Drumming lessons on Kokrobite beach.

With the latest news that I will be travelling to Mongolia with work it all became clear... I would once again for the fourth year in a row be away for my birthday due to a geological expedition. There was only one thing Tara could do in this situation... Whisk me away to Kokrobite beach to learn Ghanaian drumming from a world renown drumming artist.

It al began with me buying all the ingredients for the best spaghetti bolognese in the world. Tara and I have had just a little bit of indigestion this week, so it was time to get our stomachs settled the only way I knew how...no... not the All-Bran challenge, but make Jasons world famous spaghetti bolognese. It was gonna be great! All weekend with my with my wife watching movies and chowing down. But it was not to be. She arrived home early on friday and said Jason I am whisking you away because once again I am missing your birthday due to rocks! But what about the spaghetti? Pack your things its time to go! What is a man to do...

How to get to Kokrobite beach - 1) find a dilapidated taxi, that may or may not be able to make the journey (preferably one that doesn't need to be hot-wired to start every time it breaks down), 2) sit in traffic for about two hours, 3) ride the clutch 25km over dirt roads that resemble something from a 4wd expo in a taxi with no suspension. (making occasional stops for the driver to pick up corn, fill his jerry can with petrol and pee by the side of the road)

Typical Rd

2 hours later and only travelling 25km we finally arrived at Kokrobite beach...

Although initially disenchanted by the long sweaty car trip and upon arriving discovering small cabins without proper shower facilities and a toilet which when full of water continued to over flow onto the bathroom floor and stream into the bedroom...we  immediately proceeded to fall in love with Kokrobite when we tasted their food. The food there could only be described as a gastronomic delight, which was a timely relief given the slowly declining quality of the delicate balance in our intestinal tracts.

With full bellies and smiles on our faces we emptied our pockets of all valuables and ventured onwards to the beachside. Kokrobite beach is just far enough away from Central Accra that only some of the garbage manages to drift onto the beach. But far enough away that if you catch a wave you will not be caught up in garbage bags and...slime. The beach however is well known for its muggings and we were seriously advised not to take anything of value. Once again Tara and I were unmarried for a brief period... Big Millies is the place to be for Obrunies like Tara and I. Cocktails, souvenirs, loud reggae and crazy group African drumming until the wee hours in the morning. It was fun :-)

Awesome Reggae Afro Statue

The slogans of fishermen at Kokrobite Beach

Children who jumped on Tara when the waves came in...

Kokrobite is the home of the African Academy of Music and Arts (AAMA), which is world renowned for producing world class drummers, or at least it was. The place shut down a couple of years ago and is now slowly becoming run down. We were lucky enough to contact one of the few remaining drummers who still teach there and secure a lesson. This was definitely the highlight of our trip.

Ghanaian Drumming Lesson

With that we ended our adventure to Kokrobite beach... for it was time for Tara's date with our former Prime Minister... Kevin Rudd. The moral of this story being Tara really needs to delete the thousands of old photos off her camera because one day she may just be called upon to take footage of herself and the former prime minister...Yes he continued speaking 5 minutes after the memory ran out in her camera...

The Hot Tamale

I hate getting up at 4am...what kind of silly selfish airline has a flight that you have to check in at 4am...I'll tell you which one... The kind of airline that has the following safety notice sticky-taped to the back of their tray tables!!

So Tara and I began our next adventure to Ghana's northern "major" city known as Tamale, home of the mud hut, crazy jumping lizard and the highly edible Guinea Fowl!!... they know it...poor plump little birds. This trip was Tara's chance to shine her colours as a young training WASH specialist (Water, sanitation and hygiene)... or as I prefer to call them the soap police. Her job is to make sure rural communities are taking on the responsibility of washing their hands regularly and pooping in the right place.

Typical local village

Local Chief showing us how it's done

What you overcharged Australians might not know is that your ever so popular Shea Butter is actually made here and used for soap...even to wash the locals dishes... GASP!! Go ahead and check the back of your Body Shop Shea body creme...where is it made? yeh, that's right! You can make your own Shea Butter Soap using my user friendly step by step instructionaire below

Collect the Shea Fruit

 Sun the Shea Nut

SOAP!

I hope you found my tutorial helpful. 

I am also aware that many of you have been hanging out to see some pictures of the local pit latrines. The pit latrines vary greatly in quality and privacy but more or less range from exposed family pit latrine to sheltered family pit latrine to shared communal pit latrines. Many of the locals do not like the public pit latrines because they are charged the equivalent of 2 Australian cents to use the public latrines to meet upkeep costs. Many believe that they will contract AIDS or HIV by doing their business over a hole in the ground which is used by the rest of the community. Many locals would much rather go in the bush next to the latrine...I hope you can now understand why Tara feels there is a need for sanitation education.  

