Easy Like a Sunday Afternoon in Accra

As we enter Accra, by way of WEIJA, through KASOA on a cool, breezy Sunday afternoon, memories of our visit and sojourn to Cape Coast almost seems like a dream.

Though there is plenty of greenery around, it is in significantly lower numbers than in the Central region.

Kokrobite meets us with a warm sunshine that is in stark contrast with the rain-like weather. The toll both man surprises as when he charges 5 pesewas, prompting us to wonder what could be done with such a smmall amount?

The

sun is accompanying the cool weather in a coalition of the willing that seeks to both welcome us back to Accra, and remind us there remains vibrancy in the heart of the capital that is Accra.

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Greenery Galore Through Central Region's GOMOA

It has just gone 16h19, and we have just arrived into the town of GOMOA. This is greenery personified--but so is much of the Central region through to Mankessim and Cape Coast.

Buduburum camp as we pass by has developed considerably, looking very much like any place inside Accra. With the NPP flagbearer's poster flanked high and strong at the former Liberian refugee camp base, you gotta wonder where the Liberians-in-Ghana vote might go.

We just passed a sign that reads "overspeeding kills. Over 12 people díed here". Very telling, considering the song by Akon--"dangerous".

At 16h28, we have all lived through a nanosecond of irony, with a tro-tro that just overtook some four cars, including ours, past a sign on the southbound (Accra) road that says the same thing as the sign referred to above.

Food for thought!

At 16h32, we are all struck by the imperfection of the road: a beautiful, well-tarred road that has no streetlights, or fluorescent signs for when it gets dark!

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As the Week Opens in Accra: Why ECOWAS Citizens Lost Their Lives in Ghana (1)

My absence from here was due in part to a funeral I had to attend in my maternal grandmother's home town. Now, this town is some 1.5 hours away from the capital by road, and forms part of what has now become known as the Trans West African Highway Network, supposed to connect some of the West African countries together

[- Damane (Liberia border) 26 km in Côte d’Ivoire ;

- Bloloquin-Toulepleu-(Liberia border) 64 km - Côte d’Ivoire

- Ganta-Tappita-Douanes Tobli-Blay (Côte d’Ivoire border): 15 km in Liberia ;

- Bandajuma-Zimmi-Mru Bridge (Liberia border) : 97 km, in Sierra Leone ;

- Freetown-Pamelap (Guinea border : 126 km, in Sierra Leone;

- Boke (Guinea) - Quebo (Guinea Bissau) : 206 km

- Akatsi/Dzodze (Togo border): 31 km in Ghana ;

- Noepe-Hilla Condji (Benin border) : 80 km, in Togo. ]

In effect, the so-called Trans-West African Highway Network has been comprehensively completed since last week, prompting joys that the ECOWAS link-up is becoming more of a reality.

Sadly, it's coming at a cost, as exemplified by last Thursday's eerie accident that involved two articulators travelling at top speed in opposite directions; the helping of Ghanaian motorists of passengers of an overturned bus (comprising West Africans from Cote d' Ivoire, Liberia, Benin, Nigeria and Togo) resulting in their deaths as the second articulator hit them at top speed (after having lost control). Altogether, seven vehicles were involved in the very sad loss of lives that claimed 40 people.

The road on which this happened goes to one of Ghana's premier tourist regions--the Central Region, where there is much more greenery than in the capital of Accra.

The roads are so good and so speed-inducing it's not funny. Regrettably, badly-educated and opportunistic (not to mention tired) articulator truck drivers take advantage of these good roads and act as death merchants.

To remind Ghanaian motorists of the importance of preserving lives, my favourite network, Ghana's mobile network--Onetouch--has erected billboards throughout the highway that spans several kilometres, reminding drivers not just they can connect to ONETOUCH in the area they have passed, but that "life is precious, drive with care".

A publicity stunt, notwithstanding, it's important to read that as you cruise from one region to the next.

(May those West Africans who lost their lives, as well as those Ghanaians who stopped to help them, ending up killed, rest in perfect peace)

Happy New Year!!! (Better Late than Never...)

Hello all, I know it's been a while; if you check my recent post (today 12 January, 2007) on Reflecting the Eccentric World of E.K.Bensah, you'll find that I am "under the weather".

It is precisely for that reason I thought I ought to write something in here to let my regular readers and otherwise know that I am ok and haven't stopped the blogging enterprise!

