No craziness in Accra

We spend two nights in Accra, capital of Ghana. Pleasant though it may be, with monuments and large boulevards, it still remains a big city and buzzing in a way that we sometimes find exhausting. 

The name "Accra" apparently stems from the Akan word nkran, a reference to the numerous manner in which the natives of Accra kept re-appearing like army ants during a war with the Ashantis. Now however, it is hard not to think of another meaning.

So we did what we usually do in the big cities, send the usual postcards to the kids in the family, enjoyed the varied cuisine, and even caught our first big screen movie (Thor: The Dark World) at the cinema in the Accra Mall (a source of great pride apparently as it is considered the only one in this region).

Post office

 And we also attempted a night out, again. Let me explain. West Africa is of course famous for its music and night life. We haven't really been able to benefit from this.
Problems with calendars, being on the road a lot and not necessarily too inclined to spend a lot of time in the capitals,  we haven't had any crazy nights out yet, which I admit is a bit of a source of frustration for me. And, well , let's be honest, we're not 21 anymore either... Sometimes it is just hard to drag ourselves to a club, spend ridiculous amounts of money on cover fees and drinks, witness a lot of cheesy and/or sleazy behavior and not be able to talk much because of the pounding music... You can tell from my description why we sometimes lack the courage. Anyway, in Accra, we decided to give it another shot.
So we started out at the French Institute of Accra, usually a good spot for live music and an artsy crowd. Here we first visited an exhibition of... coffins. Yep, fantasy or theme-coffins, for families that wish to bury their loved ones in for instance a fish shaped coffin, if he was a fisherman, or a hammer for a carpenter. (for more info, Abebuu Adekai).

My personal favorite was of course the cinema related coffin.

That evening however, the Institute organized a benefit concert, raising funds for the victims of the typhoon in the Philippines. I found it very touching, that children from a local orphanage would dance and perform for a cause as distant from them as the Philippines.
Anyway, we got called over by an elderly Italian guy, sitting with a very young and beautiful Ghanaian girl and his bored looking driver, Alex. He insisted that we join him and that we were to be his guests for the evening. Turns out he was a very wealthy (and from our internet searches afterwards, probably quite corrupt) business man who, without much ado, admitted to"buying his company". The 18 year old girl in his company, bright and eager, also affirmed this openly and even made fun of him. In a way it was sad to see these dynamics, which we've seen so often during our trip (old white guy-young gorgeous local girl). It was interesting however that both acknowledged it freely and talked about it openly, so the evening wasn't a drag, but actually had some interesting moments. Despite their invitation, we however didn't feel like lingering and so, again, winded up back at the hostel and in bed quite early...

Walking through the Ghana tree tops

the rain forced us to leave the Ivory Coast behind a bit earlier than scheduled and we continued onward to Ghana, not a long distant, but enough to have Thomas' phone disappearing right before the border.

A lot of people told us good things about Ghana and we were looking forward to that distinctive English speaking vibe in Africa. Our first stop was Cape Coast, a little beach town with a UNESCO heritage castle previously used for the slave trade (very reminiscent of Ile de Gorée), and a nearby nature park where you can walk on canopies through the treetops.
We only stayed one day (but two nights) before moving on to the capital, Accra, from where I'm writing this post.

7 years already....

Story telling on the market square

There is something about African stories and legends I find fascinating. Riddled with proverbs, often a lesson to learn from it, mixed with songs and dances, imitations and lots of facial expressions...
Yesterday, we attended une soirée de contes on the main square of the coastal village of Grand Bassam, with three story tellers and a (rather mediocre) poet.
It drew hundreds of kids, listening with various degrees of concentration, and many adults, commenting and criticizing each story and the techniques used by each teller.
My personal favorite was the first one, Floppy, a young lady with a lot of energy and focus, and some dance steps and songs mingled into with her stories.
My favorite proverb of the evening was: "Celui qui a la diarrhée, ne craint pas l'obscurité..." ("He who has diarrhea does not fear the darkness"). Not exactly sure what it means, but it sounds great.

