Today again started at the ungodly hour of 3am, as we hitched a ride with a German family back from Mole, through Tamale, all the way to Kumasi. The reason we went back to Tamale, which isn’t actually on the road from Mole to Kumasi, was because the family was stopping in a village near there to pick up a family friend who had stayed there overnight.
The family friend turned out to be the chief’s daughter, so the village insisted we all stay around for a traditional dance. Before we were treated to the dance we were led into a small house where we sat on wooden benches amidst a bunch of laundry hanging out to dry and were served tea. Just as we had poured the tea, though, we were led back outside as the dancing had started. It was fairly entertaining, and certainly not something one sees everyday in Canada, but we were left with a sour taste in our mouths as afterwards the Germans were basically made to donate money to the village as a fee for watching the performance.
After all this had been negotiated, it was time to head back down to Kumasi. However, while we were watching the traditional dance the bus had been taken to a local garage for a quick once over. It returned soon after the dance finished, but then it was decided that it needed to be washed, so we had to wait around another 30 minutes for that to happen. Genee and I were not too put out, as we were only heading as far as Kumasi, but the German group was headed all the way back to the coast – about a 20 hour travel day – so they weren’t all that pleased with what turned out to be a four hour layover in Tamale.
No comments:
Post a Comment