This is where the whole staff stayed from 17-21 December for our annual review. It's in the Central Region, a typically tourist region for all the greenery and proximity to the ocean...

...where I played some basketball with a colleague's son...

...worked out in the gym of Elmina Beach Resort for three mornings...

...and enjoyed the beautiful landscape set against the ocean.

Great to be back in Accra, but definitely missing the place!

May this New Year 2007 bring you ALL you desire and much, much more!

have a good weekend!

tags:
elmina beach resort; ghana; central region;
happy new year;

Of Funerals, and Reflections of a Long (Ramadan) Holiday

It began last Friday with what many people consider to be a long holiday.

It was no intention of mine to make it any longer than it had to be – what with the ending of Ramadan fasting for our Muslim friends in the country being granted as a holiday – as I abhor four-day holidays like the plague, but nonetheless, it helped me obtain insights not just into myself, but into other social aspects of living in Ghana.

nice, aerial view of the Tetteh-Quarshie interchange (right)

The reason for the absence on Friday 20 October was for nothing less than the funeral of my maternal cousin. In tones reminiscent of the funeral I attended last year in April, I found myself marveling at the roles and utility of funerals in this country.

As far as my experience with Ghanaian funerals go, there is no hard-breaking news there: it’s a template of crowds – both family and well-wishers – clad in mostly black, and looking pensive, contemplative, and distraught. Funerals inevitably remind us that one day, the same fate shall befall us, but at times, I spend more time looking around at the hypocrisy in the air.

Barring my divulging of any personal family politics, I think it is sufficient to refer to that aspect that is, as F.Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the human condition in his classic the Great Gatsby, is always "quivering on the horizon". You have to always bear in mind in places like these that there is the maternal and paternal side of the family that is either battling for territory as to who should be seen to have organized things, like the poster, the names on the poster; the food; the reception; the eulogies, whatnot—or not.

My parents and I tend to belong to the latter category as we do not think this is what funerals should be about, but, you know, our family is far from the only one that is beset by this most asinine of considerations.


Another thing I realized was that I love the Central region, and it is not because we go to the family house there once in a while, but it is truly so green and so relaxing to travel on, especially now that the roads to that region having been improved considerably. The journey now takes something like 1hr,15 mins, as opposed to the 1hr30/35 mins that predominated travel times in 2004 and 2005.



On our way back to Accra, from the Central Region, we were stopped by police. We were amazed that police were doing random checks on a Sunday! Wow. In any event, what interested me more about having been stopped than the police officer stopping us was the greenery of the palm trees that had lined up on both sides of the road. Isn’t that just beautiful?

tags:
accra;ghana central region;mankessim;ghana police;ghana travel;ghana travel;

This Gargantuan Dam Provides Ghana with Electricity...

IMG_0092
Originally uploaded by ekbensah.

...and has been doing so since independence from the British in 1957, when the first President Dr.Kwame Nkrumah built it to power electricity throughout the country.

Ghana is, in effect, a hydro-dependent state, predicating its energy survival on rainfall into the dam that is generated into electricity. Currently, we supply electricity to some of our West African neighbours of Togo and Benin, whilst buying some of it from Cote d'Ivoire (according to engineer who spoke on the Accra-based English-speaking private radio station CITI 97.3FM) this morning.

However, as from 28 August--yesterday--the country has been compelled to undergo what Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and Volta Regional Authority (VRA) [that supervises/manages the distribution of electricity in the country's Eastern Region] call "National Shedding" Programme.

Although it is expected that rains will fall in the country, the rainfall expected this cool season (July-October) has been very little as compared to the earlier months, where there were thunderstorms almost twice a week in the country (April-June)

The equation is: no rain = no electricity. Therefore, by putting domestic consumers on this "load management" programme, where the capital--divided into six zones--will experience electricity black-outs from 6am-6pm, and 6pm-6am respectively every other third day, energy will be saved for the next fifteen days.

If and when the rain falls in abundance -- as per the season 'requirements' -- the exercise may be postponed. Until then Ghanaian media has been carrying it. One of them you can read here: http://www.ghananewstoday.com/gnt_cn_detailb_featured.cfm?tblNewsCatID=51&tblNewsID=1456&CFID=188447&CFTOKEN=76004271

I understand that the last time something like this was in 1998. It's been a good eight years! Where was the foresight to avert an inconvenience of this magnitude?!!


tags: Akosombo; Ghana electricity crisis; Ghana electricity; Ghana rain; Accra; Accra electricity;