After our tour of the gardens, we head down out of town to see the local wood carvers and while we are looking through their little shops the sky opens up for another monster Ghana downpour.  We each buy one or two pieces of local wood product to take home. Then we drop Richard off, and wend our way down the mountain to Cedi’s. Once there I get locked down on the grinder to finish up the beads we fired the previous day so we will have a nice necklace of Ghana made chevrons to take with us to Accra the following day for our meeting with Professor Hagen the national minister of Culture.

He tells us of the origin of the term  “cedi” for the local currency, which derives from the cowrie shell and it’s name. The cowrie was used for some long time in ancient days as the unit of money.  He gives us each a little packet of shells with a description and the history on it.  Then we get the tour of his place and all the animals, he has a donkey which is famous in the area and has had a small booklet written about it.  He has bunnies, a tortise, and of course, chickens.  It is Sunday and the local priest stops by for a visit and we are introduced to him as we are leaving for our trip to the gardens. Richard accompanies us to the gardens and guides us through them. Some of the buildings there were put up for Queen Victoria’s visit back in the late 1800’s. There are plants and trees of many varieties with some trees sporting bromeliads the size of shopping carts way up in their branches. There are just to many different plants to list, but we did see cocao beans on the tree as well as some fire ant trails.

Godfried and his grandkids

Godfried’s war shirt

Me in the warshirt

Day 9, Sunday

Today we are off to Aburi to meet Godfried Ofori, Karrie's friend, to deliver him some meds for his diabetes condition and see the Aburi botanical gardens. After morning tea we drive off with Cedi in the van which is now repaired from the clutch problem.  It’s an hour and a half drive up to Aburi into a low range of hills to the west of Odumase.  It’s cooler up there and a very beautiful drive.  Once there we connect with Godfried’s son Richard  on the phone and Richard comes down to meet us and guide us into their place that is some way off the main road up into the town. Godfried is a warm and welcoming man in his early seventies and has us all in for conversation and a glass of water and a signing of his guest book.  Godfried has a very ethnic “war shirt” on the wall and we are all asked to don it for photos and this we all do. Then Godfried dons it for his photo.

Tom with one of the generator turbines. Tom is over 6 feet tall. That’s one big turbine!

      Once we get down into the outskirts of Odumase we come upon a police checkpoint where we are treated to a belligerent policeman who is angered at our cameras and then proceeds to extort 5 bucks from Cedi for a car sticker. Cedi knows it’s a hustle because they won’t give him a receipt for the thing. Cedi gets out of the car and amazingly stands up to the guy demanding do know his name and from where he musters. He tells the cop in no uncertain terms that what he’s doing is illegal and that he’s going home and will be calling the authorities to turn the guy in.  After paying for the sticker we head home where Cedi spends at least two hours  calling the local and national authorities to turn the cops in. He calls the local Member of Parliament and everything. Cedi is a marvel to behold, definitely not one to be messed with. We have a nice breakfast/lunch and the afternoon finds us setting up and making a good load of powder chevrons and variants in the new molds. Kwadjo had made some molds for the chevron project the previous Tuesday and they got dried out and fired on Friday so today will be our first use of them.  I spend some time getting all our glass and tools carried out to the work area while Herb and Tom coat the new molds with the kaolin clay.  We spend the balance of the afternoon filling the molds. I should say that the team did, I spent the afternoon grinding beads for Cedi while the team made beads in the molds.  I’m grinding beads that Cedi had made previously from cane pieces I sent with him last summer. Cedi is working with a customer who wants one of these so I’m sent to grind it a couple of times until it is satisfactory.  I’m thinking I should get a green card…..

  Around three the time cut off is at hand for the end of the mold loading and the molds are taken to the oven.  I take a break and have some discussion with Kwadjo about my project beads and we settle on some criteria for the next batch he will be working. Then I return to my grinding while Cedi and Kujo fire and pierce the chevrons made that afternoon. Some of the beads have issues that will alter our approach for the next batch to follow.

    After the firing we have supper and some conversation, then are again off to the Starr for the night. 

The west side of the dam generating station.  Six generators are on each side of the dam

Lake Volta from Akosombo dam

After we depart the potters village, we get back to the compound, and have a nice breakfast before starting the day.  Cedi’s van had trouble the night before right as we got near home and it is now all apart with the transmission out and in the middle of a clutch job.  Local mechanics have come over and had it all apart and were off for parts before noon. These were very efficient fellows.

  We check out the beads Kwadjo and Kujo made the previous day and help sort out glass parts and discuss the loading of the molds and the shapes I want them to make the next batch of beads.  After a couple of hours at this, we load up and drive off to the blacksmith’s place to pick up the iron stuff he made me and are given a tour of the neighbor wood shop while we are there.  A stop at the post office on the way home to mail post cards and we head back to the compound where we sit down to plan out some of our next days.  We will be going to lake Volta on Saturday and will drive up to Aburi on Sunday. Melissa helps Cedi pack and invoice an order he’s sending off to England in the late afternoon, and then we take supper before heading back to the Starr. Once at the Starr the three of us sit and have a talk and reflect on that a week of our stay is behind us and on what we’ve accomplished so far. 

     Day 8, Saturday.

Cedi picks us up in his Jeep and we drive off directly to Akosombo dam which backs up Lake Volta, the largest man made lake in the world. It is over 300 miles long.  We get tickets and drive up to the dam with a guide and a busload of students to be given the official tour of the dam.  It’s quite impressive. It is an earth fill dam of substantial proportions.  It has a major hydroelectric output, which provides 85% of Ghana’s electricity and also sends power to Burkina Faso, Togo, and Ivory Coast all of which share river drainage that feeds the lake.

The local kids loved having their picture taken and seeing the results on the camera

After drying a week or so in a shed, the pots are preheated in the sun on a big rock outcrop prior to setting up for firing. They are then stacked on the ground in straw then more and more fuel is added and the whole pile is fired off.  Up to 300 pots will be fired at one time. Even the kids help carry the pots to the firing site.

The clay for the pots is dug from a pond bank in a meadow below the village. Minimal preparation is required, The clay is dug and aged a week or so in a covered pile up on the bank then transported to the village where it is worked up and made into pots

CLICK THE PICTURE TO SEE A VIDEO OF DORIS MAKING A BOWL

Day 7, Friday

  We rise refreshed at around 6:30 and get into our day by writing post cards and having tea in the room.  Cedi shows up with Melissa and we drive off to the potter lady’s to visit again and film her making a bowl. Her village is on the way to Cedi’s. In her village tradition the ladies are the only ones to make the pots. They also dig the clay, prepare it, and do the firing. The men gather fuel and tend the animals. The potter’s name is Doris and she is 30 yrs old with five children. Her 9 yr old daughter is already beginning to make pots. This is a long standing tradition here.

I finished up the beads before dinner, working right up into dusk and after our meal we wax up the beads and make a nice strand up for wearing and display. Following our evening discussions we head back to the Starr for the night.