WHATCHYA GHANA DO?

Archive for May 2013

Wild Winneba, or, That time I went to a cross- dressing, antelope-hunting, sacrifice festival...

Sunday 19 May 2013 by Renee

When we first arrived in Ghana, our orientation included a security briefing. When our security advisor found out that one of our crew was going to be based in Winneba, a small beach-side town about one to two hours west of Accra, he couldn't help relating everything in the briefing back to how boring little Winneba is, such is its reputation for tedium.

However, there is one drawcard to this quaint den of doldrums, that being Aboakyere, the annual deer hunting festival, where the Effutu of Central Coast region awake their gods and hunt antelope to sacrifice to the God Penkye Otu.

WITH. THEIR. BARE. HANDS.

The story goes that the festival began about three hundred years ago, when a female member of the royal family was sacrificed annually to thank Penkye Otu for kindly ensuring their safe migration from the Ancient Ghana empire to the present day Ghana coast. Not suprisingly, the royal family started dying out, so the Effutu negotiated with Penkye Otu to accept a leopard instead. What were they thinking? It turns out catching a live leopard wasn't really helping the whole avoiding human death plan, so eventually Penkye Otu accepted a live antelope instead.

And that, dear readers, is how we came to be in a large field of bushes at 6am on a Saturday morning two weeks ago, surround by hundreds of Ghanaian men of all ages, dressed in women's clothing, carryings clubs and throwing around libations like it was no-one's business. We were ready to battle it out with an antelope.

By the time we had arrived, jubilating, one of the key features of the festival, was in full swing. Things had kicked off with two teams, red and white, parading around town with fetish objects like logs and whips to awaken and please the Gods. By early evening things had descended into a big street carnival, sleepy Winneba transformed into party town,with plenty of costumes, dancing and street stalls.

Jubilating carried on into the night, despite the following day's festivities beginning extremely early in the morning - locals powering through without any sleep. We were told teams start their war cries and set off into the bush around 5:30am. After a touch of jubilation we set our alarms for 5:15 and went to bed.

By 5:30am, we were ready: guys in dresses, girls in pants, but all in red, and headed out to the road to find our allies. Still dark, we found not hundreds of war-crying men as expected but four older Ghanaian gentlemen, one of them in a red ladies terry-toweling hat, but all carrying some very serious-looking clubs, and learnt that they were the extent of the team so early in the morning. Essentially, we had joined the advance party. Perhaps Friday's festivities had taken it's toll...

The journey to the Antlope-hunting site read something like the children's book "We're Going on a Bear Hunt". A four km walk through the beachside villages, along the beach, across a lagoon probably infested with Bilharzia and who knows what else, through long grass, and finally, we were in the field.

We didn't really have a plan. We knew that once an antelope was found, everyone had to run back with the antelope to the Parade Grounds 5km back in town, to present it to the cheif, who then ceremoniously steps on the antelope. Some of our crew were keen to get amongst the hunt, while others didn't want to miss out on the presentation to the chief, and others had hedged their bets and went straight to the showgrounds. We spilt, with four going off into the bushes, and seven of us planning to head back to the parade grounds to avoid having to run in the heat once the deer was caught. Good plan eh?

We had missed our chance. We found a man leading a group of younger boys all painted red, who helped us navigate the long grass. He found a clearing for the boys to sit, and ordered us to do the same. But sir, we want to go back to the showgrounds. Too late; if we went now we would confuse the proceedings. Now is the quiet time that the older men go into the bushes to locate a deer, while everyone takes up positions around the bushes, waiting for directions. Once a deer is found, then it's on for young and old, everyone making as much noise as they could to chase the deer out of he bushes, with the circle formation in theory, there to catch the deer if it escapes. We weren't going anywhere.

It turns out, that the small boys we were sitting with were very prepared for this waiting period, having brought water and snacks with them. We had neither, and having left home in the dark, hadn't eaten at all and had left sun protection at home. We also learnt that we could not cross our arms or legs, as this would stop the antelope from being caught. I'm not sure if you've ever spent a morning in a sunny field, hungry without food, in tropical heat, without sun protection or water and unable to cross your arms or legs, but I would say it's not advisable. We keep forgetting the crossing the legs thing, and people kept coming up to us, uncrossing them for us.

