Where We Are

It occurred to me that we threw ourselves into this rambling blog rather quickly, and I have quite rudely forgotten to introduce you to the setting of our scene where the odd and amusing events of this trip so far have taken place. What follows is a little background.

Consult a map and you’ll see that Ghana sits about five degrees above the equator in West Africa (on the underside of that big western nob) with it’s southern coast to the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. From the coast, where the capital Accra lies, the country extends northward through green tropical farmlands in the south and past Lake Volta in the eastern and central regions, on to the dustier and dryer Sahel regions of the North. Beyond Ghana, if you were to travel northwards, you would continue through the mostly semi-arid Sahel (though you might encounter a bit more of the tropical belt), after which you’d find yourself, at about Mali and Timbuktu, squarely in the Sahara Desert. Live through that and you’ll come out around Algeria and the Mediterranean on the other side.

Back to where we are, though, which is between a two and four hour drive northeast of Accra (depending on the Accra traffic I guess), in the Volta Region in the eastern part of Ghana. The Volta Region encompasses the area North of Greater Accra, East of Lake Volta and West of the Togolese border. Geographically this area is more mountainous than other parts of Ghana on account of the ranges which extend this far across the border from Togo, but I should caution you to imagine nothing higher than the 885m of Afadjato, which kind of makes them just really big hills. Both geographically and culturally this area is close to Togo, where Ewe is also spoken, since the Ewe homeland was effectively cut in half by the division of German Togoland between England and France after World War I. We have so far met many people who have worked and lived in Togo, among them Paul’s brother Emmanuel and his wife Salome, who prefer to speak French over English.

The town of Have is one of many through which the main Accra road runs (here basically North-South) some kilometers from the lake. From Have the lake is not visible (though you can spot it to the West from the road at various high points further North and South of the town) and so the dominant geographical feature is the mountain, which also runs North-South and up to which Have is nestled on its eastern side.

A single two-lane, paved road runs for, oh, several kilometers through the town, and then splits in two at the Have junction where a more northerly-running road takes you to Hohoe and a north-westerly road continues to Kpandu and the nearby lakeside town of Kpandu-Torkor. At first glance all of the houses and buildings of Have seem to huddle and crush up against the main road, but the occasional driveway and a series of crawling and nebulous footpaths (over this gutter, under that washing line) also lead from the road to various small neighbourhoods and family compounds closer to the mountain or a short distance down the slope which eventually leads to the lake.

The most favoured construction method in Have – reflecting (I think) it’s slightly more well-to-do residents compared with the smaller villages – is the one-storey poured cement building with a rusty-red corrugated tin roof. This is the construction of both the buildings at EDYM and the library, and one that can allow for all the amenities of electricity and plumbing. The family compound, which usually consists of several buildings around a shared dirt courtyard, will often include a few more ramshackle constructions as well. These may be four- or three-sided buildings with plywood walls and roofs, traditional stick or bamboo-sided huts with grass roofs, sturdier mud-brick buildings, or some combination thereof. Most cooking is done outdoors even in the nicer houses, often over a fire on a porch or in a cooking hut, or on a propane burner. A delicious meal of fufu is prepared outdoors, hopefully with the help of one or two children taking turns pounding the cassava into dough with large pestles. Most families will also have a small enclosure for some very-independent goats.

On a tro-tro ride leaving the library, you’d drive through about one goat-dodging kilometer or so of the town (past a large football field, a police checkpoint complete with lounging and sometimes vigilant armed officers, and various stalls and shops) before you reach the junction and take a left turn for Kpandu. Beyond the Have junction on the road to Kpandu, the town peters out quickly and gives way to flat farmland heading away from the mountains. On this road there are about three or four more towns at the roadside in the estimated five or so kilometers to the EDYM signboard. Each of these villages is smaller than Have, and shows it mostly in an abundance of more traditional stick or mud-brick, grass-roofed huts and fewer cement buildings. Between the towns are brush and farmland though sometimes it’s difficult without a worker present to know which is which. Occasionally an almost imperceptible dirt road or footpath branches off from the road, and leads to small villages or settlements further afield.

