Northern Ghana

My decision to travel to Northern Ghana was quite a calculated one, I'll confess. Afterall, in large part working with/in the Northern part of Ghana is what ultimately led me here initially with my internship to do work with the elderly who had been banished to witch camps, which lie in this particular area of Ghana.

As well, I had heard that the contrasts between Accra and the coastline was so very different from that of the North, I just had to see what it was all about! In any case, most of the Northern part of Ghana (North of Kumasi) is predominantly Muslim, as well as being quite a rural area. (Oh-- and I also heard that it got cooler at night, which was also a strong and hopefully 'refreshing' catalyst that encouraged my decision to go!)

So my roommate, Beth and I set out on January 6, 2008 to travel from Accra to Tamale which takes approximately 12 hours one-way. We used the city bus service, which had enough scheduled 'urinal' (yes, even for females) stops along the way. Toilets are a luxury in the North, so you had to pay a small fee to use one.

On January 7, Beth and I caught another bus from Tamale to the largest and most frequently visited national park in Ghana, Mole National Park which is situated in the heart of the Guinea Savannah woodland ecosystem. This trip was supposed to take us 6 hours... HA!

Firstoff, our driver was a madman! He drove like 80 km/hr on one of the worst, bumpiest dirt roads I've ever been on! Imagine just constantly vibrating in your seat and for fun, once in awhile, your chin bouncing off the seat infront of you.

So just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, the bus's axle broke (well I guess so at that fregan' speed!) and off we all piled. Scary thing was that sunset was falling and due to our late departure from Tamale, we were only halfway down the road to Larabanga, where we would then have to find another way into the National Park after dark. Now I don't know about you, but traversing a darkened road amongst elephants, baboons and God knows what else, loses its appeal after calculated thought or?

So we met 2 Canadians who were on our bus from Calgary, Tanya and Danny who provided us with many laughs. (Tks for that again, wet pants Dan!)

Our appetites were overpowering us as well, while we waited for this apparent bus that was supposed to come rescue us... somehow I had my doubts. So the 4 of us indulged on tea bread and groundnut paste for a few hours. The night drew some cooler airs our way which meant I needed to change out of my sweaty clothes and just after I did, sure enough a bus came along to save the day/night!

So we all piled on, and Beth and I took our seats as fast as we could and I ended up on a 'filler seat' (not stable one, just like a flip-down seat) in between seats. So of course, we're taking off down this craziest road I've ever been on, bumps galore and we hit a huge bump, and I go flying into the air and land on my seat, which decides to no longer support me and I plummet to the floor! So there was I-- sinking onto the floor as Beth and I anxiously tried to pull me up through our uncontrollable laughter! Worst part was that as she was trying to pull me up, it was so dark she couldn't see, so she accidentally punched me in the eye while reaching to help her fallen soldier up! Oh, did we roar... me through the intermittent pain of course!

At long last, we arrived in the small town of Larabanga at midnight, which we were told would be a 15 min. taxi ride into the park. Fine, we 4 Canadians agreed to wait for the taxi and chopped something as the taxi ran people ahead of us to the park.

When the taxi arrived for us, we went along the dark, bumpy dirt road about half way before I noticed a huge rock just waiting for us to run over it. Assuming the driver saw it too and would avoid such a monstrosity at all costs, I was shocked when he directly ran it over! The 3 in the back complained almost instantaneously of the strong smell of gas...

So we made it to the park and got to the (only) hotel and the taxi driver assessed the grave situation as we worried for how he'd get back into Larabanga. Then, out of nowhere and without a second thought, he took a piece of soap, shoved it to the punctured hole, and off he sped telling us he'd see us before we left!! Oh Ghana...

Early we rose the next day to start our guided, safari walk through the park. It was about 3 hours long and I got to see elephants, antelope, baboons, monkeys, crocodiles and warthogs as we journeyed. Have to say this safari in Ghana paled if I had to compare it to South Africa or Zambia's.

It was SO dry in Mole, we were constantly applying sunscreen and lip balm...

I began to wonder what would soothe my drying skin.

