Things we see out our window

Out the window, the world has been reduced to two colors: the ochre of the earth and the rich green of the trees and grasses. But there is no shortage of distractions. At the shoulder, a large semi sits awaiting assistance. Large rocks block its back tires. Beneath its axle lay its crew on flats of cardboard to escape the sun.

We pass stands selling pyramids of oranges, piles of bananas and flats of fresh eggs. Woodworker shops, for some reason often situated just beside the road, are already busily at work, examples of the raw, unfinished bed frames that seem their principal product displayed casually near the roadside.

Unfinished buildings are a regular sight. The concrete skeletons left as a home to creeping vines and the wild grasses that grow up through their vacant windows. I’m told that buildings are often the best place for people to sink their money. And as mortgages are not commonly available, being considered too great a risk, people will start building and hope that additional funds can in time be found to finish it.

The same explanation does not explain the many abandoned vehicles one encounters in Ghana. Either twisted into a mess of metal by an accident or lacking some expensive repair out of the owner’s reach, the vehicles are left to rust and decay at the side of the road or tipped headlong in the ditch.

Schools are everywhere, which means students are everywhere. They fill the open grounds beside the schools. They line the roads, traveling home. I’m proud of myself at discovering that their two-tone uniforms, brown shorts, say, matched to yellow shirts, are duplicated in the painting of the simple school house with its brown border below a band of yellow.

The terrain changes gradually as we leave the tropical palm trees and green, leafy foliage behind for thicker forest that runs all the way to the horizon. We pass through busy Techiman and then outside Kintampo the landscape changes again, this time to flatter, barer ground and dry, austere-looking shrubs and trees. This is grassland, a different kind of Africa, and the development is exciting.

As the sun falls, cooking fires pop out of the gathering dark like stars, the smoke lifting in the sky and hanging over the villages. The people themselves recede to shadow, outlines, only occasionally and temporarily illuminated by the fires.

And then, after 13 hours, four Nigerian movies and three stops for food and the bathroom (10 pesewas to pee, 20 if you have other plans), we pull in to Tamale station. A throng of taxi drivers greets us and we swing a deal of 3 cedis with one for a ride to TICCS Guesthouse, which we’ve learned of in our book.

There is some confusion at the hotel. Shawn had called earlier and been told we could have one room for three people and one for two. But now we’re told we must take two rooms for two and a third for the remaining one, driving up our costs. It’s too late to argue so we relent. Our air-con room costs us 22 cedis a night (roughly US$22).

We have a late dinner in their pleasant open-air restaurant, named the Jungle Bar, that actually offers cheeseburgers, pizza and sloppy joes on its menu. By 11 we collapse into our beds, my head still ringing some from Nigeria’s contribution to the art of film.

(Picture: The weary travelers at the Jungle Bar in Tamale: Shawn, Alice, Maria and Jeanne)