Thursday, November 11 started with my first (and only) Ghanaian breakfast. It wasn’t bad, but it was spicy! People say the Ghanaian food is spicy to help them feel full longer. Well, it was spicy and I wasn’t hungry for hours, so perhaps it’s true. The drive to Twifu Praso was over 2 hours and 53 miles in distance. The roads were unusually wide and smooth. THEN… the pavement stopped and for the next 34 miles the roads were dirt and full of the biggest potholes we have seen to date. We were cautioned not to drive at night because of the poor road conditions. Now we could see why! But, in the light we enjoyed the sporadic roadside villages, small shops and occasional markets. We wondered how disruptive the mining has been on these peoples’ way of life and if they get any compensation for the destruction of their village homeland. (All sorts of movie plots went through our heads.)
Here are just a few shots along the roadway and a sample of the occasional vehicle we’d see. We never could figure out what these boys were carrying. Whatever it was bounced like rubber. Perhaps a fungus of some type? This is Africa. TIA
To round out our run ins with the police, we had a fourth occurrence. This time when we saw the “Police Check Ahead” sign, Dale became full of righteous indignation, sputtering phrases like “those lousy corrupt no good.” Yes, they waved for us to stop. The officer came to the window and said, “Just pay me some money and you can go.” Dale told him our instructions are not to pay. The dialog went on for a while before we again called the Area emergency number. This time we talked with George Quasie. We could only hear one side of the conversation, but the officer’s demeanor went from forceful to meek. His final comment to us was, “You can go.” We learned that it is George Quasie we should call and not Sylvanus if we want to save ourselves 200 cedi.
Twifu Praso is a small district with five branches. The area is so remote that there were no hotels or appropriate places to stay, so we knew we needed to leave our meeting in a timely way to avoid getting to Assin Foso too late. GPS was a little troubling, but we finally found a little building with the welcomed black “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” sign. The district president and a branch president met with us for over an hour before we started on our way with their strong (for Africa) admonitions to drive carefully over the very bad roads. Luckily, we had some idea of what to expect. The road was terrible with very few cars. At one point we came up on the taillights of a tro-tro. The tro-tro must have seen us too, because he slowed down to close the gap between us. Then he stopped. We realized that he thought we could use some guidance. He got out of his tro-tro and walked up to our window. He said, “Road is bad. Follow me.” It was nice of him to see a fellow traveler and have the desire to help. We followed him to town, then as we parted, we gave him a Book of Mormon with some cedi. Kind man.
Our new best friend, George Ephraim, had made several calls to find us good accommodations for the night. He booked us at the New Hollywood Hotel. The tro-tro driver, who was from Assim Foso, had never heard of it. The GPS hadn’t either, but we had verbal directions, so we finally saw a small, printed sign on a partially completed strip mall with the name. Oh, my goodness! This was the best in town? I was too nervous to take a picture. I was afraid someone would think I was mocking them and retaliate. Next to the entrance was a restaurant with eerie blue lights and pictures of questionable figures. A shy woman stood at the door looking at us as though we didn’t below there, I agreed with her. We walked up a wide staircase of 30+ stairs to an open hallway with four hotel rooms. We were directed to room 2, I remember this because someone had written “Room Two” in single lined Sharpie above the door frame. The room was cavernous with high vaulted ceilings. The furniture was new, but very cheap, some drawers already falling off. The air conditioning unit was much too small for the room, so it never got past warm in the room. The bathroom was something out of a crazy B movie with glittering blue and gold tiles on the walls and floor. It was late, we knew our options were limited, so we stayed. During the night the electricity went off, it got very hot. The next morning after we had showered, we realized that the three-inch threshold between the bathroom and bedroom was the only thing that was keeping two inches of water from a leaking shower contained. We decided one night was enough. We moved. Sorry no pictures to document the night!
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