Kumasi and Obuasi: labyrinths above and below ground

As November rolls along and the exam season approacheth, the students are getting into study mode (or something vaguely resembling it). So why not have one last kick at the can, travel-wise? Hannah was going out to Kumasi and I said what the hell.

I must admit, I was never keen on Kumasi. From what I read, it was busy, dull and all full of itself due to its claim to fame as the home of the Ashanti people and their once-great empire. I was quite surprised with what was in store for the weekend...

We arrived downtown in early afternoon on Saturday and I instantly liked the vibe that the city gave off. It seemed to remind me of so many places: the city was relaxed, and the buildings had a sort of colonial-vibe, maybe like a city in Cuba; there were many small shops and stands, covered in old-style painted ads, perhaps like Spadina Avenue in Toronto; the downtown was filled with narrow, winding streets going up-and-downhill, like an old Italian village that had outgrown itself, but still kept its natural shape throughout the years… oh, and there were open sewers, so it smelled like Accra. Regardless, it's a great city to walk around and get lost in. If I were writing a novel, I'd probably book a loft apartment and write from my balcony whilst drinking lots of brandy. Just call me Hemingway.

There was plenty of life to be found that afternoon in Kejetia Market. Home to over 10,000 vendors, it's believed to be the largest open-air market in West Africa. To be honest, I can't imagine a market being any bigger! We walked down railway tracks through the main areas and ducked into the labyrinth of shops inside… it really has to be seen to be believed. I have no idea how people find their own shops inside, let alone haul their goods and raw materials: vegetables, smelly meat, candy, old clothes, textiles, rubber for making shoes… they had just about everything a Ghanaian could want! We went back Monday morning and it was even more hectic and difficult to get around. When I see hundreds of people selling the exact same thing, I imagine a Wal-Mart being built next to it and EVERYBODY going out of business. (knock on wood)

If souvenirs and knick-knacks are your thing, the National Cultural Centre has a line of shops selling carvings, paintings, kente cloth, drums, brass figurines and other Western-oriented consumer goods – all at highly-inflated prices. We didn't get much. We also met a local self-taught juju man (witch doctor) who sold Hannah a tea mix that cures every ailment under the sun. It also may both inhibit and improve chances of conception – we're not sure which one. On a darker note, he said that he also has cures for AIDS, which is definitely not something that I'd promote.

The best part of the NCC was the Prempeh II Jubilee Museum, which has a small but fantastic collection of artefacts from the Ashanti Empire, which once ruled an area larger than Ghana itself and fought the British for a long time before being conquered. No photos were allowed, but Yaa, our tour guide, really did her homework and answered all of my questions. It's a must-see.

Compared to Accra, Kumasi is pretty dull at night, especially on Sundays. We stayed at the decent Presbyterian Guest House and met a bunch of British medical students studying here for a few weeks and they brought us out on Saturday night for some dinner and drunken karaoke at a half-empty bar. It was no Champs, but we still got in some Motown, Beatles and Celine Dion.

Sunday was pretty relaxed, since everything is closed. However, Asante Kotoko, Ghana's best football team, won the final match of the season and also the league championship, so in the evening, the streets were filled with red-and-white clad fans. A female fan at the guesthouse told me that Accra's fans are notoriously vicious and that a few years ago there were deadly riots. Thank goodness that I live in a country where we have more than one sport…

The lady was actually from Canada and worked with CUSO, the development agency that Maleaha has been doing her placement with this year. I had a thousand and one questions for her that I wish I could have asked…


Finally, we went about 1 ½ hours South to Obuasi, where Anglo-Gold Ashanti operates a giant mining operation. You can get a tour for about $10US, but if you don't have your own car, it's a little more, as it was for us. The guides took us down 1,600m (or feet, depending on who you asked) in a tiny elevator called "the cage" to where the miners are trained and they showed us the basic process of shaft mining. We got to wear attractive blue coats, helmets and headlamps, but we weren't allowed to mine any of the gold that was in the mine walls. The tour was expensive, but totally worth the price of admission... the best part is when they take you into the dark areas – but I won't spoil it for you. We hiked up a few hundred metres to an opening below the surface where trucks can pass through and got metal-detected by the guard, to make sure we didn't steal any of his precious, precious gold.

A word of advice: if you go there early on in the day, you'll get to see workers being trained and lots more activity than near the end of the shift, when we went. Also, when we went to the tro-tro station around 5:30, the last one to Accra had already left. So we had to go back through Kumasi, which was a long and terrible journey. But we won't talk about that.

Anyways, Kumasi itself was great (if not a bit expensive) and we'll be back next semester most definitely. In fact, if we were given the choice of studying in Accra or Kumasi, I'd be tempted to choose the latter and I know my friends would be too. Not a bad way of ending the semester.


PS - Eat at Vic Baboo's. It's freakin' fantastic.