Ghanaian Coast 2

17/18/19/20/21 March 2011

BUSIA, Ghana – I’m in Heaven

Fortr Apollalina

It is all so easy here – reminds me of Legion in Bali years and years ago. Great beach, plenty of cheap little places to stay and lots of yummy cheap restaurants to eat at. There’s Frank the juice man, who offers to fill water bottle up with fresh mango/pineapple/whatever for a few cedis. There is a pancake shop where the banana pancake has a wrapped chocolate served on top to be spread after it has softened on the hot pancake. Transport from here is very frequent, so I make a few day trips out to Beyin, near the Cote d’Ivoire border to check their Apollonia Fort and a stilt village built over a very large lake. Eco tourism means that from my ‘entrance and camera fee’ the village receives 12% and 88% is going to nearby districts hmmm. As well if I would like the village chief to explain some of the history, then I should purchase a bottle of Gin to take as a gift. Hmm The trip includes being paddled out for nearly an hour along a lovely river lined with raffia palms and fish traps. After visiting, my guide asks me if I have any questions – I tell him I didn’t see any old people there. He replied that when you get too old to fish or contribute to the village, then you must leave! Methinks that their village society is missing out on a lot without grandparents around – very strange. Another day I travel out to Axim and their Fort and another day I walk over the hill to Butre where they are restoring their fort. I lunch at a beach restaurant and meet Mac, a hairdresser from England! Alas he doesn’t have his scissors with him as after nearly 3 months my hair is looking awful but he promises to text me the name and address of a hairdresser in Accra.  HeI advised me against trying someone local, unless I wanted my hair shaved off and then artificial hair braided into it – think I’ll give that a miss – not that it stops plenty of tourists and vollies from having their hair braided and seeing their scalps burned within a day or so as the pale skin is exposed to the sun as never before! We go looking for another place here in Butre and find it’s still being built by two lovely young poms. They bought the land with lots of dreams of what they could do on the riverfront and then found that they had not been sold access to the river! Mac sympathised as the same thing had happened to him whilst buying land near his wife’s village. When signing for the land an agreement (verbal) was made that the locals would no longer use the nearby grounds as a rubbish dump or public toilet – alas neither has ceased, making the walkway to their place most unpleasant. However after recently clearing the area in front of their place of rubbish, locals dobbed them in for illegally clearing the area!! Methinks that their stay is not very welcome but a meeting was to happen today with the tourism board, the village elders and themselves to try to come to some agreement. We wished them the best of luck and Mac headed back to his hut I headed back over the hill, armed with a stick in case of anyone jumping out of the bushes as I had been warned may happen “to a white woman” walking alone to and from Butre!

Lovely Girl Guides

With the Takoradi Guiding hierachy!!

One day I head in to nearby Takoradi to meet up with the Guiding Commissioner there, Regina AbaSelby, who picks me up in full Guide uniform. Her hospitality is wonderful - we visit 2 different schools where I meet the Guides and teach them to sing Kookaburra. They sing ‘a ram sam sam’ for me and SHINE – this requires that you rub your hands together briskly until you feel the heat. Then THUNDER is a clap, TWICE two claps then GIVE IT TO YOURSELF you wave your hands back over yourself to give yourself the LOVE! I am presented with gifts of a traditional boubou with scarf and a lovely wooden pen holder and we lunch together at a golf club overlooking the ocean! Just like another world really! Am I still in Africa – oh yes I am, it’s fresh tilapia fish and jollof rice for lunch mmmmm

Busia's main road

I find excuse after excuse to stay another day here in Busia – and one evening I join with other tourists at one of the popular bars to meet a couple of volunteers who have just finished their stint in Nigeria – meaning that they are officially still residents of Nigeria, even though they won’t be returning. I chat for a while with them and when they hear that I want to visit Nigeria Heather is happy to supply her resident’s card information for me to include on a ‘letter of invitation’ which may sway the officials into giving me that visa.

Busia's main beach - kept so clean!

FACT: Think of any Christian based church and I bet they are here in Ghana along with quite a few self styled evangelical outfits to boot. Instead of a mosque in every village or suburb, I’m seeing churches, assembly halls and divine meeting places everywhere here. Even the stilt village near Beyin had two very nice churches built above the lake. God is good, God is great and the nicest thing you can say to someone is “God bless you” – they love it!!!