Ghana

Ghana
I found Ghana to be weird and wonderful in another new way. I'm sure I'll get in trouble for anything I say about it, but the word corruption doesn't even begin to describe the system of favors and mixed allegiances that seems to govern most of life there, not just the wildlife world.
Accra was overwhelmingly busy and city-like, not to mention utterly confusing to me. Fortunately, I was being whisked around by a couple of people who really knew what they were doing. Cole and Justin. We ended up staying in the Hotel Shangri-La, which had a nice swimming pool, an earsplitting frog chorus in the evening, running hot water for showers (after a while in Africa, this really is a treat), and decent food.

I was tagging along on a summer expedition, which for Cole, was to check up on his camera traps and ongoing data collection in Mole National Park in the north of Ghana; for Justin, this was his big spotlight hollywood moment. The National Geographic people were making a documentary of his high-profile Science paper and ongoing study of the links between the fisheries and bushmeat trade and the general ecological upset that results in more baboons than anything else in national parks.

Having realised that perhaps not everyone they were looking for was going to partcipate in the documentary, the crew quickly twigged to the fact that Cole is a tall, good-looking and good-natured guy (sorry folks, it's the truth) that could stand in as a wildlife researcher extraordinaire in the film. Alas, I don't quite qualify, so I was definitely excess baggage... but no matter. I still had a chance to see how these documentaries get created and tweaked, and I saw bits of Ghana that I don't think I would have, left to my own devices. Here's their blog about doing documentaries http://www.seastudios.com/behindscenes.php

There is a part of Accra on the coast called Jamestown, which is where the fishermen come in. This was one of the most beautiful sights around Accra - seeing the big fishing boats pulled up on the shore; and watching one being hollowed out of a huge tree trunk. However, it was also here that I discovered something very disturbing to me. There were no seagulls. There were no cats. There was lots of refuse and bits of fish muck around (as well as discarded underwear and human feces). We asked where the seagulls were; the answer? They ate them. I know that there is a bushmeat crisis, but I didn't really cotton on to the idea that a society that will eat anything, eats everything. They ate all the damn seagulls.

One of the most epic and complicated parts of the documentary was trying to film anything where bushmeat was being sold. It is sold everywhere. It is sold as good chop at good chophouses (places where you get some stew and starch and chow down; these can be shacks on the side of highways, or more established cafes in towns). You can buy bushmeat in the markets in the cities and towns, if you know where to go. You can buy it on the side of the road. I saw a Royal Duiker and a Pangolin for the first time, upside down, alive, in someone's hands on the road. However, they know it's not okay to be filmed. In the major markets, there are "bushmeat queens" who are the women who chop up the meat and sell it. They are in charge. You don't mess with them. If they say you can't come and film, you can't. End of story. I don't know what would happen to someone violating this, but it wouldn't be safe. At all. So there was a lot of days of the crew trying to get to places with all their gear, only to find out they couldn't film. It got quite exasperating, as it meant rearranging travel all the time.

One trip went out to Shai Hills Resource Reserve, which is a pretty well established park. The website will tell you that there are animals there. There are not many. There's some Kob (big antelopey things), and a lot of baboons at the guard station. Otherwise, it's a very pretty rolling savanna plain. I think most of the wildlife was eaten a long time ago.

We went from Accra to Kumasi, which is the center of the Ashanti Kingdom, and also the location of a HUGE market that is really impossible to navigate and mostly smells of oily fish and exhaust fumes, but is absolutely fascinating. I spent a day wandering around the city, went to the historical touristy center, where they have all kinds of seriously precious artifacts in a 'museum' that is just some cabinets around the edge of a courtyard like enclosure. They have the king's various totems in there, including a pot, held down by pillows that contains the spirit of the Ashanti. I mean all the power of the kingdom, is in a little cabinet, without a lock, in a courtyard. I and another eager fellow were urging them that they need more security as well as better information about their artifacts. The woman just politely recited her stock tour material for us again and said she might tell someone else about our ideas.

I saw how they make the weights that are symbols of ashanti, which are used in trade (similar to money, but also, not really); I also went to a drum maker's shop and watched part of the process of making a big skin drum. I watched the kente cloth weavers; men sitting at looms that are about 12 feet long stretched out, and they carefully feed the thread and run the comb. It's only really done by men, apparently, and there is no photography allowed. It was intriguing, but I felt slightly invasive, despite it being set up as a tourist attraction.

I managed to walk quite a way up one of the arterial roads of Kumasi and get up on a hill. I looked down on the market from above, and realised quite how much space it takes up - some people just spend their whole lives in it. I also saw the edges of town, the roads where things are fixed, or just stay... like cars and trucks. There was one corner where the retaining wall was built of all kinds of junk, but one part was a car that had rusted beyond recognition and had no engine or wheels, but the door worked, so some guy was hanging out in the car, just sitting, as part of a wall.

On we went up to Mole National Park, in the north. Mole is a savanna park, it is fairly huge, and clearly harder to access than other parks. I think this is partly why there is still wildlife there. We stayed at the Mole Motel, which is the only place you can stay at the park, or really even the only place you stay near the park. They lose reservations all the time. People show up after 7 hour taxi rides with nowhere else to go and are told they have no beds. They are kind of obnoxious about it too. It's quite a remarkable place. But there it is. It overlooks a nice big waterhole where the ellies come in. It has huge baboon problems, patas monkeys like to take food off the tables, but they don't physically attack people - mostly.

I was standing at our breakfast table, and a big male patas was walking along a railing in front of me, clearly after the sugar or jam sitting on the table. All of the waitstaff were indoors, so I was literally pacing this monkey along the rail, trying to bodyblock him. So his buddy grabbed the butter dish while I was at the other end of the table, and I ran over there, and the big male shoved his hand in the jam and rammed it in his mouth, then hopped back on the rail. So of course I got annoyed and said "get out" and waved my hand in his direction - at which point he jumped and slapped my hand with his. So yes, I have been slapped by a monkey. It was a little bit scary, but they're not that big, so I wasn't too terrified. The baboons, on the other hand, they are truly scary. Apparently they respond to male voices (like the ones in Kibale) and just aren't afraid of women. They grab people's belongings out of their hands, they rush you with fangs bared, and apparenly have attacked female tourists at the Mole Motel. I naturally managed to piss off a couple of males who were working an open door, and Cole had to come along and shout at them before they backed down. It makes it hard to see how I could do research on them, but I figure if the waitstaff can use slingshots to scare them off, that'll have to be my technique too. I'm not lugging a big man around just to rescue me from the scary animals. Nope. No.

Again, the electric. Ghana likes selling it to neighboring countries too, and as a result, at Mole, there was a 36 hour rotation of 12 hours on, 24 hours off. In addition to this was a drought and general lack of water. Which meant being sweaty and gross quite a lot of the time. At some point, one of the crew started getting cramps and fever... which gradually made its way around everyone. I won't bore anyone with details, but my birthday was spent in the back of a truck on a bumpy road for 7 hours trying not to hurl. Swiss Air tried not to let me leave Joburg, offering me the Joburg hospital. NO WAY... I staggered onto the plane, much to their disgust. I arrived in England looking a bit rough; it's the first time Africa has made me ill. And the last, of course.