Week One and Two
31st August – mum and dad arrived mid afternoon. Spent rest of day and evening opening the endless suitcases they brought and spying all the goodies they brought me.
1st September – spent the day exploring Accra, trying to get Dad to relax into the pace. It is quite difficult to initially understand the pace of Ghana and the concept of Ghana time being much slower than Africa time.
2nd September – Flew to Tamale, way to go if money was no object. Only took an hour or so, rather than the 14 hours by bus. Their initial impressions of Tamale were not so good – it is the main city of the North but is not like a city at all, quite a contrast to the south.
The rainy season wasn’t so good this year. National electricity is mostly provided by the Akosombo Dam, the water level had not reached the minimum it needed this year. In order to conserve electricity to get through the dry season there was an electric shedding exercise whereby electricity was cut off for 12 hour periods in different areas. Therefore some of our trip was spent in power cuts, some big hotels and restaurants bought generators to supply electricity, however, I am not sure what was worse, no electric or electric but no sleep due to generator motor noise. The weather is much cooler in September, especially pleasant at night so the need for a fan (or aircon – for dad) was not essential. Tumu was one of the only places in Ghana where the shedding didn’t happen, we lose electricity when it rains, is too hot or just for no reason!! So shedding was not necessary.
3rd September – Sorted car, bit of a palaver, the car we were promised was not there, the alternative 4wd looked like it had been a write off at one time with bald tyres and no battery, dad was rightly worried about this, however there is only one car hire place in Tamale – competition is needed definitely!! The only choices were to travel back down to Kumasi (6-7 hours away on bus) or to hire their other car which could handle the roads – a mini bus! And take our chance to pick the good 4wd in Wa. We chose the latter option. And so Mum and Dad had their first experience of the roads of Northern Ghana. Fun all the way!
We left for Wa at lunchtime and arrived in Wa around 6:30. We would pick the new 4wd and driver the next morning.
4th September – I can tell you we all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the new 4wd. It looked road worthy, tyres had tread and the windscreen was in one piece. Picking a few provisions we headed off early for Tumu…
Just as we thought all our car troubles were over we had car trouble. The fuel tank started to fall off and grate along the ground. We were in the middle of nowhere with no phone signal. Luckily for us it must have been market day in a local village as a man cycled past with his goat. He stopped and helped us. A little later another man came past seeing the bike he too stopped spoke to our helper and we discovered it was his brother. He too helped. We patched up the car and hobbled to the nearest village. More a through road with a few houses than a village but luckily for us they had a good mechanic with a large assortment of nuts. One eventually was found in the right size and 6 hours later we were back on our way. Mum and Dad realised there was no point getting too anxious there was nothing we could do about it so they just relaxed and enjoyed the experience (well afterwards at least).
The rest of our journey was pretty uneventful apart from the ominous black clouds I had been keeping my eye on all afternoon finally broke and we had a torrential down pour.
It was still raining when we arrived in Tumu – in the dark. And for once the electricity behaved itself and stayed on throughout the storm in honour of my parents trip.
5th – 12th September – We spent the week in Tumu, just relaxing, meeting people, eating and drinking. It was just nice to relax and enjoy the place. We were the talk of the town, everyone wanting to know who the folies were in the posh car!
The hippo came out a couple of times for our viewing. We took a trip to Gwollu with Bukari, (TUTCO Demo Headmaster) whose family are the bonesetters. That was an interesting and somewhat squeamish experience. I couldn’t watch it but dad photographed it. Insert web address other than that we didn’t go anywhere. The girls across the way took us on a guided tour of the market and made us dinner one evening. Dad made friends and went for pito. He was also fascinated with the building work that was beginning next door to me. He was impressed by how quickly the foundations were dug, how they made bricks from scratch and the walls went up. The rate they were going the building would be finished in no time (unfortunately after we left not much else has happened – the men left for the end of Ramadan – and have only just returned)
Dad was able to use his engineering experiences when the truck bringing sand got completely stuck in the wet ground. They didn’t learn very quickly, after ruining one track they started on a second one and got stuck again. This is when Dad intervened. He got them all rallying around and get the truck out of the trench. (3 months later the track is still bad and I have to use a different route to my house)
We eventually had to leave Tumu and continue on our journey. So we left on the morning of the 12th September for Bolga.
