The K Experience

Well Mr Goaty, I hope you had a better christmas than I did.

Christmas '04, Tamale, The land of nothingness. I spent about a week there, with my uncle who was working for the bank of Ghana at the time. It was an interesting few days, mostly filled with doing nothing but staring into the ceiling of the huge house he was living in, boiling in the scorching heat.

I spent most of the time taking pictures of the livestock that were around the house, like Mr Goaty. There were a few turkeys wondering around too. Traveling around Tamale with my uncle, I did notice that the area was very different to the rest of Ghana, There was hardly anything there. It was very underdeveloped. Well you can argue that Ghana was and still is underdeveloped, but Tamale was even more so. It was like a desert area.

My uncle did find time to take me out to a beautiful restaurant with a few of his friends, where he very skillfully carved into a fish that he ordered, leaving nothing but the bones. The food there was great, as was the company. They were friends of my uncle known through an MBA course they were all doing. They were definately of the upper class in Ghana who had been sent to Tamale against there will to work for a period of time, and they all had their interesting stories to tell.

Did i mention the food was great? I remember ordering Jolof Rice and Kelewele. Jolof is just rice cooked in a tomato sauce, which gives it the orange colour. Kelewele (the food of the gods) is fried plantain with ginger pepper and a touch of salt. I also had the fish, but managed to butcher that.

My uncle felt it necessary to go to work on Christmas day, and drag me along too. Of this, I was not impressed. Chrstmas is not as huge as it is in western countries, like the UK and the US, but Ghana being a mostly Christian nation, it is recognised, and observed. As was expected, there was no one else in the office that day apart from my uncle and myself. I read a few newspapers, hung around a bit, and tried to disguise my boredom.

The 12 hour coach drive from Accra to Tamale was not impressive, as the roads are in dire need of attention, so I was extremely happy when my uncle decided to drive me and a few other people back himself. I think he was just looking for an excuse to leave the city, and that great big empty house. I think we made it in about 4 or 5 hours.

To be honest, I would have prefered to stay at my aunties house in Tema during the festive season, if I knew Tamale would be like it was, but it was nice spending it with my uncle. I remember the last time I went to Ghana a few years previous, I stayed at his house with his kids, who were now studying somewhere in the US. He had goats at his house then too, I remember my brother recording the sound they made on his tape thingy. ( I wonder if Franks still has that). I remember when I stayed in Tamale, that my uncle said that me being there was like having a son there. It must have been really lonely working in Tamale in the middle of nowhere for two years (I think he had been there two years), and any company would have been good. It was pretty much impossible to spend that Christmas with his kids, but I guess I was the next best thing.

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