Killer Flies and Human Rights

Its 5:00 AM my eyes are bloodshot and stinging, I would describe my general appearance as tired and greasy, and my mouth tastes like stale sleep. The bus ride back from Bolga was just under 14 hours and the swelling in my feet and ankles serves as an annoying reminder of just how long I’ve been sitting on my ass. I’m tired but I have class at 8:30 AM so I think I’ll rest my eyes for about an hour and get back up again. Fortunately, I was able to sleep for the majority of the journey home thanks to a couple of Advil PM’s and a relatively comfortable seat. Seriously though that’s the way to go…pop a couple of those babies and you’ll be out for at least a few hours. Advil PM- my new long distance travel secret. Now that I’m back on campus I should probably recap the last six days or so since Ian and I covered a lot of ground.

It’s difficult (and exhausting) to describe six days of consecutive traveling so I’ll try and focus on the finer points…maybe squeeze out some significance from those. Location is a good starting point I guess: the tour covered the northeastern section of the Northern Region and a large chunk of the Upper East. Northern Ghana is a fairly stark contrast from the south in terms of the land and the people. Southern Ghana is where the action is if you’re talking about the movers and the shakers. Development is definitely unevenly distributed in this country and the north is getting the short end of the stick in some respects. I have to be careful here not to get into a deep intellectual discussion about development and education and poverty and all that fun stuff because…well because this is just not the time or place. I just want to give some background, a setting from which the rest of my story can be told. The north is dry, hot, dusty, Muslim, beautiful, expansive, poor, and worthwhile.

Our first stop was Larabanga. We checked into the friendly Salia Brothers Guesthouse, the only legitimate establishment in town as far as I’m concerned. The owner of the joint, Al Hasaan, is a friendly and charming man with a bright smile and a calm and steady demeanor. He comes off as an incredibly big fish in a very small pond. I’m just glad to see that he has chosen not to abandon his pond like so many other bright and talented Ghanaians and is doing his best to build up the seriously underdeveloped tourist industry in Larabanga. The town lies about 5 kilometers from the entrance to one of Ghana’s largest land reserves, Mole National Park. We rented bikes from Al Hasaan and made our way to Mole. It felt damn good to get on a bike even though the bike was way too small and required exorbitant amounts of energy to move. Our hiking tour was scheduled for 3:30 so we killed some time taking the ‘office loop’ off of the main road into the park. The heat wasn’t overbearing, yet, so we felt game for a nice 16 km ride. Things started off pleasant enough until the Tsetse flies mounted their formidable attack. Tsetse flies are terrible insects and they hurt like hell. I found they usually go for the wrists, fingers and ankles, which can be rather disturbing while trying to ride a bike and look out for wildlife. Ian and I were literally chased by these awful things for the majority of the loop. I can’t imagine what anyone watching us would have thought as we bounced down the road slapping and cursing at the onslaught of flies. We didn’t stop once for fear of being swarmed and it was only when we joined back with the main road that the flies retreated back into the forest to prey on whatever it is they prey on. All you large forest creatures… I feel your pain. We cooled down at the Mole motel, sipped on some nice cold cokes, and watched a strange new program about improper burial of bodies all over Accra. Actually, the whole situation is quite bizarre. Bodies are being buried just about anywhere people can find room and that old saying of six feet deep isn’t exactly being heeded. Appendages are popping up all over the place and the smell is rather unpleasant according to local sources. Once again I question the capacity of Accra to plan just about anything properly.

Mole could be a great national park, but like so many other things here it lacks proper funding and therefore doesn’t reach its full potential. The park is massive, but only a small percentage of it is accessible by foot and 4X4 expeditions aren’t really worth the money in my opinion. The biggest attraction is the possibility of spotting elephants in their natural habitat…apparently this is the wrong time of year and we didn’t see any. On the brighter side I did get a great picture of two baboons doin’ the nasty. It was quick and looked seriously unpleasant for the female. Interesting stuff.

That night we slept on the roof. In the morning I woke up to the sound of a blaring Arabic prayer and opened my eyes to watch the sunrise over a scorched savannah horizon. We hurried to check out what is commonly referred to as the oldest Muslim Mosque in Ghana and possibly West Africa as a whole. The first written recordings of the structure date back to around 1421 and looking at the Mosque I could believe it. I snapped some photos and Ian and I ran back to the guesthouse to grab our bags before the 7 o’clock bus came into town.

The next point of interest on our excursion of rural Ghana was the Gambaga escarpment a rocky plateau that stands roughly 1500 feet above sea level. We had heard about these supposed witch’s camps on and around the plateau and were curious to see for ourselves. The guidebook briefly mentions one in Gambaga so we went to check it out. Fortunately we met the ‘director’, an older gentlemen named Simon, of the Gambaga Outcast Home Project as we were checking into our guesthouse and arranged with him to see the camp in the morning. The camp is really just an area of traditional style homes within the town that has been designated for the containment of alleged witch’s. In order to see the village we had to pay the chief an old wrinkling, illiterate man who basically play prison warden to the ‘witch’s’. The chief’s son escorted Simon, Ian and myself into the camp where we were allowed to talk to a few of the women and take pictures of the settlement. The chief’s son is present as an intimidation factor so that the women don’t say anything to tourists that could be damaging to the chief or the communities reputation. One of the ‘witch’s’ that we talked to said she had been in the camp for over 25 years banished from her husband, her family, and her community to live out the rest of her days in this prison. The majority of the women were accused of spiritual witchcraft in the form of dreams. Simon later told us that much of the accusations stem from jealously between wives in polygamous marriages. These women bring the matter to the village chief who performs some sort of ridiculous ceremony that involves slitting the throat of two chickens and letting the drop to the ground and it is based on this evidence that women are exiled to the camp. Simon is running this humanitarian project, with virtually no funding or help, in order to ensure better conditions for the women and also attempting to change local sentiment towards the matter of ‘witchcraft’, because that is the real root of the problem. The whole experience was quite eye opening to say the least and frankly infuriating to see such a blatant violation of human rights. We talked with Simon for some time after the tour as a sort of debriefing and then caught a lorry to continue on our haphazard adventure.