Home»Ghana Feb/Mar 2014

During February and March 2014, I spent 16 days traveling around the west African country of Ghana. Ghana is bounded by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It compares in size to Oregon, and contains the largest reservoir in the world, Lake Volta. The population of the country is approximately 25 million with 4 million living in and around the coastal capital Accra. The major religions are Christianity, indigenous beliefs and Islam. Ghana is one of the few countries where Christians and Muslims live in harmony and will marry within religions. Life expectancy is around 64 years even though 40 percent of the population lives on less than one dollar a day. Most of these people live in the northern part of the country. The official language of Ghana is English, but the over 100 different ethnic groups in the small country have created numerous local dialects. I spent my first 10 days traveling by SUV with Jessie Aboagye the co-founder/owner of Easy Track Ghana a tour company located in Accra. Easy Track is known for its tailor made tours whether for the individual or groups. In addition to Ghana, Easy Track has expertise in guiding in countries bordering Ghana. Jessie and I traveled a couple days to the northern part of the country to Mole National Park. The park is home to over 93 mammal species, and the large mammals of the park include an approximately 400 elephant, hippos, buffalo, and warthogs. The park is considered a primary African preserve for antelope species including kob, Defassa waterbuck, roan, hartebeest, oribi, the bushbuck, and two duikers, the red duiker and yellow-backed Duiker. Olive baboons, black-and-white colobus monkeys, the green vervet, and patas monkeys are the known species of monkeys resident in the park. Of the 33 known species of reptiles slender-snouted and dwarf crocodile are found in the park. Sightings of hyenas, lions and leopards are unusual, but these carnivores were once more common in the park. Among the 344 listed bird species are the martial eagle, the white-headed and palm-nut vultures, saddle-billed storks, herons, egrets, the Abyssinian roller, the violet turaco, various shrikes and the red-throated bee-eater. In addition to traveling to Mole we visited several villages and markets. After visiting some of the markets I came to the realization that if you cant find it in a Ghanian market, you don’t need it. In the larger cities the outdoor markets house hundreds of people that will sell everything from bush meat to to car parts. In Kamasi, the second largest city in Ghana, we passed by the strangest market I have ever seen. Its call the Suame Magazine and is recognized as the largest artisan engineering cluster in the sub-Sahara Africa/ West Africa. Suame Magazine has a working population of over 200,000 and approximately 12,000 shop-owning proprietors mainly engaged in vehicle repairs and metal works. The shops are just a few feet off the main road. Since the repairman are right next to the road, if you need work done on your motorcycle, car, or semi, you simply stop your vehicle on the road since there are no garages to pull in to. Several times you would see entire semi engines in pieces on the road and a couple repairman working on the vehicle. The second 6 days of my trip were spent with 7 individuals from World Vision/Wellspring. The group was from MN and traveled to Ghana to meet with World Vision personnel in northern Ghana. World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and communities worldwide and works to eliminate health and poverty related issues. In northern Ghana we met with representatives working with World Visions WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) programs. One of the main problems in the small villages in this part of the country is access to clean water. It is not uncommon for the women to walk 3 or 4 miles one way to fetch what could be questionable water. This is usually done twice a day. The dirty water is responsible for high incidents of diarrhea and many other water borne illnesses. The introduction of clean water from the World Vision/Wellspring wells has been a force in removing these diseases from remote villages. Some of the photos were taken from inside the vehicle softening the image quality.