Land

We are still in the process of trying to buy!!!

It seems now that even though the land we are buying is for that village it was registered by a guy next door in the 70's - oh the joy....

However we have been promised it is a small problem and after all this time waiting and deciding to cut our losses and move elsewhere we can once again get a little excited - let hope 2008 brings good news

one love

And so we are home. Home, but not home. It is impossible to describe so I will just explain what we have done for the past month and see if we end up any closer to summing up how we feel.

Well after leaving work we went north as was always intended – our sights were set on Timbuktu. We left on the Friday and reached Kumasi early. Kwame and I wanted to spend the night at the lake – it is a magical place and where we fell in love. It was so important to pour libation and give thanks there. The road however is being rebuilt and after a days of rain we got thoroughly stuck in our trusty Peugeot that otherwise has never failed. The large digger making the road used its huge scoop to push us up the hill – terrifying in the extreme.

However we made it to the hotel and should have let, us, and the car rest. But such good friends were so close and so we went onto sixth village where CK lives. It was wonderful to find him so alive and so well. We have lost eleven leven (he has 22 children with two wives hence the name) and Adjamono (quite the most wonderful old man, ever so wise, and so full of herbal knowledge – before the nonsense he would turn up on the other side of the lake at exactly the point someone got sick – ready to administer aid). But how special to find many friends not gone but so alive and so well.

We got the car back to the Hotel but the following morning learnt the clutch was totally burnt out. To be fair to Bosumtwi it had been slipping for a while but we like to think she just wanted our company for those few days. Our children were dreamed and named here and it was right for them to swim in the waters that were so much a part of our falling in love.

So then we left for north but with so little time left we only made it to Buipe and Kwames home. His family was as beautiful as always – it is a joy to see them together after Kwame was wrenched from them by illness and grew up so far away. They no longer speak the same language and there is pain but what a bond a family is when it works right. It can encompass years of separation, illness, death and pain with love.

On the way back to Accra we bought yams at a village where the lady who helped Kwames mother lived. For Kwame it was the contact with his mother he has so needed since her death. Of course there were tears but what an opportunity to come so close as to be able to heal some of that pain.

Back in Accra we tried to finalise buying land – I would love to tell you about it but as we say we tried – buying land, chiefs, cheating and shitiness but hopefully they will have signed next month and we can start a new blog cataloguing the building etc.

Then thoughts turned to home and days of eating and drinking and smoking with those we love commenced. Leaving on Friday cannot be dressed up in any way – it was simply terrible. We all concentrated upon Nayah because Kwajo was looking forward and Nayah was to lose her constant audience of adoring uncles. No one was more aware of this than they were and there were many many tears. We all left each other at the departure gate in Accra - it was rushed and horrendous and whilst we were all looking at Nayah we did not realise that a boy so looking forward to videos and toys would suddenly grasp the moment so strongly. I fear we all failed his pain because we were having so much hardship with our own.

Kwame was heinously angry – and as a human being who has always death with anger rather than tears I can do nothing but respect this. At this moment it felt like there was only sadness and that we would suspend living and just bear for a year to gather money to build on the land. Neither of us was expecting to find so much love and happiness at home with my family, our house, our life and our friends. Here for just a couple of days and we have seen some of our most loved people – we still have many more to go. Our life here is wonderful and so is our life there. Our pain comes from not being able to combine the two - not from one being better than the other – shame on us for ever thinking otherwise.

I guess for us blessed, blessed love in the end is all there is - no matter where you find it. Thank you for reading this. Ghana we could cry everyday – England thank you for giving us reasons to remember smile.

One love

Bakoji-Hume’s

Turning Round

And so thoughts turn towards home. I finish work this week and will be sad to go. It has been educational and the people at the Embassy are lovely without fail – it makes me want to go to Canada. I was offered a wonderful job for August, but such is timing. However, I have the experience of consultancy, working in an Embassy and a good reference all of which I can use when we come back in future.

The dream is delayed, we are coming home. In the short time we have left we are trying to buy the land that the dream depends on – but buying land in Ghana is, to be frank, harrowing. You spend loads of money and time before you have any idea if the land is for sale or not. Secondly horror stories of people taking back and buying your land abound. However, if we can buy it (and pull off all the other little plans aside) the dream will be alive – a lot of work but a lot of hope too.

