BOOK II, THE RETURN AT LAST, Chapter I: Early Days in Ghana, Sub-verse V: Brong Ahafo Region

Sub-verse V: Brong Ahafo Region

 “Centuries earlier, Techiman, the legendary birthplace of the Akan people, was the nerve center of the ancient Bono Kingdom,” the hotel receptionist told him when Abdul said he was going on a tour of the market. “It was rich in gold and had strong trading links with the ancient Kingdoms of the Savanna and Sahel, notably Timbuktu and Egypt.”

Abdul sighed. He knew that when colonialism came Europeans disrupted the trading links between Africans leading to the drying up of old trading routes which brought about some underdevelopment.

“Techiman Market is unique in Ghana because it’s a weekly market, the largest one in Ghana and important in West Africa. It attracts traders, mostly market women, from all parts of the country, especially Tamale, Bawku, Kumasi, Bolgatanga, Hamile, Bole, Winneba, Cape Coast, Takoradi, Axim, Accra, and Tema…”

 “Up to Accra and Tema?” Abdul wondered.

“Yes, and even from neighboring countries such as Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Cote d’Ivoire.”

“Then it’s not a market to be missed.”

“Not at all. And you’ve come at the right time because it operates from Tuesday through to Friday.”

Abdul went on a tro-tro through generally gentle, undulating, and low lying terrain northeast of Sunyani to visit the Techiman Central Market—Dwabire—which was also said to be different from Makola in Accra and Kejetia in Kumasi.

At the market while some laborers loaded bulky goods into trucks of all weights and smaller goods and passengers into countless minibuses, others were busy unloading similar items. The sound of automobiles and people mixed up into a Babel. Abdul went into the market and found it to be a really big commercial center, especially in agricultural goods. On display were all kinds of grains, tubers, and fruit such as yams, cocoyam, plantain, maize, bananas, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, oil palm and kola nut. The numerous customers milled in the innumerable alleys and either haggled or bargained with the sellers over the prices of their wares. While enjoying this particularly delightful pastime of many Ghanaian and African merchants and sellers which the guide book said one must get accustomed to if one were to survive, especially when one was buying in the streets or in the market, he wondered which of the people he met was Ghanaian and which non-Ghanaian. The receptionist told him the locals could recognize each other. Which meant that the people could see him as a foreigner, no, tourist, curiosity was pushing around their market. But Abdul was more interested in getting the feel of the place in ancient times and probably before slavery disrupted it. However he got forcefully the drone of the thousands of voices, the multi colors of the wares, and their inviting smells. Abdul regretted for not being here on Friday when the market is said to reach a climax and is filled with all sorts of people in a festive mood presenting a multi-colored blend of culture and industry.

The climate at Techiman was between the long dry season—which is highly pronounced in the savanna zone—which will start in November and last until March and the minor rains from September to the month of October. Dark clouds formed overhead and people feverishly drew polythene covers over their wares and murmuring peeked upwards. But the clouds soon blew away and the brisk activity resumed in the market again.

Having seen enough and taken a lot of pictures with the permission of people and wishing to profit of the day to the maximum, Abdul proceeded to the Sacred Fish Ponds on river Tano not far from Techiman.

The area had a deciduous forest interrupted by some minor patches of elephant grass.

“This pool houses sacred fish and is fiercely protected by our community,” a local boy eager to earn some tourist money told him. 

 Abdul watched young and old, especially women, engaged in in-land fishing.

“There’s another pool on the Atweredaa Stream, a tributary of the Tano River,
which runs through the Techiman market. You want to see it?”

“No thanks,” Abdul said. “I’ve to go to the Bono Manso Slave Market.”

“I can be your guide.”

“No, thank you,” Abdul said, shaking his head. He wanted to end the day with a visit alone to the Bono Manso Slave Market site, the most centrally located slave market in the country where captured slaves were marketed and sold.

Abdul arrived in the town located south of the Black Volta River at the transitional zone between forest and savanna to find the place full of domestic and foreign tourists, especially African-Americans and Blacks in the Diaspora.

“Oral history has taught us that Bono Manso was founded by people from the ‘Great White Desert’, a clear reference to the Sahara,” the Kaneasehene, a sub-chief of Bono Manso everybody referred to as Nana and who serves as the tour guide, said. He was a tall, dignified-looking man. His round head was completely shaven, like all traditional rulers, and his proud chin with a cleft in the middle. “The early phase lasted from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century and created a small urban center inhabited by some 4,000 people.”