I wish I could say the evening was improvised, and that people just randomly got up and started sharing stories for the delight of the audience. However, it was actually part of a street festival (Festival des arts de la Rue) taking place this weekend in Grand Bassam, with magicians, body builders, music and all kinds of performances. Hence, there was special lighting, sound system, some of the story tellers came from far, even Equatorial Guinea, which all made it great and more professional, but in a way I regretted not stumbling across this kind of event by chance... We also met up with Pierre-Jean, a French DJ, friend of a friend, who had traveled down from Ouagadougou to perform his set...
Next day however, the rain prevented us from doing much...

Ciné Droit Libre

One of the advantages of a big city is that, although there often isn't too much to visit in terms of tourist attractions, there are certain cultural or artistic activities to enjoy. Chance had it that we were in Abidjan for the Festival Cine Droit Libre,  a cinema using short movies and documentaries as a tool for expression and to promote human rights. 

This year's festival centered on the children's rights and debuted yesterday, coinciding with the International Day for the Rights of Children. We attended the opening ceremony, with some youth singing and performing.

Afterwards, we watched two short movies, one regarding the Mali situation with Tiken Jah Fakoly (see below), from droitlibre.tv. The final movie was regarding female circumcision, entitled "L'appel de Diégoune". 

It was followed by a brief debate with a woman who formerly performed female circumcision, an immam prohibiting circumcision and the representative of UNICEF.

During the festival, two Master classes are also organized, and after explaining a bit regarding our projects in Morocco, I was invited to attend. A welcome treat, especially as today I just learned I wasn't shortlisted for a peace building job as I applied for (Asia Regional Director in Cambodia), which I was feeling really excited about and had put a lot of time drafting the application for. Not always easy to combine job hunting with travelling...

L'appel de Diégoune from Tostan on Vimeo.
The master classes turned out to be an interesting place to chat and hear about other initiatives in the region. The facilitator, a Dutch guy Gideon Vinck, is based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and they are promoting these Human Rights festival in several countries now. However, on a technical level, it was more for beginners and I don't really think to have learned something new., But, as I said, always nice to see and hear what is happening and how others work with multimedia and development.

Abidjan

Last segment of our trip, and starting big, with Abidjan!

Abidjan is a huge city,  and after three days, I still feel as if we've only scratched the surface, walking around the neighborhood of our residence and the city center a bit. It definitely has a very nice vibe to it, though many of the residents complain it was a lot better before the crisis.

We visited the local cathedral, build in 1980 and which allows you to go to the top, a 100m high, though part of the climb is in the dark and it doesn't feel very stable, especially if you know parts of the roof of the church were hit during the conflict and are in dire need of repairs.

The skyline of Abidjan is quite impressive, and more than we've seen anywhere else in Africa. If you squint your eyes, you can feel the NY vibe just a bit.

 

Love this. "To rest: hamac, bed and carpets"

There is quite a bit of rain in the air, which makes for beautiful sunsets. Look closely however, the dots in the sky are no specks of dirt, nor are they birds. It's all... bats! Thousands and thousands of bats, very impressive sight... and sound.

Safely in Abidjan, Ivory Coast

After a quick stop-over in Bamako, Mali, we've arrived safely in Abidjan, and, after some hassle of finding something available, we checked into a local residence. It has started poring down just now.
The next three to four days, we'll stay here, to discover sprawling Abidjan (4,5 million inhabitants) and get the visas for our next two stops, Ghana and Togo.
Should you need us, during our stay in Ivory Coast (and theoretically, also in the next four countries), we should be available on +225 41 56 85 06 (Moov No Limit roaming system).

The long and winding road to Conakry

Our trip had to go the long way round, as the more direct route has hardly any public transportation on it. 888km, 15 hours according to Google Maps, but I strongly feel this should be updated. We did it in about 60 hours, taking one bus (to Gabu, which was still paved), then on dirt roads by three shared taxis (normally of 7 people, but we often had to pay for remaining seats, giving us more room), first to the border, then onwards to Koundara where we spend the night in a reasonable hotel. From there, first a Renault 504 taxi which broke down once the paved road stopped, after which we hitched a 20 hour ride on a truck coming from Senegal with empty water containers to Labé. Since time was running short, we continued straight on with a Renault 19 narrowly seating 6 plus the driver all the way to Conakry. 

View Larger Map

In total, we spend 48 hours on the road and the meager sun of 50€ per person. The landscapes were spectacular and very lush. Guinea is often dubbed the "watercastle" of Africa, as many of the big rivers spring from here.However, it is also the 10th poorest country in the world and was heavily affected by the slave trade. Much reminded me of Haiti, where they often refer to Guinea as their African roots.

