Ghana Part 4

At left is a view of the front yard of the digs. The hedge was trimmed with a machete then a young man with a whisk broom spent most of the day stooped over and cleaning up the trimmings. All sweeping inside our out was done this way!

To the right is the "Central Market" in Kumasi. The city has about 2 million people in it and most of them were there

 





 
This sign probably needs no explanation but I can 't help wonder how large an issue this was before someone had to post a sign!





At right is the bed at the Desaabre Lodge. Spartan but adequate












The small sticker at the bottom of this electricity meter says, "Pay and Smile". Guess we're not the only ones who gripe about our utility bills

To the right is a shot taken from the front porch of the digs. They seem to take security rather seriously in Ghana. The entire country looked like a huge compound






This is definately a real Chinese restaurant with a real Chinese owner. But, make no mistake, you can still get "Fu Fu" and other local dishes. This place soon became my friend

To the right is a "roundal" with a herd of taxis zipping around it. All taxis have bright orange quarter panels and almost all of them are "Opels". At least ten percent of the vehicles on the road are taxis and even more at certain times of the day


                                                                                    

The Sahara Desert is a mind boggling wilderness. It seemed as though our flight over this place would never end. It is obvious that at some time in the past it was filled with rivers. Perhaps the "gold of Ophir" mentioned in the Bible was mined here

There are a lot of different things to see and observe in Ghana. One is that there are no paper towels to be found. I don’t think I even saw any in the markets. There certainly weren’t any in any of the restaurants. They did come around with a hot towel with which you could clean your hands. Likewise, I did find a sink in the dining area and it had a hand towel available.

There is a snack there that I’ve never seen any place else. It is a small plastic soda bottle filled with a mix of peanuts and cooked but un-popped popcorn. It was rather uninspiring but worth the effort and minimal expense (about a buck as I recall).

We in the US are not used to valets and such but Kumasi seems to have a lot of them. These guys are “Johnny on the sport” to help direct your parking efforts and to open your door for you. They even help you back up when you leave. They may get a small wage but my guess is that they work for tips. So, it is customary to have a handful of change with you wherever you go.

Because of the poverty there, most individuals drive small cars and many have motorcycles. One such cycle is a cool utility three-wheeler with a pickup bed on it. It appeared to have about a 200cc-250cc engine and was made in China (JinHao brand). I observed one such three-wheeler that was toting three large cow heads. Another was hauling a load of coconuts and another had 5 guys piled on it. These are Handy gadgets, to be sure.  I would love to have one of these little haulers.

Lining virtually every major street were what I called “shanty shops”. They could be made of wood but many were made of metal. The metal ones tended to be either 4’x 4’ or 8’ x 8’ while many wooden ones were smaller yet. The metal ones also had a single large metal door that was closed and locked at night. Venders sold everything from soup to nuts. I suppose that the owners of the small wooden spots simply tote their pots and pans and wares off for the night.

Can you imagine being in a large city (a city with 2 million people seems large to me) with cattle grazing in the median with two lanes of traffic whizzing by on either side? It was a tad difficult for me, too. But, here was a herd of ten cattle lazily noshing away at the scrub grass that was doing its best to survive. I can’t say that I blamed them because there was very little other grass in the area on which to graze. They don’t exactly have “Farmer’s Feed and Supply” stores there. In other places, goats were seen wandering about thither and yon seemingly unattended and un-owned while others were in attended herds.

Hawkers were everywhere. There were hundreds of them. Most were in the medians or alongside the street at every intersection that had a traffic signal or stop sign. There was little that you couldn’t purchase whether a bag of water (yep…a 12 oz bag), popcorn, bread/rolls, coconuts, casaba, newspapers, or a cell phone charger. I didn’t see any bowling balls for sale. They descended in droves upon the stopped vehicles. I felt guilty for not buying something but later was comfortable just simply smiling and shaking my head, “No, thank you”.

The huge number of taxi’s was almost mind boggling until you stopped to think that most people there don’t own a car. Some don’t even own a bicycle so taxi’s are their primary transport. My guess is that more than ten percent of the cars on the road were taxi’s.

The preferred car for a taxi is the Opel.  That was surprising to me but apparently they are roomier (not sure how that can be because there are almost no large vehicles there). There are two versions of the Opel taxi: the “short put” and the “long put” with the “long put” being more like a station wagon. All taxi’s have orange quarter panels. I don’t recall seeing a radio of any kind on any of them. Many are LNG powered.

Because of the lack of consistent refrigeration, many juices come in cartons similar to what I’ve seen used for chicken and beef broth. They are very practical containers but the lids are difficult to open. Being part gorilla with a great deal of upper body strength (prehensile tail not required), I felt that I was up to the challenge of opening my juice box without the assistance of even the most modest of modern tools. I tugged …and… tugged… until the lid ….suddenly…..and violently…gave way. The purple geyser that ensued was a real photo op. Most unfortunately, my entourage of professional photographers missed their plane and weren’t on hand to catch this epic event. Once again I will not make the pages of “National Geographic Magazine”. *SIGH*.