Exposed family pit latrine

Enclosed family pit latrine

Communal pit latrine

Of course Tara isn't the one who gets to have all the fun. I can never resist educating the locals a little more about their existing local geology and potential aquifers. 

Local Well

Warning: Never view while wearing glasses

The responses we received in villages varied. Most of the villages we visited were very appreciative of our visits and often gave us gifts of Guinea fowl eggs or some of their local seeds. Some of them liked to Sing and dance or play a local instrument for us as well as demonstrated by the Ghanaian butt dance below and the old fella on the...Guitar?

Ghanaian Butt Dance

 

On the strings

We had a great time in Tamale and learnt heaps from the locals about how to survive on less than $200 a year for the whole family. They rely heavily on the land and are trying their best to find local solutions to their water, health and sanitation problems. We saw just a handful of the better communities which had earned the title of ODF (Open deification free). But many are still a very long way from achieving even that.  

    

Africa vs. The World

Top soccer players selected from Africa versus top players from the rest of the world, brought together at the Accra soccer stadium... who do you vuvuzela for? Surrounded by an entirely African audience, a lone voice cries out... GO WORLD!! Backed up by my wife's muzzled toot on her vuvuzela (lies! I didn't back him - I told him to sit down and shut up before we got beaten up), I knew that The World might just stand a chance at crushing Africa in this friendly fundraising event. The stadium was packed to overflow. The match pre-entertainment consisted of a marching band, blazingly loud Bob Marley reggae through the loud-speakers and a mass dance production depicting Africa receiving soccer from the world and kicking ass at it.

The weather surrounding the game was quite phenomenal. It absolutely deluged rain at the kick-off, which resulted in half of the stadium trying to pack into the under cover sections (which was where we were sitting). Then it was like the seasonal rain finally arrived at the start of the second half turing our undercover haven into a torrential waterfall..This was a serious amount of rain and resulted in Jason having very smelly shoes and us making very good friends with the people around us as we all huddled together, like penguins hoping the outside victims would shield the rest of us from the elements...Yet the game went on with cheering Ghanaians dancing half naked in the exposed upper stadium and players chasing after balls having the ball stop unexpectedly as they run full pace right past it. It also meant that we had the joy of having to walk several city blocks to find a cab that wasn't over-run by soccer fans exiting the stadium through this torrential rain. In summary...we got wet that day.    

A brief  reprieve in Ireland 

We exited Ghana and decided to take a trip to Ireland to visit my old man for his 60th birthday. I've decided to compose a table to elucidate the stark contrast between these two silly places...JUST LIKE HIGH SCHOOL!

Ireland                                   Ghana

Green rolling hills                   Open sewer metropolis

Cows and sheep                     Goats and chickens

8 course degustation               Jolloff rice and fried chicken

Castles and manors                 Mud huts and corrugated iron 

Baileys and milk                     Amarula and powdered milk

Golf                                        Soccer

10 degrees C                           37 degrees C

Cold Rain                                Hot Rain

Patrick                                     Kwami
Cow Pats                                 Expats

I think that table sums it up quite well. These photos may help too.

Ireland 

Ghana

Home sweet home :) A Tara tale  :)

After a month of house hunting hell we have finally found a place to live! It's so nice not to have finally unpacked our suitcases and hung up our clothes. The main accomplishment of finding a place was getting it approved by security. We were gobsmacked when they said we could actually live here (after knocking back every other place we've found so far). It may have been that we didn't tell the security guy that the 'guard dog' was ridiculously cute and still ran away from us when we tried to pat him or about the 'night ladies' who perch around the round about at night (20m away from our deaf security guard).

Our home :)

The highlight of house hunting for me was meeting Joyce the land lady, the most lovely old lady in Ghana - she looked like at any moment she would pull out freshly baked cookies (like the oracle in the Matrix). When we asked her if the nearby church (Power Miracle Chapel, with a pastor who looks like Mr T in camo) made much noise during their all night meetings she said 'oh no... well they did... but then we took them to court... they are very quiet now'. We were very sad when the security man said we couldn't live with Joyce in her lovely little cookie laden paradise. : (

Kitchen Man

  


Our new place is a bit too ridiculously lovely. It is a a 'boys quarters' (for servants, independent/rebellious teenage children etc.) out the back of a really nice house. We have a big living room, bedroom, two bathrooms and nice kitchen where we can finally start cooking our own meals, not to mention a veggie patch and access to the pool! (our contract strictly says no pool parties). We also have a generator and water tank for when the city decides to turn off our water or power. True the shower only drizzles, the lights don't work in the kitchen and we think there may be a creature living in one of the cane chairs but we are overjoyed with our new home : )

We Celebrate with Amarula and Milk