Nop, not a junk yard, but one of our taxi brousse.

Some of my favorite moments of the trip:
- Our faces, when,once we had the required amount of passengers, they started fiddling around under the hood of the car (the one shown above). I swear it seemed like they swap motor parts from one taxi to the next, according to whose turn it is.

- Thomas receiving an indecent proposal from one of the custom officers (female), when our truck was doing one of its numerous stops, to share a blanket during the night.

- The lady street vendors, who sold us a tasty plate of beans and rice at 50€ cent and gave us totally erroneous travel advice

- The two African mamas with children, who were stuck at 9pm to get to the next town, like us, and who were thrilled we would pay for the seats non taken.

- Our driver who, unwilling to pay bribes to the military, smoothly talked and drove his way through various checkpoints, each time accelerating while shouting:"When I come back, okay brother?" 

- The goodbye of our fellow travelers: when we arrived at Labé, after the long and dusty ride on top of the truck, the look they had of pity and admiration when we told them we had to go straight on to Conacry. Though I don't even know the names of most of them, the hardship shared creates a bit of a bond...

- The three year old that started dancing to the beat of the music from his mom's cellphone and enacting Tarzan

- Reading "Into the wild" while watching the sunset from on top of our truck

- Finding my inflatable Swiss Air neck cushion, which made my night more tolerable.

- the nightly crossing: arriving at around 10pm at a river, they had an système D of shuttling people and cars across that would have made MacGyver proud. With a wench and a cable, they manually pull the "ferry" (basically a flat surface with two lanes for passengers and a lane for cars covered in wood) across. Quite the experience to have, at night, with the only light coming from our (still quite large and heavy) truck, which also had to jumpstart the ferry by arriving at high speed and braking abruptly, shocking the ferry loose.

 - The discussion with the taxi driver, who started negotiating the price for our luggage with Thomas. 

• He: "It's 60.000."
• Thomas: "No, it's small, let's make it 30.000."
• He: "Okay, 50.000."
• Thomas: "25.000?"
• He (a bit confused): "40.000?"
• Thomas: "20.000?"
• He: (very confused now): "35.000?"
• Thomas: "Nah, 15.000 then."Laughter all around.
• He: "Okay, 30.000!"

-when one of our co-passengers, feeling sorry for us when he saw us, dusty, tired, eating a mere baguette, bought us some bananas.

- the numerous vultures, lending a very appropriate sense of doom to our trip....

- Thomas' reaction when, once we were in Conakry,  a cab driver asked us for 50.000 to take us to nearby a hotel he knew. We, used to the country side prices and having just paid 100.000 for 300km during a 12h trip, were scandalized and got out immediately. We found out later on that, though he had inflated the price, it wasn't as absurd and daylight robbery as we had initially thought...  

At our arrival in Conakry, all was not well. The results of the legislative elections held a month ago were announced on Friday (lien). The current party in power is supposed to have won the majority, which sparked some unrest on the main arteries of the city. This was still felt on our arrival Sunday evening, where we were stuck in traffic for over two hours. After our night in the truck and the day in the cramped taxi (I really, really understand why one uses the term "cramped" now ;), needless to say we were in a hurry to get some decent food, a shower and a good bed, so we checked into the first hotel we could find.

It took us three showers, a bath, three rinsing of shampoo, twelve ear-sticks and a shave to feel clean again and get to bed. Our flight leaving on Tuesday morning to Abdijan, so only one day to R & R (Rest and Recuperate) and look around...

Bissau - Expected internet silence

Our luxury stop is over. We left the Bijagos archipelago and notorious Solange, in a plane driven by a Thomas, a young French pilot who we'd had drinks with. He humored us by performing a 0G moment (Zero-Gravity): you know, when the downward motion of a plane cancels out gravity, and you become weightless. Next thing I knew, I looked next to me to see our luggage floating through the air. He also let me fly the plane for a couple of seconds (well, that is to say, I held the steering wheel and moved left and right very carefully once). It made my day, and two more firsts to add to our list!

Main square in Bissau.

After two nights in the dusty but pleasant capital of Bissau, we'll be making our way through what seems to be the roughest part of our trip, to long and winding road to Conacry.
Long way round, 24 to 48h to be expected, all with taxis brousses and a lot of patience, you can see our stops on the Google Map, which I update regularly (where we are currently is pinpointed by the thumbnail).

