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.