A contradiction

I took this photograph from the roof of Elmina castle. What was before the camera is in stark contrast to what was behind and below. The tranquil blue of the Gulf of Guinea, the soft colours atop the whitewash and the rounded plaster of the fortifications tell us nothing of the real history and purpose of this creation.

Despite the name, the castle is really a fort. Many forts were built along the coastline of what is now Ghana (and its neighbours). Typically these housed armed garrisons, a governor and other official representatives of some European nation, and the support staff. They also housed, over the years, tens of thousands of captured Africans, bound for the West Indies, the Americas, Europe, and even the East.

Below where I stand are the separate dungeons for men and women, the rooms where punishment and death were meted out and where women were selected for rape, and the passageway to awaiting ships.

The weekend in Elmina was full of these contradictions: modern poverty and a luxurious resort, putrefied garbage and hot showers, hand pushed carts and and air conditioned buses, tranquil views and damp dungeons.

Not all trees are created equal

Is everyone tired of looking at flowers yet?

I think I've failed to mention this in the blog, but we've moved back onto campus. This happened in March. An opening came up, we were offered it, and off we went. This is my seventh place since arriving 18 months ago (Anna-Marie's fourth; she says her next move will be to the airport). But despite the itinerant feel of it all, we are glad to be back on campus. We are surrounded by grassy fields instead of red dust. And of course all the flowering trees.

The move meant we gave up our coconut tree which was just starting to product ripe coconuts. But we gained two new trees of interest.

Our house is a complex of four small units clustered around a courtyard. The majority of the courtyard is a parking lot, but the perimeter is beautifully planted with thin leaved croton and ginger lily and other tropical plants. Our new home also has two flowering trees, though the flowers are not the main attraction. In one corner of the courtyard is this:

Anna-Marie reported she may actually be getting tired of avocado

These avocados started to ripen in mid-April and while I was in Canada they were in full production. They are huge, about the size of a baby's head, and tasty. The only problem was keeping them for ourselves — though it turned out there was more than enough to go around. We kept 'catching' people outside the courtyard whacking the branches with sticks to knock the ripe ones down.

We had the same problem with the tree at the foot of our driveway:

Small, sweet mangoes

While pineapples are in season all year long, avocados and mangoes are seasonal. Both are available all year round but in April you start seeing more and more of them in the markets, and last April, driving through the country with Ralf and Fortune we passed kilometre after kilometre of stands lining the highway. And each stand is selling a different kind. There are hundreds of varieties of mangoes — in this sense they are like apples — and dozens are available in Ghana. Our tree produces a smallish version, about 10cm in length. 

Another pair

Don't worry. I will soon get tired of posting pictures of anonymous trees. Mostly I just like keeping my sister hunting down the names. And just so you don't think I'm being lazy, she really is doing me a service. She has sent a few links, notably a good one for flowering trees on a flickr site. But I've been unable to access it from here. 

As I point out every month or two, the internet here is not nearly as reliable as back home. In addition to power outages, the servers just going down, and a few thousand students trying to download a gazillion movies at once, the ICT department here shapes our internet signal and blocks various sites. The blocking of sites is not a direct form of censorship; it is intended to limit wide bandwidth consumption from what are deemed non-academic sites. 

To this end, I returned from Canada to discover that I can no longer watch youtube. I will have to call the ICT and point out that not everything on youtube is stupid human and animal tricks. In the past few weeks I've been sent three links of an academic nature to youtube that I've not been able to watch. Flickr may be caught in the same net.

To the trees!

Again, I offer you a pair. The first is a lone specimen, located at one end of the track field.

The second tree is also not very common, though I've spotted more than one. In this picture it is just shy of full bloom, so the white pyramids will be larger and more vibrant in a day or two.

It is also located just south of the track field. Both were shot early in the morning (around 6:30am) while out for our early morning dog walk. I usually get up at 6:00am, make coffee, and head out the door by about 6:15am. This is a wonderful time of day — even on hot days this will be a pleasant time to hoof around campus. That is important for my own personal comfort, but it also means I don't short change Chai on the morning walk. But by 7:00am on a sunny day it will start to get unpleasant. Especially if I am marching around with a cup of hot coffee.