We need to get there by Monday, as we have our plane to Abidjan on the 19th at 6.30am. We don't expect any internet on the way, so no worries if you all is quiet on the Western African front. For anything urgent, send a text to Thomas' Belgian number!

Getting lucky: Ponta Anchaca

Our first stop in Guinée Bisseau already made us lucky: Hotel Ponta Anchaca (meaning luck), on one of the islands of the Bisseau Archilepago.
Small plane, fishing, beach, in short, paradise....

Chilling at Cape Skirring

We've been traveling for a a little over a month now, mostly roughing it, taking taxi brousses, staying at friends places or cheap hotels and some CouchSurfing. I usually travel on a shoestring budget, while Thomas can like things a bit more comfortable. Hence, we made a deal: most of the time during our two months and a half trip, we'll rough it (often the only option in West Africa anyway), but we'd take five pause luxe, breaks where we'd chill and enjoy ourselves in a fancier place, and not worry too much about the price to pay.
High time to have this first break, and spend some time chilling by the beach, eat good food in some nice surroundings. We chose La Maison Bleue at Cape Skirring, at the edge of the Senegalese-Bisseau border for our first pause luxe. Needless to say, these three nights have been thoroughly enjoyed!

African fetish: animism

After our first cashew nut stop, we went to the dark side of the force: animism and African fetish. Our guide, Bonfils practices animism himself, and he showed us around various villages with varying degrees of animism. "People might say they are catholic or Muslims, but once they go back to the village, they're expected to partake in the ceremonies, that is just the way it is. If you don't want to be considered an outsider, you leave your religion for 15 minutes and pick it back up afterwards."

Some people might think that animism is an outdated and archaic belief system, not even a religion. I tend to disagree. While it is not clear whether it can be considered one single religion, our guide explained various aspects which are not outdated or incoherent at all.
According to Tylor, animism consisted of two unformulated propositions; all parts of nature had a soul, and these souls are capable of moving without requiring a physical form. This gives rise to fetishism, the worship of visible objects as powerful, spiritual beings. The second proposition was that souls are independent of their physical forms. It gives rise to 'spiritism', the worship of the souls of the dead and the unseen spirits of the heavens (Wikipedia).

This picture was taken on an invisible border separating a village between the animist side and the catholic half.  Though there is no or very little friction or tension between the two sides, the division was made for practical reasons. Some animist ceremonies only allow men to be present and so  women and uninitiated children are requested to stay home, often on Sundays. This clashes with the Catholics, who, of course, have women attending church on Sunday.Hence, the church is build in one part, and Catholics tend to live that side of the village.

                  
Can you see the little altar, discrete but still quite visible? It is a family fetish, where the family living in that house hold ceremonies and give thanks for both births and deaths. A death is celebrated with some palm wine (the older the person, the more wine is required), a newborn with flower and eggs.

This is the tamtam, or bush telephone. It is used for two occasions: announcing a death in the village, or a call for a war with another village.

The call for war has become very rare, as interaction and thus links and co-dependencies have increased greatly, but deaths are still announced. using a specific rhythm repeated during 30 minutes, which calls for everybody to "guard" themselves through their grigri or by tying specific leaves around their arms, it also calls them to come and pay their respects before the funeral, usually held the next day.

This is the public gathering space. Here, people attend ceremonies, some of which also include offerings. If a person has had a good year, he can offer rice, which is also a statement to offer help to the needy. Of someone is in need of assistance, he can either ask for help in person or leave an empty basket in front of their house, and collect it full at night.

This is the central fetish, where one person, elected by the village council of elders, receives the people with requests and prayers. Unlike the other officials, he is designated for life, so the choice is important and pondered for significant period of time. Once chosen, the person remains in solitary for six days (the local week), and then is reintroduced with a different name to the village, which holds a big celebration.

Many of these aspects can be found in an excellent cartoon, called Kirikou, featuring a baby of that name who usually deconstructs some stereotype.

We happened to drop by a campement, where the kids were watching an episode, where Sunjata and the creation of Mali are explained, a favorite story of my nephew, Loïc.

And this marks the end of our bike ride on the dark side of the force...