1st September – spent the day exploring Accra, trying to get Dad to relax into the pace. It is quite difficult to initially understand the pace of Ghana and the concept of Ghana time being much slower than Africa time.
2nd September – Flew to Tamale, way to go if money was no object. Only took an hour or so, rather than the 14 hours by bus. Their initial impressions of Tamale were not so good – it is the main city of the North but is not like a city at all, quite a contrast to the south.
The rainy season wasn’t so good this year. National electricity is mostly provided by the Akosombo Dam, the water level had not reached the minimum it needed this year. In order to conserve electricity to get through the dry season there was an electric shedding exercise whereby electricity was cut off for 12 hour periods in different areas. Therefore some of our trip was spent in power cuts, some big hotels and restaurants bought generators to supply electricity, however, I am not sure what was worse, no electric or electric but no sleep due to generator motor noise. The weather is much cooler in September, especially pleasant at night so the need for a fan (or aircon – for dad) was not essential. Tumu was one of the only places in Ghana where the shedding didn’t happen, we lose electricity when it rains, is too hot or just for no reason!! So shedding was not necessary.
3rd September – Sorted car, bit of a palaver, the car we were promised was not there, the alternative 4wd looked like it had been a write off at one time with bald tyres and no battery, dad was rightly worried about this, however there is only one car hire place in Tamale – competition is needed definitely!! The only choices were to travel back down to Kumasi (6-7 hours away on bus) or to hire their other car which could handle the roads – a mini bus! And take our chance to pick the good 4wd in Wa. We chose the latter option. And so Mum and Dad had their first experience of the roads of Northern Ghana. Fun all the way!
We left for Wa at lunchtime and arrived in Wa around 6:30. We would pick the new 4wd and driver the next morning.
4th September – I can tell you we all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the new 4wd. It looked road worthy, tyres had tread and the windscreen was in one piece. Picking a few provisions we headed off early for Tumu…
Just as we thought all our car troubles were over we had car trouble. The fuel tank started to fall off and grate along the ground. We were in the middle of nowhere with no phone signal. Luckily for us it must have been market day in a local village as a man cycled past with his goat. He stopped and helped us. A little later another man came past seeing the bike he too stopped spoke to our helper and we discovered it was his brother. He too helped. We patched up the car and hobbled to the nearest village. More a through road with a few houses than a village but luckily for us they had a good mechanic with a large assortment of nuts. One eventually was found in the right size and 6 hours later we were back on our way. Mum and Dad realised there was no point getting too anxious there was nothing we could do about it so they just relaxed and enjoyed the experience (well afterwards at least).
The rest of our journey was pretty uneventful apart from the ominous black clouds I had been keeping my eye on all afternoon finally broke and we had a torrential down pour.
It was still raining when we arrived in Tumu – in the dark. And for once the electricity behaved itself and stayed on throughout the storm in honour of my parents trip.
5th – 12th September – We spent the week in Tumu, just relaxing, meeting people, eating and drinking. It was just nice to relax and enjoy the place. We were the talk of the town, everyone wanting to know who the folies were in the posh car!
The hippo came out a couple of times for our viewing. We took a trip to Gwollu with Bukari, (TUTCO Demo Headmaster) whose family are the bonesetters. That was an interesting and somewhat squeamish experience. I couldn’t watch it but dad photographed it. Insert web address other than that we didn’t go anywhere. The girls across the way took us on a guided tour of the market and made us dinner one evening. Dad made friends and went for pito. He was also fascinated with the building work that was beginning next door to me. He was impressed by how quickly the foundations were dug, how they made bricks from scratch and the walls went up. The rate they were going the building would be finished in no time (unfortunately after we left not much else has happened – the men left for the end of Ramadan – and have only just returned)
Dad was able to use his engineering experiences when the truck bringing sand got completely stuck in the wet ground. They didn’t learn very quickly, after ruining one track they started on a second one and got stuck again. This is when Dad intervened. He got them all rallying around and get the truck out of the trench. (3 months later the track is still bad and I have to use a different route to my house)
We eventually had to leave Tumu and continue on our journey. So we left on the morning of the 12th September for Bolga.
posted by Lucy at 10:00 am
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