Kokrobite Beach and Some Funk
18th June 2006
On the 17th and 18th of June I went to a cool little corner of Ghana
called Kokrobite (Ko-kro-bee-tay) with Annie
and Carrie.
Kokrobite
Kokrobite is a funky little beach town about thirty minutes away
from the Refugee Camp. It has a gorgeous beach
running along its length. Local ladies awake every morning to tidy
up the beach. I assume the are employed by the five or so
hotels that are dotted along the coastline. The disgusting
beach at Cape Coast could learn a thing or two from Kokrobite.
Many fishing boats are lined
up along the shore. Calling these boats seaworthy would be an
insult to stones everyone. I was out on the beach early one
morning and watched one of them come in. Two guys were trying to
point the boat shoreward, while a third attempted to keep the boat
afloat by frantically bailing bucket after
bucket of water out of the boat. I'm sure the much maligned
magicians nephew could finally find his niche in Ghana...
Digs 
Annie, Carrie and I stayed at the Dream Hotel.
While it was not the flashest hotel I've ever been in, but it did have -
blessing upon blessings! - a decent bed, a shower and flushable
toilet! I paid 60,000 cedi ($NZ 10.34) for my room with a double
bed but - alas - no one to share it with.
It's funny the things you end up missing and
the things you end up treasuring. If I had a choice between a Big
Mac, a porterhouse steak or a glass of ice water, I would choose the
glass of ice water.
People often return to the guest house with
stories of finding such mythical items as ice and cold drinks.
Big Milly's
We spent our first evening at a place called Big Milly's. Big
Milly's is a beach side hotel set up for the western tourists. It
had the highest concentration of white people I have seen thus far in
Ghana - maybe forty or so.
We spent may hours propping up the beachside bar while beer and
tropical fruit cocktails were drunk.
Big Milly's has a traditional African drum and dance group that
perform every Saturday and Sunday nights. The drumming
and dancing were both cool.
I thought it felt a little bit touristy though. Carrie
commented that she knew a African guy in the States who just lived for
his drumming. I observed the drummers for a while and saw what she
was saying. They were having an absolute blast.
Getting paid was just an added bonus for them. I quickly removed
my I-hate-being-a-tourist head out of my arse and started to enjoy the
show.
I met an Africa drummer on camp who sold me one of his Compact Discs
for 75,000 cedi ($NZ 12.93). His hands were
amazing. They were just one big callous caused by hours upon hours
of drumming.
When the dances had finished and the
drummers were performing their final numbers the undoubted - and
unexpected - highlight of the night came out. The highlight was
the Girl in the Gray Dress who must of been all of eight years
old. She performed all by herself and managed to captivate the
entire crowd. Her rhythm was spot on and she knew all
the moves. I went up to her afterwards and said how well she
danced and gave her a big thumbs-up. She beamed a smile back at
me.
Some Good Eats is Had
The food that we get on camp is not the best. Someday soon
I will do a similar piece to the one I did for the
food in the Philippines.
One of the reasons Kokrobite is so popular with
the volunteers is the Italian restaurant (we met up with another five or
so when we were there). The food there is so good. I
had a Margarita Pizza which was mighty
fine. No quite as nice as the one I had on Boracay,
but delicious never-the-less.
The rain started to pelt down while we were eating, which kinda
ruined the weekend for us. We had planned to sit on the beach and
read books and have the occasional dip in the ocean.
Instead, we ended up rushing back to camp to
watch the Ghana-Czech Republic world cup soccer game.
Ghana made the world cup for the first time this year. I was
stoked that I was going to in Ghana at the same time as the world
cup. I plan to write all about them once their campaign has
finished.
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(c)
2005 and 2006 Malcolm Trevena.
All the stuff on this site is written by me, Malcolm Trevena. Feel free to
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