Happy New Year from Ghana

This week we have finally got a result to the elections in Ghana. The run off was last Sunday, but due to some difficulties getting the ballot boxes out to the rural constituencies one result did not come in until Saturday. By last Tuesday the NDC had 50.13% of the vote to the NPP’s 49.87%. But as the one remaining constituency is a NDC stronghold, it was obvious that the NDC would win. The NPP boycotted the final constituency claiming that they had been the victims of corruption. But it seems most unlikely that corruption would have come from the party who were previously in opposition. After all power corrupts, not no power. If the elections had not been free and fair is it really conceivable that the losing candidate would have gained such a large percentage of the vote? Despite being an NPP area, there were pockets of people celebrating the result on Saturday. John Atta Mills, who was the losing candidate in 2000 and 2004, will now be sworn in as President on the 7th January. Nana Akufo-Addo has claimed that “I’ll be back” which made me laugh, much to the annoyance of the NPP supporters I was with!!

Due to the election results being announced (theoretically at least) on Tuesday, we thought it was safer to wait until Wednesday (New Years Eve) to travel to Busea. Unfortunutly that meant that most of the hotels were booked by the time we got there, but we did eventually manage to get into just about the most grottiest (if that is a word?) for 10 cedi a night. Busea has one of the best beaches in Ghana and is one of the few genuine tourist centers. There appeared to be very few locals that were not trying to gain from tourism and so everything was far closer to western prices than we are used to. From the beach there is a view across to an island that looked to me a little bit like Tracey Island from Thunderbirds!!

As well as the beach, Busea is also famous in Ghana for pancakes. So we found a place called “Daniel’s Pancakes” to try them. This was a small business with two brothers running it. One was in charge of pancakes (presumably Daniel) and the other in charge of fruit juice. But there seemed to be some competition between them as the “fruit juice” one would not let us look at the pancakes on the menu. At the end we had to pay each of them separately which confused us totally. Due to an absence of honey, I had to have the chocolate with my pancake. I’m not sure it really added to it. I also had the freshly squeezed orange which was really good, as well as a nice change from my normal reliance on water!!

For the evening we had food at a restaurant and then attempted to stay there for as long as possible as we waited for the New Year. We were told there would be African dancing, music and acrobatics round a bonfire from 7.00. But this did not actually start until nearer 11. Even by Ghanaian standards that was later than we had expected. Unfortunately it started to rain which dampened the bonfire and meant that we were the only ones on the beach watching. So much for the dry season that we are supposed to be in. Then again the lightning and thunder did make it a dramatic way to pass into 2009. The drummers were quite good, while the fire eater was fairly impressive considering there was probably no health and safety precautions made. The most impressive was when he crawled under an inflamed plank of wood that was supported by two beer glasses. There was no countdown to the New Year which was fairly weird. So we just had to guess based on our watches that ran at different times.

On New Years day we decided to attempt to learn to surf. Kirsty has surfed once before, but neither Chris nor I have ever even attempted it. Based on this experience I will not attempt it again either!! To have a one hour lesson cost 25 cedi (12 pound 50), which is more than we have paid for anything since being in Ghana.. The first problem I had was carrying the board. As most of you know I am not exactly the strongest and surf boards are not light. In my defence my problem was not the weight, but the shape. The board seemed to long that whilst I could lift it, it was not balanced and so was falling down onto the sand at one end. In the end I was forced to let the instructor take it for me. The second problem was that I had never really thought about surfing before, so made the rather foolish error of putting the board in front of me when wading out towards the waves. The first large wave came and knocked the board towards me, sending me flying and then submerged beneath the water. It would not be the last time I would end up underneath the waves when I was supposed to be surfing on top of them!!

When I actually attempted to surf it did not get much better. I could get on the board and let the wave take me, but standing up on the board was another matter entirely. Every time I got onto my knees I ended up falling off and under the sea yet again. The instructor was not a great deal of help, with his sole piece of advice being “get on the board and try again”. I could have worked that bit out without him. Kirsty and Chris seemed to be having much more luck. I did eventually get on my feet, but only for a few seconds as the wave petered out near the shore. I could not honestly feel those few seconds were worth all those times being tossed in the drink by the waves. In whole hour session, I managed to stand up twice. I’m glad I tried because it would have been boring not to, but to paraphrase Sir Steve Redgrave, if you ever see me attempting to surf again, you have my full permission to shoot me!!

We arrived back in Kumasi late on Friday after a couple of days at the beach. The people from the office had bought a goat and had promised to take us out on Saturday and show us how they slaughter it and then prepare the meat. I was not looking forward to that one bit. Mercifully, by the time we had arrived they had already slaughtered the goat, who I had called Gordon when I saw him (or her) sitting in the back of their car the week before. Whilst the end result was the same for the goat, to have not seen it actually happen somehow makes it ok. Is that the same as saying that the slave trade is OK as long as it does not happen near me? The closeness of the two ideas is something I am not exactly comfortable with. But as it means that I can safely continue to eat meat without the memory of them slaughtering Gordon every time, I am very happy that things worked out in this way. The goat meat is actually very tasty and I think they should definitely have it more available in England.