Merry Christmas

Le Voyage of West Africa

This will be short post, since im on limited time with a terrible keyboard at an internet cafe in Bamako, Mali. Left Ghana last tuesday after finishing my last exam on the saturday. The last days were spent packing and saying good bye to all the fantastic people i studied and lived with, many of whom ill probably never see again.
My travelling companion for this trip is Halea from UC Berkeley - whom I met at my time in Ghana and who, like me, have a big passion for travelling. In addition she, like me, had time to travel through west africa over christmas, so we decided to plan our "voyage" together. French is intruding my vocab here. A note my mother: Im getting by everywhere in french. Halea speaks less than me, so Im the french speaker, which doesnt say a lot. but hey - were still alive. !!!

So our voyage so far: We went from Accra to Ouagadougou, and then on to Mopti in Mali. From there we took a boat up the river to Timbuktu. Fantastic 2 day journey, on a public african transport boat. In other words Epic!. After a day in Timbuktu, which included visits to old mosques and a camel trip into the desert, we spent all day yesterday making our way to Bamako in Western Mali. (check google maps).

Tomorrow we are heading to Dakar, before leaving towards Banjul on the 25th, to catch a flight to Sierra Leone. in Sierra Leone we'll spend two weeks doing a mosquito-net-usage survey, as a follow-up to a distribution this past summer(see www.gmin.org).

When I have more time, and energy, ill elaborate more in detail. Upload some pictures, share some funny anecdotes etc. But that will have to wait for now.

Cheers,
Jacob and Halea in West Africa (currently Bamako, Mali)

Living the Dream: Motorbiking to Burkina Faso

It’s been a while since I last wrote, so I’ll try to summarize quickly what has happened down here in Ghana, before going on to talk about my amazing adventure to Burkina Faso.

As my last post revealed I purchased a motorbike a few weeks back. An American classmate of mine had bought one earlier on and seeing him drive one got me inspired to get one myself. For the irresistible price of 830USD(4600dkk) I got myself a brand new bike, including two helmets, international insurance, registration and some extra safety gear.

Since my Benin trip I haven’t left the country and in general the last couple of weeks had been very relaxed. In late October of my two friends, Jeppe and Tea, came down a week from Denmark to visit me. Having them around was great and we had a splendid week with Biking, Kayaking, Partying and Ambassador visits. It was also very nice for me to have someone come down and see how I live my life in Ghana. It’s nice to have someone who has a first hand understanding of what you say when you try to explain your daily consumption of plastic water or the completely chaotic streets of Accra.

The following weeks not much took place. The teacher-strike ended just as Jeppe and Tea left and school thus resumed the week after. There was a lot of work to do, since we all had to catch up from all the stuff we missed during the strike. The strike also caused the semester to be moved 3 weeks, so we are having all our exams in 1 week in early December, instead of over 4 weeks time as originally planned.

Then about two weeks ago, Kaisa and I decided to take advantage of the fact that we had no exams and take a 9 day trip to Burkina Faso.

We left early Friday morning dressed in janitor/safety clothes that we had bought the day before. This served not only as protection from bugs, stones and the unfortunate event of a crash, but it also turned out to be a great ticket to get through tricky situations. Every time we came to a police barrier, or any other sort of checkpoint, we were quickly let through with no questions asked. I’m not sure exactly why, but I think people genuinely thought of us as some sort of road construction supervisors, or simply didn’t know what to think and therefore decided to let us through. The bottom-line is that we didn’t have a single problem with the authorities during our trip.

We rode almost 10 hours the first day without any problems, and made it more than halfway through Ghana. The first 60km out of Accra are terrible. In addition I took a wrong turn so we ended up driving through the construction site for the new road instead of taking the detour everyone else takes. Again – all the construction workers (apparently) thought we had some official business there, cause they let us through and pointed us in the right direction without asking any questions.

By nightfall we had driven some 450km to Kintampu in the center of Ghana. We found a small guesthouse and lodged there for the night. At the washroom I stumbled into this gigantic fellow.

I later learned that this little bug is a female (I currently forgot its name) and that it apparently eats the male after reproductive intercourse. How interesting. And how fortunate that the human world doesn’t work like that. . .