Needless to say it was a long morning. Just relax, we were told. If you don't relax, the deer won't come. Ok. So some of us got comfortable, lying down in the grass. Obruni, don't lie down, you must sit! There were a lot of rules to follow, but everyone was understanding of us silly, ignorant obruni and happy to explain. As we sat, more and more boys and men came along to join us in the field, until there were literally hundred of boys and men, dressed in women's clothing, covered in red mud or red or yellow paint. The white team took the other half of the field, out of our view.

At the same time, our hunting friends were getting amongst it in the bushes, the one girl Jackie being the only female amongst them. Women aren't permitted to cross the lagoon when they're menstruating, and while in previous years some women join the hunting, as the deer have gotten harder to catch, they've more or less just banned women from joining in case they lie. As a result, Jackie had more Ghanaian men asking if she was menstruating than anyone has probably ever had in their life. Obviously, the inability of men to catch a deer is the fault of women's natural cycle, right?

Meanwhile in the field, we waited, and waited and waited. Legs uncrossed.

Then the whistles and drums and horns and screaming started, and those in the bushes started moving around the outside. And then in the field, responding to a cue none of us saw or heard, there was movement...

After a a good three hours, and one false alarm - they did catch one deer but it was too small - we decided that if a deer was going to be caught, we might as well head back, get some food, and then make our way to the parade grounds. So off we headed, through the fields, grass and even larger, muddier part of the swamp, this time with added oysters to makes things interesting, back to the hostel.

When we got home, we heard news from our hunting friends, still in the bushes that both teams were conceding defeat. This year, there would be no sacrifice for Penkye Otu.

After some food, showering and rest, we headed into to town to see how everyone was reacting to this news.

As we soon learnt, the lack of a catch didn't really seem to bother anyone, with festivities building and crowds growing. The the second day of jubilation starting with the teams parading around town led by their fetish priests, with the rest of the town in toe.

Things have been known in the past to get a bit ugly, and there was talk about the possibility of some violence emerging at this year's festival, hence this year's theme, "Peace and Unity". All celebrations took place very peacefuly, but luckily, Ghana Police were there just in case...

As the sun went down and parade scattered, things morphed into a huge street party. In what seems to be very typical Ghanaian style, the fact that the day was more or less a failure seemed to be quickly forgotten, and everyone got on with the business of some serious jubilation, the streets packed full of azonto dancing, performances, and one cedi Star beer on tap. We were happy to oblige.

A Night in the Savanna

Friday 3 May 2013 by Renee

So after our day of safari-ing, we were all pretty taken by the idea of spending a night in a tree house in the savanna. Some groups who do this see water buffalo, hyenas, and one group two years ago even saw a leopard. Tonight could be our lucky night! The fact that our booking had been stuffed up and we had to check out on of our room on Easter Sunday only served to reinforce this decision...

Of course, once we had committed to this idea and checked out of our nice, water proof room, mother nature had other ideas and brought a spectacular storm over the park...

We bunkered down and considered our options. How bad could a night in torrential rain under nothing but mosquito nets really be? Luckily the storm cleared in enough time for us to head out just after dusk, but not before we got to see a fantastic post-storm sunset...

Usually, groups set off about 5pm and walk to the tree house so that they can set up camp before the sun goes down. But since we had to wait for the storm, we had to wait until later and drive. Since we had received a call saying our flights the following morning had been brought forward by five hours (Again, with the tourism-work-in-progress NO ONE DOES THIS GHANA), we would have to leave before dawn, we decided to ask our trusty drivers Bim and Bolo to swing the Blue Bus out and spend the night with us to make a fast getaway in the morning. So off we headed into the night with our Guard and his trusty rifle should anything untoward make it's way up the tree house stairs...

Bim and Bolo were hesitant but obliged, and we soon discovered that despite growing up not far from Mole, they were abosolutely petrified. Extensive discussions were had over whether or not hyenas and leopards can climb stairs, and most of us were reassured after this discussion. But once we actually started hearing hyenas, it became clear that poor Bolo and Bim were not reassured at all. "Dogs!" Bim cried, "Wild Dogs, they will eat you!" Even though we were told they only eat carcasses, Bim was still unconvinced, and went down to the car to bring his prayer mat and beads up to the tree house.

