans could come to
behave like rich Europeans in a non-European climate and environment. The
resort, like all in the region, was virtually deserted apart from the staff and
the Dutchman working hard to make us stay and enjoy for some more time. Some
did, some didn’t.
DAY 6
Asougyaman - Mt. Afadjato - Wli Agumatsa
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| View from Mt. Afadjato |
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| View from Mt. Afadjato |
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| Wli Agumatsa |
The next walk was a
half-hour one through more forest, this time on a flat path criss-crossing with
a minimal river and leading to a truly spectacular place. It starts raining. It
gets cold. It gets noisy. After bending one more corner, you find yourself at
the feet of an 80-meter pillar of white roar, the lower one of the Wli Agumatsa
twin waterfalls, the highest in West Africa. It is the first place in
Sub-Saharan Africa where I’ve honestly felt cold. For one reason or another,
the water in the small pool created by the waterfall and hanging in the air is
very cold. Getting into the water is a breathtaking, refreshing and in the long
run not a very pleasant experience. The closer you get to the waterfall, the
more the air feels like being full of invisible, flying, cold needles. I almost
expected to be ripped into microscopic pieces and simply disappearing. You have
to approach the waterfall backwards, not for any traditional or religious
reason. Turn your look at it and I assume you will go blind. Turn your look
upwards and you will find thousands of huge fruit bats circling high above you,
adding to the supernatural and a bit scary experience. Take out the flocking
tourists and stands serving everything to them and the place would have been
somewhere to stay for a while. DAY 7
Atimpoku - Kumasi - Tamale – Paga
The following day consisted of the longest bus ride of our trip, taking
us all the way from the southern end of the Volta Lake past Kumasi and Tamale
to the northernmost region of Ghana. Analogous of the general north-south
division of all of West Africa, the ride saw the vegetation gradually change
from tropical forest to savannah; the mosques get more common and the simple
brick houses be substituted by the iconic mud huts depicted in older books I’ve
read. Beyond here is Sahel and the notorious famine, the closets I’ve gotten so far to the miserable Africa covered with
some exaggeration by our media. This transition parallels very much the
dichotomy between a moist, Christian and developed south on the one hand and a
dry, Islamic and developing north on the other, often presented in simplified
(geography) literature discussing West Africa, from Senegal to Sudan, as a
singular region.
On the road,
more specifically somewhere on the main road between Accra and Kumasi, I got a
taste of the Ghanaian version of fast food. Similarly to McDonalds, you have a
queue, at the end of which you get to make your order (out of one or two
options, in this case jollof rice with fried chicken or fish or banku with fried chicken or fish) and
pay. But in this case, you won’t get your meal yet. Instead, you get a coupon
indicating what you have ordered and paid for. You continue to another queue
(one for rice, one for banku), where
you present your coupon in exchange of the food. A third queue will take you to
the counter where drinks are served. I had a weird, short (ending to a) conversation
with the man (Let’s call him Jarkko) at the end of the first of these queues:
-
Me: Some
jollof rice [rice with a touch of tomato, chili etc)], please.
-
Jarkko: With
chicken?
-
M: Yeah…
Actually, what are the options?
-
J: Chicken or
tilapia [a local
fish].
-
M: Ok, with
tilapia.
-
J: Sir, that
will be seven cedis instead of three…
-
M: Oh, then
let’s go with chicken, I’m not that rich [as if it was really that
expensive]…
-
J: [Laughter] I hear you… You’re a very handsome man!
-
M: Thank you,
you too!
It only
struck me right after the conversation that this might be a very odd exchange
of words in a country (and a continent for that matter) where homosexuality is
illegal. Or is this just a way where Ghanaians are a bit more confident than
Finns in expressing their thoughts and opinions about other people, without too
much thought on what you’re saying to whom?
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| Tamale |
Tamale is the main city of the Northern Region of Ghana. It is evident everywhere that
you are getting closer to the Sahel and the Sahara. The city (Population 350 000) can
concisely (and based on an extremely short time spent there) be described as
dry, flat and dusty, populated more visibly by goats than human beings. It can’t
be said to be especially beautiful. As was already noted, you will cross upon
mosques (which can be found anywhere in Ghana) a lot more frequently than in
Kumasi or the coast, so Islam must be prevailing to a relatively large extent
in Tamale. What I can’t find an obvious explanation (Bad roads? Shortage of
money? Less rain?) to, however, is the popularity of motorbikes in this part of
the country. Those are almost non-existent in the south.