Well, being baptized in grape juice isn’t all that big of a deal, I suppose. However, there are no paper towels with which to clean up the mess. I had to be creative and sacrifice a sock to get the ocean of purple off the floor.

The presence of Muslims is prominent. Approximately 15%-16% of the population in Kumasi is Muslim which is to say, they are everywhere. It seemed to me that most were goat herders. An interesting fact is that almost none of them are from Ghana. They are from just about every place but there. Yes, they are being “imported” as part of the “jihad” to conquer the planet. They are literally “going into all of the world” for Allah. It is working quite well.

Mosques there are sponsored by a particular sect or group of Muslims from other nations. Most are fairly nice and seem to be comparatively prosperous while others are situated in a rundown neighborhood and are rather squalid. In one spot there was a huge beautiful new mosque parked in a really rundown neighborhood.

The best that I can tell, the folks in Ghana have no idea what a box springs and mattress are. They have a mattress, to be sure. But, it is mounted on the floor or close to the floor. I slept in four different beds in three different cities and all were the same. The bed that I am used to is high enough to accommodate several guitar and fiddle cases under it (it’s on risers). Dragging my old airframe up off the floor was inconvenient but was not a punishment.

Did you know you can get “bush meat” in Kumasi? You probably can’t imagine just why anyone would want to eat bush meat in Kumasi but it is available. I may have mentioned it prior, but you can order yourself a heapin’ helpin’ of a large jungle rodent called an akrante. I do like to try new things but never found myself hungry enough to experiment that much with my diet. I’m betting that it probably tastes like chicken or the squirrels I shot alongside a creek bank in Kansas in 1960.

It was a bit unusual to notice that there were no water heaters there. It really does make sense when you stop to think about it. Who would waste good Cedi’s (the national currency) on raising the temperature of water when you are always trying to find ways to cool off? A “cool day” Ghana is around 85 degrees! If anyone needs water for the dishes, they just heat a bucket of water on the stove. The water out of the tap is usually about the same as a swimming pool so you can cool down some. That is, of course, to say that you can do so if water is actually available. It was available once per week while I was there. That quickly explained all of the 5 gallon buckets full of water that were stored in the huge shower area of the digs. Amazing.  

No one drinks coffee in Kumasi and probably elsewhere in Ghana. They all drink tea. Most drink Lipton “Yellow Label” tea. I drank it in Kumasi and I drank it in Accra. I later found out that “Yellow Label” was the original Lipton tea. In the US we drink the orange pekoe blend. However, I did find that the “Yellow Label” tea is available online. I like both and brought a box of “Yellow Label” back with me. I truly did miss my espresso maker, though.

In a Kumasi market (which reminded me of the “Minkler Cash Store” on Hwy 180 east of Fresno, CA what with the wooden floor and such) I did run across some bags of tortilla chips. That was a bit of a surprise but not as much of one as when I was in Accra and getting ready to return to the US. I found tortillas, taco mix, and salsa! Who woulda thunk?

Pepsi Cola is somewhat of a rarity in Kumasi. Either Pepsi isn’t popular in Ghana or the Coke distributor shot and killed the Pepsi distributor (that actually happened in Thailand about ten years ago so….who knows). I did find a few cans at one particular market but Diet Pepsi was definitely not available at any time or anywhere (in fact, I don’t recall seeing any diet drinks there!). Bummer, dude. Coke, on the other hand, was in abundant supply. I am not a Coke drinker but was forced to slake my thirst with Coca Cola or water. Given the fact that water will rust your pipes, I drank a couple of Cokes and was quite surprised to find that they were made with real sugar. In other words, they tasted like they did when I was in high school (not many years prior to the trade embargo with Cuba where the US used to get most of its sugar).

Some foods there are still pounded into submission. The cooked casaba root is smashed into a dough ball with a long pole in a large wooden vessel. It takes about ten minutes per dough ball. I’ve seen them do it in TV documentaries but never in person. The dough ball is broken into servings, cooked in a soup base, then meat is tossed in which then makes it “fu fu”. The meat can be chicken, lamb, mutton, akrante, beef, fish (usually Talapia but smoked catfish is available), or what all.

 

Speaking of food, it was difficult to comprehend not seeing fast food restaurants at all. I did see a McDonald’s in Accra but that was the only one. Again, that’s probably due to the lack of disposable income there. Perhaps they should offer their version of the local fare and call it “McFuFu”.

They have their version of pizza there, too. However, it is a highly modified version of what we eat here. They don’t seem to use tomato sauce on their pizzas. That’s probably because the nearest tomato is several thousand miles away. Anyway, their almost-a-pizzas are not inspiring so I re-named them “edible frizbees”.

Radio newscasts are something else to listen to. They sound like a screaming and yelling match, an out of control political debate, or a preaching contest but brother John assured me that they were just relating the news. How weird.

The crows there are black and are about the same size as in the US but have a large white cape around their neck. How interesting. I saw mourning doves there too but they are somewhat smaller. They appeared to be about 75% as large as the ones in the US and resembled the “Diamond Dove” though not quite as small.

These are few observations. I’ll probably go back to a narrative next time. Stay tuned.