“That was a lot for those times,” a robust Jamaican remarked, his small, deep-set eyes further squinted in amazement.

“You’re right,” Nana said, the cleft deepening in his chin and continued: “In the middle of the fourteenth century, gold was discovered in the hills and rivers to the west and north of Bono Manso. This led to a thriving gold trade in which the Bonohene—kings of Bono—displayed their leadership by introducing new mining techniques.”

“At that time?” an African American with a shiny salt-and-pepper beard squealed.

“Sure,” Nana said. “Mining techniques don’t date from recent times or from colonial days.”

“While we’re made to believe that Africans were savages oblivious of the raw materials buried under their feet and living like animals,” the bearded man said.

“Forgive those historical ignorant people for they know not what they’re saying,” Nana added. “How come our ancestors mined the gold, copper, bronze, and iron used for making tools, weapons and artifacts before the Europeans came?”

The visitors nodded with appreciation.

“For the die-hard skeptics let them check the ages of the African artifacts in European museums to see if they don’t predate the coming of the European in the fifteenth century, some by centuries.”

“Nana, let’s go ahead,” another sharply-dressed African American man hung with heavy cameras said. He was a fine man, tall and stout, of a fair complexion, with a graying beard.

Nana nodded. “Buildings at that époque, I mean, the fourteenth century, were made of daubed wattle. Painted pottery of the era was excavated recently. ”

The visitors nodded, impressed by the Chief’s knowledge and the great history of the area.

 “The town grew during the intermediate phase which stretched from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century,” the chief continued. “Mainly evenly distributed puddle mud houses appeared with a nuclear market center. The growing commercial importance of Bono Manso strengthened its position as a regional political entity. The population increased up to 10,000.”

“That’s a hundred and fifty percent growth!” a young Ghanaian man said, staring about with glittering eyes and a conceited smile.

“You’ve a good head for figures,” Nana remarked.

“I’m a final year student in demography at the University of Development Studies in Tamale,” the young man said, clearly tickled.

“Not surprising,” Nana said and continued: “We’ve found a lot of evidence—especially imported glass beads and mica coated pottery—of Bono Manso participating in long-distance trade at this time. And typical of this area and period, ethnic groups in Bono Manso lived in their own separate distinct quarters.”

“Wasn’t that a form of apartheid?” an elderly African American woman asked, fixing her green eyes on the guide with a calm concern.

“Not at all,” Nana said. “People preferred to live within their own communities but they did so in harmony with each other. Thus the Kromo lived in the Muslim Mande area and the Akan in the Akan royal capital site.”

“Okay,” the woman said, sounding not too convinced.

“In the final phase over the late seventeenth to the early eighteenth century, the population increased greatly and Bono witnessed increasing political centralization.”

If only slavery and colonialists hadn’t come, Abdul thought painfully.

 “Bono Manso was an ancient trading town visited by caravans from Sudan, Egypt, Arabia, North Africa, and Djenné in present-day Mali during the Trans-Saharan Trade,” Nana continued.

Abdul looked about the place and wondered if it would have been better developed if slavery and then colonialism hadn’t come and the Trans-Saharan trade had continued instead.

“Goods traded in those times included kola nuts, salt, leather and gold, this last item

being the most important article traded in from the middle of the fourteenth century. Most unfortunately and inevitably Bobo Manso became one of the regional slave markets for slaves from the north during the Atlantic Slave Trade.”

“That’s the inglorious part of your history,” a lean Diaspora tourist said in a Southern American accent, and his thin lips tightened in an angry narrow line.

“I agree with you,” Nana said. “And we apologise sincerely for that. But on the positive side Bono Manso was instrumental in the formation of the Akan Bono State, of which it was the capital. However Bono Manso was conquered by the Ashanti Confederacy in 1723. And the inhabitants of Bono Manso fled to Techiman which in 1740 led to the foundation of the Bono-Tekyiman State, more or less contolled by the Ashanti.”

            These expansions of powerful Kingdoms were what could have led to greater political entities in Africa, but hélas, Abdul was thinking while Nana invited questions from the visitors. Having received none, he led them to visit the tourist center. Abdul and the visitors saw several historical objects and structures, including relics from the slave trade. These included painted pottery of the thirteenth to the fifteenth century found during excavation within a radius of 3.3 kilometers, imported glass beads and mica coated pottery from the long-distance trade in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries.

