April, myself, and our Rasta friend named Afro traveled northeast to the Volta Region this weekend. After traveling in a trotro we arrived near Afro’s family village. There we took a motorbike to his uncle’s house. The house was an average…middle class house for Ghana and by that I mean it had several cement rooms with no running water but a well and electricity. There was a small yard with chickens and goats and the bedroom that we were offered had a bed. Not long after we had arrived we decided to check out Afro’s family farm/village which was a 15 minute motorbike ride away. On the farm was cassava plants, beans, corn, and others that I have already forgotten. About a mile into the land we arrived at Afro’s family village section. The land was basically a big circle with huts, most made of dirt, enclosing the center. It was so amazing there. Having had a semester of learning Twi I was excited to put my language skills into action but frustrated when I learned that Afro’s family spoke another tribal language. We met the head of the village and the eldest women, who was Afro’s Grandfather’s second wife. When first saw her she was peeling some sort of nut, sitting topless. When I shook her hand I couldn’t help but notice her thumbs—they were unusually flat. April and I found the place so beautiful and the people so nice we decided we would prefer to stay the night here and have a bonfire. We bought two bottles of alcohols while wood was being fetched for a fire. When the sun vanished, the fire was lit, and the night began. The head of the village did a long toast to the ancestors and then the drinking began. One bottle probably only made it around the circle twice. The fire was huge and there was music being played and the elderly women were dancing and singing. This was an authentic traditional Ghanaian experience, one that no tourist attraction could offer. The celebration lasted well into the night and eventually April and I got tired, especially after hours of traveling, so we were given a bamboo mat and there we lied, right next to the fire on a crystal clear African night. The sky was filled with stars and I remember having this surreal sense of the universe and thinking about ancestors up in the sky as stars and how deeply faith rules the lives of these people. I'm not religious in any sense but that night I felt like something up there was staring back at me, even if I thought it was only a massive ball of gas or alien life from some distant galaxy—I know I was not alone. I fell asleep to the sounds of drums and the slowly dying fire.
We awoke the next morning slightly sore and said our thanks gave our farewells and continued on of journey to Hohoe where the supposed tallest waterfall in West Africa lies. It was about a miles hike to Wli Falls. The water was very cold but felt extremely nice after a hike in the heat. Looking up, I could see tons of bats on the side of the fall. If we had had more time I would have loved to go inside on the caves; friends have bragged how cool it was. Next we traveled to the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary. We arrived at night and all the guest houses were full so we opted to do the “local stay.” We stayed in the room of a local blind man’s house.
The next morning I awoke at 5:30 am to see mono monkeys. It was explained that the local people migrated from the Brong Ahafo area 200 years ago and with them they brought fetishes for monkeys. There it was a taboo to harm the sacred monkeys which protected them when other populations died because of hunters. The sanctuary has over 300 mono monkeys. I saw about 30. I got to hand-feed them bananas. They are adorable creatures and watching them so close up…even touching them, was such an awesome experience. Their hands, the way they eat, the faces they make…are so freakishly like ours. We made out way back home. The trotro ride was around 5 hours. You’d be surprised how much of Ghana I’ve seen through the windows of trotros. The ride was scenic, with beautiful mountains and lushes greens.
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