The next day we continued on towards Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. We made a short stop in the City of Tamale in Northern Ghana to change oil and tighten the chain on Mulan ( Since my bike is Chinese we decided to give it a Chinese name, and we figured that “Mulan” - inspired by the Chinese warrior – was a suitable name).

In northern Ghana there are road-side-mechanics everywhere so finding one that could do the job was easy. I ended up paying 7 USD(35kr) for new oil and 2USD(10kr) for the work. Not to shabby.

We made it to the border without problems, and crossing it with Mulan was piece of cake. I had read some blogs and stories on the Internet about problems when it came to brining a vehicle across borders in West Africa. In many places you apparently need loads of papers and permissions to bring your bike or car with you, but apparently not into Burkina Faso. The roads in Burkina Faso were surprisingly good and we made it to Ouagadougou (from now on just referred to as “Ouaga”) by 4.30pm. Two hours earlier than we had estimated.

The difference between Ghana and Burkina is quite striking. First of all, Burkina is Francophone, which means everything takes places in French. Kaisa speaks no French at all, and my French consist of 4 years of elementary school French that I have completely forgotten. I did spend the last few weeks studying a few words, but by no means enough to have long or meaningful conversations. The most useful world I learned was “Le Plein, S’il Vous Plait”, which means something along the lines of “Full, Please” or “Fill it up, Please”. Quite useful to know when buying Gasoline.

Secondly, Burkina is landlocked and extremely hot. At times the temperature would surpass 40 degrees Celsius !!! Fortunately the weather is a lot drier than in Ghana, which means that the heat is not as unbearable, despite the higher temperature.

Ouagadougou as a city was a big surprise to me. My expectations were very low and I was expecting to see a very poor city with few modern buildings and little organization. But Ouaga is quite the contrary. Lots of nice buildings, good roads, organized infrastructure. Most of the streets have “biking lanes” designated for the myriad of mopeds sweeping through the city. As opposed to Accra, Ouaga is a moped-city. Almost everyone got around on mopeds, which eased traffic so much that we in the days we were there never ran into any traffic jams. And it also made us feel very home on Mulan.

In Ouaga we stayed with a nice couple, Pavel and Marjorie, which we had found on Couch surfing (if not familiar with the couch surfing concept see www.couchsurfing.com). Marjorie had taken a job on a 1-year contract to teach French at an international school, and her partner Pavel was working as a web designer from home.

The first day (Sunday) in Ouaga, Kaisa and I went to a Sacred Crocodile Sanctuary. The crocodiles there are considered holy and since chickens are “sacrificed” to them on a regular basis they are fairly tame(can a crocodile be tame?) and well fed.

We sat on some crocodiles and watched while they ate some living chickens. Quite an experience.

Monday morning we left Ouaga early. We drove north all day, through beautiful scenery and landscapes until we by nightfall made it to Goram-Goram in the northeastern part of Burkina Faso. Goram-Goram lies in the Sahel Dessert, not to be confused with the Sahara. The Sahel is a semi-dessert in the sense that, trees and other vegetations is present, but sparsely distributed and they are not expecting any rain until early June.

In Goram-Goram we arranged a 24hour Camel trip out into the wild. After spending the night in a mud hut, we left early next morning with 3 camels, equipment and a Guide. Out guide Yussuna, spoke amazing 7 different languages, including French and (some) English.

We rode for a few hours before taking a mid-day break at a local village in the middle of bum-f**k-nowhere. We put out some mattresses under a tree and had a small lunch and investigated this small kind village.

After spending the midday heat in the sun, we continued on and set up a camp on some sand dunes further out in the desert. Out there we had a gorgeous night under the open sky, and were woken up 5am next morning to see the stunning sunrise, before riding back to Goram-Goram.

When we came back it turned out that our visit coincided with a Muslim Holiday. As a result we were invited to join Yussuna’s brother’s family for lunch celebration. They had slaughtered to big goats and the entire family was busy cooking. What a meal in the middle of the dessert. J - again, it always surprises me to see how hospitable and friendly people are in the most far away places. Here we come, two white people on a motorbike, dressed in blue janitor-suits and suddenly we are invited to join for a Muslim Holiday Celebration with a local family, all dressed up and working hard to make sure we are having a good time. Fantastic.

