My Northern Adventure

So what exactly was I up to before I fell sick, you may ask? Well, I took the opportunity to travel to the Northern Region of Ghana, which is famously rural and hot. It certainly lived up to its reputation!

The Journey North
My ultimate destination was Larabanga, which is a small village that is the last turn-off before you enter Mole (Mo-lay) National Park, which is one of the largest reserve parks in Ghana. I had actually met a friend in Chicago who was from Larabanga, and his brothers ran a guesthouse there as part of their community development organization. My intention was to stay with the Salia brothers at their guesthouse and volunteer briefly with their NGO.

To get to Larabanga – and all points in the rural North, actually – you must first take a 12 hour (or so) bus ride up to Tamale (the biggest city in the North) and catch another 3-4 hour bus to the village. I decided to take the “Luxury” STC bus to Tamale, which is the state-run bus service and basically the Ghanaian equivalent of Greyhound. Apparently, “Luxury” means frigid air conditioning and bad Nigerian movies during the 12-hour trip. Whee. The bus made several pit stops along the way, each with progressively deteriorating bathroom conditions (“Hmmm, I hope this brown liquid on the ground is mud…”).

Fortunately, I made an obruni friend on the bus trip, so the 12 hours wasn’t so bad. Sarah was British, volunteering as an English teacher in Accra, and also headed to Larabanga and Mole National Park. We shared our respective stereotypes of each other’s countrymen and political leaders (Sarah on Dubya: “My, he’s a bit of an idiot, isn’t he?”; Me on English stereotypes: “Well, we don’t think badly of the British, but every movie villain does seem to have a British accent.”). We also had the pleasure of watching a non-Nigerian film on the bus, “Commando” (with Arnold Schwarzeneggar and a pre-Who’s the Boss Alyssa Milano). The Ghanaians on board seemed delighted at the violence. There were many a “Oh!” and “Ay!” when Arnie started slicing off heads and stuff.

Once in Tamale, I spent the night and got an early start the next morning. I caught a tro-tro (local minibus) to Larabanga, and, boy, that was fun. Luckily, there were no goats or chickens on the tro-tro. However, the bus was tiny. When I stood up, the bus ceiling cleared my head by about 2 inches (I am 5’3). Plus, the seats (for 2 people) were about 24 inches across – this includes the tro-tro seat: a seat that flips down in the aisle. So you have a bus that is about 5’5 tall, and a little over 6 feet wide, with 6 people seated across. The luggage is piled on top of the bus (there were, like, motorbikes strapped on the top of this thing!), there is a “standing room only” area in the front, and the tro-tro mate “rides” on the bus by basically hanging outside it. Oookkkaaaay. Hey, you have to admire that efficient use of space. Still, with the size of the bus in mind, I couldn’t help but think that it was a bit like riding the short school bus – the “tart (sic) cart”, if you will. Just as this amusing thought passed through my head, the tro-tro passed by a yellow American school bus. Hehe.

It’s usually when you’re on a long journey with loads of people, 12 inches allotted per ass, and surrounded by a swirling blend of body odors that you start thinking, “Wow, this is a good travel story!” The road to Larabanga is notoriously bumpy and dusty (this is why they make 4-wheel drive vehicles, people!), but the 3-4 hours went by relatively quickly. I think this was due to my fascination with the lady in front of me – or, rather, the huge ass bug crusted on the back of her shirt (“Did she lean up against a wall or something?” “I wonder if she knows the bug is there?” “Should I pick it off for her?”). I also passed the time by making faces at a baby on board, a favorite pastime of mine while riding on buses.

Sweet Home Larabanga
I stayed at the Salia Brothers Guesthouse in Larabanga for 11 days. Ah, sweet village livin’. Quite literally, the closest phone is 10-15 miles away in the town of Damongo, which is also the only town with paved roads between Tamale and Mole National Park. In Larabanga, some homes have electricity, but none have running water. It takes some getting used to, and, eventually, you do. In any case, one learns to really appreciate the bucket shower!

I had a simple room in the guesthouse where I kept my stuff, but it was usually so hot at night that I would sleep on the roof. There was actually a tent, so that was really nice. Plus, I happened to have the only room in the guesthouse that was infested by ants. Ants in my toothpaste, in my clothes, anything and everything. I felt more comforted knowing that I could sleep on the roof away from the ants (although, after a while, I got used to the ants. I even started eating bread that had ants crawling all over it. When in Rome…).

Larabanga is a village of about 4,000 people. I met a whole heck of a lot of them. The adults, I can say, are really nice and very cool. Really hospitable and welcoming people who didn’t want anything from me at all. The kids…weeeellll, how do I put this? They kind of suck. Okay, that’s mean. I met some great kids who were awesome. But I consider myself a “kid” person and, really, for the most part, the kids kind of suck. In general, not a lot of people in the North speak fluent or even good English, but here is the extent of most kids’ English:

“Hello!”
“What is your name?”
“My name is _____.”
“Give me _____!”

