Ghana Archery and Travel to Tamale

Ghana Archery


Roger and I were walking to see a man in the community early last week and he happened across an arrow head. It was a long thin metal piece that would be attached to then end of a shaft. That got Roger talking about archery and got me thinking about another blog post.


He explained how the arrow worked while we walked and promised to show me a bow and arrow when we got back to his house. He talked about the old times when they made poison. The process involved collecting plants and such things and placing them in a pot which is buried for a year. The poison was used on animals and people in the ancient times.


That got me thinking about the information that has been and is being lost in the community from the older generation. Yesterday, I was sitting talking with some of the older men and they were talking about how the grandfathers could dig up the roots and such to make medicine for a variety of illnesses. They told me that the knowledge and practice of medicinal plants were mixed in with the traditional religion in the area and the medicinal plant knowledge got tossed out with the conversion to Christianity. I explained that the Catholic Church (the predominate religion in the area) would not now mind the use of natural herbal remedies. They said that most of that knowledge had been lost or was now sold in bottles. Herbal remedies, mainly sold in pill form, are widely used in Ghana.


It would be nice to try to capture some of this knowledge – stories anyway. I don't believe everything I hear but find it interesting regardless. I have a voice recorder and I might be able to get the school and some students interested in interviewing the older generation and typing the information up on the computer in either English or Dagaree. This would be something like Foxfire did, but I've got so many other things going that I will have to put such a project sometime in the future when I have some students who know how to type and use the computer and are interested in doing the work.


Anyway back to the bow and arrow. Roger bought them from a person from Bolga some years back.  Bolga is an area in the Upper East region of the country where the tradition of making bows and arrows as well as baskets remain a vibrant practice.
Roger with his bow and arrow

Closer picture of the way it is held

The bow is made from a kind of bamboo and the arrows of a different smaller type of bamboo (or a stiff grass). The bow is curved without cutting or carving the way I've seen in the states. There is no “string” for the bow. Rather a thin piece of the edge of the same sort of bamboo as the bow is used. The bow is stored in a “loose” strung position to keep its shape and then strung tighter to be used. The wood used as the “string” is as wide as the arrow so there is no notch in the arrow.

Showing the bow and the "string" attached with a leather loop

Rather than a string, a strip of bamboo is used
The arrows are a little under 20 inches long. There is no fletching (feathers). The arrow head is metal and about six inches long. About half is pushed into the arrow shaft and then bound tight with a cloth or something. This is also the part that is soaked with the poison and Roger says that it retains its lethality.

Arrow head and arrow head attached to the shaft

The arrows are a little less than 20 inches long

Quiver full of arrows. 
I'm not sure of the range of the weapon, but found it very interesting nonetheless.


Peace Corps offices in Ghana


The Peace Corps office is located in the national capital of Accra. The administrative staff, doctors, and other support personnel are located in this office. Accra is on the coast in southern and eastern part of Ghana. Accra is almost 800 kilometers/500 miles away from my site. I can get on a bus that leaves around 2 pm and arrive in Accra by 8 am the following day. There is only one bus a day going to Accra and if you miss it or it is full then you need to wait for the next day.

Ghana is a large enough country that it needs two sub-offices for volunteers who are serving across the country. Sub-offices have bunk beds for volunteers to sleep-over – 6 to 8 people in a room along with a living area, kitchen, and library/computer room. The Accra office has these amenities for the volunteers along with the offices and training rooms for the staff. The two sub-offices are in Kumasi and Tamale.


Kumasi is in a good location for the south western part of the country and is about 550 kilometers/350 miles away from my site. I have several bus options some getting into Kumasi. The trip is about 12 hours or so of travel time.


Tamale was chosen as a sub-office because it has a large airport and is in a good location for many of the volunteers in the north eastern part of the country. It is about 400 kilometers/250 miles away from my site and only about 8 or so hours travel time in the tro/bus.


Travel to Tamale


I needed to get some routine blood work drawn so I went to Tamale. I had to catch the first tro on Thursday from Nandom to go to the Wa, the regional capital of Upper West. This is about a two hour ride. The hope is to get to Wa before the first tro going to Tamale is filled. Once the tro is full it departs at whatever time it fills and then you wait for the next one to fill, likely several hours. The tro ride from Wa to Tamale is about 6 hours. I was lucky enough to get the second to the last ticket on the first tro so my total waiting time for both tros were less the two hours.

Along the road I noticed another style of housing. The traditional homes in my area tend to be relatively large rectangular buildings with flat roofs. As we passed through part of the Northern region I noticed a different home style. The family compounds were a group of 4 to 6 rather small round buildings with thatch roofs. The buildings are rather close together and there is commonly some sort of wall between the building to fence in the interior space of the compound. I could only get a photo from the moving tro. I did not think the idea of “stop the white man wants to take a picture and delay to trip” was a good one.

Family compound of round thatched roof buildings
I got to the sub-office in Tamale by 2 pm but was too late to get blood drawn for the day. I was able to spend the time talking with the other volunteers who were staying the night at the sub-office. Some had come for medical reasons like me or to get some work done. Others, to do some shopping or as an overnight stop before going on to Accra or some other place. It was very enjoyable to be able to talk with fellow volunteers for a change.

I got my blood work done on Friday and headed back to my site. I could have stayed another day to do some shopping or to get a good meal as Tamale is the largest city in the northern half of the country. Items are less expensive because it is closer to where a lot of the food in Ghana is produced and the shipping costs to Tamale is less than to my neck of the woods. However, a fellow volunteer was traveling back to Wa on Friday and I thought that a companion on the trip back was a better plan.

I don't know the results of the blood work yet, but as it is just routine monitoring the results can wait. I remain healthy and I'm ready to start back teaching on Monday.

Love always,
John

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