It's a palace!

Blog Jan 23, 2014

“It’s a Palace!”

We’ve been at the Kete Krachi guest house for two nights, it is now time to move on to Tamale for a night.  You, the reader, are getting the hang of this when I say we asked Jude how long it would take and he said “It’s far and the roads are bad.”  (A reminder, far is 2-24 hours in Ghanain time).  Yesterday the Board asked to meet us for our presentation at 10 AM, when we told Jude he shook his head and made a clucking noise.  This, we have come to know, is “that’s not good, so I will fix it.”  A while later, in a foreign language heated discussion Jude tells us the Board will meet us at 8:30AM instead.  Well, that is good!  We meet with Daniel, Joseph and the entire Board of Directors of the credit union and we are literally high-fiving eachother as we are leaving.  I think we’ve made a small impact that may eventually help this credit union and we are proud!  Jude hurries us into the truck and off we go on another one of those roller coaster roads (that you will see pictures of soon!)  

I’m becoming used to the view from the air conditioned truck, driving through rural Ghana.  Village after village, women pounding cassava (or shea nuts), naked or poorly clothed children playing in the dirt, fires going with water boiling for the next meal.  The dirt here is red, it permeates everything.  My sister embroidered a handkerchief for me that I opened when I got here, it’s stained red from wiping my face and neck all day.  Your skin, clothing, and shoes are covered in red dust as are the leaves of the plants along these endless roads.  And the villages are red like the road.  We sit in the truck, knowing that there is no way to help every person that you see out these windows and, truthfully, not knowing if they believe that they need help.  These villages do not just dot the landscape, they ARE the landscape.  You do not go more than a kilometer without seeing women and children laboring with something on their heads-buckets of water, grass to fix thatched roofs, yams or other edibles….I was shocked when this journey began, but now I just wonder about their story and how they feel about their life.

Typical village on our journey

We stop across the road from one of these villages.  Jude tells us that his boss wants him to pick up some yams from this village but they are supposed to be sacked and ready at the roadside stand.   It turns out they aren’t, and Jude exhibits the most anger that I have seen (which really amounts to a few words in his tribal language then an explanation that the yams aren’t ready and we have to go to the village.)  While the men all gather around a giant pile of yams and start hucking them into the bed of the truck Nancy and I get out to take a look around.  There are several children coming up the road (again, calling “Obruni, obruni!”  We are smiling as they come.  A little one, no more than two years old, is following the children down the path.  He sees us and screams, and turns around moving as quickly as possible back towards the main part of the village.  The older children run to catch him, and bring him to see us, but it doesn’t really end well.  I hate the idea that I may very well be the subject of many of these little ones’ nightmares in the coming weeks. 

Obruni skin, pretty scary.

Tamale is the second largest city in Ghana in terms of the land area.  It reminds me of a little less impoverished Accra.  As I stand beside the main road leading in I watch a young girl leading a blind woman from car to car at the traffic lights.  When the light turns green she leads the woman to the median just to move back out when it turns red.  I think that she is school age, maybe slightly younger, but she must not be able to go because of money.

We arrive in Tamale by supper time, and we are staying at the Modern City Hotel.  Now, because of our past experience at CuTrac and at Kete Krachi we probably do not have our hopes set very high.  But it’s a palace.  Truly.  OK, Pre Africa it could be a two star, potentially lower.  But it’s a palace.  We are shown to our rooms, they have a blanket on the bed!  There is a curtain on the shower (and very little mould and dirt!)  When you turn on the tap you get hot water!  There is a restaurant that serves more than banku, fufu and chicken and rice (although my heart was set on banku tonight).  And they have white wine!!   

Now, there’s a funny thing about Ghanain restaurants, or at least those that we have come across.  They truly want to please you, so much so that you may endup getting a “yes” when it really a flat out “no”.  Take dinner tonight.  You have white wine?  Yes.  Is it chilled?  Yes, I can put it in the fridge.  Where is it now?  On that cupboard.  OK, please chill it.  25 minutes later, is the wine ready?  Yes.  It’s chilled?  Yes.  Francis, lovely young man, brings it to the table.  The bottle is luke warm.  And it’s not white.  We ordered a Star.  Nancy asked about the pizza, and do you have pepperoni?  Yes.  Is it home made?  Yes.  She orders it.  The pizza comes, there is no pepperoni on it.  But there is peppers.  Let’s eat, it is what it is.  Cheers to the palace called Modern City Hotel!