Tuesday, Day 94
I lead a full day trip to a tropical forest reserve on land owned high up in the scenic mountains above Accra by our inter port lecturer Professor Kofi Asare Opoku where we volunteer to plant tree seedlings. The comparatively good road rises steeply up through the villages of Kitase, Ahwerase, Obosomase, Tutu and Mompong. The reserve contains a variety of fruit trees and is open to local people to take food for their needs. There are also very large specimens of protected, indigenous silver-cotton trees. Professor Kofi takes us on an extended tour of the reserve, much of which is truly a jungle of vegetation. (I would have advised that he get some work out of all of us before he traipses us all over the mountain side but that is apparently not in the playbook of hospitality. Many of the adults, in particular, are wilting by the minute in the heat and humidity. Later I wonder why we don’t see more wildlife, although we see a lot of domestic fowl and hear a peacock on a neighboring farm, but perhaps they know better than to be about in the heat of the day. We do see some huge spiders and their webs—appropriate since the reserve’s name is Ananse Kwae meaning “spider forest.”) He has quite a number of friends and workers at the site so our efforts are largely ceremonial but he turns the event into an opportunity to show how his tribesmen and culture welcome visitors on to its lands and homes.
It is a very hot—did I mention how hot it is, yet?—and a very full itinerary, but it also proves to be an extraordinary trip. Two additional professors from African University accompany us and we are also joined by six of their students. I’ve wondered why we haven’t had students from local universities on more of our field trips. It is such a great way for the students to get the chance to have extended conversations about the countries they are visiting that go a long way past the exchanges they have in shopping at vendors’ stalls.
On the trip up to the reserve the students are excited to see a fenced-in compound along the highway of Bob Marley’s recording studio, where his widow lives part of every year with a retinue of 34 relatives and friends. Presumably, Marley’s royalties are enough to transport that many people back and forth across the Atlantic!
Professor Kofi takes us on to two additional side trips—one to the Aburi Botanical Gardens and another to Tetteh Quanshie’s Cocoa Farm, the oldest in Ghana, dating back to 1879. Ghana is one of the world’s leading suppliers of cocoa beans for chocolate. Later, on the way back to the ship, our guide points out the immense silos near the Tema port where the cocoa beans are fermented and dried prior to export.
Students at a public elementary school we pass as we leave the cocoa farm.
But an even bigger surprise is lunch. It is at the mountain retreat of the former Ambassador to the United States and his wife, Kwame and Gladys Adusei-Poku. An enormous variety of Ghanaian dishes is on the buffet in a garden built to routinely welcome many visitors. The Ambassador is a great host and we feel honored to be so generously welcomed. Entertainment is provided by the Dza Nyonmo Dance Ensemble, a group that includes at least a dozen drummers who are far better than any I have ever heard. I get one of their cards at the end of the afternoon and give it to the music professor on the ship with the recommendation that we contact the group the next time Semester at Sea comes to Ghana.
By late afternoon we make tracks to get back down from the mountains and across the city to the port. We are in good time but at least two of the other field trips are very late. Like I said, many of the roads need a lot of work. A motor trip that would take two hours in the US takes fifteen or more here and there do not appear to be any alternatives by air.