Village of the Damned

A few weeks ago I had one of the best field trips of this voyage when I led a group to the Grass Roots Soccer School in Cape Town.  And obviously if I’m ranking trips that means one has to come in last on the list.  Sunday’s visit to a water village in Nzulezo, Ghana now ranks at the bottom of my favorite adventures.

I was really looking forward to Ghana and seeing a different kind of Africa.  South Africa is amazing, but with the skyscrapers, mountains and large white population, it sometimes feels more like California than Africa.  Ghana is more the typical African experience.  People carry large amounts on their heads, the infrastructure is still in the developing phase and it is HOT.  I had heard the phrase “Africa hot”; I really understand it now after our trip yesterday.

The trip sounded like an interesting day trip when we researched it in our guide book.  We snagged our tickets from two students whose plans had changed and they were selling them for half off.  It was a full day trip from 8 AM to 6 PM and it seemed like a great deal.  What it turned into made me feel like I should have been paid for going on it. 

The first setback was that our bus ride to the village was scheduled to be an hour.  It was closer to three.  The roads in Ghana can go from concrete to dirt in a few miles and were filled with construction, crazy traffic and the occasional goat crossing.  Once we got to the visitor’s center to pick up our life jackets for the canoe trip we were told we would have to pay a woman there in order to take pictures at the village.  Now since the village was supposed to be an hour away by canoe and she wasn’t coming with us, I smelled a scam.  How would they even know we paid her?  I saved my Cedis, Ghana’s currency, and bought a few bottles of water instead. 

The visitor’s center was located right next to a gorgeous beach we were scheduled to visit later in the afternoon and I had the feeling I should skip the village visit and just lay on the beach until the group got back.  If I ever invent a time machine I will go back to that moment and instruct past Jason to do exactly that.  Once we had our lifejackets we took a quick bus ride to where we would be “walking” to get into the canoes.  What actually happened is we trekked for about 45 minutes through the grasslands of Africa in the burning sun at its hottest point.  Our group was a mix of kids, students, staff/faculty and lifelong learners.  We had a range of age from 6 to 60 plus and it’s a miracle we all made it out alive especially since a few people kept their lifejacket on while we walked there.  It made me laugh at one point during the trek when I looked up and saw the line of people soldering through the walk while dressed in orange lifejackets and not a drop of water to be found.

If it wouldn’t have been so hot I would have enjoyed the beautiful scenery around us more.  Though nothing could have made me enjoy the rickety elevated-walkway we had to cross over a swampland to reach the canoes.  There were missing boards and each step felt like the wooden boards  might snap at any point and send me into the stagnant water.  When we got to the canoe launching spot we were instructed to go barefoot and walk through the water to our canoe.  Having sat through multiple preport presentations by our ship’s doctor warning us about the dangers of parasite worms that live in freshwater rivers and crawl into your skin and then make their way into your brain, I was concerned to say the least.  But since I didn’t have any open cuts on my feet and wasn’t making that trek there for nothing, I relented and went barefoot into the murky water.  Side note: any spelling or grammar errors in my blog I’m now attributing to my brain worm.

Once in our canoe we made our way down the shallow river water through some vegetation which provided some wonderful shade for a few minutes until we emerged into a large lake that the village was situated on.  There were six of us in the large wooden canoe.  The guide in the back was paddling and steering us to the village which was a good distance away.  I wondered earlier why they had me sit in the very front of the canoe.  A minute on to the lake I realized why when I was handed a paddle and asked to help row.  So for the next half hour I paddled in the hot sun while the others bailed out the water that was seeping into our vessel until we reached the village. 

The village itself was touted as the highlight of the trip.  What it ended up being was a short visit to a bunch of wooden housing units that were elevated above a huge amount of trash with a little water also underneath.  Certain parts were dry underneath and there were goats and chickens scavenging on the trash below our feet as we explored the village.  I got a really uncomfortable vibe being there.  The people looked at us like we were a nuisance but when I thought about it I would have the same feelings if I were in their shoes.  Though technically most of them didn’t wear shoes and they do advertise the village as a tourist destination.  The visit made me long for that beach we saw earlier.

When we left it was getting close to 2 in the afternoon and we still hadn’t had lunch and had to endure another boat trip and death march back to the visitor’s center.  My stomach had at least stopped growling and was now simply eating itself.  When we finally got back and had our lunch they could have fed me a tire and I would have eaten it.  The food was good but I was fascinated by the drinks they served us.  Old school Pepsi and Coca-colas in the glass bottle and they tasted better because they actually still used real sugar in them.  Of course by the time we finished we had run out of time and had to eliminate our trip to the beach.  Where is that damn time machine?

We made a 10 minute stop at a slave fort on the way back to the ship.  It didn’t exactly brighten the mood of the trip for me.  Thinking about the horrors that went on there was depressing and infuriating.  And the fact that there was a church right there on the property and that they condoned it somehow makes it even worse. 

Our bus then made the long trip back to the ship so we could make it back in time to set sail for our next port stop in Ghana.  We sailed from Takoradi bound for Tema that night at around 9PM.  Everyone on the bus looked rough.  Sunburnt, dirty and exhausted the lights of the ship were a beautiful sight and I longed for a hot shower.

It was one hell of a day. I did enjoy seeing the countryside of Ghana and I do wish things would have worked out better and I would have enjoyed the trip more.  But there’s always tomorrow and every bad trip just makes me enjoy the great ones that much more.  Well as a wiser fella than myself once said, “Sometimes you eat the bar; sometimes the bar eats you.”