"The traveler sees what he sees but the tourist sees what he has come to see" Gilbert K. Chesterton

The last two weekends of March were filled with trips to both Nzulezo and Kumasi with two of my fellow TIG’ers Elise and Lynsey. Last weekend we decided that it was about time we made a trip to Nzuelzo, or as it is better known, the stilt village before we left Ghana without seeing it at all. Elise and Lynsey live about an hour and a half away from Busua and twenty minutes away from the stilt village.

This brings me to the trotro. As I have mentioned before, trotros are the primary method of transportation within Ghana. They are vans that have rows of seats filled with people. There is the driver and the mate. When the tro has stopped or when it is passing people the mate yells the destination out of the window. People get in and out of the tro along the route to the final destination. It is a cheap way to travel around Ghana but not for those who like to have their own personal bubble. You are usually squished in between people. Music is always playing here in Ghana and the trotro is no exception. You can have a broken door, broken speedometer and gauages, a broken seat but you can almost guarantee that the radio works and they have a serious sound system. Most of the time you stand at a stop and wait for a tro and jump on, while other times you have to go to the tro station and get one there. To get to the stilt village I had to go to the station. If you get one at the station you have to wait for it to fill up before the driver will leave. Unfortunately, it took two hours for the tro to fill up. Thankfully I had a book to read while I waited!

After getting to Elise and Lynsey’s house we made our way towards the stilt village after several arguments with taxi drivers. Seeing as we have been here for so long we know the difference between the ‘obruni’ price and the actual price of things. We were getting charged more than the obruni price to get to the stilt village but eventually managed to find a way through share taxis. Share taxi’s are sort of like trotros. They have designated areas where they wait and instead of paying the full drop price, you wait for the taxi to fill up with people and you usually pay a little less than you would if you were being dropped. Even then we were being overcharged 30 pesewas. It is funny how so caught up you become in paying the actual price of things that you will argue for hours and until you are blue in the face over thirty pesewas. Thirty pesewas is seventeen cents. Seventeen cents! We argued for a good fifteen minutes over seventeen cents! Like I said though, you become so angry that someone would overcharge you that you argue anyway, regardless of how much it is. 

Once we had made our way to the nearest village we paid our entrance fee and began a 25 min walk. Luckily for us a pickup truck came by and gave us a lift so we got to the beginning of the river quite quickly. The Nzulezo is built on stilts at the edge of a lake and so the only way to get there is by canoe. So we took off our shoes, went for a small walk to the canoes and jumped in. The canoe ride was about 40 mins or so. It began down a small river and to be honest, I felt as though I was canoeing down the Amazon River. It was so beautiful. The trees were so green and overgrown, there were lily’s in the water and it was so peaceful. It really was stunning.

Walking to the canoe

Pre-Canoe Ride 

The bridge on the way to the canoes

Happy Paddler 

Transported to the Amazon momentarily

Water Lily

Eventually the river opens up and you join the lake where the stilt village is. The fact that the village itself is built on stilts is really cool but I was fairly disappointed with the tour itself. The tour guide did not really give us any information on the village other than the lake it was on. When we were directed to the Chief’s daughter to ask questions, she answered us in one word questions. I also found the people to be fairly unfriendly. Despite this, the village itself is incredible. While some of the villagers are fishermen, the majority of them are farmers. They have to paddle to the edges of the lake and farm every day. (This was the only other piece of information we managed to squeeze out of the tour guide). We headed back after our tour and walked back to the nearest village to get a cab ride home, just managing to beat a huge thunderstorm. I stayed the night at Elise and Lynsey’s house and managed to wait les s than 30 seconds to catch a trotro back home to Busua. I was so happy I did not have to wait too long for a trotro. Despite my disappointment regarding some aspects of the stilt village, I am glad I made the trip to see it. 

Three of us 

Everyone needs a bar , even a village on stilts

Transportation

Canoe

River 

Canoe

If you have a bar, you need a satellite to watch the football 

Shutters 

Washing 

The village from the water 

Twirling my new found friend 

High Five 

Drying out the wellies

Colourful

The following weekend I went on another road trip with Elise and Lynsey to Kumasi. Kumasi is about 6 hours away from Takoradi and on the way to the Northern Region in Ghana. The three of us wanted to get away one last time before we had to get down working on a major report that we have to hand in describing our last three months as interns in Ghana. We also wanted to buy some last minute gifts and souvenirs and we thought that going to the city with the biggest market in West Africa would be a good place to go. The trip to Kumasi was another long one involving a share taxi to Busua, a trotro to Takoradi and then a bus to Kumasi. It took us about 6 hours which in Ghana time, is good time! We decided to treat ourselves as well to a nice hotel and so the three of us split a room with air conditioning! It was so nice to be cold! I had almost forgotten what that felt like. We got to Kumasi on the Thursday night and also treated ourselves to a really great meal, pizza! It even had real cheese! It was incredible. Before we went to bed, Elise even managed to find some real ice cream so we had a scoop of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. We went to bed the happiest people in Ghana!

The next morning we decided to get up early and start shopping so we headed over to the cultural center to see what they had. I did not find anything and once we had looked around we made our way towards the real reason we had come, the market. I have been in a lot of markets in Ghana but this market is on a whole other level. I had been to the market before on our way up to Tamale so I knew what to expect but it is still breathtaking. The sheer size of the market is incredible.

