Everything's Going so well!

The first morning, I woke up to an ambulance siren in Accra, Doppler-effecting into the window of our dorm room in the Salvation Army Hostel. It's a different world here. Everything is paved. Ghanaians are super nice and helpful even if sometimes I can't understand their English.

Still, the bus ride. Whew. LONG. Van from Sevare to Kora, Mali was interesting with entertainment provided by 3 students and one talk-a-lot moron (I quote: "Transubstantiation is the language of drunkards"...riiiight...and "Kilogram is weight and kilometer is distance, you can't say there are 15kilos left of the trip"...they were discussing everything from mundanity to religion to politics). Plus they dubbed James "Monsieur President" because he is a Toure and so is ATT. We got the last 4 seats on that van and arrived in Kora with perfectly enough time to eat some lunch and get the van for Ouahigouya, Burkina; and, there we ate delicious spaghetti and hopped right onto the bus to Ouaga. Brie and kept exclaiming "Everything is going so well!!" Moulin Rouge style. We weren't cursing it; really! Not possible. We were headed to Ghana and everything is better, in, Ghana.



So sure, with flooding we had to get out and ford the "river" of a washed-out road, but generally no mishaps. Or maybe I am just numb to transport issues now?



Really, I can't believe how many times I've said I am moving to Accra. Seriously, I'll consider it an option for future development work.



Sunday we went to El Mina (derived from the Portuguese for "mine" and the gold mined there) to see the fishing community and the slave fort. Really wretched what humans can do to each other. The governor of the fort (Dutch) had a staircase from the female quarters for rape-access. He'd pick his favorite from the balcony and have her sent up. The balcony from where you could see the first Roman-Catholic church in W.Africa (the fort and church were built by the Portuguese in 1482--which makes it the oldest European structure still standing in Sub-Saharan Africa). I don't think Christians have always faithfully practised the greatest commandment of them all...standing in the "room of no return" where slaves were shuffled through onto boats to the New World we said "never again" and had a moment of silence.

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El Mina the town gave us a flavour of coastal life--fisherman and their boats, animist fetish houses, a Dutch cemetery (one governor was murdered and buried there in 1808), St. Jago fort and the slave fort. Oh, and men, naked, shitting on the beach. Yes...coastal life. We also saw well dressed men and women (it was Sunday) and polite children. Stumpy goats tried to steal part of my RedRed (beans and plantains). There were various church services going on and much singing, drumming, and clapping of hands throughout town.

In general, I loved the fashion in Ghana. Fitted suits of pagne fabric and shiny basin completes--but pants for women too! It seemed to be a more open/free culture. The "Use a Condom" billboard in Accra for example where the message was spelled out in stick figures of people in well, various positions.

We came upon a dance rehearsal of sorts in Accra at a small beach-side bar, which made me jealous of the clearly more richer music and dance culture. I guess it is just too hot in Gao. I repeatedly asked myself during the trip, is it the Christianity? The English? Or, what did the French do to Mali? Though really it is probably just a question of climate and resources.