Along the road after Have are the small towns of Have Ando #1 (Ando Numbah One), Sadzikofe, Have Ando #2, and then (imperceptibly separate from Numbah Two) you’ll know you’ve reached Jerusalem from the football field on your right and all around the smell of putrefying garbage. (Or is it the mashed cassava the ladies are bagging?) At about this point you should point out to the driver or mate the blue-and-green signboard approximately 300m ahead and closing, which marks the entrance to the dirt road to the farm.

Paul owns the buildings at the roadside – a large cement structure with, from what we can tell, at least two small bedrooms and accommodation for various animals, as well as two handsome grass huts for shade. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, it’s Paul dream to move the EDYM offices and the Moringa tea-bagging operation to these quarters, presumably (for the former at least) when the buildings are hooked up to the grid. For now they remain empty except for when Paul occasionally sleeps there, we think when beds at EDYM are full.

From the paved road, the dirt road extends South-West-ish past a local mill and borehole, and then some 600m or so (with Paul’s fields to the right or North, and other people’s to the left or South). Beyond the farm on the same road are more of Paul’s fields, in particular a mango orchard, and then presumably another village some kilometers farther along given the foot-traffic, though we’ve never seen it ourselves.

The farm has quite a handsome entrance from the dirt road, where there is a wide packed-dirt driveway fringed with long, low rows of green hedges. To the right of the driveway, behind a scrubby lawn, is the main long cement building lying basically East-West and parallel to the dirt road. To the right again of this building – what you first see of the farm – and running back from the road is a long nursery where until recently Sam spent most of his days. (He now has the harder and far more sweaty task of clearing the fields for the transplantation of various seedlings.) The driveway ends at the foot of another building – where we sleep – which, along with the main building, forms an L-shape which encloses the reservoir, part of the nursery, a small grove, and a nice mango tree for sitting under.

From the inside (not the roadside) the main one-storey building has three entrances. The left-most (and closest to the nursery, if you’re sufficiently turned around and following this tour) leads to a kitchen with a small, low table, some open shelves, and a kerosene burner. Off the kitchen lies a room of great mystery, which we’ll endeavour to peek into at some point in the future but as we’re usually kept out of the kitchen we haven’t yet seen. The next door leads to a wide room where supplies are kept, from which two small sleeping rooms extend, with windows towards the road. A third door leads to another supply room next to the driveway.

“Our” building (with the EDYM logo handsomely painted on the South end) extends basically North-South and consists of four rooms end to end: two sleeping rooms with small verandas (to the South); and an eating room and bathroom (to the North). Our room is large enough for a double bed on the East wall to the left of the door, a small table as you enter, and a chair. Two windows open on either side of the room – one at the head of the bed and the other at the foot, where there’s enough room to the wall to squeeze in the chair. That’s about it, and we’re lucky that Sam and I mostly get ready at different times in the morning, because if one person’s not occupying the bed there’s just enough room to knock into each other between the chair, the table, and the door.

Next door a room identical to ours houses Paul or various overnight guests at the farm. A third door leads into our eating room, where dishes occupy a large, high table and two armchairs flank a low one. (Ghanaian eating tables, at least at home, tend to be low – we guess on account of the communal dishes.) The last door leads to the bathroom, which consists of a communal space with two sinks, before two more doors open to tiled rooms each with a toilet and (water-permitting) a shower. Behind the building is a cement-floored stall with a drain, similar to those found at each family compound and used as a urinal and, with the assistance of a stool, a bucket-washing stall. (As far as we know only Chachu washes there, and as for its other uses we’re not sure, but it offers less privacy than most of the stalls we’ve seen in town.) Beyond that are more planting beds, a cooking hut, and a building intended for rearing grasscutter which is currently empty.

This is essentially our world. From our view at the farm we can see the lights of cars passing along the main road at night, to the East and West mountains which occasionally frame a spectacular sun rise or set, and all around fields of palms and cassava.