Friday, 24 September 2010

Taxis

It’s been a long day in the office, you pack up your laptop, brave the 10min walk through town in the heat, and with the sweat building on your back, turn the last corner to arrive at the taxi rank.
An expensive taxi in Ghana is a ‘dropping’ taxi, which will pick you up and drop you off where you want to go. New cars or those in reasonably road worthy condition start life as dropping taxis. But they are expensive. Westerners on holiday or very rich Ghanaians use them, everyone else takes shared taxis.


The shared taxi is the car which has finished life as a ‘normal’ taxi, because it is no longer strictly fit for road use.
So you arrive at the taxi rank, now pouring with sweat. Unfortunately the front car is full and about to pull off. Assuming you'll be waiting in the next cab you make your way towards the second car, only for shouting to erupt around you, with the queuing drivers pointing back towards the first taxi. To your surprise, the chap in the front seat has jumped out, 'made room' in the back, and is squeezing his way in with the other passengers. As the driver gets out to help him close the door the exhaust briefly hits the floor. Surely a front seat is for one person you think, but no, it turns out there's room in this car for two more...

Now for the dice role...
The Good
It transpires that your cab’s not too old, the engine works fine and the 12km trip down the coast home is actually quite pleasant. You even make the driver smile with the broken Fanti you've learnt in the past month.


The Bad
The car is tired and the 60mph road home is just too much for it. However your luck is in and the driver is an F1 fan who’s done this route before. It seems that by tucking in 3ft from the car in front the weary taxi will, in fact, get to 60 mph, and can even by launched, slingshot style around other cars with the driver making maximum possible use of the horn.


The horn is not really used in the west, drivers rely on their eyes and wing mirrors instead. Ghanaians use the horn a lot. Out here it is not the responsibility of the person pulling onto the road, or making the overtake, or going into a U turn to look at the traffic around them. It is the responsibility of anyone whom this manoeuvre would adversely affect to blast the horn continuously until the driver notices and stops. It actually works very well, after all you know far better if you’re going to hit someone than if someone is going to hit you, hence the ‘reversal’ of responsibilities.


With Hamilton up front you arrive home in remarkable time, coming gently to a halt by your house. The driver is gutted you weren’t travelling to the end of his route, his hard work overtaking for the past 10 minutes is rapidly being undone as you climb out of the car.


The Ugly
What you failed to notice as you climbed into the taxi were the huge cracks in the front windscreen, the tape holding the both windscreens in place, the fact that every panel in the car was dented and that you have a large piece of rust stuck to your trousers which you’ve no idea of the origin. 
This car is not awaiting scrapping in a used car yard, it is parked in the shared taxi rank, and will shortly fill with 'customers'
  
The driver pulls away, then immediately turns off the engine and coasts down a very slight incline of a road, in a major city, at about 10mph with cars beeping and overtaking at every opportunity. He has no fuel. Thankfully 'drives' knows that this incline, along with the three turnings he must make without breaking, will lead to the petrol station. Five minutes of rolling later you arrive at the pump.  As a general rule Ghanaians don’t refuel their car to more than half a tank, often less. Having a tank full of fuel would show that you have a decent stock of money, and in sub-Saharan culture your friends and family are allowed to ask for things which you have an excess off. It’s very difficult to decline these requests as you are ‘shunning’ those in need in your circle, which will result in bad blood between you. Losing friends is very low on people’s to do list out here.


So the driver drops in £2 worth of fuel and you’re away again. 4th and 5th gears are long gone, and you gently ease up to 30mph to travel along the 60mph coastal road home. You spend the next 15 minutes cowering in your seat with every vehicle under the sun coming thundering past you, horn blaring.


When you arrive home you are in dire need of a beer, and spend the next hour writing a blog about your misadventures.


Thursday, 16 September 2010

Quiz answers

Thank you for all your entries and comments! So to the answers...


