Sponsor a Mum researches maternal mortality in Hodzo

We decided to meet back up with our friends from England, Antonia and Toby, and go to one of the villages outside of Ho in which they are doing some research for the charity they are starting named Sponsor A Mum. So we took Heather out with us for the day and had a first hand experience listening to some of the broad range of issues these women deal with regarding maternal health. This happened to be a day when the govt was sponsoring a free clinic with immunizations and weight checks for the babies, so there were plenty of women to interview. Heather and I sat through ten heartbreaking stories while Antonia asked the questions. These women typically do not have money to get to a hospital because the transportation alone is too expensive, and the fathers of the children refuse to help them out in most cases. They must earn the money themselves just so that they can have a birth attendant in their home when they deliver, and they typically do this by carrying 70 pound jugs of water on their heads for many miles back and forth to the villages for up to 1 dollar a trip. All this and they are 6 to 9 months pregnant, so one can imagine the problems this poses to their actual delivery. One particular women was in labor for one week and gave birth to twins, at home. Should she have had any major complications (even though she bled for 5 hours after giving birth), she would have died due to the fact that she could not afford transport. And this was in a relatively wealthy village compared to what Antonia and Toby had seen thus far. It was an extremely emotional day that affected all of us deeply. Rob and I plan on getting much more involved while we are here and after we return, and they are setting us up to go into some villages on our own and conduct our own research along the way. Toby and Antonia are now off to Afghanistan to continue their work. We are thinking of you guys!

Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary

Our second attempt to find some monkeys was rather more successful. At the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary, rather than walking around hoping to find the monkeys they bribe them out of the trees with bananas. While not so good for the long term health of the mona monkey population, it provides great viewing for the white american monkey population (as well as the dirty brown british monkeys). The monas are very tame, lack sharp nails and don't bite (much) so you can feed them bananas straight from your hand. They are very human. They are quite shy, and keep their eyes nervously locked on your own as they edge up and then grab banana from your sweaty hand.

A nature fix around Ho (its actually a town in Ghana)

We headed back from Lome into southeastern Ghana and the beautiful countryside around the town of Ho. We started off in the Kalakpe Resource Reserve, which is described as being rich in birdlife, monkeys and antelopes. We were slightly disappointed that the monkeys and antelopes were away in New York for the weekend and the birdlife consisted of two chickens. Still we had a nice walk with our armed guide Godwin. North of Ho we checked out Mount Gemi and the beautiful Ote Falls.

Ghana is an incredibly religious country. Every aspect of life has a strong religious influence. Taxis usually have religious phrases on the back ("Trust in God" is a common one since the brakes rarely work).

A visit to the Fetish Market in Lome, Togo

Togo and Benin are the countries where voodoo originated, and the fetish market in Lome (the capital of Togo) is the place to go to buy all the latest voodoo accessories. The fetish market is to Lome what Harrods is to London. Except it smells a bit worse. It is rather a ghoulish place featuring body parts of just about any animal you can imagine, all of which are used to make potions to ward off evil, bring luck or secure love. It is quite a sophisticated business, with an international network of suppliers and a monkey as the security guard. Less amusingly there are plenty of endangered species there including gorilla hands, leopard heads and an elephant foot.

Kakum Rainforest Park - followed by lunch with crocodiles

Kakum Rainforest Park is a 360sqkm reserve of relatively virgin rainforest. It contains hundreds of species of butterflies and many mammals - although we didn't see many of these since our guide was on the phone with her son. He used to be a farmer near Kumasi when she spoke to him last year. She was surprised to learn he was now in Italy.

For lunch we stopped at the curiously-named Hans Cottage Botel, which doubles up as a crocodile farm. Fortunately we weren't on the menu for lunch, although some of my chicken kebab did end up in the water as crocodile bait

Cape Coast and Elmina

Ghana's coastline is dotted with colonial era castles, initially built to control gold and other commodity trading operations but then transformed into hubs of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Cape Coast's castle alone saw more than 1 million slaves pass through the door of no return onto the slave ships anchored just offshore. The majority of them died. It made for a slightly chilling visit.

From Timbucktu down to Accra. A sandstorm hits us near Mopti

Wendy's friend Heather was flying in from NYC to Accra so we had to call an end to our adventure in the Sahel and head down to pick her up on the 31st. The journey from Timbucktu to Accra is about 3 fairly long days of driving, so we livened it up a bit by stopping in various villages along the way and breaking up the trip in Ouagadougou where we saw some great live music (and Wendy even managed to persuade me to dance which doesn't happen much). The villages were quite tough. The current high prices of food and fuel are hitting these areas hard, since many of the villages are too dry for them to be self-sustaining in food. Many have sold their animals (which act as an insurance policy against hard times) and so have no protection against continuing food shortages. Already signs of hunger are everywhere. On a brighter note we were hit by a sandstorm just before we got to Mopti. The sand cloud built on the horizon and grew until it hit us, with strong winds lashing the sand against us. The light was an extraordinary orange. All driving was out of the question, so we just stopped and watched. For days afterwards we were cleaning sand out of our ears, eyes and clothes. Actually it is still in my clothes because I haven't washed them but that is another story.