Tamale, Paga and the Crocodiles

Norma and the crocodile!

The border between Ghana and Burkina Faso

The dinner plates carved into the mountain side

The nursing students at the nursing school in Northern Ghana

One of the rooms in the clinic

A clinc in one of Tamale's rural communities

Shana and I

At long last that Wednesday evening after the 6-7 hour bus ride from Kumasi, we arrived in Tamale. My Dad had arranged for the nursing students to live with host families during their 3-week stay in Tamale so we dropped them off at their respective homes and then my Dad, Kofi, the course instructor Norma, and I, headed to the hotel we were staying at. The next day we drove around visitng the rural community clinics the nursing students were going to be working at. The following week they were doing a rotation between 5 clinics in groups of 2 or 3 so it was improtant for them to know where each clinic was so they would be able to get there on their own. We also toured the nursing school of Northern Ghana and drove around Tamale quite a bit. Tamale and all of Northern Ghana is very different from the south. The lands are much flatter and the vegetation is much more desert-like compared to the green hills of the south. Also the main mode of transportation in the north (for both men and women) is motorbike whereas in the south it was cars, and the few riding motorbikes were predominantly men. Also because we went to the rural areas to visit the clinics we saw a lot of huts and goats everywhere! I really liked Tamale, I think the northern part of Ghana is very beautiful and more peaceful because of its rural nature. On Friday, we drove even more north, to Paga, a small village right on the border with Burkina Faso (Ghana's immediate neighbour to the North). In Paga we visited the crocodile pond, listened to the legend of the bond between the village of Paga and the crocodiles of the 10 ponds, fed live chickens to the crocodiles and even sat on and pet them!! It was crazy! It was scary but so much fun! Paga is another must-see and must-experience in Ghana. After seeing the crocodiles we took a tour of a former slave camp where men were captured from nearby villages and countries such as Burkina Faso and Mali, brought to be auctioned off and then sent south to the castles. It was again another place that had been very much preserved. A lot of the camp relied on nature so things such as their dinner plates carved into the mountain side still existed, it was incredible to see. There were even locals who performed old songs that the slaves used to sing when kept at the camp! Afterwards for my last dinner in Ghana my Dad took Kofi, Norma and I to an Indian/Ghanian restaurant. It was delicious, what a wonderful combination. That night I finished up packing and prepared to travel home the next day.