KUMASI

Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city and the center of the Ashanti nation, is located in the middle of Ghana, and…. oh JOY!.....  it has STREET SIGNS!         But no celebration is in order, we discover.  The street names have mostly been changed and don’t even remotely match those on our map.   Nevertheless the city is far more manageable, developed and navigable than the country’s capital, and we see every sight on our list.   But steering our way through the throngs of people who come here to participate in West Africa’s largest market, in 100+ degree heat (33 celsius), is no easy chore.    The cement sidewalks, all of which are uneven, cracked and cracking, are too narrow for the mass of people and their wares.   Women (and they are ALL women) carry an entire store’s worth of goods on their heads, babies on their backs and baskets in their hands.  People are forced to walk in the roadways, which are jammed fender to fender with cars, private taxis, and tro- tro’s, shared taxi vans which don’t stop as people jump on and off.   As we walk the length and breadth of the streets, we risk life and limb to visit the distant Kumasi hospital grounds where a sword was buried by an Ashanti high priest in the 1600’s, with only the handle above ground.   The Priest proclaimed that when the sword is removed from the ground the Ashanti nation will fall.   No less than the likes of Mohammed Ali, the guide tells us, and other famous strongmen, tried but failed to remove the sword.   As we lumbered to the site, it was difficult to know who were the hospital’s patients and who were their visitors.   Everyone is thin and looks like they’re wearing pajamas.   Most disconcerting - the hospital entrance was lined with fancy hearses waiting for business.  Not very good advertising for the hospital, we thought.

In addition to the famous buried sword, The Ashanti Cultural Center and the Palace of the Ashanti King are two “musts” for Kumasi. 

But it’s the street life that is the main attraction here.  

Imagine an open air market that stretches about as far as the eye can see, the size of an entire former railroad stockyard, or 4 football fields, containing street vendors, shanty shacks and kiosks, packed shoulder to shoulder.  People from all over West Africa (composed of 17 countries) sell every manner of the cast-offs of the western world.   The shoe piles, reminiscent of Nazi movies, are stacked high with worn shoes of every size, shape and color in varying states of disintergration, calling out to be reborn into their new lives  somewhere in Africa.   There are televisions from the 1970’s, tea kettles and toasters from the 80’s, clothes from the 90’s and very little from the 2000’s. 

To escape the afternoon sun after walking for more than 5 hours, I head to the Vodafone internet center, an air conditioned hub and whirl of 21^st century buzz, every one of the more than 40 stations occupied by a 20-something Ghanian and a few ex-pats and western stragglers en route to somewhere.  Its hard to believe that just outside the front door, indoor plumbing and electricity are a much coveted luxury for the lucky few.