When we finished the hike, I took a rest and Beth arranged (in between being harassed by angry baboons) for that same taxi driver to pick us up and give us a tour of his hometown, Larabanga, which is 100% Muslim. So we did just that... got to see where he lives, witness his brother's adoration (meaning the celebration of his new nephew) and even buy some soothing Shea butter to help us cope for the rest of the trip.

The next morning, Beth and I woke to catch the only bus departing Mole at 3am down that Godforsaken road for the last time... wasn't so bad this time round. We then made our way up to Bolgatanga in the afternoon to have a peaceful, restful night.

For me, January 10 was THE most exciting day of our whole trip! We left Bolgatanga in the morning to travel to the border town of Paga. Paga is the last stop in Ghana before you cross over to Burkina Faso, so you then picture just how far North we did manage to get!

Our first stop was the Chief's sacred crocodile pond, which was home to one mean-looking, 90-year old croc! The deal was, you had to pay 3 cedis/chicken to feed the croc so they of course would be full (and have no interest in eating you), and then as typical tourists, we could snap photo's. However, I have a serious fear of these beastly carnivores that I never told Beth about, so this was a serious fear of mine I was staring at, dead-on as my roommate bravely roamed about with them!

So we paid for the chickens (--yes, plural to be safe), and watched the croc just snap his jaw down with chicken inside- yikees.

Moments later, the croc turned to head back into the water to eat his prize... with Beth holding his tail!!! Yes!! Crazy! The way crocs eat is they catch their prey, then take it into the pond to digest it-- but before going under the water to digest, they surface for 1 more breath of air (which we were witness to).

There was even 1 female croc who was missing half her tail (the Chief explained to us that the females fight over the males and that can be the tail-end result!) who sauntered over to Beth and I as if we'd make a good meal, and the Chief and attendants had to hit its nose with sticks and talk to it to get it to back off. Beth and I kept walking backwards, praying there weren't any more behind us...

s-c-a-r-y! They then gave it a chicken to keep it at bay.

What was so interesting about this pond though, was that the croc's lived harmoniously with the cattle and donkey's that would come to drink there (we witnessed this too). Even people collecting water or doing their wash very close to crocodiles left unharmed. "Legend has it that long ago a hunter was trapped between a pond and a pursuing lion. He made a bargain with a crocodile he saw in the pond that he and his descendants would never eat crocodile meat if the crocodile helped him cross the pond and escape from the lion. The crocodile agreed and the hunter was safely carried across. The hunter established his house and later a village." (http://mysite.verizon.net/vze827ph/paga.htm)

We then headed off to a small village called, Achala.

Much like the rest of this part of Northern Ghana, this area was heavily affected by the floods that occurred last September 07 and the village of Achala had preserved what little it could.

An interesting component to this tiny village in Paga was that almost in anticipation of such a catastrophic event, the Achala people built their homes with an outdoor staircase leading up to the rooftop to take refuge if need be. So clever! The Chief explained people used to sleep up there not only due to flooding, but also from the harsh heat that hits the area in the dry season.

Before we left and in traditional African style- we were geared up with traditional warrior gear for some photo opp's by the Chief!

We then took off to the Pikworo Slave Camp (a moving experience for me), which served as a holding place for slaves on their way to Salaga Slave Market where they would be sold and had their last bath. The Slave Camp was really the beginning of their long journey... after seeing so many castles along the coastline, and then seeing the place where they began their journey on foot for months, was really like a full-circle moment for me.

Pikworo Slave Camp was the main camp in the Upper East Region where slaves were kept after having been captured by slave traders. From here, the slaves walked shackled to the largest slave market of present day Ghana-- in Salaga and from there, they continued walking to the Coastline before being shipped to Europe, the Americas, Arabia or to one of the other British/Dutch colonies elsewhere in the world. You can see a lot of evidence of life in the Slave Camp-- such as the holes the slaves had to carve out with just their hands and a rock into the rocks to be used as a bowl for them to eat out of. 6-10 slaves would eat a gruel-like substance out of the same, carved-out bowl (which was about the size of an open hand, oval-shaped), barely enough to sustain even 1 person. There was also a tiny natural spring formed between 2 rocks, which was the only water supply in the Camp.