1. Ghanaian fishermen are nocturnal for their entire adult lives. True (20% of people got this right).


Ghanaian fishing boats go out at 6pm, and come back at 6am with their catch. Fishermen work a 12 hour shift, all night, every night except for Tuesdays which by law is a ‘no fishing’ day. The men can often be seen slumbering on the beaches or fixing netting near their boats during the day.



2. Ghanaian women shave their heads regularly, but would not be seen outside the house without wearing a wig. False (80% of entries were correct).


Ghanaian women take their hair seriously. If they can afford it a Ghanaian women will go to the hairdressers once a week, and will come away with a completely new style, often with extensions. The manager of the cape coast office here looks different every Monday morning, it’s incredible!


A typical Ghanaian hair salon. Unfortunately the ladies are not keen on having photos taken mid-makeover, so this was taken in the early morning before opening



3. In Takoradi, our closest town, there are 2000 registered gays. True (30% correct).


“In 2009, Takoradi captured news headlines for allegedly hosting series of gay parties whilst over 2,000 registered homosexuals are said to be roaming the Twin City, according to the Western Regional Focal Person on HIV/AIDS, Dr. Roland Sowah.”  Ghanaweb source


The topic of whether homosexuality is actually illegal in Ghana is fiercely discussed, with liberals pushing Western values and conservatives demanding the law be extended to criminalize those involved. No one's really sure what is actually illegal, but the practice of ‘registering’ homosexuals does seem quite dark.



4. Ghanaian children must be able to do integer multiplication before being accepted into primary school. False (70% correct).


Primary school in Ghana begins at 6, a little young for compulsory testing. The kids are incredibly disciplined and desperate to learn, everyone here knows the value of a good education. Despite their enthusiasm few will end up with anything like a western schooling. If it’s not the lack of teachers in their area or the cost of going to class, then it’s parents withdrawing them to begin working to boost the family income. It’s not an easy life, but their enthusiasm every morning is always refreshing.




5. In Ghana the feet and wings of a chicken are considered the best eating. Brown leg meat is not thought fit for human consumption and goes into making pet food. False (0% correct).


Chicken is expensive in Ghana – nothing is wasted. A lunch of rice and sauce (chilli and oil) will set you back 12 pence while a chicken leg goes for 70 pence. We treat ourselves to one to share once every couple of days. There’s no chance anyone here would be feeding it to their pets.


6. “Obruni wowu” is the name Ghanaians give to second hand Western clothing sold in their markets. It translates as “Dead white-man's clothes” because they cannot understand why we would throw away perfectly good garments. True (90% correct).


7. Our local fishing ‘village’ of Elmina is home to over a thousand fishing vessels. True (100% correct).  It’s an incredible sight:

The village was once home to Portuguese, British and Dutch colonists who built two large forts on the high ground around the village (Elimina Castle, Wikipedia). Sadly they’ve fallen into disrepair, but tourists can wonder round them for a small fee. Lyd and I have decided we’ll turn this one into a luxury hotel someday, the views are spectacular:

8. In Ghana monkeys are often seen riding on the back of goats. Scientists have never understood why but the local taxi drivers find it hilarious. False, (70% correct).


I wish this were true. Just to prove it’s false, here is a picture of some unsaddled goats.


9. A significant proportion of retail buildings in Ghana are painted in garish colours and heavily branded to advertise mobile phone networks True (90% correct).


Advertising laws out here are a corporate ‘Head-of-Marketing’s’ dream. Want to offer people money to paint their house garish colours,  no problem. Want to pump out unbelievably loud music all day to attract attention, no problem. Want to pay all the chiefs in the annual carnival to wear your T-shirts rather than their traditional dress, right this way sir, how much are you paying? It’s sad, but it does bring in money, which the beneficiaries find hard to resist.

      








10. Due to the path it takes around the Earth, Ghanaians have never seen the moon. False (100% correct).


Indeed, but I was so hoping someone would get this wrong :o)
...


































So to the moment you’ve all been waiting for!


There were three entries with the highest score of 8 correct answers, so it comes down to who entered first. 

And the winner is,

    
Ben!

Congratulations, welcome to Ghana bro...

