First stop on our sightseeing trek was Cape Coast Hospital, about a 30-minute drive from Ajumako. Melissa and I waited in an outer office for about half an hour, then hospital administrator Dr. B. K. Sabeng and Charlotte Biney, the head nurse, received the MAP pack and medical journals on the steps outside the front door.

Then we were off on a trek that would take us north, straight through the center of Ghana. Sam, our driver, steered our brand-new Toyoto four-wheel truck over a paved road that quickly narrowed to dirt. At about midday, a tro-tro just ahead of us, lurched backwards and brushed our right front fender. Sam got out in a flash and the two drivers had an agitated conversation. They agreed to make a report at the police station in the next village, but when we got there, the tro-tro kept on going. Melissa had memorized the license number; livid, Sam went into the police station to make a report. We took the opportunity to use toilets.

Then we bought bread from a merchant called Mathilda and chatted with another woman called Patience, who said she used to be a police officer in the village. Soon Sam went off to the “district police department” and returned with four officers. There was a lot more conversation and paperwork before we left. Not far out of town, we saw the tro-tro coming from the opposite direction and Sam cheered: the driver had been caught for his “hit and run.” Justice would be served.

At intervals we came to police stops where we were generally waved through; since we were riding in a private car occupied by four obroni women, no attempt was made to ask for bribes, a common practice throughout Ghana.

Later, when we stopped for petrol, we saw another tro-tro carrying live goats on the roof, lashed with netting.

Then we came to a road under construction. We waited for about an hour and a half for our turn to go, during which time a fan club of street merchants offered us their wares. We bought bananas, avocados (which Sam calls pears), and ground nuts, which taste like roasted peanuts. We made friends with the children and they all scrambled when we offered them our empty water bottles. One mother held her baby close to Melissa, and she took its picture. The longer we sat there, the more the mother kept returning to our car, holding out the baby, as though she wanted us to take it with us! She even held up some tiny baby pants as an incentive.

We became “grazers,” eating what and when we wanted from our supply of food in the car. We had brought along the leftover jolof rice from Monday’s dinner, and Greta ate that skillfully with a knife (our only utensil).

In late afternoon, we arrived in Kumasi, the largest and most important city in the interior of Ghana, population exceeding one million. It has served for 300 years as royal capital of the Ashanti state, and (according to travel writer Philip Briggs) was the inland terminus of most of the major 18th-century slave-trading routes to the coast. We visited the Prempreh II Jubilee Museum, commonly known as the palace, and heard the story of the Golden Stool, which is supposed to have descended from heaven. No photographs of the building are permitted, even out of doors. Inside we saw many life-size figures of Nana Osei Agyeman Prempreh II who ascended to the Golden Stool in May 1931 and reigned for nearly 40 years. His figure is accompanied by one of his sister, who reigned as the Queen Mother. There were many royal stools on display, as well as a pair of porcelain vases given by Pope John Paul II.

It was dark when we arrived at Nkoranza. Inside the gates of Hand in Hand, a beautiful young woman named Charity welcomed us and showed us to our guest house, which had a sitting room and two bedrooms.

On the door lintels were the words “VIP No 1” and “VIP No 2.” Rosie and I took the room with the bathroom “down the hall.” There was mosquito netting over each twin bed and a ceiling fan. Since the restaurant was closed, Charity heated up our leftover jolof rice for our dinner, which we enjoyed with toast, smothered in peanut butter and jam. We slept soundly until the rooster awoke us about 5:45am.



Wednesday, 25 July

Hand in Hand is a home for abandoned and mentally handicapped children who have been “picked” from trash heaps. It is common belief in tribal Africa that children born with physical or mental handicaps are a curse on the family, so they are abandoned or killed. Ineke Bosman, a physician and counselor from Denmark, rescues these children and offers them a safe, secure home. Volunteers from all over the world come to work with the children.

Ineke is married to Bob Maran, a Jew from Chicago, who must have been a star in vaudeville. He crooned his way into my heart; like my own Bob, he “has a song for everything.” He gave us a tour of their house, where the walls display honors to Ineke from all over the world, including one from the current Pope Benedict.

On the spacious grounds of Hand in Hand, we toured the Game Room, the Classroom and the room where the children take their naps each afternoon. Then we were taken to the Sheltered Workshop where many of the mentally-challenged children string beads. Beads are made at Hand-in-Hand, as well; there are molds, and a storeroom of glass bottles, and an open fire in which the glass is melted in molds.