Route Change!

Big, gigantic disappointment!  Because of recent tourist kidnappings and killings by "Al Qaeda in the Magreb," we won't be going to Timbouctu and northern Mali - one of the main reason I came to western Africa.   Ever since I can remember I've wanted to visit the enormous centuries-old mud mosque at Djenne,  and see the ancient books at Timbouctu and the marabout who guard them.   When I was young I continually asked my father when we were on long car trips, "where are we going and when will we finally get there?"   He always answered that we were going to "Timbouctu," which I remember thinking was somewhere out west, in Iowa or Kansas.

Insurance won't cover us if something goes wrong since northern Mali is listed as off limits for citizens of both the US and the UK.  Many of us discussed signing waivers and making our own way there for a couple of days, but decided that the reward was not worth the risk.  

We will, however  be in Bamako in southern Mali, capital of West Africa's afro-beat music scene, and hope to vent our frustration and disappointment dancing under the stars in the open-air clubs.   I hope I will be able to stay awake.

We'll be on the road for 4 days and probably out of touch for that long.

Wish me luck

THE ROAD FROM GHANA TO BURKINA FASO

As we make our way through rural Ghana to its northern border into Burkina Faso, the long distances over hard-packed dirt roads in this typically dry season, make for dusty, hot drives with only open windows for relief.   At the end of each day our clothes are filthy and when we can shower, towels are encased in black dirt as we rub the grime from our bodies.

But I got to visit a monkey cemetery!

In a stellar example of communities working together to benefit the local monkey population, two rural villages along our route joined together some years ago to protect the resident monkeys in the forest which separates them.   The monkeys are sacred and, the residents claim, wander into the villages when they are going to die so that the residents can give them a proper burial.    Funerals for the monkeys are solemn events and are well attended by the residents of the villages.  (I don't think surviving monkeys attend!)   We had a walk through the forest and close encounters with the monkeys.  

Crossing into Burkina Faso was pleasantly uneventful.   A lone shed at the border told us we had arrived.    With our visas stamped and the guardrail lifted, we were in and found a field to camp before twilight turned to total darkness.

The next day a small group of us decided to take a side trip to a troglodyte village several hours away and planned to meet up with the larger group in two days.

It did not start off very well.    We were told that the vehicle we hired would hold 9 of us.   When it arrived,  there was only room for 5.   The guide insisted that 9 could fit, as the vehicle doubled as a taxi and regularly transported 11.  I explained that perhaps there was room for 11 Africans but that only 5 westerners (plus the African guide and driver) could squeeze in.   Somehow, we managed to get 8 of us in.  One in the group (wisely) decided to bow out.

Ten minutes on the open road and the side door blew open – an apparently common occurrence.  One bungee cord later we were on our way.  Then there was a flat tire.  These were not good omens. 

Troglodytes, we learn, are cave dwellers, and these particular caves were first inhabited 300 years ago by those trying to escape the marauding muslim invaders.  The troglodytes  found their haven in the high rocky outcrops hidden in the surrounding mountains.  

What I didn’t realize was that we would have to climb the almost sheer rocky face of the mountain for 1 ½ hours to reach the dwellings without benefit of steps built for tourists or snack bars along the way.   Filthy after not showering for 3 days and hot, we started the ascent easily enough.   But soon the incline got steeper, my pack back and camera gear got heavier and the granite surface had fewer and fewer ridges to grip with our hands and feet.    I began to loose it when my flip-flop ripped about ¾ of the way up.  (Our guide, also in flip-flops, had given no indication when we met him, of the unsuitability of my footwear).   There was no turning back as we were close to the summit and the dwellings it hid.  My water bottle was nearly empty and I was scratched up and miserable. 

Before the ascent, we had met the Chief of the village located at the bottom of the mountain.    He is the last survivor of the cave dwellers and came down from the mountain only 45 years ago at the age of 20.   We sat with him under a tree as our guide translated his stories about life on the edge of the mountain and how it compared to life in the dusty, dry village where descendants of the troglodyte dwellers now live.

