Volta: The Movie

Back in the times of Nkrumah the need for industrialization loomed. Energy, electricity and light were all needed in order to bring the new nation of Ghana up to speed in the mid 20th century. With bright ideas that could last a mile long, Nkrumah thought of ways to siphon natural energy to the capital, Accra. The sacred tool to bring forth the energy would come in the form of a dam, in a region called Akosombo. Situated in the Ho city, the Akosombo dam was created in the 1960’s. It would be used to hold the waters of the raging Volta River and illuminate the skyline of Accra. This endeavor took long hours, and controversial funding from the U.S.S.R. It drained the strength of every construction worker, and even the lives of over 100 men. This dam was built from the ambitions and desires of a liberator who wanted to be responsible for the manifestation of a great Ghana. This dam is awesome, and I saw it with my own two peepers in person.

The Akosombo area wasn’t very interesting at all actually; forgive me for the riveting introduction. Now I’m not saying it sucked either. I see it as a place where one can chill and just go extremely native. Now I don’t mean you can take your clothes off and go streaking about, this is more like having a beer, watching the football game and talking endlessly with Ghanaian townspeople. Fact about it, that’s exactly what my program did. With our very classy program director, Kwame, me and the Brockport mates just sat at a random roadside, while drinking brew, water, and cola (I don’t consume alcohol, amazed I’m in college right?). It was like an episode of “Cheers” that went horribly wrong and landed us smack in the middle of nowhere. Across from us was about 30 Ghanaians, most of them either traders or workers from the dam (Akosombo in the 1960’s became a settlement for people who lost their villages to the flood waters caused by the dam, or people with families who worked on constructing the dam. They were all huddled in front of a modest-sized TV set that, in true Ghana fashion, it was in Black and White. Yeah you heard me, BLACK AND WHITE! with static too! I was amazed that they were even able to follow the game; to me it looked like an athletic acid trip.

The roadside wasn’t the only thing, to become even more rustic we went to a hotel that was literally carved out of the woods, no pun intended. No fun intended either. My city-slicker self went into that damp cabin, only to be met by a host of Salamanders and other kinds of whimsical lizards dancing on the walls, as if to welcome me to the Volta region. There was nothing special, nothing but the sound of wind and crickets to sustain me through the night.

But that nothing would become amplified and even magnified when we set out on our near-hour hike to the famous Wli falls. This walk was so incredible I was already tired within the first five minutes. Animalistic sounds, about 100 different trees and insects to boot, I had finally journeyed into the wild. All those stereotypes that make Africa the most exotic piece of continent converged and I felt the smallest I had ever felt in my entire life. We traversed 8 rickety bridges or so just to get there and when we got close, I heard a sound that I would imagine would be the equivalent of Jehovah taking a shower. The mist hit me in the face before I even got close. The fall was so vertically high; I never looked so far into the sky before. With nothing but a crown of fruit bats sleeping at its upper ridge, the Wli water fall literally rolled in the sky before crashing at the bottom. Once again, the Harlem boy in me felt that his lifelong wait to the motherland was being more than fulfilled.

To end our weekend, and this blog to you my dear readers, I’d liked to set a scene on a boat. I would like the sound of theme music to be playing, like the somber song at the end of “Platoon.” Picture me on this boat, face baking in the orange sun. I am sitting at the bow of the “Dodi Princess,” a boat that takes travelers along the Volta channel for sight-seeing. My shirt is half off and my head is bopping to the sound of the Band playing on the upper deck. In front of me is nothing but the larger than life mountains and lesser islands, making me feel secluded and secure. The water is thick as the boat’s motor rips through its surface. By now the credits are rolling and there is a close up on my face. The camera pans to a wide shot and the boat then becomes smaller and smaller until completely vanishing over the horizon. The credits end and the screen fades to Black.