The markets are filled with narrow alleyways, stalls and people everywhere. You have to keep your eyes everywhere; on the ground for holes, uneven ground or to avoid stepping in things you don’t want to step in as well, straight ahead to make sure you do not run into anyone or anything that someone may be carrying on their head and finally to your left and right to take a look into each stall and see if there is anything that you like. It can be very overwhelming at first but it can be a lot of fun. Well, I think it is anyway. We headed into the market and just wondered around and found some really cool things. We spent a lot of time in the fabric aisle. It’s a dangerous place. The fabrics are just so beautiful.

After we finished our fabric shopping we made our way through the rest of the market to find some other goodies. On the way we found some zippers that we decided to look at. While we were looking, all of a sudden we got pushed out of the way into a smaller alley off the main strip. A truck was backing up down the main strip with less than 10 centimeters of space on either side of him. Not thinking twice about it once the truck had moved on we continued looking at zippers and then asked for directions to where the beads where. We were told to ask for the earring section (not quite sure how this makes sense but we did find them in the earring section…). On our way there we had to walk around the truck that had just passed us. Now, with no zippers in our way to distract us we noticed that the back of the truck was filled with cow heads and another very big, hairy and squishy body part that we have yet to decide what it is. A man put this big squishy thing on his head and let the rest of it hand down his back. It was really quite gross. We decided to make a run for it and when we came out on the other side Elise had some blood on her forehead and I had some on my t-shirt and pants. I have seen a lot of things in Ghana but this was a whole other level. I do not like the meat section to begin with but this was really, really disgusting. Oh well, it would not really be a trip to the market if you left without a story! We managed to find a few other things. I left the market a little earlier than the girls because I was really hungry and for some reason there was not any food around us. It was also really hot, 40 degrees without humidity and it was humid! Even still, I spent about five hours in the market. It was really fun, I saw some interesting things and I have some stories to tell. You can almost guarantee that you will come out of the market with something to say about something or a story to tell. You never know what can happen in there….

Traditional Kente 

Printed Kente 

So pretty

View down one of many fabric aisles in the market

I spent my last night in air conditioning for a little while and then we headed to another fabric store in the morning, Woodin. It is a store filled with really high quality fabric. It is a little more expensive but some of the stuff you find in there is really beautiful. Afterwards we headed to another market to catch our bus to Takoradi. Unfortunately, a bus had just pulled out so we had to wait for a new bus to fill up. While this meant that we got first choice of seats (which is important if you are tall like me otherwise my knees get squished) it also meant that we had to wait for the bus to fill up. We were unlucky as it took over2 hours for the bus to fill up. We were on a bus at 10am in the morning and we did not get home until about 7pm. It was a really long day.

The bus ride home was not without its adventures though. 2 incidents happened on this particular ride that I think are worth mentioning.

Firstly, there is a TV at the front of the buses and the movies they choose are uncomfortably loud the entire journey. This usually involves a few hours of travelling on a bus without being able to sleep because of the noise coming from a particularly awful Ghanaian film that is playing that day. While the Ghanaians like the movies on the buses I do not. I do not really have as much of a problem with the movies as I do the volume of them. Elise and Lynsey devised a plan in which they bought a Harry Potter DVD for under a dollar and convinced the bus driver to play it. So the three of us were ecstatic after waiting two hours for the bus to fill up to find out that we would be watching Harry Potter. So we put the DVD in and of course, it would not play. The enter button the DVD player was not working so we could not get passed the menu. The other Ghanaian movies that were in the DVD player, however, did not have menus and started playing automatically. Consequently, we had the pleasure of watching an awful movie part 1, 2 and 3. Thank god for iPods!

The second incident was quite funny and is probably one of those instances that is funnier when you are there. I am still going to try and give it justice. So here goes….There are lots of police checks and toll booths that you have to stop at when you are driving in Ghana. We happened to stop at a police check that was at a standstill and a few people got off the bus to get some snacks while we waited, including Lynsey and Elise. Elise went to buy some phone credit across the road and Lynsey went to a nearby gas station to get some food. While they were off the bus, the line of cars suddenly started to move. Quickly. I yelled to Elise who jumped on but Lynsey was still in the gas station. Suddenly we were past the gas station and coming up to the police check and the bus driver was not stopping despite our pleas. Lynsey was still in the gas station. Elise and I were laughing while trying to figure out if we should get off the bus or try get him to wait and then grab Lysney. We eventually managed to convince the bus driver to stop with the help from a fellow passenger when he realized that ``our sister`` was not on the bus. He finally stopped and Lynsey had managed to catch up. She had seen the line of cars suddenly start moving and ran after us, running alongside a bus that looked identical to ours but was not ours. She did manage to find us though and we made our way back to Busua.

That night there was also a party at the Black Star Surf Shop that we attended. It was great to be back in Busua and to have a good time with all the people who I have become friends with. There are a lot of expats but also a lot of local Ghanaians who I have become good friends with. It was a great party, filled with lots of dancing, singing and partying. There has not been a party like that in Busua for a few months and it was great to de-stress for a little bit before getting down to work this week. Only one more week in Ghana! Time has really flown above. I will try and get at least one more blog in before I leave.

Chelsea

(People were having a hard time saying Jocelyn so I changed it to Josie which was fine in Accra. In Busua, however, people seem to have a hard time saying Josie. Instead, they say Chelsea. So in Busua, I am known as Chelsea….I hate Chelsea. I am a Liverpool Fan. At least they did not start calling me Manchester)