I managed to make it to the top and back down the mountain when someone in the group with far more foresight than I, extracted tape from her backpack and bandaged the flip flop to my foot.   We wandered among the dwellings, many of which still contained pottery used by the former residents.   The view to the Cote d’Ivoire and Mali, 8 and 10 kms away, respectively, was spectacular.   Coming down was much easier, and was mostly done on my rear end. 

  

FOOD

Its been days since I was last able to connect to the internet and we’ve covered almost the entire length of Ghana since then.   Rather than give a chronological, day-by-day account of all that’s happened and has been seen, I thought I would start with the most important.

Food seems always to be utmost in our minds.    Since we left the city we have mostly traveled dirt roads and see only the occasional mud and thatched-roof village, our only lifeline to the outside world.   There are no restaurants en route to our next destination so we do our own food shopping and cooking.   What can I say but, “oy vey”!

My 4-person cook group is “on” for breakfast, lunch and dinner once every 4-5 days.   We plan the menu for all 18 of us and, to put it mildly, the menu is quite limited:   We dream of truffle pasta, lamb stew, chicken, or fish, but alas, we make do with what is available:   pasta with margarine, vegetable stew and lots of white bread and, the Breakfast of Champions:   cocoa puffs, boxes of which were bought way back in Accra.  

Our  food shopping expedition for tonight’s dinner was done two days ago when we came upon the last large village between here and the Burkina Faso border, which we will cross tomorrow.

The village was large, a main trading center for the region, and  the sole dirt road passing through it was lined with “stalls” of vendors selling their goods – a sort of Famers’ Market without the expensive wine or home-made pies. The stalls were made using two upright tree trunks, connected by a wood shelf and a make-shift roof of plastic bags to shield the vendor from the 100 degree heat and torturous sun.

At one end were the ubiquitous used shoe salesmen, the previously-owned small appliance magnates, and various second-hand retail outlets- the detritus of the developed world, repaired, recycled, and repackaged for sale to the third world as luxury items.  At the other end, were the food sellers – family farmers selling their crops and women hawking their freshly made (white only) bread.    And that was about it.   The cassava, an African staple which looks like a potato but is about 4-5 feet long, was bountiful, as were pineapple and papaya, both of which we bought  - $1.30 bought us as much as we could eat.  But all we could find for dinner was tomatoes, (sold at only 2 of the stalls) and one small basket of teeney, tiny green peppers.   We cornered the market on the peppers and tried to buy the only few avocadoes in the entire market but the woman, for reasons beyond our comprehension, would not sell them to us.   We begged her, but she just kept saying, “No!”  (“No avocado for you!”)   We nicknamed her the “Avocado Nazi,”  and walked away dejected and dismayed by our inadequacy.  How will we tell the group that   tonight’s menu is pasta vegetable medley, (the medley being the freshly bought tomatoes and green peppers, together with a can of mushrooms in the group’s private tin stash bought back in Accra)?  The only good news is that there will be plenty of fruit for dessert. 

Protein is at a premium here.

Things are only slightly better in the city.

No matter what we order they don’t have it:  the smoothie bar has no smoothies, the gift shop can’t make change of a 5 for a 2.50 ice cream, there is no orange juice for the “orange Julius,” and the pizza took 2 ½ hours from order to delivery, tableside. The “African” restaurant has no African food (only pizza), the chocolate milk shake is just that:  chocolate milk shaken, by hand, and served with ice. The best meal I’ve had since New York was Indian.   Dreaming of a steak (and I’m a vegetarian!).

BUSH CAMPING

Bush camping, I’ve learned, is very different from your regular, run of the mill camping.   In a regular camp here in Africa, there is (usually) something that passes for a shower, and “drop toilets.”   Bush camps, on the other hand, have no amenities to offer but the open field and night sky.  Death can come to those without a flashlight!

Last night we bush camped beside a gorgeous waterfall where we bathed as best we could in the rushing water and brushed our teeth with the bottled water we closely guard.  But why is it that at home, with the comfort of a modern bathroom only steps away, I never have to pee in the middle of the night?  But here, of course, I seem to wake up every night around 2:30 a.m., desperate to urinate. My flashlight is always at my sleeping bag’s side, right beside my head, to be grabbed for the mid-night bathroom run, or any emergency that might arise.