More often than not, they just skip to the last bit. Many times, the kids would be like, “Give me money!” or “Give me cash!” I know that they probably don’t know that they’re coming off as rude or offensive, but it’s very wearing on anyone after a while. I was rather upset that I let it get to me so easily, because I feel that I’m a pretty understanding person. Still, I personally find it insulting for them and as a foreigner myself, because they equate “white” (and, yes, anyone not “black” counts as “white” here…so I’m white!) with money and everything good. It’s not that this isn’t a correct assumption most of the time, but, quite frankly, the resulting behavior and colonial mindset is really disturbing and disgusting to me. And, I hate to say it, but this tends to be a general trend that extends to a lot of young people and adults in Ghana. A lot of them are shameless and will straight-up ask you for money or any of your personal possessions. Call me Western, but my initial reaction is always, “Er, f*ck off.” Even to kids. Man, what has Ghana done to me?!?

The Salia Brothers
So despite the disillusionment I experienced in Larabanga and Ghana, the Salia Brothers were a bright spot and gave me some hope in humankind, I guess.

Hussein and Al-Hassan are twins, and they were born and bred in Larabanga. Basically, they’re a couple of the few formally educated people in the village and, instead of leaving for greener pastures, they decided to stick around Larabanga and help out. They initially started with stuff like developing water sources (dude, Larabanga is a dry place and has annual water problems during the dry season) and health issues, but, about 13 years ago, they decided that developing tourism in Larabanga would be a good way to sustain community development. Besides its good location near Mole National Park, the village is also home to Ghana’s oldest mosque (which is quite cool, by the way), so there was a lot of potential.

Unfortunately, as I learned, the brothers and the village elders with whom they worked encountered a lot of resistance to their progress. It’s really sad, but I think their experiences over the past decade or so really reflect a prevailing attitude that many Ghanaians have shared with me during my time here: even though something is good for a large portion of society, there will inevitably be opposition because someone doesn’t want another person to “get ahead”. They would rather pull everyone down than allow one person to get ahead. The Brothers and several of the village elders shared that a lot of their work could not progress because of a lot of pettiness in the community. Even in my short time there, I saw some things you wouldn’t believe. For example, with the assistance of a philanthropic foundation, two of Larabanga’s three wells had recently been mechanized – that is, a mechanical pump was installed so that water was pumped from the well into a big tank. Villagers could simply turn on a tap and draw water from the tank instead of having to lug buckets manually from the well. So mechanized wells and easily accessible water means that the whole village benefits unequivocally, right? So it would seem.

First, somebody stole one of the pumps. So that’s one well that cannot be mechanized any longer. Meanwhile, the second pump was hooked up to the electricity of some villager’s house. He decided that, if the village wanted to use the pump for the well, then the village should pay for his whole electricity bill. When the village tried to plead with him otherwise, the dude shut off the electricity to his whole house (that means he didn’t have electricity either!) rather than allow the pump to be functional! On top of that, someone stole the on/off tap for the water tank that stored the pumped water, so that the tank could not be used, even if the electricity was available for the pump.

I know what you’re thinking, because it’s exactly what I was thinking: WTF? WTF?!?!?

This is just one of the stories, by the way. The brothers told me a lot more crazeeeeeeeee shit that went down over the years. It would make your head explode.

Sometimes I told Hussein and Al-Hassan about my own hesitations of entering public service, because of precisely the type of crazy politics and shitty egos that prevent real progress. I asked them why they even bothered sometimes. It’s like hitting your head against the wall.

Hussein had an answer that sort of restored my faith in people. “You have to do it, because no one else will. Just keep strong and faithful – it will work out OK.”

And, hey, who knows that the Brothers aren’t out to get ahead, you know? I’ve certainly kept that in mind, and you’ve always got to, as a skeptical American. Still, I think I’ve learned long ago that you should not deify men, but instead judge them on their actions. Hussein and Al-Hassan are straight-up dudes and they are very well-traveled, considering where they came from. Hussein has been all over Europe, and Al-Hassan has been to America. They both had a chance to stay, both had enough sponsors to allow them to stay, but they chose not to. They chose to return to little Larabanga instead. Heck, I sometimes feel that I can never return to Toms River because I saw a bit of Chicago, and here are these guys giving up even more to do good in their village. Makes you feel a bit of a chump…and a bit inspired, too, I suppose.

Miscellaneous Fun
Some other notable tidbits during my time in Larabanga:

1) Actually, it was kind of a crappy time for me to visit because everyone (Larabanga is 100% Muslim) was fasting for Ramadan. As such, they spent most of the day sleeping and trying to forget about food. I fasted for a day. The no-food thing is manageable, but not drinking sucks. I mean, it’s not really a climate meant for avoiding liquids (it was probably about 95-100 degrees Fahrenheit each day)!

2) A reason why I thought my illness was malaria was because I absolutely got chewed up and spit out by the skeeters (“mozzies” – thanks, Sarah!) in Larabanga. At one point I counted 79 bites – and those were just the ones that itched badly enough.

3) I got some really good mosquito quotes while in Larabanga:

“No, I fear mosquitoes.” - Al-Hassan, when I mentioned that Ghanaians were probably more used to mosquitoes than I was.

“I must protect you!” – Al-Hassan, upon discovering that I had no mosquito net

“Yesterday, mosquitoes try to kill me!” – Sharifa, cool Larabanga teenager


Sidenote of the Day: Rapidly dwindling time in Ghana
Dude! Only a week left before I head home. Being sick threw off my vacation schedule, but I’m still going to try to see the Cape Coast slave castle and the rainforest canopy thing before I leave. If only I wasn’t so lazy…