            The group now trooped to the relic of the slave market to watch the drama troupe of Bono-Manso reenact an act portraying the story of the slave trade. Abdul sat beside an old Rastafarian from Jamaica. He had a lean wizened face, a long braided beard and dreadlocks reaching down to his waist. He stopped rattling off in his husky voice when the play began.

First slave drivers arrived in the town with a corvée of men, women, and children slaves in leg- and arm-chains and the stubborn ones in coffles. The drivers barked orders at them and whipped them at will. On arriving in the town they tied the weary slaves to trees. Then began the sale. Buyers from the south inspected the teeth, the muscles, and the general state of the slaves, made their choice of captives whom they grouped together. Children bawled for their mothers, mothers wriggled on the floor for their loved ones, fathers shook their heads in disbelief while tears rolled down their worn faces. The raiders rained blows on them to shush them up. Some of the spectators couldn’t hold back their tears when some of the slaves hummed slave songs in voices choked with emotion. Despite the threats of the raiders, the slaves burst into loud protests when the various buyers re-chained their slaves and set off for the coast. At one time Abdul felt like springing unto the slave drivers to set their captives free but then realized it was all a game. He sighed deeply, closed his eyes hard and pressed the lids against each other. Tears squeezed out and rolled down his sunken-in cheeks.

“Well, I’ve gotta get back to my hotel in Sunyani,” Abdul told the Rastafarian in a voice choked with emotion after they had visited the memorials to Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X erected in the town by the local people in 2003. “I’ll have to visit the Tano Boase Sacred Grove and other places around Wenchi tomorrow.”

“Why didn’t you book a hotel here at Tekyiman?” the Rastafarian said in his rasping voice, showing two front missing teeth.

“I didn’t want to be carrying my backpack around the Techiman market since it was said to be crowded,” Abdul said.

The Rastaman nodded and shook hands warmly with Abdul who then sidled away.

            The following morning Abdul took a tro-tro and alighted at the Tamale Station where he joined a Tano Boase car which headed straight through Techiman along the Techiman-Tamale road. In Tano Boase, he alighted at the summer hut. A signboard by the place read “Tano Sacred Grove.” Abdul made inquiries here and he was directed to the grove for the guided tour.

Tano Sacred Grove was nestled within a semi-deciduous forest and enclosed a cluster of striking sandstone rock formations which looked like grey and brown elephants standing among foliages.

“Tano Boase was one of the earliest Bono settlements,” the slightly bow-legged guide with a tangle of bushy hair and alert eyes behind plastic-framed prescription glasses said. “Our oral history says that the Bono people emerged from a cave called Amoawi Bonmu hundreds of years ago and created the first centralized Akan state known as the Bono-Manso kingdom in 1295, which later became the Techiman-Bono kingdom. But it’s believed that this sacred grove is indeed the cradle of Bono civilization.”

The guide took them through the grove where they explored its striking natural beauty and discovered ancient food preparation areas and etchings. 

“The grove served as a hideout for the Bono people during slave raids and the Bono-Ashanti inter-tribal wars in the 18th century.” 

The last explanation made Abdul feel perplexed and at the same time he had an answer to a nagging query. Since the northern slave route passed through Bono Manso, he had thought of the people of Bono Manso as slave buyers and sellers. Now, he knew that people were enslaved indiscriminately of origin.

The guide led them to the source of the Tano River in the grove.

“Taakora, the highest of the Akan Gods, was found to dwell at this place, and it’s been a place of sanctity and worship since.”

Abdul looked around and wondered why Africans never developed their places of worship to the same level as Moslems or Christians, or even Budhists.

 “The Tano Shrine is kept in Tanoboase town, but is carried to the grove annually by a fetish priest. The grove is also the site of the annual Apoo festival, a time of spiritual cleansing which is celebrated in April or May.”

Abdul noted the date to return for the festival if he chose to remain in Ghana.

The guide escorted them out to continue the tour. Abdul did not feel like the hike along the nature trails to observe a variety of plant, tree, bird, and butterfly species. “If you’re lucky you may spot antelope, baboons, and monkeys,” the guide had said. Neither did the rock climbing over the amazing intricately shaped sandstone rocks which provide panoramic views of the whole district mean much to him. The invitation to join the friendly people of the village and immerse himself in their daily life by visiting local farms, homes, and schools, and assisting at food preparation, village industries, and gender roles or listening to traditional songs and stories proved irresistible but Abdul thought he had more to gain by going to Wenchi to visit the Kwaku Fri Shrine, the Hani Archeological site, Sampa where there were the remains of a slave market and then up to Jinini where mass graves of slaves existed. The idea of continuing from the Tano grove to the only Monastery in Ghana, the Kristo Boase Monastery established by the Catholic Church for the Benedictine monks did not even flitter through his head, despite talk of its well designed facilities and an attractive landscape setting, because he was not in need of any religious retreats, especially Christian.

