banner ghana

Ghana

Chapter extract from the first draft

 

It was late afternoon when I rode into Yeji, a sprawling fishing village on the receding shores of Lake Volta. I'd had a good easy day's riding on a mainly smooth well-graded dirt road. I pulled up outside the old low set cement-block building - the Volta Lake Hotel where a room with electricity, shower and toilet cost 3000 cedis (US$3).
After showering I bought dinner of fufu (ground cassava) and goat meat stew with a hot spicy sauce from a nearby street vendor, and with a cold beer, sat on the front step to eat.

I was soon joined by a soldier, a young sergeant. He and his men had just returned from an area across the lake where there had been tribal fighting. The sergeant and his men would continue patrolling the area as a peace-keeping force.

‘We are here to give the people confidence so they will return to their land’, he told me.
‘I show you some photos’, he said and began explaining each photo of mutilated bodies as he passed them on. ‘And this one. This is the leader of the rebel tribe. A bad man. He was a big trouble-maker’, he said as he pointed with obvious pride to the photo of a dead man.

The photo was of the sergeant standing over the body of a rebel leader, whose sprawled bare legs appeared to have been cut with a machete. A hand gripped the wiry black hair to hold back the head. The eyes were open and bulged. It was obvious the man had been dead for some time. His body was bloated and dried blood was caked to his matted hair and face. I did not ask how he was killed, but it looked like he had been beaten to death. At first I could not look at the photo. It had revolted me but then I stared fascinated, studying every detail.

‘I kill him’, he told me smiling, and I got the distinct feeling he had misinterpreted my fascination and thought I was impressed by his fighting prowess. ‘We sleep together tonight’?, he asked. ‘No, I don't think so’, I said. ‘I just ask, that is all’, he replied.

‘And here. These are my children and this is my wife’, he said, handing me the last of the photos taken from the same envelope as the snapshots of the mutilated bodies.
‘You have beautiful children and a beautiful wife’, I told him.
‘Yes, I am lucky man. Life has been good to me’, he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ghana_northvillage Photo: Taking a break at a village on the northern shores of Lake Volta.

 

ghana mangoes

Photo: Mango season in north Ghana and across the Sahal (May/June).