I am looking forward to my holiday – at the moment we still hold out hope for us all seeing Timbuktu but to be frank just being back in Ghana and out of Accra will be a wonder beyond words. Goodbye traffic and pollution – we will not miss you!

We hosted Ellie, Michael and the stunning baby Anokye as they passed through. Sadly resting from plane flights and settling in meant we saw little of them but we hope to catch up on our way up north. It is wonderful to think that we are all back in Ghana (plus additions) having first met here in 1997 – it’s our anniversary!

It is odd that I set up this blog so as not to annoy friends with round robbin emails as they struggled to work on a Monday morning. However, it seems mainly the only people who have read it have been strangers – many friends have been embarrassed by the whole idea of a ‘blog. Thank you for loving me enough to read it even though its tacky! However, how wonderful to have met and heard from so many people in ‘our’ situation – thank you so much for your friendship and your help in settling us in.

God we will miss Ghana soooo much but what a lot to look forward to at home. Friends, Family, Electricity, Drains, 15 min journeys to work and so much else besides – but not for a second am I kidding myself that we won’t all be devastated. Living in Ghana is so different and so wonderful.

Here in Ghana sometimes instead of saying I'm leaving we say ‘I’m coming’. Well we are coming – in the English and the Ghanaian sense of the word.

Life

Ok so I seem to have ended up drivilling about thoughts and concepts rather than telling you about life here - why? I fear because it has been rather duller than expected. Kwame and I may have thought that by returning to Ghana we would have returned to how things were. This of course is not possible - we have two beautiful children and for their sakes (or so we say) we have contrived to live a more sensible and mundaine existence here.

I have gone to work - a fasinating insight into the workings of an embassy but work none the less. Kwame has been reluctant house husband and that work here is so much harder. Washing is done by hand and is held in such esteme that if the children uniforms are not spotless they are not allowed to go to school. The bins still have to go out except they are called boilers and are packed into the back of the car and driven up a near vertical incline to the 'dump'. Paradoxically this is in front of some of the most grandious houses we have seen. Most people here in our position have house help - something we could really do with.

Also we are living in Accra and Kwame and I are not city people. We do not feel comfortable in the fake gradure and forced fun of Osu. However, to be fair to Osu we have never really been there - I think we do not want to like it. Accra is exciting and challenging there are floods, visable heart breaking poverty and unbelievable bus trips. There is also oppulence in extreme, markets and any thing you could wish for sold to you through your car window. Just the other day we travelled to the market to buy a loo seat - only for me to be offered one through a car window a couple of days later. Reminisant of Colins loo seat dash on a pub crawl many years ago.
Before we have lived in Kumasi which is greener and we have lived off Kwames painting - which is work but his passion for it makes it feel like something different. Of course now the Ga Manste has called an end to the enforced silence in Accra we enjoying drumming sometimes late into the night, there are hundreds of children for the kids to play with and we have more time for each other than at home - if only because telly is so less engaging!! But even so we are an average family - happy and in love but feeling there is something more out there. This weekend though we saw this thing, this possible future and it is devastatingly exciting!!! We are going back this weekend and when we have everything signed and sealed I will send photos - until then its secret!!!

Hair Cut

I had my hair cut the other day - it now feels wonderful but at the time....

The lady that cut my hair works in the shop next to Patricks press - she is lovely. As she started to cut my hair she said 'real hair - my first time to cut real hair'. Of course much of the hair here on ladies is attachments - although not all. Even for those who keep 'real hair' it is nearly always straightened. It is a strange and disturbing world in which some white women go to tanning salons or paint themselves orange and - some black women bleach thier skin and avoid the sun.

The skin thing is clearly nuts but the hair concerns me as families like ours in the UK and adults who were the result of such unions have warned me about the hair issue. Bizzarely the world sees many problems for children such as ours - but in reality it would seem that for girls the only real issue is hair. I cannot understand why such beautiful hair - either platted, in a ponytail or left as an afro is considered so ugly. I hope that the awe for dreadlocks, that is natural within rastafari, and Nayahs knowledge of her own radient beauty will help us avoid this hurdle.

