Accra and Goodbye Ghana – August 3

We wanted to make a few last touristy stops around Accra to see the important monuments and other miscellaneous places that we hadn’t seen, since we had only been in the city for a few hours on the day we first arrived in Ghana.

Our first visit was to the tomb of the first President of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah who declared Ghanaian independence in 1957.  His tomb was a large marble enclosure, Designed by a Ghanaian architect, constructed by the Chinese, with marble from Italy.  It was shaped like a sort of tree trunk with all of the outside walls curving upwards.  A nearby guide told us that the tree shape had been cut off to represent works unfinished by the President, whose government was overthrown by a military coup.  Later, driving by the very large Flagstaff House estate where the current President’s of Ghana always live, we could see that the massive Presidential Palace was also designed similarly.  In front of the tomb, pointing inland towards Ghana, was a large statue of Nkrumah, supposedly on the exact spot where he stood to declare the independence of Ghana.  Seven other statues of horn blowers on each side, as well as one statue playing native drums and one playing a native string instrument to represent the North and the South cultures of Ghana flanked the statue.

The Tomb

A horn blower

The Presidential Residence

After visiting the tomb we took a quick tour through the Kwame Nkrumah Museum nearby, which housed many photographs of him with famous figures like, Queen Elizabeth, Fidel Castro, Chairman Mao, and President Kennedy.  They had others artifacts too, like pens or desks corresponding with some significant time in his life.

The next visit was to the large indoor art and Ghanaian wares market at the Cultural Center not far away.  It reminded us particularly of a less overwhelming and smaller Central Market of Kumasi, but the whole thing had a roof over it.  We had a chance to pick up any last minute souvenirs and gifts that we had missed from the rest of our time here.  Most of the market contained what we’d seen all over, like masks, jerseys, cloth, kente, all concentrated in area (and for higher prices too).

Our final stop in Accra was the Mall, a place that was eerily American.  We ate in the food court to provide a variety of options, both Ghanaian and American.  Here we were also able to print off a photo of us with Emmanuel to put into the frame that we all signed for him as a thank you for all his work with us!  After picking up our things from the guesthouse, we headed straight to the airport to check our bags in.  That gave us a brief time outside to say our goodbyes to our friends Emmanuel, Govina, Cornelia, and Baba.  The international terminal in Accra is very nice and we had a good time swapping photos as we waited at our terminal, but all too soon the time came to say goodbye to Ghana and to say goodbye to Helena, who took a flight to visit family in Austria before returning to the US. 

Down to just four, we safely boarded our flight around 9 PM Ghana time and started our journey home!

Written by Clayton and Mollie

Cape Coast – July 2

We had an early start to the morning, rolling out of Kumasi at 6 AM with Emmanuel and Govina.  Emmanuel wanted us to get to see a few more points of note in Ghana before our departure.  We drove directly to Cape Coast, Ghana and started near there at Kakum National Park.  The main attraction at Kakum is the canopy walk through and above the rainforest.  We all made it and while some held on tighter to the ropes than others, everyone had the courage to cross the entire way!

A view of the rainforest 

Chelsea crossing

Clayton documenting

Mike is happy

Mollie in the middle

Helena hanging on for dear life - or just tree hugging

After lunch at Kakum, we headed to the Castle in Cape Coast.  We had a very nice tour guide who gave us an idea of how the castle operated over 300 years ago.  He showed us through the slave dungeons and captain’s quarters and everything in between, including the “door of no return”.  The castle is impressive and the location is right on the Atlantic Ocean and spectacular, but yet the history is so mind-bogglingly atrocious.  Despite its history it was exciting and even peaceful to see the Atlantic from Ghana, with the waves crashing into the castle walls and the horizon spanning on, seemingly forever. 

The group with the castle behind and the dungeons below

View from the castle of the coast

That night we traveled to Accra and stayed in a CSIR guesthouse, which was very nice.  The complex was located in the middle of the section of town containing all the important government buildings like the BNI (The Bureau of National Intelligence – the Ghanaian FBI).  There were also many embassies for foreign nations.  We saw the Canadian and Egyptian embassies, and caught a little glimpse of home soil when we passed around the U.S. Embassy.

Written by Clayton and Mollie

We're in Ghana - July 1

Hi everyone, we’re sorry for the delay in blog posts- our days have been long and we’ve been keeping busy! Our flights (Houghton->Chicago->Atlanta->Accra) went without a hitch, and we arrived around noon, Ghana time, on July 1^st. Our advisors Mary, Bob, and Andrew from Michigan Tech, as well as our Ghanaian contact Emmanuel (our other Emmanuel- not our TA in Houghton) and a few of Emmanuel’s friends greeted us when we arrived in Accra and took us out to lunch at a small restaurant just outside the airport, since we had a few hours before our final flight from the capital Accra to the city of Kumasi. It was so surreal to finally be in Ghana- a place we have been imagining for so long. We dove right in and tried some local dishes- Clayton, Helena, and Mollie all had red-red, a plate of beans with red palm fruit oil, and fried plantains, while Mike and Chelsea had the jollof rice, a rice dish with tomato sauce and spices.

The group at the restaurant near the Accra airport

After our late lunch we flew to Kumasi, the home of KNUST (Kwame Nkrumah University Of Science and Technology) and FORIG (Forestry Research Institute of Ghana). The drive from the airport to our hotel in Kumasi was probably the highlight of our trip so far. As our expert FORIG drivers wove in and out of the traffic (though “traffic” seems too tame a word for the amount of activity on the roads here), we finally got our first look at life in a country very different from the one we just left. In the city, there are people walking everywhere, crossing the busy streets as casually as if there were no cars at all. Among them, street vendors walk between the cars at the stoplights, carrying their wares on their heads as they offer everything imaginable- from chocolate to toilet paper- to the people sitting in their vehicles. Another striking feature of the surroundings- which can be seen everywhere in the area- is the bright red color of the soil, which is one of the most basic indicators of the fact that we are very far from home.

After our eventful first drive through town, we went out with our advisors to another local hotel to watch part of the Spain vs. Italy soccer game (4-0, Spain), and then had dinner at the hotel restaurant, where we tried mashed African yams for the first time, as well as fried plantains (different from the red-red kind) called kelewele.  Finally, we got to get some rest, since at this point we had been up and traveling for the past two days. Needless to say, we all slept pretty well! 

Places

While we are in Ghana, we will be traveling all around the western part of of the country.  For those of you interested in touching up on your Ghanaian geography, here's a Google Map to help you keep track of the places we'll be writing about!