Elmina 1

Another road trip we took was to Elmina, a bussling little city west of Accra. Ghana's coast is dotted with places like this, made industrious during the gold and slave trades. Many have thriving new economies, some have fallen on times harder still. Elmina has both a booming fishing trade and an industry extracting seasalt from the saltwater lagoon behind the town.

Double parked along the river

Given the commodities and the foreign governance, the coast is also scattered with castles and forts, build to protect their European occupants from other nationals, both West African and European.

Elmina Castle

Elmina has both a castle and a fort. The castle was built by the Portuguese, the first Europeans to venture along the coast. The castle is built on the seaward side of a river that meets the sea at an oblique angle. The town is across the river on the landward side.

The view from the castle across the river to the town and fort

The Portuguese enjoyed unrivalled dominion over the gold coast until more removed European nations caught up. The Dutch attacked the castle by dragging guns up onto a hill in the middle of the town and shelling the Portuguese until they surrendered. To prevent a repeat of their strategy, the Dutch then built a fort on the hilltop.

Let the good times roll

Ghana is an über-religious society. Early in my stay I was told Ghanaians don't care what god you believe in, but you must believe in some god. Canadians could learn a lot about religious tolerance from Ghanaians (except for that no atheists thing — though I have met some here).

Dominant among the religions is evangelical charismatic christianity — exported from the United States. On a percentage basis this is probably the most widespread religion, but even if it isn't, it wins hands down on the visibility front. One manifestation is the posters:

At a conference last year a linguist presented a paper on locally acquired foreign accents; that is, Ghanaians who speak with an American twang, acquired from watching so many American evangelical programs on TV.

The posters are quite intriguing — especially for an outsider. They advertise religious events, always with a theme and usually of marathon proportions. Herewith a sample:

Seven Hours of Prayer Wrestling

Fourteen days plus two mega alnights [sic]

 I started photographing the posters after missing out on capturing one with the theme of 'provoking God'. I forget what they were going to provoke her into doing but was intrigued by what seemed the audacity of the venture. 

The posters even come with local flavour and endorsements:

Saving Legon

Saving the Psych Dept.

And finally, variations of this one went up as soon as the exam period started:

Why study when you can pray

Hey, Hey

Just a bunch of still pictures of the Mona Monkeys. 'Cause you just can't have enough of them.

East of Volta

When we went to visit the mona monkeys we also did some excellent hiking up in the hills east of Lake Volta. Our resort (really a collection of dowdy cabins) was perched on the lip of steep hill, looking across a deep valley at one of the highest peaks in Ghana. Each evening an impressive electrical storm blew up the valley and in the morning it was shrouded in mist.

From our front door we could just start walking — climbing, really — down into the valley where a swift creek burbled under the canopy of green.

But the real adventure was on the top and backside of the peak across the valley. Just short of the peak (off camera to the right in the top photo) was one of the most charming little villages we have encountered here.

Down to the waterfall from the village is a steep hike, a very steep hike, often involving repelling by rope off the muddy hillside.

The decent down the far side of the hill brings you to the middle of a waterfall. The falls drop several hundred metres to a pool and then drop another several hundred metres to the valley floor. We are at the midway point. I'm one of the tiny heads relaxing in the pool.

The water was cool and clear, but the rejuvenating effects were quickly gone as we retraced out steps up to the village.

We bought a car!

What I really wanted was one of these:

They are everywhere. My friend Ralf jokes that if his country had one WWII everyone would get to drive one of these. (It's a joke. IT'S A JOKE!) But the idea of no air bags, no crumple zone, no air conditioning counted against it. On the other hand, you can get one for about $1500. And when else was I going to drive a beetle.

So instead we got this:

A Toyota Yaris. It provides a number of firsts for me: first automatic transmission, first sedan (called here a saloon car). And while my eye was tempted away from the beetles by any number of exotic French, Chinese, Indian, and Korean cars that aren't available in North America, this one came with a great price and a great track record (I bought it from a friend).

Mona Monkeys

Way back in I think October we went on a road trip into the hills east of Lake Volta. Daniel, a visiting Fulbright scholar, organized a bus load of us and we set out for an eco-resort. Daniel's partner and his young daughter where visiting, and the real point of the whole trip was to fulfill his daughter's desire to see monkeys.

So the highlight of the weekend was visiting a jungle reserve rich with tourist-friendly mona monkeys. Once considered sacred, and hence protected, their new-found protection is their ability to charm tourists.

Only steps off the road, and armed with bananas, we are swarmed by about 20 monkeys ready to disarm us, who play and climb all over us until they are too full of banana, and then will have nothing further to do with us.

Video courtesy of Richmond Kwesi

A new leaf

Many of you have urged us, repeatedly, to keep up the posts. My sister, Vandy, was the first to suggest the technique of posting one (and only one, if necessary) picture a day with one (and only one, if necessary) sentence. Well, here is one picture and six sentences.

The day before I flew to Canada our adopted house cat, Little Thing, gave birth to two littler things. And the day before I returned home, Anna-Marie reports, they transformed from tiny blobs into real, honest to goodness, playful kittens.

Anna-Marie is off to Spain with the camera (and charger) for two weeks, and I didn't get a chance to upload more recent pictures of the kittens so you will have to make do with this one day old portrait.