I give you two trees

Because the internet was down yesterday I couldn't post to the blog. So today I send you two trees.

The first tree is quite ubiquitous — from my office window I see two, and they are common around campus. The tree gently snows down delicate white flowers. These are not large, about 5-8 centimetres long. This means, while the trees are covered in them, they are difficult to capture in photographs. Whenever I try to get a good chunk of tree in, the flowers just disappear.

Millingtonia hortensis (Indian Cork Tree or Tree Jasmine)

Most of the tree flowers have very little or no scent. But these flowers have a heady aroma, thick and sweet, reminiscent of night blooming flowers. In bloom, the tree is covered with these small inverted flowers which at their peak gentle drop straight to the ground. 

This makes for a delightful carpet of white around each tree.

This second tree is more unique. I've only encountered one so far. However, an interesting aspect of the trees here is that I can walk by a tree for months without change and suddenly, one day, it has become a flowering tree, pushing out some dazzling array of yellow, red, or blue.

Callinadra surinamensis (Pink Powder Puff)

This is one such tree. I walk under it several times a week, on my way to the night market. Then two weeks ago the tree was transformed.

These flowers seem more suited to a garden plant than a tree. But there they are, starting at about two metres off the ground, facing up from the branches, and climbing to the tree top. This is the pleasure I take in the flowering trees, the sudden surprise of transformation, an unanticipated change from one day to the next.

Another flowering tree

This is another of my favourites.

Plumeria rubra (Apocynaceae)

The trees look half dead but aren't. When I first saw them at the height of the dry season last year, I thought they were just struggling through their 'winter' and that when the rains came they would leaf up. But no, they persist like this all year long. I have seen one or two of these trees covered in leaves, but mostly they have this airy look to them.

The flowers are usually yellow and white, but a few have this deep crimson colour. And like all the flowering trees I've encountered, they bloom whenever the urge sets in.

Right now there are several wonderful trees in bloom that I hope will still be magnificent when Anna-Marie returns from Spain with the camera.

World Wide Kids

I think kids everywhere are the same. At least, they share a lot of the same interests and desires (apart from the obvious ones, like sugar). Here's a desire that couldn't have existed before 1839. Being photographed. Everywhere we go, kids love to be photographed, love to pose for photographs, and love to look at themselves photographed.

Being photographed

Posing

Looking

Flowering trees

I've been collecting pictures of flowering trees. They are everywhere. And they don't seem to have a season. Trees, like bushes and flowers, just bloom whenever their bit of soil gets enough rain. The field around the Guest Centre burst into white blooms last February when we had the first major rain after my arrival. The field did it again this February when we had a good deluge. 

But there is less regularity with most of the trees. Suddenly,  all over campus one kind of tree will be covered with flowers, but a few months later the same species (different specific trees) will be in bloom. This means we don't have the spectacle of a temperate zone spring, that 'finally winter is over' display. Instead we are treated to an ongoing display, but one that reflects very local rainfall.

As I collect the images I have tried to identify what each tree is. This has proved very difficult. So, while I would like to make these images educational, I'm afraid for the most part they are just colourful displays.

Here is my favourite tree.

Cassia fistula (Golden Shower tree)

The clusters of flowers (like hanging lanterns) can be about the size of my chest.

High Prohibition

I've mentioned in previous posts the diversity and abundance of garbage in Ghana. It's nice to know that there is some sensitivity to the problem. 

The fine works out to about $3.00

This odd pair of signs are stuck in the corner of a parking lot for one of the University Halls (residences). Despite the concentration of the signs in this one spot, they are ignored. I suspect the garbage came first as most of the garbage around the parking lot is right here. It seems typical that effort was put into erecting two signs, but none into removing the garbage.

Elmina's market

We spent only about 48 hours in Elmina — Saturday morning to Monday morning. The big event on the first day was a tour of the castle. On the second day we toured the town. In between we walked on the beach, swam, and ate good food.

Here are a few images from the Elmina market.

Kids are an integral part of life in the market. This is the weekend, so even the older kids are not in school. And when the parents, indeed the whole adult family, heads to the market, so do those that need supervision (of a sort).

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.