Day 55: Choo Choo, Banku, and Osu

Accra - Today Brandi and I made a video tour of the Guest House for our documentary.  After a great Adeline breakfast of scrambled eggs, pancakes, sausage, and fresh pineapple we also interviewed the staff: Mary, Philip, Solomon, Charity, Adeline, Gifty, and Christy.  We took this new material to Millie at Christ the King Catholic Church.  When we arrived in the Isuzu we tried to, unknowingly, enter through the exit.  The staff was faithful to flag us down and teach us the proper way by making me back up and go around to the entrance.  Circling around and coming to the same spot, only now facing the opposite direction, we found the electricity was off.  Millie took my thumb drive and sent us on to the archives.  Brandi continued looking for evidence of food and nationalism in historical documents before and after independence.  Having helped her about all I could, I decided to look into the history of the railroad here in Ghana.  I've seen the tracks and I heard there used to be a railroad.  Yet now there is almost no railroad and it was puzzling me.  I knew the railroad was important for the British during colonial times but when did it die?  What happened?  I immediately found stacks of records from the early period (1898-1938) when the railroad was being built, properly maintained, and expanded.  There were several documents including reports of the governor detailing the construction and activities of the railroad.  I found schedules, rates, shipping reports, etc.  I even found information about the expansion of the railroad in 1968 after independence but nothing about the end of the railroad.  What happened between 1968 and 2014?  At the archives, the research room director is an older but very intelligent man.  As I was waiting for Brandi to collect her things and sign us out, I began to talk with him about the World Cup.  Then I asked about the railroad.  He said it was all good until 1979 when former president John Rawlings staged a coup and took over the government of Ghana.  He placed many of his friends into positions of authority, including the company running the railroad.  While these men were loyal revolutionaries, they were not experienced in running a railroad.  As they pocketed profits, the quality of the railroad declined.  The bridges were the first to be condemned and this effectively shut down the railroad.  Today there is one line between Accra and Tema that is active but the old railway station is a ghost town and random artifacts of tracks appear sporadically in the countryside between Accra and Kumasi, between Kumasi and Takoradi.  In 1938 it earned £1,192,082 but in 2014 it's gone to detriment of Ghana.

For lunch, we ate at the Archives Cafe.  They may not have a wide selection on the menu . . . today is was fish and jollof rice or banku and fish . . . but it is inexpensive.  Brandi and I both ate and bought drinks for only ¢15!  What a deal.

After we arrived home and I started working on this blog, Brandi walked to Osu where she bought pineapples at the sidewalk market for ¢2.  She also went to the Koala but then the electricity went off.  She ran out just in time to escape (yes, she paid for it) with some Nutella.  Back at the guest house dinner with Adeline featured pork roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, salad, pineapple, drinks, and cinnamon bundt   cake.  Us, the Barnes, and a Ms. Miller, a missionary from the Upper Volta Region.

An act by the Ghanaian Parliament in 1961 to regulate the manufacture and sale of akpetshi.  As you can see, "akpetshi" means any spirit manufactured in Ghana by the distillation of a fermented liquid.

Brandi's reading some really old books.

Brandi having Banku and salad in the Archives Cafe.

I had fish and jollof rice.  Part of the head was still on.  Part of it.

These are the types of articles Brandi is looking for in the old newspapers of Ghana.

Who knew it was so simple?

At the archives we fill out a request form and books like this one are brought to your research table.  You can research until 5:00 but you cannot ask for new materials after 3:00.