On the road to Mole National Park

I just returned from a long weekend at Mole National Park in the northern part of Ghana. After only two weekends traveling in Ghana, I think it is safe to say that traveling to a destination provides just as much adventure (if not more), than the actual destination itself. While Mole is no more than a few hundred miles from Krobo, and in the U.S. the distance could easily be covered in a few hours, it took us 24 hours by bus to reach the park! So to all of you back in the U.S. appreciate those paved roads, and multi-lane freeways!

The first leg of our journey begin in Accra with a 12 hour over night bus to Tamale, a major city in the north. We opted for the luxury bus option with reclining seats, air conditioning and 6 hours of Nigerian films! The films were definitely interesting, unfortunately I am not sure if it was the quality of the films or a problem with the movie equipment, that made them difficult to understand. For 10 minutes the volume would be perfectly fine, and then it would go to mute and then come back blaring you would have to plug your ears. Despite the difficulties, I am pretty sure we watched a trilogy about a man who gambled himself into debt and then made a deal with a witch doctor to resolve the debt which required several sorts of sacrifice, human and animal (although none of those scenes were depicted) which brought shame on his whole family for generations to come!

Once we reached Tamale, we boarded another bus, much smaller but with more people and no air conditioning, for another 3 1/2 to 4 hour bus ride to Damongo. After I sat down, I had a young boy, probably 12 or 13 years old sit down next to me. A few minutes after he sat down he turned to me and said, "Hi. Do you have any books?".

I politely responded that no I did not have any (well except for the guide book, which I didn't think he would be interested in). And then he asked me where I was from, and I said America to which he responded, "Oh, well can you tell me something about your culture or history so I can help Ghana be more like America?".

I sat there dumbfounded and amazed. I had no idea how to answer such a big question, and I was as impressed as I was dumbfounded that a 12 year old was the one asking it. So after a few minutes of stumbling around, we found our way into a very pleasant conversation in which I learned a great deal about Ghana, and the boy (whose name is Benjamin) hopefully learned a little bit about America. Benjamin explained that he liked to read books about history, specifically about "Ghanaians who helped to organize their people to achieve independence", and pointed out local forests and rivers that were preserved by such individuals for the community. Although he loves history, he is going to study biology and chemistry when he goes to university so he can become a doctor "to help people and make Ghana a better place for everyone". He told me that his mother was a fruit trader (no father around) and he has three siblings of which he is the youngest. His favorite football team (not the American kind) is Barcelona, although the majority of Ghanaians support Chelsea. I told him a little about the civil rights movement in America, to which he said he would have to read more about. On a lighter note, he was amazed to learn that Americans let dogs live in their homes and sleep in their beds (I thought telling him that some people even put their pets in outfits would be too much of shock all at once, so I kept that to myself). I have to say, I was thoroughly impressed an humbled by my encounter with Benjamin, he was well spoken (even in his third or fourth language), mature, and extremely bright for a person of any age. When the ride came to an end, he wished me well, and said he hoped the elephants would put on a good show for us!

Once we got off the bus in Damongo, we had to catch a taxi to the entrance of Mole, less than 20 km away. There was only one taxi in the town at the time, and we took it gladly, knowing we were almost there! 10 km down the road the taxi started having some issues and came to stop. Shortly thereafter it started smoking to which I turned to my fellow travelers, and said "you know, I think we should really get of the car". They responded that since there were no flames, only smoke it was probably ok, and I said, "are you sure, I think smoke means it is time to get out". The taxi driver was unable to fix the problem on his own, and when a friend on a motor bike came going in the opposite direction he said he ride back into town and be right back. Here is a photo of Erin, a fellow Global Mamas volunteer and myself on the side of the road, waiting for our taxi driver to return.

While we were waiting, another motor bike road by, and the man driving it pulled up next to the side of the taxi and asked us what happened to his brother, the taxi driver. We explained the situation, which I think he found quite amusing and said he would wait with us until his brother returned. For which I was grateful. While Ghana is a pretty safe country to travel around, I did feel a little vulnerable along the side of road with no town in site. Sure enough, 20 minutes later his brother was back and was able to get the taxi working again by pulling something quite large out of the engine but not replacing it (???). Almost a full 24 hours after we left Accra, we finally made it to Mole! And as you can see, it was quite an adventure and took me a little longer to write than expected, so I am going to head to bed, and write another post about the elephants tomorrow! (Typed up on August 30th, 2011).