We returned to Ouaga the same evening, and spend the night at Pavel and Marjorie’s place again. Next morning I got myself a Visa de Pais de L’entente(a 5 country visa), and we visited an arts and craft center, before returning back to Ghana. After a long ride from Ouaga, we made it to Bolgatange some 60km into Ghana.

Next morning, we visited the Tonga Hills and the Shenzu Shrine. All the hills in the particular area are covered with massive rocks and makes for quite spectacular scenery.

We had a nice tour around the village, where a guide told us about the ceremonial and spiritual practices of the local people. The chief has a large authority and sacrifices of animals are a common practice to ensure good luck.

After our visit we drove all the way to Ghana’s 2^nd Largest city, Kumasi, where we spent out last night.

Next morning we set out for Accra. After about 5 hours drive we were so unfortunate to have a little incident. A car driving in the opposite direction suddenly drove over in our lane to pass by another car. With the car facing directly towards us I had little option but to make a stunt maneuver into the ditch. Both Kaisa and I fell off the bike, and of course the car just drove on. . . After the crash some friendly local people helped us find a health clinic. I had gotten some scratches and Kaisa had hurt her leg a bit, so we figured it would be good to get out injuries checked out, just to be sure everything was alright. Fortunately for Kaisa, her leg was not broken, but just heavily bruised. I needed a few stitches in the chin, but was otherwise in good condition (it looked a lot more dramatic than it was).

After the visit to the health clinic, we went over to a restaurant to have some lunch where we found some kind people who offered Kaisa a ride back to Accra, so she didn’t have to sit on the bike with her sore leg.

I went back to investigate the bike. It had a few scratches and the light was a bit bent, but its condition was not worse than I could drive it back to Accra without trouble.

So yeah, despite our little incident at the end we had a fantastic trip to Burkina Faso. Driving a motorbike through Africa is really a fantastic experience, and even though some of the days were very long on the bike I really enjoyed it.

My original plan was to drive the bike along the coast all the way to Senegal. I however don’t thing this will happen. It’s a very long way, and some of the road conditions in Sierra Leone and Guinea are suppose to be terrible. I also read some blogs talking about all the paperwork, which is a thing I’de rather avoid. I might take the bike for a trip to Cote D’Ivoire and back, and then sell her here in Accra where I know I can get a pretty good price for her. But the exact plans are not yet made. We’ll see. That’s all for now. Hope you didn’t get too bored from this massive post.

Hope you’re all doing great out there. Cheers for now!

Ps. “Mulan” says hi.

Boys with Toys

So, I bought a Motorbike. Senegal here I come:

Benin, The Volta Region and Life in Ghana

It’s been a while without any updates. ( Think you can click on the pictures below to see a bigger version)

Benin
Lets go back in time for a bit shall we? I think I left you some two weeks back before heading to Benin. The trip to Benin was great. I went there with the normal traveling quartet consisting of me, Kaisa, Rochelle and Jessica.

Jessica’s French again proved a very valuable asset, even though we figured that most of the “French” spoken in Benin is either broken French or French mixed with local words. We sometimes find that here in Ghana too: Bad English or people only speaking pigeon English.We made it to Benin in no time. Left early in the morning from our student hostel, caught a tro-tro (minibus) to the Togolese border. From there we caught a small car taking us to the Beninese border.; a trip that took no more than 40 minutes. (Togo is a really small country!). At the border we came to realize that a proof of yellow fever vaccination was needed in order to enter. Both Jessica and I had forgotten our Yellow Vaccination Cards. Not very smart. . . .Fortunately you can solve this minor problem by paying 2500 CFA, or about 5 USD to the Border Official. Paying the 2500 CFA obviously proves to everyone that you are certainly vaccinated against yellow fever. . . . .or. . . Anyways. First bribe on my Africa adventure so far.
Out first night in Benin was spent at Grand Popo about 20km from the Togolese border. It’s essentially a street close to the beach with lots of small huts and a few guesthouses. But the beach. The beach! Truly amazing. Fantastic setting and extremely beautiful. We lodged in some rastafari-owned place, Ate delicious shrimp, and learned (or tried to learn) dancing from some local kids.

