Ghana's second city

Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti region, is Ghana's second largest city. It is considerably smaller than Accra and has a natural centre. The centre is a proper hub for transport, a market, high street stores and a high degree of bustle to the point of being overcrowded and a little overwhelming! The market sprawls under a series of makeshift tin roofs with themed sections selling fabric, household products, secondhand clothes and food. There was a whole block of street devoted to yams, neatly laid out in heaps on colourful sheets of cloth on the pavement. The narrow lanes of the market barely allow for two people to pass side by side. As we negotiated them, we were faced with oncoming carts, wheelbarrows, trolleys, ducking to avoid women balancing large heavy loads on their heads.

There is an impressive basilica, the huge kejetia market and if you venture a little out of town, the Ashanti king's palace. The Ashanti are one of the most powerful groups in Ghana. We learnt a bit about the history of the royal family. Their symbol is the porcupine, meaning that they are peaceloving but will defend themselves in the event of attack. The king is involved in lots of customs and there are strict rules, for example, during cereminies he is carried in a palanquin as his feet must not touch the floor to protect him from evil spirits. In the past, Ashanti kings were not taught to read or write as it was not considered appropriate for the king to attend school, but this has changed in recent times. No one but the king is allowed to sit in the thrones. The queen mother also has a prominent role to play in ceremonies and customs, and wields the most power as she chooses who the next king will be!

Kumasi is also renowned for its art and culture, and has a huge cultural centre with artisan workshops and really competitive prices. It's a peaceful respite from the manic centre of town. We came away with kente cloth, which is woven in the Ashanti region, beads and some great paintings.




Bustling centre of Kumasi

 




Kejetia market with basilica in the distance



Going into the narrow, hectic, lanes of the market




Crowded street

   



Man in traditional robes outside Ashanti palace

 

Food - Ghanaian style

Ghana offers such a range and choice of cuisine (I've previously mentioned the sushi bar), but having just introduced my cousin to some local dishes, thought I'd share some of the pictures! I mostly enjoy Ghanaian food and eat it a few times a week. It consists of lots of stews and soups and can be quite spicy. Spicy 'shito'(!) sauce or a chilli salsa 'pepe' accompany lots of dishes. Plantain, yam and cassava are the main staples. Street food consists of fried yam or plantain, roasted plantain, egg and bread for breakfast or rice and noodles for lunch.

The stew or soup is generally eaten with a stodgy carbohydrate (with your hands, so you break off bits and dip it in the stew or soup). It's quite messy and you're provided with soap and a bowl of water at the table before and after your meal. Rice is also eaten in very large quantities, and most street vendors and restaurants offer plain rice, fried rice and spicier jollof rice. The stodgy carbs are generally in the form of white lumps of either: fufu (pounded plantain and cassava) which is tasteless and a bit too gloopy; banku (fermented corn) a bit tangy and by far my favourite; kenke (also corn derived and wrapped in leaves) or rice or yam balls. My favourite dishes are banku served with grilled tilapia fish, red red (fried plantain and beans stew), banku with okra stew (this can be a bit slimy!), and waakye, which is rice and beans cooked together.

Red red

Fried yam with pepe



Banku and tilapia



Roasted plantain, the ultimate street food

Harmattan

Wikipedia on the harmattan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmattan

My favourite bit is: In Niger, people say that men and animals become increasingly irritable when this wind has been blowing for a while, giving it a bad reputation.

Dust and wispy spiders

It is great being back in Accra. I’m seeing it with fresh eyes and appreciating the things I loved about the city when I first arrived. The heat is also amazing after a taste of the winter cold. But the weather has changed. The sun is no longer as bright, rendering my new sunglasses a bit redundant and the sky is overcast in a haze of dust. Harmattan!

When I stepped off the plane last week at 5.30am, I was hit immediately by the humidity. When I stepped into my house, I was overwhelmed by the musty, earthy scent of dust, coating my face, covering every exposed surface in a red film, thickly caking the floor, which no matter how many times I washed, wouldn’t get clean.

