Ada Foah

My first weekend back in the Hills a group of volunteers decided to spend Saturday night in Ada Foah.  For those of you not familiar with Ghanaian geography (which I can only assume is most of you) Adah Foah is the place were the Volta River meets that Atlantic Ocean.  We didn’t actually stay in Ada Foah, but rather some grass huts a good hour and a half walk (or 15 minute boat ride) down the beach.  Our accommodations was like something I had never seen before.  As you approached, you could see three larger thatched dining tents and a series of smaller grass huts in the background.  Once we were on land we had a closer look at the huts and were delightly to find the door of each hut was painted with the flage of a different country.  They had one with the Canadian flag (guess where I stayed that night).  

Nothing overly exciting happened that day.  We were starving when we arrived so we ordered lunch, which came promptly a good 2 hours later (typical Ghanaian service), played some volleyball, and watched a beach football match between some of the volunteers with a naked 5 year old boy who lives in the area and was nothing but giggles the entire time.

Upon arriving in Ada Foah, Huebert (one of my housmates) mentioned how the last time he was here he took the hour’s walk down the beach to where the Volta meets the Atlantic to watch the sunrise.  I though that would be a really cool thing to do, so the next morning I headed out, flashlight in hand, at 04:30 on my walk down the beach.  However, the barking stray dogs, eyes glowing in the light of my flashlight, and the fact that had not actual looked at the path I needed to take before quickly turned me back to my hut.  At 07:30 (in the daylight) I headed out on my journey once again.  I would like to say that the walk was gorgeous and picturesque, but it wasn’t.  It has the potential, but still needs a lot of work.  The area immediate surrounding the huts is quite beautiful, however, walking just a minute beyond that, the impact of the lack of drinkable running water is crystal clear.  The beach was littered with thousands of empty plastic water sachets, along with plastic bottles, old soccer balls, and other pieces of trash that have washed ashore, to the point where parts of the beach more closely resembled a landfill rather than a beach.  

(Volta River on the left, Atlantic Ocean on the right)

After walking for only a short time, I came to a large sandhill and decided to climb up it to see he view.  

From there you could see in the distance where the Volta meets the Atlantic.  I have to say that the view is very deceiving, as it looked like I could reach the point in less than 15 minutes.  However, 50 minutes later, I finally reached the point. 

As I approached I could see fishing boats docked on the beach and some Ghanaians lying about.  Two of the Ghanaians approached me a told me that if I wanted to take pictures here I would have to pay them.  I asked them if they lived there, and they say they didn’t, they just came there to fish.  I politely told them that I didn’t arrive in Ghana yesterday, and that I wouldn’t be paying them anything.  With that, they let me by.  Walking further, an older fisherman named Emmanuel greeted me and we chatted for a bit.  I then walked to the edge of the point and sat down to enjoy the view and bask in the sun.  Another fisherman sat down beside me and we started chatting.  His name was James and he was around my age.  He told me that a lot of the people here used to be students, but when they couldn’t afford to go anymore, they came here to fish.  He had been fishing there everyday for 4 months.  The fisherman arrived at around 6 every morning and alternate between fishing and resting 2-3 hours at a time.  They sell the smaller fish that they catch and keep the larger ones to feed their families.  They fish both on the Volta side and the Atlantic side of the peninsula and the best months for fishing are August, September and October.  After chatting for a bit more, I figured it was about time to leave, as the others were now probably awake and wondering where I had run off to.  Before going I stole some water at the point where the two bodies of water meet to take back home with me. And with that I headed out on my hour’s long trek back up the beach.  We spent the rest of the morning just relaxing in the sun before heading back to back to the main land and back to the Hills in the early afternoon.