Another haunting stop along the tour of the Camp was at what they called the 'meeting place of the slaves', which kind of had a stage-like setup and some of the captured Africans would play drums on the rocks with another rock (the rock made a ghostly sound like I've never heard before... so unique) and sing songs. A cleared area below is where the others would dance when the watchmen weren't around. For Beth and I, 4 men played and sang on the rock just as their ancestors would have years ago.

The primary purpose of this 'meeting place' though was so masters could choose their slaves-to-be.

'The watch tower of the slave raiders' served as a place where a brainwashed African (who had to be strong, the tour guide added) would be selected to 'watch' over the other slaves and report any misbehavior.

The cemetery for dead slaves actually found us standing atop of buried slaves, and we were told they began just heaping the bodies one on top of the other because of the amount who were dying in captivity. Most died from torture, malnutrition, malaria or any other communicable disease.

I have included a photo I took of our tour guide sitting on the 'punishment rock' where a slave would be ordered to sit in the hot, blazing sun with their ankles chained to the bottom of the rock (which was worn from the actual chains used over a hundred years ago) and their hands chained behind them, facing the sun. No food, no water often = death occurring on this rock. If you died you would be used as an example for anyone else thinking about escape. This rock actually overlooks the cemetery. Masters would in fact mock the slaves on the rock so that they could be used as an example for other slaves, contemplating misbehavior.

Throughout the camp, you see signposts of what the meaning is behind the different stops. Maybe it was the time of year... or the remnants of ancestors forgone, but there was a creepy, desolate and haunting feeling that overcame me the entire time we toured the Pikworo Camp.

It was a sobering experience to say the least possible, but a necessary one to help me piece together the mosaic of a puzzle that is the TransAtlantic Slave Trade. Up to today, I still try to imagine what life would have been like back then... and no matter what I come up with, it still thankfully just remains my 'imagination'.

And it haunts me to think at some point in time, it was actually an innocent person's 'reality'. How grateful am I...

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After our time at Pikworo, we journeyed to snap some photo's at the Burkina Faso border (you know, just to say we've been!) then we headed back to Bolgatanga to catch a tro-tro (common, cheap way to travel in Ghana) back to Tamale.

January 11 was our last day in the North and I had forever wanted to go see these Witch Camps I was supposed to be working with/in for my internship. Perhaps the most well-known one is the one in Gambaga, but there are actually 6 witch camps scattered around Northern Ghana.

Here's a bit of background...

When crops fail or children die of mysterious illnesses, the villagers of Northern Ghana usually suspect that a witch is to blame.
The accusation is most likely to come from within a family - the same feeling that binds a village together in adversity, can be turned ruthlessly against a scapegoat, and it takes little more than suspicion for a witch to face death at the hands of a lynch mob (as we were waiting to catch the only bus back to Walewale, a man under a tree casually told us it only takes 2 hours to stone a witch to death).
Fearing for their lives, hundreds of elderly women in northern Ghana have banded together for protection in sanctuaries known as "witch camps". They live in clusters of sun-baked huts, where lizards scuttle under the eaves and pumpkin vines grow over the thatched roofs. Northern Ghana lags behind the more fertile and affluent south of the country in development terms. In isolated villages surrounded by tangles of bush, literacy levels are low and elderly widows are a convenient scapegoat for life's tragedies.
There are fresh influxes of alleged witches whenever there is an unexplained phenomenon - anything from outbreaks of malaria or meningitis, to blighted crops.

So when Beth and I arrived, we were on a tight time schedule because the bus only took about 45 mins. to drop everyone off in the neighboring town, then it would pass through Gambaga again for the last trip of the night (and if we missed that bus, we'd have to overnight there, which just wasn't an option). So we had just 30 mins. to unravel some of the questions I had.

The Chief's son was alerted there were obroni's (whites) wanting a tour of the witch camp, so of course we were led to him and he took us to meet/bribe the Chief. We paid an amount, then headed to the camp. The Chief's son was a really bad tour guide in that he couldn't extract any information from the 'witch in charge' for us. And of course, language is a barrier since literacy as I mentioned in this part, is a real rarity.

