Webmaster, 18 maart 2006
Ghana Kanvilli

long time no hear!

Hello everybody,

How are you. I have not been writing for quite some time. For this there are several reasons: no time, no power, short of time, etc. But now I have some time to give you another update of my adventures in Ghana. The last time I wrote I was about to go to Bolga. This is a village in the north of Ghana, almost bordering Burkina Faso. When we arrived we tried to get a hotel. The one Maria had been staying in before was fully booked, so with our travel guide in hand we went to look for another one. The next one was too expensive. When we left, one of the employees followed us and told us about another place where we could stay. A very cheap place. In many places around the world you would become suspicious if an employee was to show you a room at the competitor. But in Ghana this is just pure friendlyness. So the boy took us to the Catholic guesthouse where we could stay in a dorm for 6. But we were only 4 and there were no other guests, so for 2 euro per night per person we had our own room with great beds. Communal showers and toilets. But there was water. Real luxery. I was even more happy to have real toilets, because I was running diahreoa (always forget the spelling of this word). Sorry for this detail, but here it is very normal to talk about these things. The next day we took a taxi to the slave camp close to BOlga. I will not travel in Ghana, because I can work on my research for a bit, so I decided to use my time for that. That is why I'm here. I will come back one day to see the country. This means however that I cannot visit the slave camps in the south. So I was 'happy' with this opportunity to visit this one. There was not much to see, but only imagining what has been going on there was enough to give me goose bumps. It was mainly their own people capturing others to sell them as slaves. And we whites were the motor behind it. Horrible. That night we went for a great meal: steak and fries and salad!! Nice. The next day we went to visit a shrine (holy place). It was a beautiful drive to get there. Lots of mountains, baobab trees. We decided to take a taxi, though, because walking uphill for 2 hours or so in 40 degrees Celcius is a bit too much. There was more walking awaiting us to get to the shrine, so it was worth spending some money on the taxi. We got a very friendly tourguide who told us a lot about the place. The main problem in this part of Ghana is the lack of water. Every year it is getting dryer here. When he was young there were plenty trees (as they say here). Then we arrived at the hill we had to climb before reaching the shrine. When we were almost there we were told to take our shoes and also our tops and bra's. You are not allowed to have the top of your body covered when entering the cave where the shrine is. And believe it or not: breasts are nothing here. Nobody is impressed to see 4 pairs of white boobs! There had been many sacrifices at the shrine. There were poultry feathers everywhere. It was quite hard to climb the last bit without slippers. The stones were very hot, but we managed. As uncomfortable as we felt for a few seconds when we removed our clothes, as hard was it to put it back on. It is much nicer to go topless here. A lot cooler. BUt after takng a picture we put our clothes back on.
During our trip we were all not in the best condition ever healthwise. Maria and me were running diahreoa, Susanna was tired and felt weak and also Lianne was not feeling well. We decided to get some fruits and prepare a big fruit salad. Fantastic. The fruit is much nicer here. That night we ate at the gueasthouse. They gave us fowl, but we decided to skip the poultry, because of the bird flu. You don't want to risk anything here. Especially now we were not feeling that well in the first place.
That Monday it was independence day. We were hoping for some big events, but unfortunately in Bolga it was not that big. We walked around for a bit and then Lianne told us she was not feeling well. We went home and she took her temperature: 38.6 So we rang the contactperson of Meet Africa in Bolga, Mariam. We explained the problem and asked her if she could take us to hospital. We went to the Regional hospital. Because it was a bank holiday the private clinics were closed. The hospital looked clean and well organised. They took LIanne's temperature and it was now 39. They gave her a very painful injection in her bottom and it made her to almost faint. Then they took blood and they gave us the results quite soon after: Malaria. This was for her the second time. Poor girl. We got some medication and took her home. The next day we tried to get back to Tamale. But Lianne felt like vomitting and was very dizzy. We were sitting in the trotro (bus) to Tamale, but she couldn't even sit up straight. So we decided to get off. We got the fare money back. Lianne could still not sit up, so I got her a bench where she could lay down. This was of course one big attraction. A white girl on a bench and 3 friends around her. But luckily they didn't bother us. Only one man was sending others away. He was protecting us. There were network problems, so we couldn't ring Mariam again. Instead we used a phone on the street (not a payphone, but people just sit under a big umbrella with a telephone. This one you can use. For the payphones you need a card. We rang Taimako (Faiza) and she told us to give her one hour to arrange something. In the mean time we got some apples for Lianne, becasue this was the only food she could take. Then we rang Faiza again and she got a friend of hers to come to us and arrange a taxi to go to Tamale. The friend could get it so we could get a good price. And it worked. Thank god. So we put the front seat backwards and the three of us sat in the back. Half way the driver stopped the car. There was something wrong. The car was pulling to the right. The driver took off one wheel, put it back on and did some other things. It looked like he knew what he was doing. The fact that he pulled over is quite special. He was also slowing down. That's not common here. So we all trusted him. In the next village we stopped again to look for a mechanic. SOmeone looked at the car, but didn't manage to fix it totally. The bar which holds the front wheels was broken. Quite dangerous. But we arrived safely, thanks to our considerate driver. At the hospital Lianne was told she was given an overdose. That was why she was feeling this bad. Luckily she is now recovered. She is still tired, but the malaria is gone.
My time is almost up. I will go to Yendi again for one more week, but will write when I return. I don't want to leave Ghana. I'm getting to know more and more people and I'm getting used to the life here. But don't worry, I'll be back on time. The only thing I could do without is the extreme heat. But I started sleeping outside (with my musquito net) so the nights are now much better.
i HAVE TO GO NOW.
Big kiss to all,
love, T

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