Kumasi Magazine - July 19-20

With list of parts and a few rough schematics Mike and Clayton travelled to Kumasi again to meet our electrician friend Peter, and try to acquire everything we thought we needed for the generator project in Kumasi.  The tro-tro and taxi trips around Kumasi are always exhausting and slow, but the city is so full of interesting sights that it’s always exciting.  We were headed for the Kumasi magazine, where the largest concentration of car repair, engine work, metal workers, and parts shops were to be found.

The first thing on our list was the generator that Peter, Mike and Clayton had selected on their last trip to Kumasi. After waiting for a while at the shop the owner showed up, started the generator Ghana style to demonstrate that it worked, and the generator was loaded into the truck.

We needed the pulley for the generator to be modified so we took it to a machinist who Peter said could do the job.  The machinist needed the pulley removed from the shaft of the generator, so he grabbed his friend to try and use a vice to pull it off.  When that wasn’t working, he led us down and over a few streets to another machine shop that had a very big vice.  We watched while about 4 or 5 men grappled with the vice, twisting and pushing until finally the pulley started coming free.

The markets in the cities are almost like large towns of their own, crowded with concrete and wooden sheds roofed with corrugated metal.  They’re usually organized by content; house ware shops are next to each other, food stalls are in the same area, car parts can be found all in one place, etc. so it’s not too confusing to look around. Furthermore the shopkeepers and workers usually know the area extremely well and can direct you or lead you to find anything you need.  It’s a time consuming and tiring way to go shopping but it can be fun too.

The next day Mike, Clayton and Peter returned to the Magazine, only this time with tro-tro’s.  We combed the immense collection of parts store to collect everything needed ranging from coolant hoses and hardware to the frame and mounting studs. We even had to walk though a funeral to find a man who could sell us exhaust parts. By the end of the day we had collected all the necessary wiring, coolant plumbing and hardware, the belt, the pulley from the machinist, a coolant tank, and a frame. We finished the day with the welder, handing him everything we needed him to assemble for our trip next week.

Written by Clayton and Mike