The famous Kwaku Fri Shrine, open to visitors on Wednesdays and Sundays only, was reputed to cure many diseases and ailments, including the dreaded HIV/AIDS, which Abdul doubted very much. It was located at Nwoase village some 6 kilometers from Wenchi. Right in the centre of Nwoase was a mighty Odum tree marking the shrine.

Having learnt that on the visiting days the traditional priest performs cures for ailments, divinations, and pours libation, Abdul decided to consult him. Abdul went into the shrine and found it full. He paid the consultation fee and waited his turn.

“My soul is restless,” Abdul said through an interpreter when his turn came for the consultation. “I can’t find peace anywhere.”

The middle-aged Priest nodded, smiled amiably, consulted the oracle and gazed at Abdul with blood-shot eyes.

“Tell him he’s welcome home,” he said to his interpreter.

“Thanks,” Abdul said.

The Priest laughed, revealing discolored teeth. “Wouldn’t he ask what type of welcome I’m wishing him?”

“Which?” Abdul asked, his curiosity peaked now.

The priest’s smile broadened. “Welcome home, where you come from.”

Abdul felt torn between shivering and jumping. But wasn’t this all some guesswork? “Does he mean I’m from this place?”

“He says you’re from Ghana but the gods haven’t revealed exactly where.”

Abdul still felt excited but now angry too. If the gods are able to know he was from Ghana why couldn’t they tell which part of the country he came from? That could arrest his restlessness.

“Your soul is suffering from homesickness,” the Priest said. “But you’ll find peace.”

“Where?”

“Here in Ghana.”

Abdul sighed. If only he could believe the priest!

“Don’t you have other diseases to be healed?”

“No,” Abdul said.

“We cure people on the spot. Those who are not cured on the spot are admitted to a native hospital, equipped with wards and consulting rooms. The best time to visit the shrine is November.”

“I’d be back should the need arise.”

“Believe and you’d be healed,” the interpreter shouted after him.

Abdul wished it was that simple.

Abdul continued on to the Hani Archaeological site, 50 kilometers from Wenchi.

“Hani was inhabited by the Beghos about 1200 B.C.,” one of the archeologists doing excavation work at the site, said in her boy’s breaking voice to the handful of visitors.

Abdul’s eyes widened. Over a thousand years before Christ!  The tall slender woman with streaks of hair dyed violet showing under the cap jammed on her head nodded.

“It is the successor village to the early medieval town of Begho (AD 1100-1800) which probably had a population of over 10,000, making it one of the largest towns in the southern part of West Africa at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese in 1471.”

And that was when all hell broke lose, Abdul thought bitterly.

 “This site is important for prehistoric finds such as terracotta figures and primitive rock inscriptions. Excavations of various pieces confirm the claim that centuries back people led a civilised life here. It is thought that between the 14^th and 18^th centuries Begho had contacts with the Arabs and other Southern Sudan Empires.”

“Wow!” Abdul said with pride.

“Archaeological excavations also turned up 17^th century clay spindle whorls used in the spinning process and pits which served for dyeing cotton cloth around AD 1600-1700.”

“That’s interesting,” Abdul said.

“This is corroborated by a map the cartographer Hans Propheet drew in 1629 on which he pinpointed for the location of Begho that it was noted for the production of woven textiles.”

“Good.”

“Oral traditions also stress that the Begho ancestors used the term ‘Begho’ to cast insinuations.”

Abdul stared at the archaeologist.

“The famous blue and white narrow strip cloth was trade-marked ‘Begho’ and in the 17^th to the 18^th century it was customary to scoff at someone who was showing off an imitation cloth: ‘this is not true Begho’.”

 The visitors were convoyed to see the ancient caves with their primitive rock inscriptions as well as Stone Age tools such as hammers, cutting blades, and grinding stones.

Satisfied, Abdul rode east to Sampa in the Berekum District on the Ghana-Côte d’Ivoire border to visit the remains of the slave market. Then he proceeded to the Colonial Officers Mausoleum for Europeans including former Colonial District Commissioner under British rule. Then he traveled north to Jinini to visit the mass graves of slaves captured by the forces of Samory and Babatu, notorious slave traders he was to hear much about in the Northern Regions.