The flashlight is of course, no match for the pair of shining eyes that stare at me from only a few feet away.   Stop in my tracks or make a run for the tent?   I chose the latter and survived to tell the tale.  

Last night we camped in a regular camp ground in Ghana’s largest animal preserve.   One of my traveling companions proclaimed that we had the good fortune of falling upon Africa’s most fabulous toilet – shiny white, spotlessly clean, and odor-free.   Although the shower had no hot water faucet, the water was heated as it flowed through pipes warmed by an outside temperature that exceeds 100 degrees.  AND, there’s a swimming pool.   We are in heaven. 

Until we discover the baboons and warthog family, with 4 babies in tow, rummaging through our stuff.  A threw strategically thrown rocks is enough to get them on their way.

We had an early morning 3-hour walk through the bush of the preserve, looking for animals.   We only saw some antelope, various birds and a lone elephant, which we stalked to get a better look.    Its way too hot for even the wildlife to emerge from the shade and strut their stuff.   Oh well.   There’s always tomorrow.


n.b.     The elephant we followed earlier today got his revenge overnight.   He came into our campsite in the middle of the night and woke us up with his stomping and chomping.    He finally left just before dawn.  

THE SLAVE TRADE

I came to West Africa, capital of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, because I wanted to see the loading docks and holding pens from which the slaves were shipped across the world.  Ghana and Senegal, (my last stop on this leg of the trip), were the epicenters of man’s brutal and sadistic business of the day.     We visited two of the most sinister and cruel of these pens – Gold Coast and Elmina Castles on Ghana’s coast.   Variously controlled by the Swedes, Portuguese, Dutch and British, the castles were first built as forts and were later converted to holding cells for natives captured throughout Africa by the Europeans and their (black) Ashanti partners, who came to the area from northern Ghana in the 11^th century and who once comprised a mighty empire. 

The Arabs ruled the Trans-Sahara route, transporting slaves east from Zanzibar to Arabia and India and points beyond.  The Europeans oversaw shipments in the other direction.   It is estimated that a total of 60 million Africans  were captured throughout the 300+ years of slavery’s official existence, but that only 20 million, one-third, survived the forced marches from villages across the continent, the barbaric conditions of the holding pens and the treacherous Trans-Atlantic or Trans-Saharan journey.   Its difficult to understand the business decision of men (and they were all men) who imprisoned their merchandise in dark, dank, airless spaces, shackled and chained, sitting hunched in their own excrement, unable to move, waiting for ships, which arrived once every 3 months.  “Troublemakers” were put in dungeons until death, without food, water, light or air.  The female slaves were regularly raped (of course) and thrown overboard if pregnant in transport.  Those captives who survived incarceration eventually passed through the “Door of No Return” as they left their pens and boarded ships that took them to new indignities throughout the Americas.

The guide at the Gold Coast Castle brought us into a room known as the “Dungeon of Death,” complete with skull and bones over the door, put there by the Portuguese in the 16^th century.     Built as a deterrent, it housed those who had tried to escape or otherwise misbehaved.  The only way out was death.  Without warning, the guide locked the door behind us.   Suddenly and without warning we were imprisoned without light or air, in stifling heat and darkness.   The only reason we didn’t panic was that we knew we would be released within seconds.  The former captives who left their shackle marks etched on the stone walls knew they would die a long, painful death, alone.   The 90- degree outside temperature was a cool relief when we finally left the cell.

The Obama’s had been to the Castle in 2009 and laid a wreath which is still in the same spot.  Ghanians are very proud to tell you that Michelle Obama comes from Ghanian roots.

To lift our spirits, we left the castles and visited a local school where we painted a badly worn classroom.   Since it was a Sunday, the kids were unfortunately not there.   But the schoolmaster, a teacher, and just a few students, got us started with the paint brushes and paint and within a few hours the classroom was much brighter and cheerier.   Linda’s pencils and stickers were a big hit and the schoolmaster promised to give them as prizes to the best students.  He expected grades to rise for all students immediately!

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.