While our large and talkative group didn't exactly see anything as exciting as had been described, we did see a crocodile and a kob wandering around and I was pretty impressed by hearing hyenas. Why is seeing something so much better than hearing it anyway? After a few hours of shining torches around, discussing Zimbabwean politics, and learning about Bim and Bolo's father's 12 wives, we headed under our nets to sleep under the stars.

During the night I woke to hear baboons having a fight, which was also pretty amazing!

Easter Safari

by Renee

Mole National Park (that's Mole like Mole-Ay) sits in the North of Ghana and has been one of my most anticipated trips I've been hanging out to do ever since I learnt we were moving here.

Now Ghana's tourism industry is er, very much a work in progress, and thanks to poaching West Africa sadly doesn't have quite the same variety of wildlife that eastern and southern Africa does, (no giraffes, rhinos or zebras in these parts), but the promise of seeing elephants, warthogs, antelope and monkeys in the wild was a lot to be excited about, especially for Adam and I who haven't yet been to other parts of Africa. Also, at twenty cedi for park entrance and fifteen for a three hour safari, (that's about $17.50 all up in Aussie dollars), it's probably one of the cheapest safaris in the world. So it was with much excitement that along with a bunch of friends from Accra and Tamale, the northern capital, we descended upon Mole for the Easter long weekend.

Just getting all ten of us from varying locations to Tamale was an achievement, but then how would we make the 3-6 hour trip west of Tamale to (yup 3-6 hours, never can be too sure in Ghana) to Mole? You can charter a taxi, but we'd need more than two so this was too expensive. You can take the public bus which runs once a day, but inexplicably the one to Mole often leaves quite late in the afternoon, which often means travelling in the dark, and in a country where a lot of people in rural areas choose to drive with their lights off "to conserve petrol", that isn't really an ideal scenario. Oh and there are stories of night time banditry on the Mole road. So...not really our first choice. That and the return bus, also inexplicably, leaves Mole at 4am in the morning. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? See what I mean about work-in-progress-tourism?

Anyway, our northern sistas took the task of finding a way to get there, and finally came to charter Bim's Bright Blue Bus on the basis of its fantastic colour. There were heated discussions on whether the bus was in fact blue or rather aqua, but in the interest of alliteration, it stuck. Insha'allah, Bim would take us there on Friday morning, and Insha'allah, we would survive the weekend, and Bim would drive us back on Monday. Not quite confidence-filling, but it was a fantastic colour! So they made a deal and at about 8am on Good Friday we all rendezvoused at Dani's place, including Bim, his brother Bolo and his Bright Blue Bus.

Adam, Mike, Courtney, Lotte and Pete, demonstrating their excitement, uneaten in-flight chicken sandwich, Northern hats, and Bim's Big Blue Bus.

So off we set, with Bim driving extremely cautiously (like, 40km an hour-type cautiously) the whole time. Sometimes we didn't really understand we had to drive at snail's pace on decent roads, then other parts it was more self evident...

Also I noticed that any time we could see people or vehicles stopped in the distance, Bim would give Bolo a glance of suspicion and Bolo would take the cigarette lighter out of the console, I suspect as some form of protection against possible daylight bandits. What on earth they would have done with it I have no idea, but thankfully we didn't need to find out.

Anyway, after 5 hours on the road and a lunch break that blew out to two hours, we arrived at the park mid-afternoon. I had heard a variety of stories about how "basic" Mole Motel was, but having done a bit of rural travel in Ghana now, we were pleasantly suprised. Nothing fancy, but nice clean rooms situated on top of an escarpment looking west over the 484,000 ha of savanna.

Exhausted from the journey, we were thrilled that as the sun sets, you can sit and have a drink while watching over some of the watering holes and wait for the animals to arrive. It wasn't long before some of our crew spotted our first Elephants!

