Ghana, an Oasis of Peace in Africa

Where to start?? President Obama and Michele visited Ghana in July 2009 because Ghana had democratic principles they respected. Ghana is considered the Mecca of African democracy. We came to Ghana to learn about its government, people, economy and life. The coast line of Ghana is so lovely from afar with coconut palm and banana trees on the hills. Rainforests and savannahs where monkeys and elephants abound can be found inland with many villages, many with no electricity or plumbing. The poverty and lack of infrastructure is in stark contrast to what nature has provided to the land. The people cook with wood, or used to, and have destroyed eight million acres of forests. In addition, nature provided Ghana with the largest gold mine in the world, and manganese which the US imports for aluminum production. Oil was recently discovered off-shore by another country’s company. The money from all these resources has not gone into Ghanaian infrastructure! They export gold, manganese and cocoa beans, their main crop. The Government owns all natural resources and pays the tribe living on the ground above the resource a percentage (my guess is not much). They do not build industries around their resources but export it all. Unemployment is 34%!

The Portuguese found Ghana in 1491 during an effort to establish an alternative route for trading spices which avoided the cross-country route, a route made dangerous by the Crusades between Christians and Muslims. When they discovered all the gold in Ghana, they returned to Portugal and lied to everyone about the wild animals and cannibals in dangerous Ghana in order to keep the riches for themselves. That ruse worked until others noticed the Portuguese accumulating great riches! They built castles and forts to protect “their property” and the slave trade began. But I’ll talk a little about that later. The Dutch eventually overcame the Portuguese and took possession of the Gold Coast, gold and the slave trade. They sold their castles to the British after slave trade was abolished.


We visited two of these slave castles, a sobering experience. We walked in the rain in a rainforest. (see Paul’s blog) We traveled on paved, single lane crowded highways and muddy roads made worse with the rain. We stayed in a lovely Coconut Grove Resort that reminded me of a place along the coast of Mexico – not a high rise, but pleasant single-story buildings with porches and flowers and lovely grounds by the sea. We felt guilty about such comfort after all the poverty we had seen. Everywhere are partially constructed houses of many proportions, but mostly smaller. One was actually very “American” looking and had a blue roof like the Pancake House restaurant. These are buildings whose owners have run out of money. We were told they will eventually return to finish them when they have the money. Most housing was concrete block or mud construction with tin or grass roofs and very small. The windows were usually not covered with glass or plastic. The average temperature here is 86 degrees, so they do almost everything outside. We observed lots of extremely tall TV aerials, but only 2 or 3 dishes for satellite TV.

Fishing boats as seen from the castle



Slave Castle

 The Slave Castles and Dungeons of Ghana are right on the potentially gorgeous Gold Coast  a few kilometers apart.  Many a captured African either died or was packed like a sardine onto a ship to Brazil, the Caribbean or Cuba.  The slave dungeons held about 100 slaves each for 3 to 4 months chained together by fives.  The records indicate that some 60 million were taken captive, 40 million were shipped out, and 20 million survived the trip across the Atlantic.  The brutality of the captors is beyond the imagination!  And the hypocrisy of these captors!  They held mass right over the 100 or so captive women in the dungeon under their feet!   The active slave trade ended when the British outlawed it.  But its demise was sealed by the coming of the industrialized world.

Rainbow as we left Ghana



female Dungeon

The food was good! Not gourmet, but homey, what you might expect in this country. My favorite was fried plantains or plantain with Joliffe rice (spicy rice peculiar to this area which I hope to discover yet.) Sadly, the rice growers here are unable to sell their crops because the government is allowing the import of American rice which is advertised on large billboards so the Ghanaians buy that instead. That isn’t right. How can they expect their people to make a living? Why not protect the little income they generate? We also had chicken curry, lots of fish, always fried, black eyed peas, and red beans and some extremely hot sauce they call “pepe” sauce – perfect for those heat lovers!

I would be remiss if I did not mention the pride of the Ghanaians for defeating the U.S. in the World Cup and the fact that President Obama chose to visit Ghana. We even found fabric in the shop with his picture printed on it and a large billboard of President Obama with the Ghanaian President.

The Government is democratically elected and the current President has a much needed focus on education. He plans to build 200 schools. Well and good if he also supplies the books and pays teachers a living wage. The primary public schools have no books and often, no chalk, for the blackboards. In contrast, the private schools look well built and supplied. The six universities only have room for 40% of the high school graduates. However, technical and vocational schools do exist. But where do they work after? I understand that those who have jobs can only work for three days – in other words, jobs are shared.