Next day we went on to Porto Novo. The capital of Benin. A small and not super exciting city. Our aim was however not the city itself, but the Songhai Centre. The vision of a Nigerian Professor who studied in California, the 20-year-old centre is at the forefront of sustainable agricultural development. We had a 1-hour tourwith a fantastic guide, who showed us how the centre trained and instructed farmers, villagers and governments from all over Africa on how to run sustainable development projects. Their idea was based on a multifaceted system where the manure from livestock for instance, would be used as fertilizer for the crops and the bad crops would then be used for feeding the livestock. The concept also included simple manufacturing and fish farming. All linked together to support and enhance each other in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way. Apparently UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon visited the centre not too long ago and praised it highly. All in all a really cool place! (Check out the webpage: http://www.songhai.org/english/)

A random funny thing about Benin is the number of foosball (table-football) tables they have on the street. In Denmark these tables can only be found at bars, pubs or in schools. But in Benin they stand in the sides of the street and lots of kids play. We of course (of course!) challenged some kids playing and Kaisa and I actually managed to win a match. The kids seemed fairly surprised by this outcome – who would have thought that random white people knew how to play foosball. ?

After a few days more in Benin, where we saw some museums about the slave trade and the history of Benin, we returned back to Ghana. The primary means of transportation in both Togo and Benin for shorter distances are s

mall moto-taxis (locally known as zem-zem’s). It’s essentially a motorbike that works as a taxi. Even though it’s a bit problematic to take them if it’s raining (since you get soaking wet), and can at times be dangerous(old Chinese bikes on shitty roads – do the math) – I find it one of the best ways to see the country. You have a full free sight and get to see a lot of small things a

s you drive by. Plus – it’s a lot of fun!

Trip to Volta Region
This weekend the quartet united again for a trip to the Volta Region.
Friday was spent kayaking the Volta River. We found a place run by a friendly Dutch guy and rented some kayaks there. Fantastic trip. There’s nothing better than kayaking on a tropical river in fantastic weather.
The next day we spent and the Wli falls. One of the major tourist attractions in Ghana. After a 30 minutes walk through some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve seen so far in Ghana, we reached a big awesome waterfall. (We of course went swimming under. What else would you do?). Also - the waterfall was surrounded by bats. When some Togolese hunter (the fall is right on the Togolese border) shot his gun (don’t ask me why people hunt bats with guns) more than a thousand bats flew away from the walls and into the sky. A completely unbelievable sight.
I’ll try to upload some pictures soon. But yeah – it was epic!

Life in Ghana
In more general terms life in Ghana is good. Food here is really cheap and even though it’s good, it becomes a bit boring in the long run. Variety is what I’m lacking. Oh – and good meat. All meat here(if you can find any) is chopped up in what seems like random pieces and the boiled in a big stew. You rarely see steaks or any other sort of “pure” meat. What you do see is lots of fish lying on the shelves that looks like it was cooked/fried/boiled/smoked yesterday. I’m not too big on warm fish that has been lying for more than two days. But hey – who cares when they have amazing pineapple! Hurray!
Oh – and classes are cancelled today. Teachers apparently went on strike. No one knows how long it will last. Some say a week, some say a day, some say perhaps two weeks. When they had a similar strike in ‘95 it lasted a year. Lets hope it doesn’t last that long this time. It’s apparently something about wages (what else to strike over?). But yeah – it’s not going to make a big difference. Most lectures are quite useless anyways. I will rely on the books (have books for 3 of 5 classes now) and the copies of past exams. Since I only need to pass I should have a fair chance.

(And here is a picture of me with a beautiful helmet from a mountain bike ride last week!)

The Doxy Effect

Malaria is a horrifying disease - especially if you don’t treat it and don’t have any natural resistance (Like most white people don’t).

To solve this problem of getting deadly sick, most people take what is known as “Malaria-Prophylaxis” or more commonly known as “Malaria-Pills”. There are several kinds/compounds/drugs/brands on the market and they all the various pro’s and con’s.