After some
time spent lost in the next town (Maybe name Bolgatanga...) and finally finding the hostel, we
celebrated the birthday of Claire, a French lady in our company and some of us
tried to get some sleep before an early morning of heading further up north,
towards Burkina Faso.
DAY 8
Paga - Dakoma – Mole
Ryszard Kapuściński writes in Imprium about the
impact of borders on human beings. Borders between land and water are where
human populations have always thrived, but otherwise borderlands seem to have a
negative impact on man. Like Kapuściński says, borderlands (especially those decided and imposed by man himself!)
make men restless, anxious and paranoid. They are places characterized by
weaponry, fences, walls, barbed wire… They are often the reason and result of
conflict and misery. This applies also to some natural borders, a good example
being Sahel, the borderland between lush tropical forest and savannah on the
one hand and forbidding desert on the other. People seem to be very much on the
edge at borders. Even crossing borders in the Schengen area, where borders are being
made more or less irrelevant, there is always some excitement in the air. It is
easy to presume that the problems and conflicts are intensified when borders
are imposed somewhere from above without much consideration of local physical
features, ethnic composition or the perceptions of the people affected by the
border. That has certainly in many cases in African history been very true.
With the
above in mind, the crossing place between Paga and Dakoma, between Ghana and Burkina
Faso, is a controversial place. On the one hand the restlessness, anxiety and
paranoia are evident. There are weapons, fence and barbed wire. Pull out your
camera, and someone will pull out a gun, almost. We stopped and got out of the
bus. After just minutes of the normal waiting and standing around, a security
guard called me over to question me about our reasons for being there. Smiles get fewer or less genuine
and the need for explaining yourself grows.
On
the other hand, there is a remarkable strive to live as if there is no border.
On the Burkina Faso- side, a normal village of mud
huts is virtually leaning on the wall marking the beginning of a narrow slice
of no-man’s land. The small towns of Paga and Dakoma have basically grown
together. I can imagine the people (known to be generally mobile in these regions)
crossing the border several times a day. As in many other national borders in
Africa imposed by colonial rule, not much changes (besides the European
language spoken) when crossing the border. After all the formal rigidity and
rules, I had (with the help of Kwakye’s negotiation skills) not much problems
crossing the border even though my passport was still in Accra waiting for a
visa extension.
Earlier
that day we had visited the Crocodile Park in Paga. It is a remnant of an old,
traditional community that basically lived (lives?) in symbiosis with the
crocodiles. They believe that the crocs are reincarnations of the forefathers
and should and will therefore not be harmed for they are a vital part of the
community. Also the legend goes that the crocodiles will not attack fishers or
children from that particular community in and around the water. Today this has
been tuned to be a tourism attraction. The crocodiles (in a fenced area) are
actually pretty tame and even phlegmatic. You can photograph them, sit on them
and lift their tail without a reason to be afraid. There is a beautiful history
but a sad present. Of course this is necessitated by the need for incomes and the
limited presence of tourists.DAY 9
Mole National Park - Monkey Sanctuary – Kumasi
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| Pumba |
In Mole National Park, the
guide asked us a simple question: From where did democracy come? Greece. No!
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| Father of democracy? |
One of the most common animals
in the park, the baboon, has according to the local wisdom in many ways set an
example for humans. Humans learned to carry their infants on the back from baboons.
More importantly, we learned democracy from then. When there is a big argument within
a baboon community (Just imagine the sticks and stones flying, the jumping and
screaming…), they resolve it as follows: The leaders of the two (or more) sides
of the argument settle in two different big trees. Thereafter all individuals
in the group choose their side by choosing which tree to climb up in. When done,
I would expect the groups to go their different ways. But no, the smaller
group(s) will follow the bigger one whatever it chooses to do. Does this sound
like the western voting system? Does this sound like western democracy?
As a travel destination, Mole
National Park is definitely worth a visit or even a stay of a couple of days,
regardless of being pretty remote and not well accessible (The road itself can
be classified as an experience). It is a classical African national park with
great surroundings and views where you can easily spot lots of elephants,
baboons, warthogs and a species of antelope. You can choose between walking
safaris or jeep safaris with smart, informative and armed guides. A stay both
educating and refreshing!
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