Kumasi bound

The last couple days deserve a blog. Kate, Sheri and I (Fred) started out our Friday with a good African rainstorm outside. As we would later learn this would make our journey north particularly challenging. Kate or Sheri will touch on this in their posts about Mole I am sure. Along with our guide George and driver Abd Allahi, we made our way to our appointment with The Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) of Ghana. After taking a few detours around flooded streets, we made it to their office after an hour. We had a great meeting with four representatives from the Foundation. PEF is very involved in helping to educate and train small to medium businesses in Ghana in everything from health to best business practices and financial management. Many of the small businesses that PEF works with could potentially be good clients for our GloBaSE initiatives. We left feeling confident that they could be a viable partner for us as we move forward in planning for GloBaSE Ghana. Thanks Ebenezer for the connection.

After our meeting we hit the road heading North West towards Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city, with approximately 1.5 million people. Our tour company set us up with a 4x4 Landcruiser for the rougher journey heading towards Mole on Saturday. The drive to Kumasi as everywhere we have been driving this week was full of roadside entertainment. Everywhere you looked life was teeming, whether it be the goats running across the streets or the multitudes of people going about their daily business. It seemed as if everyone was either going to a market or in the middle of one. The colors, the sounds and changing scenery as we left the city mixed well with the Ghanaian ‘Hiplife’ music streaming from the car’s radio.

It took us about three and a half hours to reach Kumasi. I have been put in charge of trying out all the local cuisine. I had a choice between fried yams, fish heads or kabob. I chose the Kabob, which although I was told was Chicken, I am still unsure. Bush meat is popular here and ate and Sheri were pretty sure this is what I was chewing on. Ah . . the adventure of food! In Kumasi we took the afternoon to take in a couple of tours to learn about the Ashante Kingdom. Ghana's largest tribe, whose King still is said by some to hold more power than the President of Ghana.

Our first stop was at the main hospital in town. I know . . . you are thinking, why would we visit and tour a hospital? The hospital was built surrounding a sword placed there by an Ashanti warrior. The story is too long to tell, but it’s importance lies in that in over 300 years it has not been removed and legend says that if it is ever pulled up, the Ashanti Kingdom will come to an end. The legendary boxer, Mohammad Ali even took a tug at it. On the way back to the hotel we drove through the Kumasi central market, considered to be the largest open air market in West Africa. Hope you are enjoying the adventure with us.