I met a young lady on the beach at the Coconut Grove Resort who is teaching in a primary school in Ghana for three months for her university. She was quite discouraged by the lack of tools to teach. She looked Ghanaian with her high cheekbones, color, other facial features and braided hair style. I complimented her excellent English and she laughed and told me she was born and raised in Ohio. Almost everyone speaks English in Ghana’s cities as a result of the British colonization.

So far we have been to markets in Spain, Morocco and Ghana. The cleanest were in Spain, but the most fun were in Ghana. The women often carry their wares on their heads. This might be huge bowls of oranges, beautiful arrangements of the vegetables, smoked fish, and freshly baked loaves of bread in what looked like glass cases. Of course, when we were there, the rain had made the streets muddy. The market is the center of the town, a street lined with market stalls on both sides and upstairs, as well as tiny paths in the center of this large circle. I mean, the circle would take about an hour to walk around quickly. One wonders when looking at all the vendors of similar items, like lovely small red tomatoes, dried fish, tiny peppers, okra, cassava meal etc. how anyone makes enough to feed a family since a shopper would have numerous opportunities to purchase a desired item. As in Spain and Morocco, the shoppers tend to buy from the same vendors and build relationships with them, we were told.

The town where we docked, Takoradi, is a small fishing town as were most of those we saw during our two day road trip. We did not get to the Capitol and port in Accra or the big bead and art market in Kumasi, each four hours away on a good day, and perhaps seven on a rainy day. The people were always happy to see us and always helpful. When we passed crowds while on the bus, they waved merrily, welcoming us, especially the children. We asked one young woman in the grocery store where we could find men shirts. She actually left the store and walked us to the right tiny shop. A group of three female students were wandering around the market and befriended a young woman their age who took them to her home and introduced her family. Her father then took the girls to the radio station he ran, showed them around and interviewed them. They actually heard the interview in a cab on the way back to the ship. They were so excited!

Walking around the town is very safe. But we were warned in the pre-port lecture not to use any credit cards in Ghana since there are many Nigerians there who will use any information to infiltrate our internet bank accounts. We were also warned not to get malaria by our medical staff and a few actors using a ‘We are in Ghana but we don’t want malaria, we don’t want malaria, malaria!” to the music of “This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius” from “Hair”. “Let the sunshine” was transposed to “Take your medicine, take your medicine, your medicine.” You can also see the actual performance on You Tube if you follow the link below. We have a very humorous medical crew and two actors/professors who met when touring in “Phantom.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYl_2pczLD8 to see the video. They make us laugh loudly at every pre-port lecture. However, I’m not sure they can top that one! Sometimes, we of the older generation are somewhat shocked by their antics, but we’re “old” as Dakota, our four year-old granddaughter would remind me.

The country is 69% Christian and 16% Muslim. We did see many churches or mosques, but none of them would be considered attractive until we came to a lovely compound belonging to the Church of the Latter Day Saints which included a school. Everywhere, and I mean “everywhere” were reminders of Jesus, the Savior. Messages were written on the backs of the cab windows and buses and on the names of businesses like Jesus Saves Beauty Shop, Jesus is All Car Repair. Oh, in order to get under the car for a repair, they simply turned it on its side!

The children were so very beautiful and curious. We did not see adults pushing the children to hound tourists to purchase small items like in Casablanca, but we did learn of a village where the fisherman buy children from their mothers who believe they will be then going to a better place. But they are turned into slaves here in Ghana to do whatever work their little bodies allow. Very young ones can dip water out of the fishing boats. The girls – well, you know what happens to them.

People are warm, inviting and happy despite what they do not have.  When having a meal with students after returning to the ship, they brought up the ethical question of, “Is it right for us to bring them things like a water filtering system that they probably do not know how to fix, or money and shoes for an orphanage` which cares for children recovered from the child slave trade?  Does that not teach them to rely on the West to help them instead of helping themselves.  These kids think!  They have a point!  But with all the poverty and lack of basic things like school books, how can we who have more than most countries and use far more than our fair share of the earth’s natural resources, not share.  Appropriately, as we left Ghana, a rainbow appeared – hope for the future of Ghana!