Awkward too, was the fact that there were 'accused witches' just sitting outside their grass-thatched huts, sifting through maize, to just help the day go by it seemed. One thing the Chief's son did slip in was that there was no funding to help these women... which is very odd since we were informed even from Osu (maybe even from Canada) that the witch camp in Gambaga was being funded by Ghana's Presbyterian Church, so that struck me as odd. But there was also no signage at all...??

The most interesting part I have to say was speaking with a local, elderly man under a tree while anxiously waiting for our last hope of a ride back to Walewale. He told us that the local farmers hire the women on their farms and pay them something small to work for them. The farmers will even eat with the witches- no problem. When I asked him then if it was true that there is no actual form of aid for the women, he abruptly said, 'I see relief trucks coming and going all the time to the camp and even the government of Ghana donates bails of clothing to them and foodstuffs throughout the year'. Who's telling the truth here I began to wonder... that Chief's son was likely trying to extract as much $ as he could out of Beth and I.

He also mentioned that witches are 'cured' with a herbal concoction. When asked what he knew about the behavior of a witch, he casually told us how they fly around and a story of how 1 witch was proposing a man who was already with another woman, so the witch vexed the woman one night and she turned into thousands of different insects! When I asked him if he actually saw this himself, he of course replied, 'no! The witches will never allow you to see their works!'

So yes, folks he does believe in something he himself has never been a witness to. But I learned more from him while sitting under that tree for 10 minutes, than I learned by actually going to the witch camp!

Overall, we can chalk it up to fearing what we don’t understand. A child falls sick and dies without reason. Who do we blame? Is it God’s will, or is there some other force at work? Most people feel better having something or someone to blame for life’s misfortunes - and in Northern Ghana that blame often falls on elderly women believed to be witches.

So there was I... finally at the place where my internship was 'supposed' to unfold if it had had the funding, with so many questions in mind that I was ready to ask... in the quest for answers...

and there I left Gambaga, with even more questions than I came with...

To learn more, CBS aired a short video clip last month on the witch camps in Northern Ghana, and you can view it at: http://cbs5.com/video/?cid=130

I left Northern Ghana the next day, January 12 to head back to Accra. Figuring I would have a relaxed journey back, where I could reflect on all I'd seen and experienced... the tables turned.

We were just out of Tamale when we slowed right down to meet another city bus in the oncoming lane...

but something was amiss. The passengers had the most shocked and terrified looks on their faces-- I can still see it today. And as I looked closer, the complete left-hand side of the bus had all of its window glass shattered out of it and the luggage flaps along the bottom of the bus were wide open?? The passengers just stared at us blankly from what I realized now was just open air. Must have made for a cold bus ride...

Suddenly, I heard people on my bus shouting, 'they've GOT to stop that night service bus from Accra to Tamale... they've just GOT to'. So of course, my North American way of thinking... I thought the driver fell asleep at the wheel and closely skimmed something to take out all the windows on the side of the bus...

but wait-- why/how did the luggage flaps get opened?

A kind, Ghanaian man in the seat ahead of me saw my concern and lack of understanding due to language barriers and explained to me that as of lately, the Ghana Police have had to ride the night service buses on the routes between Tamale and Accra (and keep in mind, this is like a 12-hour ride) because armed robbers prey on a desolate road near Techiman around 4am.

See, what the robbers do is they block the road with a big log so that the bus has to stop because it can't get by. The robbers then usually attack the driver and demand he give them all the luggage below the bus, while another robber robs the passengers onboard with a weapon.

He explained that this particular bus though that we were seeing had 4 police men on board and they opened fire (hence the blown-out window glass) on the robbers who then fled deep into the bush where a getaway car would be waiting.

How utterly terrifying! No wonder the looks on the faces of those innocent people were unlike anything I've ever seen. My God.

The kind man then pointed out when we reached the Techiman area where the robbers commonly place the log, and the bush they flee into. So eerie... so eerie.

Let me tell you, I was ever so glad to get back to Accra and even more glad when Beth safely arrived the next morning.

A priceless blessing at the end of an experience of a lifetime.