Northern Heat

We arrived in Bolgatanga, one of the region’s main cities, early this afternoon after some more gruelling bus rides. Roads seem to be less developed in this part of the country, and that pretty much goes along with the fact that it’s one of the most deprived areas. One statistic I heard was that 75% of people in the North are living in poverty. Looking out at the passing landscape, there was evidence of this. The scene was a lot more barren and, while in Accra most homes are solidly-constructed in concrete or brick, most of the houses I saw from the bus were traditional mud-huts with thatched roofs.

When we arrived we met our host Moses, a local guy of about 23 years, who was well-dressed and impressive in his speech. He’s been working with Kwame for quite some time, and the basis of his current project was a workshop on “Peace Building and Conflict Resolution for Development” in Accra which was organised by GYAN a few months ago. It was very relevant to him, since the Northern region has been plagued by tribal conflict in recent years. There have been intervening periods of fragile peace, like the situation at the moment, but it only takes something small to flare things up again. For example, the last time a major confrontation took place, it was all started off by a dispute between schoolboys.

How are Moses’ projects linked to sustainable development? That was a big question for me, since I couldn’t see a direct link. The answer: you can’t have development without peace. Unless people are getting on with each other and not fighting, there will be no progress on anything like that. In the other parts of Ghana we visited, they’re lucky enough not to have this hurdle to overcome; the people are at peace and so can fully concentrate on development issues. Here, it is a different story. Kwame was telling me that, unless you’ve visited the North, you haven’t seen the real Ghana – both in terms of the way people live and the projects going on up here.

The weather is also very different: hotter. Today I think we missed out on the daily heatwave, but tomorrow is going to be another matter. Unlike in Accra and everywhere else I’ve been so far, I think there will be less breeze to ease the punishing temperatures. So we’re going to try and get the filming done as quickly as possible.

In Transit

Our visit to Cape Coast yesterday is going to be the last leisure activity of this whole trip. Today it’s back to work; we’re travelling all the way to the other side of Ghana to visit projects in the Northern region. Right now I’m in the waiting room of one of the main bus stations in Kumasi; BBC News 24 is on quietly in the background and the surrounding benches each contain a sleeping person. Direct services to Bolgatanga only run on some days, so we’re using a different route. Maybe I don’t really mind that, even though it takes slightly longer – sitting for 14 or 15 hours in the same spot can be a numbing experience, mentally and physically.

I thought it would be better to relax in the day and travel at night, rather than spending the whole day in buses. Will write again tomorrow when we’ve arrived.

Jungle Excitement

Since we got back to Accra at about 11pm last night after a draining experience, the order of today was relaxation.

Before I arrived in Ghana, Emmanuel had old me about one of the country’s main tourist (ugh) attractions in the city of Cape Coast where he is studying. So Kwame and I took a bus there at around midday. It had no opening windows or air conditioning, the perfect recipe for two hours of sweaty discomfort as the vehicle rattled down half-finished dusty roads.

When we neared the city our conditions became slightly more bearable: the road ran parallel to the coastline, a safe distance away from the risk of flooding but close enough for us to enjoy views of the palm-lined beach. It would have been so nice to dive in and escape from the sweltering ride, but our destination was not the seaside. And at any rate, this was no paradise. Stretches of poor housing lay only metres from the water for long periods, surrounded by accumulated junk and rubbish. What a typical site these days: outstanding natural beauty ruined by hideous man-made construction.

Another, more well-ventilated, bus journey took us from the town centre to Kakum National Park – site of Africa’s only treetop canopy walk. Built in only six months with assistance from Canadian expert climbers, the walk consists of seven shaky rope bridges of the kind you normally see in Indiana Jones films stretching over huge canyon drops. Not everyone’s idea of fun, but I thought the walk was spectacular.

We only just managed to get in, after arriving ten minutes late of the park closing time. It would have been tragic to come all the way from Accra and be turned away at the gates, I’m very glad that didn’t happen. We had a guide to take us along the rote, which involved some steep climbs and nervous moments on the first bridge before I got used to it.

Looking down from any of the raised platforms in between bridges, you could hardly see the ground. Sadly there were no animals around at this time of day – they are moved to another area of the park away from people – but the air was filled with sounds of rainforest insect life.

I was transfixed by the scenery. During our travels around Ghana for the last two weeks I have seen a lot of this kind of thing, but having an aerial view is completely different to being on ground level. The forest is vast. Green treetops of all kinds stretched as far as the eye could see. I wouldn’t want to get lost in there.

That was definitely one of the highlights of my trip to Ghana. I’ll never forget those views, the vast, untouched natural beauty of the rainforest. One of the worst crimes on this planet is cutting down this kind of landscape to make fast-food packaging; at the rate this happens, before long our world will be devoid of all its splendour and we’ll be left with nothing.

Wastage

You always have to prepare for if things go wrong. Today, unfortunately, that did not happen.

We met Emmanuel to go and visit one of his projects in the Volta region, a sustainable irrigation system powered by clean energy. He had talked about it at the CSD so I was really looking forward to seeing how it all worked. This could be a main feature of the documentary.

Problem number one was the lateness of Emmanuel’s friend Dixon, who had kindly agreed to drive us to the project site. He was very apologetic, but we were resultantly pushed for time to reach our destination in the hours of daylight (you can’t film anything when it’s dark). Nevertheless, we were pretty much on schedule until the next complication emerged…

The car broke down.

Thankfully this happened quite near a village, so Dixon got a lift down there and returned with mechanics to tow the car back. If we’d had the accident somewhere in the middle of the countryside it would have been much harder finding assistance.

