That Girl from Derwent dwells on the value of religion this Christmas.
That Girl from Derwent has learned a few more things about prejudice since moving up North.
That Girl From Derwent reckons if you're going to be offensive, you should find a better reason.
That Girl from Derwent considers why it is that some words have wider implications than others.
And so it was that me and two friends from UCL somehow found ourselves heading to Gatwick Airport on a ridiculously cold winter morning to catch an Afriqiyah Airlines flight to Tripoli, where we would connect to another flight to Accra, Ghana. Ghana wasn't our first choice of travel destination. I wanted to go to Romania to find Dracula's castle. One of my friends insisted, however, that we get out of Europe because he didn't want to deal with the winter. It proved to be a wise decision, considering how horrible the weather became in December!
Ghana's capital, Accra, is a sprawling metropolis of nearly two million people. It is usually choked with traffic, and is extremely dusty and full of car exhaust fumes. On our first day there, we asked our taxi driver to drop us off at the National Museum. Instead, he took us to the misleadingly-named Centre for National Culture, which is actually a tourist-focused souvenir market! It took us a while to shake off the attentions of merchants eager to know if we were Koreans or Japanese.
Not the best start.
However, when we finally did get to the Museum (about twenty minutes' walk away), we did see some interesting anthropological exhibits about the history of slavery and the prehistoric inhabitans of West Africa. The Nkrumah Mausoleum was another highlight. Kwame Nkrumah was independent Ghana's first Prime Minister, and a champion of the cause of Pan-Africanism. The gardens surrounding the Mausoleum featured some informative displays about his life and ideals, including numerous quotes from his rather bellicose rhetoric. Sadly, we never quite got round to seeing Accra's Independence Square, which is apparently full of Soviet-style structures (including an archway that looks suspiciously like the McDonald's logo).
Far nicer than Accra was the town of Aburi, about an hour away by tro-tro. Tro-tros are the catch-all name given to any vehicle that has been converted for general passenger use (usually minibuses and vans). They only leave for their destinations when they're full, so this can make for some very cramped conditions. Still, we were fairly comfortable for most of our tro-tro rides. On this first journey to Aburi, however, my friend somehow managed to end up sitting next to a woman breastfeeding, and had to be very careful about where he moved his elbows! Aburi's main attraction is its Botanical Gardens. However, just outside the Gardens there's an adventure tour shop, and we decided to take a bike tour to the Anesema Falls. Having arrived around noon, however, we opted to eat lunch first. Big mistake. The pizzas we ate at Peter's Pizza were some of the most delicious we had ever tasted, but it also meant that the bike ride that followed became extra-gruelling due to how full we were! Definitely not one of our finest hours, caused by our own poor planning and lack of common sense. Pedalling shame-facedly behind Ben, our friendly, strong guide, we somehow managed to reach the waterfall. Some local guys were splashing about in the water and we managed to engage them in a conversation about - what else? - football.
Last year, a day before I was due to fly back home, I watched the Black Stars lose a heartbreaking quarter-final against Uruguay at the World Cup. Six months on, the hurt remains. One Accra taxi driver even declared to us his "hate" for Asamoah Gyan, the striker who missed the crucial last-minute penalty that would have allowed Ghana to advance. The guys at the waterfall expressed sorrow but also pride at having beaten the USA and gotten further in the tournament than England. Two of them supported Manchester United and Liverpool, the teams that my friends support.
Sadly, none of them were Celtic fans.
However, the real highlight of our tour was on our ride back from the Falls. Cycling through a small village, Ben suddenly stopped and explained that he had to visit his grandparents, and asked if we wanted to meet them. We did, and they were lovely people. We were pretty tired at the end of the tour, and the tro-tro back to Accra took ages to fill up, but just the experience of biking in West Africa (even though it was pretty lousy biking on our part and over a very short distance) and meeting so many great people made it all worthwhile.
Check back next week for Part Two of this article.
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