On his third day in the Brong Ahafo Region, Abdul felt thrilled to see one of its major attractions. He booked out of the hotel, travelled east of Techiman to Nkoranza and a further 22 kilometers away to the Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary, home to the Black and White Colobus Monkey and the Mona Monkey. Abdul was curious to see how the monkeys used to humans and which are easily found in the compounds of the villages of Boabeng and Fiema cohabit with humans. What he saw was more than what he had imagined. Abdul and other domestic and foreign visitors could not take off their cameras or grins on going around the villages observing the monkeys behaving as if they were also human inhabitants of the area.

In Fiema the fetish priest of Pinihini led Abdul to the ancient underground Pinihini Amovi Caves, to see the numerous holes through which, according to legend, some of the ancestors of the people came to this earth.

Now Abdul rode northwards to Kintampo to visit the geographical center of Ghana and what is left of the Kintampo slave market where slaves from the north were sold. While many tourists proceeded to the Fuller Falls—a fierce and magnificent plunge on a two-tier rock pile to give a perfect whirl at the bottom—for a cool swim in the pool and others to the Kintampo Falls 4 kilometers from town on the Kintampo-Tamale highway where the Pumpu river falls some 70 meters down beautiful rocky steps to continue its journey towards the Black Volta at Buipe, Abdul headed back to the Kintampo station, his mind already on the next leg of his journey.

           When Abdul learnt that the Northern Region inhabited by the Dagomba, Nanumba, Manprusi, Kunkumber, Gonja and Bimoba tribes was often raided for slaves and supplied most of the captured Africans who wore coffles and marched on foot and in chains to slave markets in the north where they were sold to local merchants from the South, he was dying to visit it. How could he do otherwise as the area was said to offer insight into the history of the slave trade through guided tours and visits to former slave camps, markets and other relics. For the African in the Diaspora searching for his roots, castles on the coast may appear inevitable, he had learnt from the guidebook, but the Northern Region held the secret to tracing their ancestry. Only there can one find more slave markets and relics than anywhere else in Ghana. There was therefore no way Abdul could afford not to see the heritage and vestiges of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade littered across towns and villages in Northern Ghana.

When they reached the border of the Northern Region after the bus had burnt quite some distance and someone remarked they had half-way to go to Tamale, Abdul wondered how the captive survived the long march of 600 to 800 kilometers to the coast. For, when locals in the south bought the northern captives they marched them to markets in the south where they sold them to both European merchants and local buyers from the coast. The Europeans held the slaves in dungeons until slave ships arrived and sailed them to the Americas. Tears welled into Abdul’s eyes and he shuddered at the brutal realities about his past which awaited him. 

Soon Abdul was thankful the hotel staff had insisted he boarded the STC bus to Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region inhabited by the Dagombas, which the guidebook said was a good base from which to explore the region’s historic and natural attractions. They overtook and met many buses and trucks, mainly Japanese, from which the jammed sweating passengers stared out forlornly, the racks of those going north loaded to about half of their heights with heavy goods, bicycles, door and window frames and the racks of those driving south stacked mainly with food items. Sometimes they overtook a minibus with people hanging behind by the rack. These exotic scenes, including that of many broken down vehicles with the passengers sitting by the side of the road looking morose, stirred Abdul and he captured them religiously on his digital camera.

As they rumbled away from the middle section of the country across the transitional zone, huge changes unfolded before Abdul’s eyes: the luxurious vegetation of the moist semi-deciduous forest became sparse as the low-lying, flat, open terrain of the Guinea savanna woodland characterized by grassy plains, clusters of shrubs, short trees, large reddish rocks protruding from the ground often covering large areas, and scattered settlements of mud huts took over and the passengers coiled into themselves or dozed. Here and there Abdul saw some big trees like the mahogany, kapok and the baobab. The climate got progressively hotter and hotter. Alongside this variation of the natural environment, Abdul also observed a marked difference in the cultural patterns; the most prominent being the design of the traditional houses. Taking all this in, the thought flitted through Abdul’s mind and he couldn’t help getting disillusioned about how little Africans knew about Black Americans. And what little knowledge they have comes from elitist sources such as Ebony, CNN, or the Voice of America. The receptionist in Sunyani, who should be used to Black American tourists, had wondered why he was so black, suggesting there were no dark-skinned African Americans in the United States.