Lariam (Mefloquine) is effective, fairly cheap, needs to be taken only once a week, but the side effects range from nightmares to paranoia, depression and schizophrenia.

Malarone, which is the newest and most recommended drug, is taken once a day, very effective, very few side effects – but a single pill (daily dose) costs around 6$(30dkr). Multiply that by 5 months and you are at $900(4.500dkr). Money I would rather spend elsewhere.

The final choice is Doxycycline. It’s actually an antibiotic – but seems to work as a Malaria Preventative Pill as well. You take 1 pill a day, lower dosage (100mg) than if you were treating a disease. Side effects include: sunburn and photosensitivity (though I haven’t felt anything yet) – and of course the problems that might come up from taking antibiotics non-stop for 5 months. But!: The prices for 5 months is $24(130dkr). And here comes the interesting part:

If you Google Doxycycline uses, the following things come up:
• Treatment of bacterial infections
• Acne treatment
• An alternative for the prevention of malaria
• Treatment of anthrax infections
• Treatment of rosacea
• Treatment of periodontitis (gum disease).

Bacterial Infections
Doxycycline can be used to treat a number of different types of infections caused by bacteria. It is most commonly used to treat infections such as:

• Certain types of pneumonia
• Chlamydia
• Rocky Mountain spotted fever
• Typhus fever
• Tick fever
• Syphilis (when unable to take penicillin)
• Some respiratory or urinary tract infections (UTIs)
• Plague
• Cholera
• Tularemia
• Gonorrhea
• Lyme disease.

Essentially, doxy is protecting me from a whole range of diseases (or at least that is what I like to tell myself). Kaisa had Typhoid Fever a few weeks ago – but I like to tell myself that due to the Doxy-Effect, I did not get it – since the vicious Doxy-drug butchered any typhoid bacteria that might have entered my system. (or my vaccination against typhoid worked).

I’m not a doctor – so I don’t know if this is actually true. Can antibiotics be used as a prophylaxis against say – bacterial infections from wounds and food?
If it can – well, that’s the Doxy Effect for you. The best externality Malaria-Prophylaxis can get you!

"Obruni Magic”

“Obruni” is the Twi (local language in southern Ghana) word for “white person” or “foreigner”. Wherever we go we are always addressed as “Obruni”. The sales women will yell, “Hey Obruni – what do you want”. People on the street will say “Hey Obruni”, and all the children I come by always yell “Obruni, Obruni, Obruni” while waving aggressively.

Usually when I’m out in town or just playing with all the kids, who hang out at the night market close to my building, I’ll do one of my two magic tricks that I’m really proud of. They are both very simply, but advanced enough to trick a 5-year old, which I find great amusement in (you have no idea how much street respect you get from doing magic in a quite superstitious society). One of the tricks is an old one my dad used to do when I was a kid. It involves me removing my thumb and then reattaching it again. It looks quiet real – but works best on children. (For some reason most grown-ups are too smart).

The other trick, which I do more frequently and in several variants, is the “make the coin disappear-trick”. I’ll take a coin (or a stone), put it in my hand, close my hand and make it disappear. The kids usually scream and look very surprised when I open my hand and the stone is not there anymore.

This has made some of the local kids give me the nickname “Obruni-Magic” – which I find quite funny and amusing. Not that I consider myself very magical – but if I can entertain some kids and make them laugh – my day is saved.
My two tricks have also found many uses beyond our little Accra World. Whenever we travel and meet some kids, I always pull one of them off. Almost always the reaction is surprise, joy and excitement. Very entertaining. It in someway proves that children all around the world are basically the same. They all love to play an have fun.

My magic skills were also used a lot on some of the longer journeys in 2009 in Sierra Leone. I remember once when Clem and I got stuck in a little tiny village, cause out motorbike ran out of fuel. The driver borrowed a regular bicycle and biked 2 hours back-and-forth to the nearest village to get some fuel. In the meantime we entertained the entire village with magic and - despite the language barrier - made very good friends with the elders and the people not out working the fields.

So yeah – if you ever come to Ghana and hear someone yell “Obruni Magic” – I’m probably not far away. (Or someone copied my tricks!)