So we went to the mechanics’ shop and sat around for the best part of two hours while three men tried to fix the engine using nothing but a screwdriver. The main guy seemed determined to achieve the feat with no other tools, despite repeated coughing and spitting from the vehicle whenever it was switched on. For a while it seemed like they were making things worse, intensifying the problem and further wasting our valuable time.

Moreover, we knew there were financial difficulties on the way. We had spent our money on petrol for the journey, so there was very little left to pay out incompetent friends. When they did finally repair the engine fault, we had to take one of their crew in the car with us and hunt for an ATM.

It had been decided we would make one last surge to reach the project that day, since there were no other times Emmanuel could show us around. So we set off in that direction again, keeping a sharp eye out for banks. Chances of finding one seemed increasingly unlikely as we passed through rural communities. Most of the people here probably do not have bank accounts.

Then the unthinkable happened (not for the first time on this trip): our car broke down again. It was the same fault; only a makeshift job had been done back at the village. We were stuck again, in a small roadside settlement where street sellers swarmed around every passing vehicle, aggressively shoving their products through windows in hope of a sale.

The town was located near a large lake and I witnessed a new natural phenomenon that evening: the fastest sunset I have ever seen. In under ten minutes the distant orange circle sunk down and disappeared from view; with it went our final chances of doing any filming at all today. Frustration.

After more sitting around, waiting to see if local mechanics could be found, we decided to give up on the car. Emmanuel did return with a possible repairman, but it was too dark to fix anything. We pushed the sorry vehicle to a safe spot near the police checkpoint and got on a bus back to Accra. The whole sequence of events was like a bad dream.

And it was the World Cup football results which turned my bad dream into a nightmare. England lost to Portugal on penalties, a repeat of the European Championship quarter-final tow years ago. I didn’t see anything on TV, since I was in one of those remote villages waiting for the car to be fixed. Instead I borrowed Emmanuel’s phone and tuned into the radio commentary, which made depressive listening. Goodbye Sven, you won’t be missed.

Unexpected Discovery

The late return last night meant it was time for a well-deserved lie in today. Luckily there was no reason to rush anywhere, since the first item on our schedule was a meeting at 2pm with the Executive of Ghana’s new Youth Parliament.

We got a taxi to the offices of the National Youth Council, where the appointment was taking place. Everyone was a little late, but we still managed to thoroughly discuss the main topic: visiting the UKYP National Sitting in July. We had to go through all the fine details with budget and visa arrangements, so these can be worked on next week. Hopefully the government will provide funding for the five-person delegation, or three or four at the very least.

Ghana’s National Youth Council is located right next to one of Accra’s main sports complexes; I had seen people playing football from a window and wanted to check it out. I even got to play tennis for a while after the club coach generously said it was OK, despite the fact I wasn’t a registered member.

My partner was a young guy called Francis, who told me all about the tennis situation in Ghana. Apparently it’s quite popular – I could see this from the amount of people waiting to use the two club courts. I don’t know why, but I hadn’t really expected this to be the case. Ghana does have great conditions for tennis, but this was the first time I’d seen any courts. They were being very well-used though, so I suppose it must be the same wherever facilities are available.

Unfortunately it got dark around six o’clock so we had to stop the game. This was still a cool experience though, and hopefully there will be time to go back again. One unusual luxury the players enjoyed was having ball boys available to collect the balls. I’d never had this before, something Francis found quite surprising. He told me the children were always there; it was their only way to generate income. So, while it might be fun for the club members to have this service available, the dark side is that these kids don’t have any education or proper kind of job.

This evening I went with Kwame to a sports bar on the site of the Paloma Hotel, where I spent my first night in Ghana. As soon as I stepped inside I was hit by the westernisation of the place. For the first time since I’ve been here, Ghanaian people were in the minority; the only natives around were serving drinks. The clientele were all tourists of the kind I don’t really like. I think they were mostly British – British tourists always seem to have some kind of presence I can detect and don’t appreciate. It may seem silly for me to say that, but I don’t regard myself as a tourist, especially in the circumstances of why I am in Ghana. Also, whenever I visit anywhere, I deliberately try not to follow the beaten paths of tourism. Yes, seeing some famous sites is always worthwhile, but the rest of the time I like exploring the native culture and learning about how people live. A nice tan is not top of my priority list. Unlike most tourists, who don’t care if everyone can see they’re from abroad, I try to be inconspicuous (very hard in Africa though, obviously, but Europe is a different story). When I get home from a trip, I want to be able to say I’ve had a truly unique experience – not the same as all the other visitors who were there. That’s the way to travel.

Anyway, we didn’t stay at that place very long. After getting soundly beaten at foosball for the third game by the same opponents, it was time to go home. The sports bar was too much like places I see all the time in London and hanging out in similar environments to what you’re used to is not good activity when in other countries.

Today was a landmark date for me. It’s exactly a year since my last exam at school. Wow. I can still remember the cascades of relief when I finished the Politics paper, stepping out of the classroom into the afternoon sun and knowing I was free. That was June 30, 2005. Back then I could not possibly have anticipated all that has transpired in the intervening time. Who could have predicted I would be in Ghana, or that I would have been in more than 20 countries overall? After that exam all I could think about was hurrying back home to get ready for the end-of-school boat party.

One thing is for sure: I wouldn’t change the way anything happened in that year, or swap the experience for any other. I’ve learnt so much more than I could have imagined – about myself as much as anything else – and in terms of life experience I’ve learnt more than I ever did in all my time at school. My life has changed in lots of major ways, especially in terms of how I’m planning to spend the rest of it. Taking time away from study has really broadened my perspectives and there have been some truly unforgettable moments along the way. Not to say it’s over yet though, I still have three months left!