Kumasi

This weekend we headed to the 2nd city of ghana, Kumasi. We arrived at rush hour and there was traffic everywhere. On roads made for 2 lanes of traffic there were three and every car on the road seemed to be changing lane at once. It was mental and made getting to the station take forever. Still when we got to our guest house it was definitely worth it. Ensuite shower, a twin bed and air conditioning. We got dinner then headed to a club we had been recommended by Dr addie. We paid our exorbatant entrance fee to get in only to find about 2 guys sitting in a dark room with a dj playing. We were not impressed at all. It was already 12 30 as we had been having a few bevies at the hotel. We decided to go in search for another drinking hole and come back later. Luckily there was one just down the road selling shots of gin for about 20p (the standard price in Ghana). We sat down at the table and suddenly he music was turned off and after a pause changed to 80s power ballads. Interestingly this is the second time this has happened to us. We must just give off an 80s vine or something. After a happy hour or wo we decided to head back to the club and it was now rammed! So if you're ever on a night out in Ghana you should remember noy to head to a club until 2!
The club was for some reason really dark but the hip life tunes were blasting out so we had a bit of a boogie (there are 2 main genres of pop music in Ghana, high life, a fusion of traditional African music and reggae, and hip life, a mix between high life and r'n'b). It turns out that ghanaian men are all amazing dancers, and dance with pretty much anyone indiscriminately whereas the women found a man she liked then stood in front of him wiggling her bum.
Next day we were all feeling rather fragile but ventured out to see the old fort which has been turned into a military museum. Ghanaian museums certainly leave much to be desired when approached in the same way as English museums. They are more a jumble of collected items thrown together into groups and not seemingly related to the other exhibits. In this case it was mainly a show of all the weapons ghanaian soldiers had captured, grouped by the country from whom they had been taken. Luckily we had a guide who whisked us through the exhibits at a tremendous speed explaining each cabinet with a single sentence before walking off to the next. It was great fun trying to keep up with what he was telling us whilst trying to get q good look at the previous items. My favourite object was a photo of the dozen or so brits who were trapped in the fort when the asante tribe decided to revolt against the British. There were about 3 or 4 soldiers looking like they were out of zulu then about 4 women and an assortment of men who looked as if they had no purpose at all of being stuck in a fort in the middle of Ghana in 1900. If only the picture could talk it would have been fascinating to find out their stories.
After the museum we headed to the hospital which was epic in proportion, being one of the 3 teaching hospitals in Ghana. From here we headed the market, said to be the largest in west africa. It was absolute chaos. People pushing past you in both directions whilst you were being shouted at by the people in the market stalls. It's like being in an incredibly stressful department store as the market was divided up into different sections which were packed full of loads of stalls all selling exactly the same thing for exactly the same price. It was madness, especially as far as I could see, the range of goods was no greater than what we have in our local market in mpraeso.
That night we were tired so we didn't go out and decided to have a lie in the next morning before heading to the palace to see the asantehene (the king of the asante people) we were very lucky to be about for this as every 6 weeks there is a festival where all the chiefs from all the different clans gather to say hi to the king. It was really interesting to see all the traditional dress (togas) and to see the king. We were also lucky enough to see the former president of Ghana who popped in to say hi.
After this we headed home and I'm back out in the community again this week although we've all changed round. I'll let you know about the new clinic later on this week.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.6