Going cashew nuts

Our next activity in Cassamance, was exploring a bit of the Ousouye region during a bike ride, by VTT Casamance.

Accompanied by local guide Bonfils, our first stop was Joseph, a guy who, now that he's retired, started up a small, traditional cashew processing plant. So get ready to learn some new things about cashew nuts!

It's quite labor intensive, involving different steps, done by around 15 employees. A nice touch, in accordance to their social policy, one third of these employees have disabilities, one third are single (young) mothers and other staff:

The steps explained:
1. Steaming: 60 kg is put above water heated by a fire, using the shells of previous nuts.

The cooking arrangement, 60 minutes for 60kg

2. Breaking the nut away from its shell, which is still coated with a (toxic) oil. After the drying in the sun, this is done by an Indian mechanical machine.
3. Roasting, which removes the toxic and renders the cashew edible

Local oven, which heats at 70° during 6h for 40kg  cashew nuts

4. Cleaning and peeling the cashew nuts
5. Frying: in sunflower oil, since the local peanut oil isn't deemed appropriate.
6. Adding a flavor: spicy, salty, banana, honey or other

Locally harvested honey

7. Packaging: done in plastic bags, initially with an industrial sealer downtown, but since they had so many difficulties with power outages, now done with the help a simple candle and lots of practice.

Packages, in 7 flavors, almost exclusively sold to tourists at 1000CFA (1,55€)

 And then our bike ride continued through the fields, to more fetish aspects of the local animist culture (seen another blog post).

Pirogue excursion from Ziguinchor, Casamance, south of Sénégal

Gambia: lazy couchsurfing, yeah man!

So, our shortest stop on this trip (2 nights), and probably the country where we spend the least money ever (86€): Gambia. Very small in itself, curled around the river Gambia, with 1,5 million inhabitants. English speaking and quite touristy.
We decided to try our luck with Couchsurfing and winded up in Sukuta, in the outskirts of Banjul, the capital, with not one guy, but a whole crew, the Kingdom crew as they call themselves. Lots of reggae, some smoke blowing in our direction, clubbing, a day at the beach and an improvised birthday party, yeah man, it's all good!
Our time together brought back memories of our Zim crew, and inadvertently, some of our Zim expressions kept coming out, though we can also feel we've evolved since then. But it was very nice to be so involved with local people, 24/24, sharing their daily lives, sleeping at their house, hanging out, playing games, chatting. Even doing some of the more touristy stuff like visiting a monkey park and going to the beach was a lot easier and had a very different vibe because we were hanging out with locals. Thanks Ous, Dave and Daddy!

Why I like Africa: places like Toubacouta...

After an hour by boat, here we were, visiting Misira and Sippo, tiny fishing villages in the south of Senegal. Beautiful Saloum delta, with baobabs and mangroves. But more importantly, in barely an hour, I witnessed several customs and habits that reminded me what I enjoy and even admire in Africa.

Here’s a couple:

1. We happened to be there during the monthly clean-up of the village. Already a very commendable practice, but, to get everybody to help out, first, drums beat to call all the young people to help. Next, for the more reluctant ones, they have a couple of guys, dressed in red costumes waving around two big machetes, who run around scaring kids, but more importantly, remind everyone to lend a hand. These guys are called kankourang, and are also used during  initiation ceremonies, a practice that in 2005 was recognized as a UNESCO immaterial cultural heritage (see link in FR).

Sun dried fish.

2. The local fishermen have started up a co-op, initially supported by the Japanese (hence all the Yamaha engines on the pirogues), which does all kind of things. Smoke the fish, salt the fish, make oil from the fish. Women bring oysters which are cleaned and processed, and the shells are grinded and charred to make building blocks for the houses.

3. In case of a conflict, instead of calling the police, the concerned parties meet around the sacred tree of the village, a fromagier (cause the fruit are supposed to smell like cheese). I can imagine being dwarfed by such a plant can help bring things into perspective…

4. We met the local queen! 86 years old, inherited the kingdom cause there was no male descendant thirty years ago. No protocol, a knock on the door, she gets out of bed, a quick flash of her boobs before she pulled on a shirt, chatting while she’s munching away on peanuts and occasionally spitting those on us, but very pleasant and down to earth.

Now, in how many places around the world can these sort of things happen?

Mangrooves

The fishing village Misira

A nesting spot for... well, a whole lot of birds!