Tim & Lyd

Thursday, 9 September 2010

Quiz time!

Ok readers its time for a…  

 

Of the 10 statements about Ghana below, five are true and five are false. Drop your answers into the comments section below the blog in the format: 1F; 2F; 3T; 4T etc…

There is a prize for the winner, so don’t hold back: 
  1. Ghanaian fishermen are nocturnal for their entire adult lives.
  2. Ghanaian women shave their heads regularly, but would not be seen outside the house without wearing a wig.
  3. In Takoradi, our closest town, there are 2000 registered gays.
  4. Ghanaian children must be able to do integer multiplication before being accepted into primary school.
  5. In Ghana the feet and wings of a chicken are considered the best eating. Brown leg meat is not thought fit for human consumption and goes into making pet food.
  6. “Obruni wowu” is the name Ghanaians give to second hand Western clothing sold in their markets. It translates as “Dead white-man's clothes” because they cannot understand why we would throw away perfectly good garments.
  7. Our local fishing ‘village’ of Elmina is home to over a thousand fishing vessels.
  8. In Ghana monkeys are often seen riding on the back of goats. Scientists have never understood why but the local taxi drivers find it hilarious.
  9. A significant proportion of retail buildings in Ghana are painted in garish colours and heavily branded to advertise mobile phone networks
  10. Due to the path it takes around the Earth, Ghanaians have never seen the moon.
Have fun,

Tim & Lyd

Friday, 3 September 2010

The Slaughter of the Cow

This weekend is 'Festival weekend' in Cape Coast. The main event is tomorrow, but we were treated to quite a spectacle this morning. The ceremony of the 'Slaughter of the Cow'.

Back in the time when Cape Coast was little more than a village, a great plague beset it's god-fearing people. The plague spread far and wide, and in all the lands surrounding the village families began to lose their loved ones.

The people prayed, they sacrificed their goats and sheep, but it was all to no avail. Week after week the sick continued to die.

Distraught at their lack of power, the chiefs asked their great leader, the king of all the nearby lands, to try once more to commune with the god's and ask them what would bring peace. The King went away, and came back with devastating news. The gods were not satisfied with the sacrificing of animals. A man was to die, or the sickness would continue.

The Chiefs raged. How could this be? The god's had never asked for such a sacrifice before. But while they raged their children continued to die around them.

No chief was prepared to sacrifice themselves or their kin to meet the god's demands. And so, with heavy hearts, the cry went out to the countryside, for someone, anyone, to hand their life to the gods in exchange for an end to the sickness.

A lone voice replied. A voice in a tongue that few understood, an outsider, but a man prepared to put himself to the sword to end the death he saw around him. With the village looking on, the chiefs sacrificed the man, and with his blood came the end of the plague.

And so it is, once a year that the village remember the Outsider, the brave man who saved them all, many many years ago.

They remember him in style.

The chiefs lead a procession through the streets, dressed in their full tribal attire.


At the Front of the procession are dancers. (These video links go to our Picasa page, please do click through to them. Turn your volume right up for the true African experience):


In the middle beat the drums - (one poor chap was so distracted by the camera he walks away from his companion!):
Drumming (video)

And at the back, well you'll see...


Now the ceremony is not called the slaughter of the cow for nothing, and Lydia and I had front row seats for this gruesome spectacle. The chiefs gather while the beast is tied and brought into the pen.



The King blesses the animal with Schnapps, drinking a little, pouring some onto the beast, and some onto the ground. As he does so he makes a speech, fairly quietly, to the hundreds of local people gathering to see.


Now there's a space in the blog here for a reason.

DO NOT SCROLL DOWN IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED.






I'm being serious.



















































The king makes the first incision..

And within seconds it's all over...

Bizarrely the children of the town then lead the dead animal around on a cart, and at a rate of knots high enough to throw off all but the most hardened of photographers. Once you catch them though, they do love to pose...

This all happened at 11am. Having left the office half an hour before we were back before lunch to continue building Access databases and Excel trackers. Africa is truly awesome.

Tim & Lyd