...not for those of you who liked Mr. G. Fowl...

Im sad to reoprt that as of last evening Mr. G. Fowl is no more. It seems the deceased was involved in a bizarre de-feathering ritual before he met his demise. He is survived by 3 fellow-fowl in the neighbourhood.

When asked about Mr. G. they all said he was a stand-up member of the local community, often campaigning for equal rights for guinea fowls on the farm. Rumours abound that this apparent 'de-feathering death' might have been the work of local chicken mobs who felt threatened by G.'s insistence that guinea fowl should have the same labour rights as chickens (right to prime nesting locations etc.)

May he rest in peace.

Fowl at a Funeral

So this morning I attended my first Ghanian funeral. The father of a boy (Yakubu) whom we are sponsoring through secondary school was knocked off his bicycle by a tipper truck and killed sometime before Christmas. Most people in this region of Ghana are Muslim and a persons 'funeral' takes place a month or so after the death and burial. We arrived at the village of Taha at about 9am accompanied by Dawuda (our translator when we work with the people there).

There was an almost festive atmosphere with everyone dressed in their finest most colourful clothes, and a pair of drummers were providing entertainment. Food was being cooked in the compound houses by the women and the men were sitting in small groups and talking or eating. We were taken by Dawuda and Fatuwh ( another boy we are supporting who has excellent english) to a room where we had an 'audience' of sorts with the Fatuwhs father who would now be looking after Yakubu and his brothers (his mother had also passed away recently). We told the man that we would be able to look after the Yakubus education until he finishes SS and would also help them with his younger brother Alhassan who is in primary school. They were very grateful for this and presented us with a gift of an adult guinea fowl as a gesture of thanks. With this little fellah securely tucked under my arm we visited a number of other compound houses where we met with the cooking women and other people related to the family. On leaving we were also presented with some take away food. In Ghanian culture it is very important to accept whenever you are offered...even if you are not very hungry / scared of guinea fowl / not too fond of eating goat stomach before 10am etc.

The closeness and unity of the rural community of Taha was really evident at the funeral. There seems to be a very strong support structure for kids like Yakubu and his brothers who suffer a double bereavement by virtue of the fact that members of the community take responsibility for looking after their welfare. Despite the fact that they are quire poor they were extremely generous in giving us the fowl and we have seen this on numerous occasions...where people give us eggs or yams. Its quite a humbling experience to be given these things by people who you know are really struggling themselves.

Guinea fowl are like big chickens...they lay small but tasty eggs and their meat is slightly tougher than chicken but very palatable. The adults can be cantankerous and protect their eggs vigorously (they have been known to scratch mens eyes out...hence my pose in the picture :)...so much so that farmers will often steal wild guinea eggs and put them in chickens nests so that the chicken will raise the young fowl as a 'domestic' bird. I dont think I quite have the necessary skills to pluck and feather the thing so we'll probably give it to the local women around our house and let them hae a nice dinner.

more stories from the Road

Ellis Hideout Coconut

The beach resort of Ellis Hideout in the village of Butre is the most idyllic place that Ive been in Ghana. We spent 5 fantastic days there just relaxing and soaking up the rays.
Tony the watchman would bring us fresh coconuts that he knocked out of the trees every morning. He'd chop the top off with his machete and when we were finished drinking the coconut milk he'd split them so we could scoop out the coconut flesh with a little spoon made from the coconut skin. And apparently its good for ya aswell!!

Axim Drowning

Rip tides on the coast of Ghana are notoriously dangerous and luckily I’m here to tell you a little about them. Axim beach resort is a posh kinda place...the one where waiters come to you on the beach and ask you if you’d like a drink. They stopped coming to us when they saw us with our own pure water bags (little plastic bags of filtered water which one buys for 5c here and not really of the same class as everybody else staying at the resort). The waves were pretty big ... some nearly 10 ft and after diving under a few in a row Shannen and I found ourselves out of our depth and being carried slowly away from the beach. I began to get unsettled a few moments later when despite swimming towards shore we were still out of depth and Shannen was beginning to get out of breath. I'm a reasonable swimmer and was pretty sure Id be able to get myself ashore but wasn’t too sure about Shannen. Telling her to stay calm and regulate her breathing helped us for a few minutes but we were making the mistake of avoiding rather than going with the huge waves that were crashing shore-ward. I was afraid that I would catch one and Shannen wouldn't. Then I noticed the resort lifeguard had come onto the beach and I motioned for him to help us. He swam out quickly, allowed Shannen to hold his shoulder and motioned for her to catch a wave. I waited until I saw them surface some 30m closer to shore and then swam hard to catch the next one. I surfaced breathing hard but in shallow water and waded ashore with my heart pumping. Later that evening one of the waiters told us a story of how 3 men had been swept out to sea earlier that year as one and then another attempted to rescue the first swimmer who had gotten into trouble. I guess we got lucky!

Road Tripping continued

Stage 4: The Gold Coast (Keta - Butre - Axim - KoSa)

Keta Fishing

So girls like sunbathing and reading and stuff like that when theyre on the beach. Boys on the other hand much prefer to go exploring and the beach at Keta held plenty of stuff to pique my adventurous spirit. On our first day at the beach in Keta I struck up a conversation with a Liberian fisherman (after leaving his country during the civil war) and before I knew it I was in a chain-gang setup with a bunch of about 50 fishermen hauling in a huge fishing net.

After an hour or so of hauling with my bare hands a fisherwoman pitied me enough to give me her headscarf to protect my lovely white Irish pelt. Now I'll be honest here and instead of telling you all how I single handedly landed the largest net of fish ever seen in Keta and that the 50 fishermen carried me head-high through the town streets and pronounced me King of Keta what actually happened is that I pus sied out after another half hour of hauling with cramped hands and red raw palms. I absconded on the premise that I needed to get some water and told them Id be back later to see what they had caught. A little while later (after a swim and some joshing with the local kids) I went back over to see the landed catch.
I was greeted enthusiastically by my Liberian comrade (apparently the fact that the catch was a good one glossed over the fact that I had disappeared in the middle of the work) and the rest of the fishermen even saw to give me some payment in kind for the work I had done. It seems the rate of pay here is two cuttlefish per hour!

I tried to refuse but they were having none of it and my accompaniment of young lads duly saw to the gutting and cleaning of the cuttlefish, proudly presenting me with the cuttlefish bone upon completion. The net contained a myriad of fish, from tiny sardine type fellahs right up to a 3 foot long barracuda with a few small sting rays thrown in for good measure. Later that day I saw a puffer fish that had been washed up on the beach...not a bad days adventuring all in all!