GHANA PART 3

Here's a local furniture store. Notice that you have to cross a deep and wide open ditch/sewer. If there wasn't a chronic water shortage, perhaps they could fill the ditches and float gondolas in them. NAW.

At left are the utensils used for making the starchy dough ball at the bottom of a soup called "fu fu". It's made by pounding the peeled cassava root with the long pole in the large wooden bowl. This picture was taken at the small house across from where I was staying (the digs).

At the right is a pub. Yep, a pub. Some of the night spots
were a bit more modern but not all that much.

At the left is the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. No other picture (lifted from the Internet) could have made this airport look better.









GHANA - PART 3

 

I must confess that, after seeing the airport in Accra (the capital), I wasn’t sure what to expect when getting ready to depart for Kumasi. The Airline that John selected was “Starbow”. We stood at the end of the line and waited for our turn at the counter. The ticket area reminded me of a checkout line during a closeout sale at a discount store in east LA. That any commerce could be conducted in the mass of chaos and confusion was astounding. Nevertheless, we wended our way to the ticket counter after only a long time.

Imagine my surprise as I neared the desk and saw a sign that said, “TAMALE”! My first thought was that I could purchase this Mexican food treat before boarding the plane. However, there wasn’t even a hint of the smell of cooking food and I was around six thousand miles from the nearest Mexican kitchen so that ended that.

It didn’t take long to determine that “TAMALE” is a city in northern Ghana and is its third largest city. It is heavily populated with Muslims and is also heavily populated with “NGO’s” (non-government organizations like the “Catholic Relief Services”, “Care International”, and “World Vision”).

 

After getting our tickets, we were required to wait in a special area prepared for passengers. It was a large tent with a half dozen swamp coolers with misters. It was comfortable enough given the fact that there was no other A/C available. It was still a bit warm for me but at least the chairs were hard and uncomfortable.

My first guess as to what aircraft that they would be using wasn’t a pleasant thought. I could see a 60 year old four engine Douglass DC-6 prop job with one of the motors temporarily (or not) replaced with a big block Chevy engine. Much to my relief they used a real modern jet liner, the BAE 146. The competing airline used an Italian-built 70 passenger ATR 72 turboprop airliner. Having both feet in the "Twilight Zone" wasn't too bad so far.

Prior to departure to Ghana, my dear wife had done a lot of homework about the environment there. Her primary concern was about mosquito bites. Africa has serious health issues due to mosquitoes and she wanted her husband back in good health!  That concern came about when we discovered the fact that you can’t even enter the country if you have not been immunized against “yellow fever”. In fact, when you de-plane and are standing in line, the very first document they demand is the immunization card and not the passport!  

So, nurse Connie began prepping me for the worst. She must have figured that there would be at least a bazillion mosquitoes (a bazillion would be roughly twice the current world population of mosquitoes) with which to contend. So, she doused all of my clothing in some sort of anti-mosquito preparation and loaded up my suitcase with “DEET” mosquito repellant. I had to promise to hose myself down with the stuff each day to ward off death and destruction. That made sense to me as I noted that a wife's "husband preparation program" is inversely proportional to her love for him.

My first morning in Kumasi found me grabbing my pump bottle of “DEET” and giving it a big squirt. An intelligent person would have first verified which direction the nozzle was pointed. My lack of intelligence was brilliantly and painfully reinforced as I shot a blast of that powerful stuff right up my nostrils. Can you imagine the joy in my soul when I realized that no mosquito would ever again be able to threaten my sinuses? Lest I try to protect my eyes too, I just trusted the treated clothing from then on. Guess I can’t be trusted with a loaded pump bottle.

The city utility services in Kumasi are rather “interesting”. The electricity is only on about half the time in any given part of the country. They suffer “shorts” and “longs” which is the local vernacular for the shorter or longer power outages that are suffered daily. These outages come at the most inconvenient times and keep the population angry much of the time.

I was never able to confirm the precise cause for this and neither can the natives. But, there are only a couple of excuses that make any sense. One is that they rotate service to the various regions because there is a shortage of resources. That didn’t appear to me to be the primary cause and others doubt that that is the case. Another reason is a lack of modern hardware including distribution resources and that may be a factor (though, again, not provable). It may be a combination of these items. To me, the preponderance of the blame seems to point to a completely incompetent and completely apathetic government. The government owns the electricity company which is named (drum roll, please), “The Electricity Company of Ghana”. In fact, when queried, the government smugly says, “Blame God” and sloughs the entire matter off.

The outages truly are inconvenient. Much of the time I took sponge baths in the dark or by the light of my cell phone. Not really a hardship per se but it did leave me with a greater appreciation for our system here in the US. Perhaps we can address the the sponge bath part later as we get to the matter of city water dysfunctions. Included in the dynamic is the fact that roughly 40 percent of Kumasi residents still rely on public toilets (recalling that Kumasi is a city of approximately two million souls).

The electricity there is a 220v system with a three pronged plug. You have to have a voltage converter and outlet converter to use appliances hauled in from the US (I did have the adapters). An interesting note is that they usually don’t have the double wall outlets like we do and most folks don’t have (or don’t need) a power strip. That means you can operate your TV or your air conditioner but not both. At the lodge in Ajumako my room had one outlet. I could use either the TV or the small coolerator. As it turned out, I used neither mainly because they only had one (uninteresting) channel on the TV.

Both at the lodge and at the digs, all of that high potency electricity was funneled into a single 30 watt light bulb. I never had enough light until the last night at the lodge in Accra. Only then was I afforded….two….30 watt bulbs. Is that efficiency or what? Having the extra light meant that I could use my video camera while communicating with Connie via “SKYPE”. That was a real treat. You can’t do that with only one bulb, believe you me.

More about the Ghahanian adventure when I can. Ta ta, for now .

You may have to copy and paste the URL's below to be able to watch the videos (I didn’t shoot the videos). If that doesn't work, then type in a You Tube search for the respective title.

VIDEO: In the Streets of Kumasi (You Tube) - 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEvlsE91Q2E&feature=related

 

VIDEO: Kejetia Market in Kumasi (You Tube) - 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbfXkBZ502U&feature=related