Kwamo

"This is the end, Beautiful friend, This is the end." 

Jim Morrison’s voice kept running through my dehydrated mind as I lay underneath my mosquito net in the sweltering heat. Homesickness hit home quickly because this was only my second day in Ghana. The previous night’s party hardly helped my head and my acclimatisation to northern England meant my body was WAY out of its comfort zone. But I soon realised this wasn’t a holiday but a chance to feel alive. I was constantly on the move in Ghana, whether it was the daily tro-tro to Tech Junction or the tour that took me around the country in ten hectic days.

I was part of the Afritour Project which seeks to raise awareness about the benefits of getting involved in the tourist industry. My team, made up of students from Sydney to Helsinki, was tasked with hosting a presentation for local schools about tourism and then taking them to tourist sites in order to excite them about the possibilities out there. This task proved simple in some respects and frustrating in others. There was plenty of enthusiasm from the four schools we asked, as well as from our guest speakers from the Ghanaian tourist industry. However problems kept cropping up at the last moment. One of the speakers was delayed for an hour in heavy traffic which meant we had to quickly reschedule our presentation. Fortunately we had arranged to get everyone involved in some group dancing to complete the presentation, so we simply shifted all of the chairs out of the way a few hours early and got our azonto on. The trip with the schools was also given a scare when the deposit-receiving transport company arbitrarily cancelled the evening before. Thanks to the connections of our Ghanaian housemates, back-up travel was arranged at the last minute to ensure that overall the Afritour Project had been a chaotic success.

This unpredictability carried over into our ten day journey around Ghana but in many ways reinforced the sense of adventure.  The length and bumpiness of the journeys was eclipsed by the places we experienced.  The forests provided beauty, the animals a sense of majesty, the coastal slave forts a relic of an emotive history and sitting on a crocodile resulted in plenty of “you did what?!”-ery from people you told back home. The water was superb, with Lake Volta and the Gulf of Guinea providing marvellously calm and choppy swims. Yet my personal highlight was the Wli Waterfall, a stunning cliff-face with bats swarming around the point the water plunged 600ft down into a shallow pool. The chance to stand directly under the fall was too good to pass up but proved exceedingly difficult to do. I got within five or ten metres from the base of the cliff, which was as far as the waterfall’s spray would allow me to go. The explosive mixture of water and gravity created a dense and constant spray that lashed my skin to the point it felt it was being ripped off my bones. Within 40 metres of the cliff-base the ability to face forward with open eyes proved impossible, so any further progress was made backwards. Despite my yells of shock at each torrent of vapour, my back found it refreshing and my bones felt exhilarating like I was plunging through a cloud of caffeine. I was standing under a powerful piece of nature and I felt its force.

Day-to-day in Kwamo and Kumasi was pretty thrilling too. Ghanaians have certainly earned their reputation as a hospitable and sincere people, which made us comfortable walking to Kwamo (always passing through a school, which was holding an exam outside one breakfast time) to get our meals. Getting around in tro-tros was enjoyable too. These crammed usually rusting minibuses proved a very safe, reliable, and cheap way to get around; in fact they grew on me so much I’m in half-a-mind to introduce them to Britain’s streets. Despite the frenetic pace of shoppers going about the Central Market, I felt completely safe due to the non-threatening nature of the proprietors who were offering entirely reasonable prices for what were, let’s face it, clothes that had been counterfeited or from charity donations. My own proof of the latter is pretty astonishing. When passing through a narrow and sheltered section of stalls my eye caught a familiar logo on a polo shirt which, sure enough, turned out to be from my University (for the Dentist Society of all things). I returned to the same stall a fortnight later to see if I could bring a souvenir from home back home. While the University shirt had gone I recognised another familiar emblem on a T-shirt which this time came from a brewing company in my relatively small home-city of Derby. I bought the T-shirt for my father; that’s Globalisation in action.

I frankly have too many stories to tell from Ghana so I’m afraid I’ve had to prioritise details. But if you do plan to come to Ghana I’d advise you on the following things.  If you plan to eat local food; practise for eating fufu with your hands. If you want to play football; prepare for a physical game. If you wanna party; get ready to azonto. If you feel like meeting friendly folks; you’ll find AIESECers from across the globe. And if you seek excitement; prepare for a wonderful if slightly unpredictable country where the people are as warm as the weather.