Speed Bumps

I recently came back from a trip to Ghana with several other PCBF (that’s Peace Corps Burkina Faso) volunteers. On the whole it was a nice trip, the best part of it being the time spent with people I like in a place nicer than Burkina. We had to change our plans several times at the last minute because of national safety and security concerns, which ended up shortening the trip considerably, but still, 3 days on the beach is better than no days on the beach.

Volunteers who preceded me in Burkina talked up Ghana, a lot. It was described as “where Burkina will be in 50 years,” “Burkina, but done right,” “Africa’s success story,” etc. It’s true that it was way nicer than Burkina. I didn’t see the villages much, but even smaller cities that we drove through were much nicer than Ouagadougou, and the amount of construction suggested that they’re continuing to develop rapidly. Ghana reminded me of Costa Rica in a lot of ways, as far as I imagine/remember it from 12 years ago. At the same time, after hearing so much about Ghana, I was starting to imagine some wonderland where everything worked right, but the reality is, it’s still West Africa.

Local fishing village

The West Africa deal hit me, literally, pretty shortly after we crossed the border. The 5 of us traveling together took a big bus (air conditioned, well-maintained, and not overbooked: my dreams come true), and we took up the entire back row. Sitting in the back was fine and dandy until we arrived in Ghana, when we hit the speed bumps. I’ll say it: West Africa does not know how to do speed bumps. They had 2 varieties in Ghana: big speed bumps reminiscent of hippopotami in both dimension and aggressiveness, and “rumble strips” that felt like someone had knocked over 3 large telephone poles and decided to leave them in a row on the street. The driver slowed almost to a halt for every speed bump, but even so, the hippopotamus speed bumps actually knocked my butt into the air on at least 3 occasions. We left Ouaga at around 9 am, so we were in Ghana, speed bumpin’, from around 2 pm until we arrived in Kumasi at 1 am. They had speed bumps in every city and village that we passed through, which in the end meant another set of them at least once every 15 minutes for the whole 11 hours.

Something that I reflect on from time to time is where Africa would be right now if not for colonization. Ghana made me think about that particularly, since the general consensus among West Africans seems to be that the English were the best colonizers. On their own, would West Africans eventually have unified themselves into some society better off than today’s countries? Or would they have continued like many people in rural Burkina, concerning themselves with nothing more than farming and millet beer, and living essentially in ignorance of anything more than a day’s walk away? In the end, was slavery and subjugation worth it as a price for Westernized development?

In terms of concepts that Europeans introduced to Africa, Burkina only seems to have gotten the “what” without the “why” or the “how.” It seems like Ghana got the “what” and the “why” down—they have speed bumps, and they were placed logically to slow people down. The “how,” though, was still lacking. Westerners came in and told the people what they had to do so they could be a part of their kingdom, then left.  But as for teaching why and how to use those tools to keep moving forward? In the end, West Africa is just left with a bunch of horrible speed bumps.

Puppy

Other observations of Ghana: they are really into funerals. Every village that we passed through had a huge display of coffins on sale. Not only did they have your run-of-the-mill fancy coffins; there were also coffins shaped as roosters, rockets (to shoot you straight to heaven) (?), bibles, cocoa pods, and much more. I’m sure you could get one custom made if you wanted. Also notable were the names painted on all shop fronts and on vehicles. Memorably, “Satan Lies Enterprises,” “Jesus is King Spaghetti,” and, on a taxi, “What a Mother!” 

Jeanine, Natalya, Norm, Mariko, Matt, Steve, Christina, Royce.