“There’re people darker than me,” he had told her.

She coiled backwards. “As dark as that?” she had pointed to a female bust in ebony wood behind her.

“Yes,” he had answered emphatically.

She stared at him with a furrowed forehead which thrust her small eyes into their lids. She probably thought he was spinning a Mickey Mouse tale.

The more Africans he met the more he came to the realization that a wide chasm existed between him and them. And everyday he lived with the bitter truth that he might have made the wrong choice between Africa and America. But wasn’t it maybe too premature to judge? Sighing, Abdul turned his attention to slave routes and markets.

He hardly thought about the Trans-Sahara Arab slave routes which linked the Ghana Empire, Timbuctu, Kano, Gao, Djenne and the Niger river basin to Marrakech in Morocco, Tunis in Tunisia, Tripoli in Libya and Al-qahira or Cairo in Egypt. But his blood raced about some of the Trans-Atlantic slave routes and markets he was going to visit in northern Ghana, especially Salaga. When he had the opportunity one day, he would certainly like to see the other important slave markets in West Africa, especially Buna and Bonduku in present Cote d’Ivoire, Mango in actual Togo, and Aflao at the now Ghana-Togo border, from where the slaves were taken to the coastal markets spread from Aneho in Togo to Ada in Ghana. He wondered what there was to see at these markets which had been located at Bey Futa—now Lome—and Baguida in Togo, and Adafienu, Adina, Blekusu, Vodza, Keta, and Atorkor in the Volta Region of Ghana. Maybe wiped out with time. It would need some time but he also programmed going one day to the Abome—then Agbome—and Ouidah—formerly Glefe—markets in the Republic of Benin fed by slaves from—among other places—Salaga, Kete Krachi, and Kadjebi in Ghana and Bassar and Tchamba in Togo.  

As they drove nearer Tamale Abdul noted that the vegetation changed from secondary rainforest growth to a type of savanna where the trees were much smaller and thick grasses replaced the staunch bushes of the south and banana trees became fields of millet and peanuts.

Additionally, the buildings changed drastically; throughout the journey it dawned increasingly on Abdul that the residents of the area would likely be living in mud brick huts. In the south, almost all the buildings were concrete or cinder Crete brick. However, brick and concrete became increasingly scarce during the journey up north where they were replaced by mud and thatch.

The scenery along the route made an otherwise boring trip a lively one. There was nothing Abdul enjoyed more than watching life in and around the villages and towns they zoomed through or sped by. Women selling farm produce by the roadside; a hunter stiffly tending a bushmeat in the direction of the bus and shaking it to attract attention when they came near; children trudging to school or bouncing and giggling in muddy rivers in which women and girls washed clothes to be dried by the side of the highway alongside food products being dried in the sun; adults going to farm clutching cutlasses or with hoes slung on their shoulders or returning from farm carrying firewood or food; smoke curling up from compounds where the evening meal was being prepared; once, they crawled alongside singing, drumming, and dancing villagers carrying a body in a coffin borne on shoulders to the cemetery nearby; sometimes they saw travelers standing by their bulky goods flagging their bus and staring forlornly at its retreating back; and other times villagers, laughing, lounging, dancing, or celebrating a happy event or another occasion kept him entertained. Distantly listening to the radio on the bus system when they swished through the bush where there was nothing interesting to see, served as an interlude for Abdul.

After covering quite some distance, Abdul took out his travel book to see how far they were from Tamale. A young girl sitting next to him to the right craned her neck and stared at the page.

“You’re a tourist?” she said quietly, almost shyly.

Abdul hesitated and said yes.

“Where are we now?” Abdul asked, laying the book with the tourist map of Ghana between them.

The girl laid her crow-feet hands on the map, ogled it with screwed up eyes and a furrowed forehead and then turned to stare at the uninhabited countryside, large, green circular plastic earrings dangling in her medium-size ears. She shook her head and the earrings clanked. “I can’t tell until we get to the next town,” she confessed in a girlish voice.

A man sitting in front turned round and stared at the map. “We’re not far from Tamale,” he said and smiled at them.

Other people turned their attention on them with curious looks. The girl picked up the book and began to read off the names of the regional capitals in Ghana. When she began to read out the names of the towns and villages in the northern regions, the other passengers kept joining in, with many of them calling out the names of their villages and asking her to find out if they were on the map. People grinned when their villages were, but they turned and coiled into themselves when they weren’t.