As I mopped, I realised a new species of bug had joined our household and was scrambling hurriedly up the wall to escape my cleaning. In addition to the red ants and the occasional cockroach (giant ones, always in communal areas, always flipped on their backs, always dead, bizarrely), there are now some very wispy spiders. So wispy it’s hard to distinguish them from their equally wispy webs.

Tropical birthday

Falling so close to the festive season, my birthday is always intertwined with an unescapable Christmas theme. Not so in Ghana, where Christmas lights are few and far between and the sight of the odd lifesize Father Christmas effigy in swathes of red and white fur makes me break out in a double sweat.

Far far away from the bitter northern hemisphere, I spent the day in glorious equatorial sunshine, playing frisbee on the beach, riding a horse, paddling in water warmed beautifully by the hot sun. Quite spectacular and it succeeded in taking the edge off a significant birthday.

Later, I donned another outfit made by the legendary Mr Teiks and stepped out for some amazing pad thai, red curry and jazz music. I had a joint party with one of the other volunteers, and the highlight was an amazing birthday cake with both our names written on it and some great and completely unexpected presents.

Waking up

There is no such thing as a lie-in in Ghana. The nights draw in early – by 6pm it is dark - so many people are in bed early and hence awake early. It is completely normal to get a call at 5.30am from a Ghanaian for a general chat.

Every morning, each of my senses experiences its own awakening. First, the rays of strong sun penetrating my windows, my eyelids and falling in warm patches on the bed. Then the scent of freshly lit coals wafts through the windows as a lady begins cooking breakfast outside at a chop bar behind the house. Its acrid smell makes me wrinkle my nose, and irritates the remnants of the stubborn cough, which is now all but gone. At the same time, a loud sweeping sound reaches my ears, accompanying the charcoal scent, as a girl sweeps the entire compound with the noisiest brush. The culmination of the rude awakening is most certainly a cold shower, and as we enter the dry season, our mains water supply is increasingly erratic, so we have the additional exertion of drawing water from a communal tap in the compound and being on top of storage.

Ir de compras

Shopping for anything at home is full of choices, and shopping of any kind is mostly an enjoyable pastime for me. At home, small independent businesses are being forced out of the market by big competitors. In Accra, the shopping experience is more variable. The micro business model thrives. Choice exists, but at a cost, and by a strange twist, you can buy almost anything you could want for on the street, except when you are looking for it.

For groceries, I choose between small market stalls by the roadside and supermarkets. I am slowly building up a relationship with some of the stall owners and they now throw in or ‘dash’ me something extra – a mango, say, or an extra cucumber. Supermarkets mostly target the ex-pat community. It means I can buy things like marmite, cereal, shower gel, but all with a heavy mark up. Unless it’s on promotion, a box of Special K can cost the equivalent of £10. In my first few weeks I was scandalised at how imported goods, some with ‘99p special offer’ clearly written on the packaging, were being sold for at least six times the price. The whole experience is reminiscent of shopping at H&M: there is no certainty that if you find something one week, the same product will ever be in stock again. Most shocking were the prices of tin openers – a basic pound shop tin opener can set you back about 16 ghana cedi – around £8.

For clothes, there is the joy of the Accra mall, which is hideously overpriced, and not really on trend. There are shops with ex-catalogue, end of range UK stock from new look, next etc but from circa 1991. A pair of Aldo shoes would cost 250 Ghana Cedi (£125). The popular volunteer choice for clothes, shoes and bags is what is famously knows as ‘dead obruni clothes’ in the circle market. The name comes from discarded clothes of foreigners. Here second hand and almost new, on trend, items can be picked up at bargain prices. Well within the volunteer allowance!

There is also a huge demand for handmade, bespoke clothing. Yards of brightly coloured fabrics are available by the roadside and in more upmarket stores, and tailors are hard at work in small booth-like shops, just set back from the street. But there are strict protocols governing what is appropriate to wear, and when. One volunteer had a couple of shirts made and was mortifyingly told that the fabric he had picked was actually to be worn by new mothers! My tailor, Mr Teiks (which sounds like a cat’s name) is very skilled and able to re-fashion anything – a Gap dress, Mexx trousers to a perfect fit.