Ghana be fun...

Out and About in Accra

The National Museum in Accra is one of the oldest museums in Ghana. Established in 1957, the museum was officially opened by Britain's Duchess of Kent on the eve of Ghana's Independence, a fact of which they are rightly proud and will relay often and to anyone who stands still long enough. The museum is relatively small; more of a collection than a fully sized national museum, but it contains some fascinating exhibits that are a part of the country's historical past.

The collection in the museum ranges from pre-historic, archaeological discoveries, to colonial antiquities and exhibits of contemporary African art. Unfortunately very few of them are helpfully labeled.  If you are lucky enough to find a marker it will give a basic and factual description of what you can see in front of you, rather than a full explanation putting the item into context.  On numerous occasions you will find yourself looking at “various pottery shards, from various dates”.  Yet you never find out where they would have been used, by whom or what the cultural significance may have been. 

There is a permanent exhibition in the ethnography gallery that contains objects such as indigenous musical instruments, gold-weights, stools and pottery, as well as the famous Ashanti gold weights used long ago to determine the value of goods.  This does cover some of the heritage but not in the depth one would expect from a museum of this note.  I have to say that until recently I had given very little thought to museum layout, style and set up- however having been educated by friends at the highest levels I do have a new found respect for the amount of work that goes into a display.  It isn’t just the scribble on the card that tell viewers a little of the history, but the whole ambience and approach to the cases that has to be taken into account. 

I am sure a lot of this has been developed since 1957- when Ghana gained its independence - but maybe they need to look at updating their ideas and displays to reflect the ever changing nature of society and the way in which our past can impact us now.  Or maybe I am once again, looking at this with far too much of middle class, European upbringing.

Courts- Supreme, Commercial and Commissioner of Oaths

The Supreme Court was built and established in 1876 as the highest tribunal in Gold Coast when Ghana was under British colonial rule.  As such it looks like a Victorian neo-classical building and has a justice model similar to that found in the UK- along with the red robes for judges, black gowns for barristers and white wigs for use in the court.  I found this twice as funny when compared with the Commercial Court which is built right next door, and is much more modern in design and style; it also afforded a great juxtaposition of the traditional and the accepted way of doing things.  On the day I was in the area not only were there barristers in wigs outside the very “traditional” court house, but standing next to them outside the modern architecture of the commercial court were the tribal chiefs in full-on tribal regalia. 

It is here, outside the courthouse that you will also find a Commissioner of Oaths, an extra-ordinary man who sat in the doorway of his brightly painted hut looking for all the world like he had just stepped out of a 1920s newspaper office.  He was wearing a pin stripped suit, a bowler hat, and he was frantically punching the keys on a typewriter and returning the carriage with a hefty slap as the “ding” signaled the end of the line.  Carbon paper, cigarettes and people shouting after documents only heightened the effect. 

All documents for the court need to be filed by 2:00pm if they are to appear on the docket for the following day, and all papers need to be seen and agreed to by the Commissioner of Oaths, so the hustle and bustle to get to the front of the queue and to gain his signature was intense.  When I did get to the front, he shouted at a girl who read the papers, nodded and ran off round the back to attach a red rosette shaped sticker. 

The last activity for this weekend has been a trip to the National Arts Center in Accra.  It is noisy, it is hustle and bustle, it is full of tiny narrow twists and turns and whole lot of people who claim to know you. I am fairly sure that I have no idea who most of these people are- especially those who think I have visited them here before- I would remember something like that; but they were all incredibly friendly and had so many products to share and show, all of which I would have taken home given half the space in which to store them. 

National Arts Center

I was there for a reason.  I knew what I wanted- a carved African box.  I had seen them a few weeks ago at the Christmas Craft Market at the Trade Center but hadn’t been able to get them home, so a few phones call, and a few weeks later I found myself in a workshop looking at some of the most amazing carving and jewelry I have seen since I arrived.  It really was fantastic.  The haggling on price was interesting, in that it went precisely… nowhere!  After giving a price and then inviting an offer, the guy selling the boxes decided he actually couldn’t do any better and that was the price after all.  But he has promised that next time… and I do think there will be a next time... he would give us a good deal, because now we were brothers.  I do after all really like the boxes and I am quite a fan of the carvings, stools and silver jewelry he has in his workshop.

I really am enjoying the colors and vibrancy of this country.

Having been told off for having my camera out and trying to take photos of the courts I have to admit to having “borrowed” these off Google images- the policeman had an AK47 at the time and I wasn’t about to argue with him.