Digging Abompe, part 1

In Osino, we told the taxi driver, “The obruni house.” He nodded as matter of factly as if we had said, “Take us to the house that is on fire.” When you stand out as much as Suzanne, the resident Peace Corps volunteer, does in the small village of Dwenase, you might as well be on fire.

Dwenase is a small, one-street town with a dusty central roundabout. In the middle of the circle stands a mile post pointing you to the four nearest villages. It seemed a comical attempt at worldliness for a population that typically spends its entire life within a few miles of home, but I appreciated their nod to big-city ways.

At the end of the main street, just before the jungle starts, sits a small church that looks altogether like something out of a Conrad novel. One can almost hear the Ennio Morricone score in the background. These people take their God seriously. They name their stores after him, mark their taxis with his name and fear him with all the intensity of community of penitents.

Calum, Emily and I found ourselves in Dwenase, after no fewer than four vehicle changes, to visit the bauxite mines from which Global Mamas gets the materials for a line of necklaces and bracelets. Suzanne was our contact and had kindly set up the trek that would take us high into the surrounding mountains the next morning to see where the material is quarried.

An enthusiastic hostess, she greeted us with great warmth to the small compound she has called home for the last 1.5 years. Her mission has been to help Abompe establish itself as an eco-tourist destination. For our hike, she explained, we would be joined by two local young men she was training to be tour guides.

But this first afternoon we contented ourselves with relaxing and getting to know each other, and at Calum’s urging, to finding some local spirits. We ditched our bags, and after collecting Ben, one of the guides who would join us the next day, we hoofed it out into the bush to find a local palm wine tapper Suzanne new of.

We found the tappers, but unfortunately there was no wine to be had; the tree, alas, was dead. The keg was dry. The leader of the group of five or six men, who informed us of this sad fact, had but one eye and sat absently playing with a machete. I’m no forensic scientist but it seemed easy to put two and two together.

So we walked back into the village to a small, unnamed “spot” (see post of Oct. 24), delightfully adorned with creeping vines and flowers. The real attraction was they had electricity. To us, that meant cold beer. To the kids peeking through the fence from the road, it meant they had TV, which was showing a bloody Ghanaian movie at high volume when we arrived.

We had picked up George, a local beadmaker, by this point. The six of us had a few drinks, bought some more to go, and found some provisions for dinner. We then returned to Suzanne’s house. By this time, the sun was setting and the first of the symphony of night creatures had begun to sing.

As we sat on the porch, beneath a brilliant sky and facing the rocky escarpment rising in the distance, Ben worked a pair of charcoal braziers like Ghana’s Iron Chef to make us a delicious dinner of rice balls and ground nut (peanut) soup. We ate and laughed, and I was struck by how sometimes the simplest pleasures are easiest to find in the dark.