Tamale

It felt to me like Tamale ran along a long road, intersecting with the town centre and then continuing on. I got to know the road well, on one side it led to a place called 'Kamina', surrounded on both sides by dry teak forest. The weather was still hot and dry, but milder than Bolga, and more bearable. Tamale's market, bigger than in Bolga, with enough to see and wander through, but not so big or crazy that you get lost or overwhelmed. I was in Tamale for 5 days and loved my time there. These were the highlights:

Fieldwork on the back of a moto

Motorbikes and scooters are more common than cars in Tamale and seeing the town from the back of a moto gave a completely different perspective and proximity. I loved it, even the scarier bits driving through congested traffic acoss town when I could have reached out and touched any number of vehicles!

Climbing up a mango tree with strangers

By coincidence, there was a scavenger hunt on the Saturday night, which I joined in, tearing round Tamale chasing points, testing our ingenuity and braveness, and yes, for 10 points our whole team were briefly up a mango tree.

TZ

The local starchy white lump eaten with soup in northern Ghana. It is rice-based and I really liked it. Had it with a soup called 'bito', which for those who know it, reminded me of haleem.

Naaaaaah

This is how people greet and respond to one another in Tamale. By far the most memorable part of my trip and it brings me joy every time I think about it – its intonation, character and genuineness, accompanied sometimes with a slight bow.




Round houses in Tamale

 


Inside a Tamale mosque





Teak forest

 



Making TZ

 



Street signs in Tamale

 


TZ



Bolga - Upper East

Eventually arrived in Bolga, my first stop, at 10am. There is a significant VSO community there, working mainly in education. At 10am, it was a magnificent 39 degrees, the sun directly overhead, beating down and blinding. Bolga is a small town, with a smallish market and very dry. There are lots of rectangular concrete buildings out of which NGOs operate, crumbling and almost war-torn in appearance.

Cows and pigs accompany the chickens and goats roaming freely in the streets. It is cheaper than the south and certainly more deprived, but not as deprived as I expected. There is less choice in the shops, motorbikes outnumber cars as the preferred means of transport. And there are new and unexpected things – sun-dried tomatoes laid out by the roadside, brightly vibrant red, drying in the hot sun as flies feast on their rapidly shrivelling flesh and a vibrant cultural centre selling jewellery., leather goods and baskets.

Kids playing near the crumbling buildings

Old market, Bolga - so dry!

 

Making baskets in the cultural centre - I may have bought one... or two...

Tomatoes - spot the flies!

North of Kumasi - getting there

The journey from Accra to Bolgatanga should take 14 hours. In my case, it took 26. Firstly, the bus was delayed five and a half hours leaving Accra because 'there was something wrong with the tyres'. So at 2.30pm, we finally left and ambled our way north, the stops along the way offering less and less in the way of food and comfort facilities the further we went and the later it got. Nigerian dramas were substituted somewhere along the way for blaring gospel music. By 6.30pm when the sun had set, all the lights were turned out and we spent the rest of the journey immersed in pitch darkness until the sunrise. I drifted in and out of a sleep, rudely awoken by the radio, the urgent honking of the bus, or when we came to a comfort stop. In this blurry world of drifting between sleep and consciousness, aware of the cold and the dehydration fuelled by fear of the worsening toilets, the bus ground to a halt somewhere between Kintampo and Tamale. Every male passenger got off and after about 20 minutes when it became apparent they hadn't stopped to relieve themselves, I got up to find them gathered round trying to prise open a side panel on the bus. Turned out there was a puncture. Clearly that problem with the tyres was fixed well! Two hours and a spare tyre later, the bus creaked on. No such thing as keeping the aisles free, more of how many bunches of plantain, barrels, cases, shoes needed to be negotiated to stumble in and out of your seat. The aircon was cranked up to freezing, so I was glad for a blanket. Ironically, as we left Tamale, the driver turned off the air con, which was when it was needed most as the hot dry sun beat through the windows creating a greenhouse effect and making the bus and its passengers of 26 hours smell interesting. Perhaps it was a tactic to acclimatise to the heat outside.

No heavy lifting, or water sachets!

North of Kumasi - first impressions

Ghana's north-south divide is immediately visible. We were travelling overnight and the sun rose as we approached Tamale to reveal that under cover of night, the lush and abundant green vegetation that I associate with southern Ghana, even in the dry season, had thinned under the fierce dry conditions. In their place was an arrid, barren landscape. Trees, sparcely spaced, struggling to survive in the parched earth, the ground beneath them scorched under the unrelenting sun. Clusters of simple dwellings, constructed of mud, cylindrical with cone-shaped thatched roofs, forming small compounds by the roadside, some barely high enough for a grown man to stand tall.




Not a palm tree in sight!



Round houses

Tupperware usage in Ghana

The most hilarious usage instructions I have read in a long time!

Baby Zaby

My baby niece Sara, aka 'Zaby', finally made an appearance after many long days of procrastination. The wait was worthwhile, as 15 seconds after being coaxed into the world (with sweets and the promise of a visit to Ghana) she was papped wearing a very trendy stripy hat. My theory is she was born wearing it and was worried about what people would say...

Merely by making an appearance in the world she has unconsciously created first time parents, grandparents, great aunts and uncles and an aunty fally!!

Early pictures suggest potential for good looks, personality and sense of humour...

Origami on a bus

Having a visitor was a good opportunity to take a few days' leave and discover a new city. Headed to Kumasi with my cousin on a VIP bus, which was air conditioned and had loads of leg room. It took us two hours to get on a bus because tickets are only sold when a bus pulls in, so you are waiting indefinitely, and then just enough tickets are sold to fill up the bus and so on. It took us two hours to get on a bus. The journey to Kumasi takes you down the still being constructed Kumasi road, past the Achimota house, and means a bumpy ride. A test for any suspension! We were entertained on the bus with Nigerian soap operas. I managed to sleep for almost the entire journey, despite the bumpy ride and was stirred briefly only when the Nollywood actresses emitted particularly loud screams and exclamations! As an aside, Nigerian soaps are filled with intrigue, seduction and mass murder (at least half the cast is finished off in every episode), yet are strangely gripping!

Sitting across the aisle from us was a girl of about 2 or 3 called Ama. She sat really solemnly on her mum's knee for the entire journey, so Fee made her an origami flower and bird which greatly impressed both mother and daughter!