After an early night we were up at the crack of dawn ready for our walking safari. We didn't have to walk far before the excitement began though, as one of the more friendlier elephants was hanging out near the info centre. Huzzah!

Once we had dealt with that excitement, we met at the info centre and were assigned a guide. Adam wore his special safari shirt we had found in an Obruni Waawu (Dead White Man's Clothing - ie second hand donated clothing) stall the previous day in Tamale. He had already packed his "seedy interactive leopard print" shirt he found in Accra (the leopard print panels are furry, providing endless entertainment) but this one took the cake and also did not raise concerns about confusing and attracting the leopards. The safari was also a good chance to take our newly purchased northern-style hats for a spin. Nanna, I'm still on a look out for an African-print hat, but we've got this in the meantime!

In true Ghanaian style, our safari began with a tour through the park's worker's quarters. It was fantastic to see Pumba and his monkey friends in their natural habitat surrounded by pure water sachets!

Then we were taken for a long walk through the bush to a gravel pit. There was once a dutch man, our guide explained with a great deal of excitement, who donated a lot of money and effort, who gravelled the main road through the park. This is the pit that the gravel came from. Now the workers use the gravel to fill in the pot holes...

Adam looking like something out of a Hunter S. Thompson novel, nursing his water sachet (the most commonly found form of drinking water here), trying to contain his excitement over the gravel pit...

It was during this captivating lesson that one of the gravel-pit workers pointed out that there were elephants walking through the nearby bushes...off we followed with a lot of excitement and sure enough, there they were, themselves crossing the glorious gravel pit.

With the buzz of our first safari elephant encounter, we set off again through the Savanna...

We eventually came to a tree house overlooking one of the water holes and the salt pit which attracts a lot of nocturnal animals. For a small fee, we learnt, you can come and sleep in the tree house and wait to see some animals of the night. Sounds pretty good right?

Mike learning how to shoot a rifle in the tree house. We all watched nervously anticipating the awkward questions that could follow. "So, how did the last leopard in West Africa come to die?"

Not long after we headed away from the tree house we came across a herd of kob (antelope) which were pretty cool to see in such a large group.

Figuring the elephant and antelope sightings were probably the peak of the excitement for the morning, we headed back towards the motel...only to find seven elephants hanging out in the watering hole at the base of the escarpement. We all felt like kids on Christmas morning! Despite the heat of the mid-morning sun, we sat and watched them for quite a while, amused by them fanning themselves with their ears, using there trunks like snorkels, and occasionally spraying themselves with water.

I like to think that in this photo, the kob and the elephant in the far left are trying to do a silly tourist pose for me...

Our last find for the walk was a large troop of baboons hanging out at the top of the cliff. Yes troop is the collective noun for baboons, I just googled it.

With all of that excitement we headed off for breakfast and a swim in the motel pool of dubious water quality. After a restful afternoon we were ready to head out again. This time we were assigned a guide who was also named Adam.

Adam and Adam, or "Adam Squared" as the guide insisted

This time we headed off on a driving safari. And by driving, I mean on top of a jeep, rather than in it. The park alters jeeps, attaching seats to the roof. Despite the lack of a roll cage, this didn't stop the drivers taking fast and sharp turns. It's like a thrill ride, death wish and safari all rolled into one! Our guide Adam was much more knowledgeable about the wildlife than our morning guide was, and we had a lot more animal encounters too.

The highlight of the whole trip was no doubt getting REALLY close to a group of male elephants, perhaps the same ones we saw earlier in the morning but this time much much closer.

Elephant peek-a-boo!

This young guy below was definitely the most curious. We were told that the left tusk is used for digging up roots and trees, and the right is for fighting, so we know he lost his in an eating accident. I figure it's like losing a tooth to a boiled lolly incident. I get it little guy, sometimes you just want all that sugary goodness NOW!

But our CLOSEST encounter was the elder statesmen of the group, in the style of Son-of-Cocoa, named People's Friend Number Two. He was just ten metres away from us on foot! Our guide told us that it was ok, if they look like they're going to start charging, you just throw a rock at them and they'll get frightened off. Hmmm. I dunno, if a ten tonne creature starts charging at me I'm not confident a pebble is going to help me...