So my hair cut in Ghana involved my hair being washed virgorously and then combed up vertical. It was then cut to the same length from mid point in my scalp all over. Actually this has lead to me having the best haircut and hair style I have had in years. After the hair cut product and rollers were put on my head. This smelt and left a hot senstation on my head. The rollers scratched and it felt like my hair was being pulled from my head. At this point I was scared but too scared to talk either. I was blessed with light off - without which I would have been under the dryer before I had a chance to think. It turns out that my hair was being curled so that it could be straigtened. My point that my hair already felt a little bit too straight for me was not accepted. Eventually I begged and the rollers came out and the product was washed off.

What a strange world - Sister Ama cannot understand that I think my hair is too straight and I cannot understand why she puts nylon extentions on top of the beautiful short crop underneath that suits her face so well. Jah has blessed us all - how have we manged to turn it into a curse?

The Joys of Paranoia, Self Obssesion and the Inability to Move on From an Incident

Sometimes the world seems to conspire against us. Our car broke down yesterday for the second time in a week. It broke down outside the shop of one of the only people in Accra I have ever had a full blown row with. I am usually quite paranoid anyway so you can imagine me standing next to this shop in which it seemed the entire community had come to watch TV. They were of course specking Ga - a langauge in which I can only say thank you... Later I was asured they were just enjoying a normal night out, I of course was imagining otherwise and had a horrendous half hour.

The joys of paranoia, self obssesion and the inability to move on from an incident.

dark

So June has come to stay for a couple of weeks and has been teaching at a school in the arts centre in Accra. The kids here are of all ages and have missed formal schooling - here they pass through beginners, intermediate and to advanced before hopefully returning to the formal primary school system. The kids are challenging but I think that June has enjoyed it - and true to form I think she has shaken things up at the school a little!!!!!

We went back to see the crocodiles. The kids loved it but looking back at the pictures I cannot imagine what possessed me to feel calm enough to stand right next to one of these mighty beasts with Nayah in my arms and no wall or fence between us. They say no one has ever been harmed - but still I wonder what possessed me!!!

We also went to the fort at Cape Coast - Kwame did not enter but I visited with June and Nayah on my back. It is as shocking as ever and so it should be 11 milllion people exported and still more dying on the way. Even now parts of west africa are notably depopulated and no wonder. This is the only loss of human life on this massive scale and yet we still do not call it a hallocaust and even in this bi-centenary year it does not get the attention it truly deserves. Slave trade does not catch the horror of the millions who did not make it. Yet more desturbing is the church above the slave dungeon and the school within the complex. The Ghanaian that ran them was the son of an African slave trader and his family honor him till this day. Looking out from the fort the lanscape is peppered with churches and schools. Why so disturbing?

At Junes substandard schoool education may help the kids sell fish better but (without a one in a million piece of luck no matter how clever they are) it will never fundametally change thier lives. They are trapped by global poverty and local class politics. There are vast numbers of highly educated young people with degrees, masters and doctorates who can be seen queuing for work - many have been queuing for years and clamour at the gates of embassies desperate to leave the country. And why not? - nearly all of the education is on foreigners terms - health students take exams on equipment they have never seen and primary schools have "speak English" writ large on the walls. Students learn of nursery rhymes and snow storms. They are told to work hard - that change will come - tragically for most it is a lie.

Within poverty much happiness is derived in the churches where people clamour to give everything they have to the pastor in hope of a better live. When I visited the kids at Junes school they sang hyms at morning assembly with a gusto and enthusiasum not seen in other areas of studying but much in evidence at break time fighting. I turned my face to the wall to hide my tears. The song they sang was "my joy is in heven there is no fight there, my joy is in heven, my joy is in heaven there is no pain there." These childen fallen to the bottom of the pile in a country desperatly trying to haul itself from the botton of the heap into 'middle income status' were looking forward to something. But the thing they were looking forward to was death.

One old sailor sitting outside Elmina Castle called "Elephant Man" had travelled the whole world on large boats. He left the slave fort at Elmina and on his travels saw the wooden strutures where slaves were sold in the Americas. He was invited to cellebrate a childs birthday in the house of one such black man and marvelled at thier cars. Now he has returned to Ghana to enjoy old age looking out to sea. He laughed at Kwames questions on his thoughts of the slave trade and said - park a boat here now and tell them they can go to America - you will see them come. Of course the world has changed but this is the most horendous crime ever committed against humanity and some people here consider them the lucky ones......

(this is hugely dark but it is a dark time of year).