I want to go to Mole National Park. As I can‘t go on my own, I take Fadila with me. On Friday morning, I go to the bus station with Abdul Manan, to get the tickets. There are no tickets left at the office, but we are lucky enough to meet a man who offers us two tickets for a higher price. At one o‘clock Fadila and I start our trip. ,Do you know where we have to go?‘ Well, actually I thought you could help me with that. It is Fadila's first time to travel. We are late and I fear to miss the bus, but when we reach the station the bus didn‘t even arrive yet. So we settle down to wait. There are chairs under a roof where passengers are waiting, boys and girls sell food, water, watches and handkerchiefs. Suddenly I am surrounded by shouting men. Two guys ask why the officer sold me ticket and not them. I have never seen this officer before. They shout some more, other passengers join the shouting. I just wait until they continue their fight further away. At four o‘clock, the bus arrives and we take our seats. The ride takes about five hours, more and more people enter the bus the further we get and the road gets worse and worse. At each stop, we can buy food and water through the windows from girls at the street. To enter Mole National Park, the bus has to pass a gate. An officer enters the bus, picks me and I have to pay an entrance fee. When we arrive at the final stop, we are tired. The bus conductor leads us to Mole Motel where we can take a room. We find something to eat and are happy although it is overpriced. While we are eating a guy comes and speaks to us. It is the usual „What is your name - Where are you from - Oh, I am looking for a German girl to marry“. Unfortunately, Fadila has lost her usual confidence and outspokenness.
The next morning, we actually see where we are. The motel is situated on a hill, overlooking an immense area of bush. It is beautiful. And we are going to walk straight through this landscape in our walking safari. We and five other tourists are guided through the little paths, over salt lakes and across little streams. We see and sometimes do not see monkeys, antelopes, some wild pigs, soldier ants and birds. We learn their scientific names and forget them instantly. We pass ponds and climb hills where we have an amazing view. And then we meet Mr Elephant. He stands about twenty meters away from us, feeding on a tree. He is big but friendly. He even changes direction when our guide asks him to. Pictures are taken, then we leave him alone. One last hill is to be climbed and we are back at the Motel again.
Fadila is tired, rests on her bed and watches TV but I want to be outside. The view is amazing. I can see an elephant and big birds floating across the sky. Some monkeys are sitting in a tree next to the Motel‘s rooms and on the walls.
When we check out, the receptionist organises someone to take us to Larabanga before we even understand what is going on. They bring us to a guesthouse and I am almost in a bad mood because of course we are charged although we didn‘t ask for this service. The guesthouse consists of five round huts with beds inside, a little distance from the village. Fadila is disappointed after the luxury of the motel but I understand that this is the only guesthouse in Larabanga. Besides, I am eager to take every experience I can get. We want to see the mosque, but it is too hot. So we just wait under a tree. I talk to the owner of the guesthouse and am surprised as this conversation is not the usual - You are from Germany? Wow, take me there. I enjoy this place while Fadila is thinking about biscuits. After a while, someone takes her on a motorbike to buy some.
When the sun comes down, we walk along the street towards the village. There we find a girl who walks with us to the mosque and afterwards to the mystic stone. The mosque, it is said, was created by God Himself. It just appeared over night. It looks small but inside, it is bigger. It expands. Unfortunately we can‘t enter as it is not prayer time. As for the stone, it is mystic because it cannot be moved. Once, a road was to be build and they removed the stone to make room for the road. The next morning, the stone was back again. The community now surrounded it with a wall. An old man is guarding it, asking for donation if you want to take pictures. We are walking through the village when we see the owner of the guesthouse sitting at the street, surrounded by children. He is working on a laptop, trying to install something with the help of a friend who is talking to him on Skype. It is prayer time, so I take over while the landlord fulfils his duty. It feels strange, following instructions from someone I don‘t know to do something that I don‘t understand. The connection is not very good. When there is no light left except for the screen itself, the landlord takes Fadila and me back to the guesthouse. There we sit next to a fire, get food and chat with some boys who belong to the guesthouse. One of them we met in Mole, but of course I forgot his name. They always remember mine. I think I have to be more careful as I often meet people twice. And when the usual questioning starts, I am often not as friendly as I maybe should be. But how can I know who to block of and who not?
It is too hot to sleep in the mud huts. Someone brings us a mattress and we just lie down under the starry sky. It is a short night anyway. At 3.30 am we get up, scratch our bags together and go to wait beside the road. After a surprisingly short while, lights appear on the road. We wave with a torchlight and the bus stops. I am tired but I enjoy the ride and watch the sky light up and the landscape with its little villages we pass. I see bush burning, women pumping water at a well, groups of girls carrying goods on their heads.
When we arrive at the bus station in Tamale, Fadila and I decide to take a walk across the market. We are tired of sitting and Fadila is not eager to go home where she expects to pound Fufu. It is Sunday morning and most stalls are empty. The paths are narrow and dark, everywhere is litter, sometimes we cross smelly streams of who-knows-what. The air tastes old. This is where the meat is sold. It lays on the wooden table and boys cut it with machetes. Two women on a motorbike wind their way through the paths. I get lost in this labyrinth. Then I am on the street and in the sun again. The pavement is crowded by women, selling vegetables and fish, just an arm length from the cars. Pedestrians walk half on the street, half on the pavement. Around the corners, jeans are sold and sports shoes, lined up on the kerb. It is busier here. We take a taxi but before we reach the house, Fadila stops the driver. We get off and I see Sakina who is building a store in this street. Baba is there, Ibrahim, Robert and some other men I haven‘t seen before. I guess they use their free sunday to help building but right now nobody is working. They are chatting and I can‘t even tell what they were working at before we came. Ibrahim takes us home where we are welcomed by Itisan‘s hugs.
I am looking forward to a quiet Sunday afternoon, but when the doctor sees me he asks when I am going to Paga to see the crocodiles. He doesn‘t want us to go the next day as Fadila would miss school so we should go right now. There is no room for protest. We pack our things and head of to the bus station again, this time with Leticia.
The road to Bolga is a good road and the Trotro is supposed to take only two hours but the ride seems endless to me. The landscape is interesting, though. We cross a river, an arm of the Volta river and see some hills, almost mountains compared to the otherwise flat land. The further we get, the more donkeys we see. They graze next to the road and pull lorries. We arrive at Bolga and look for a taxi to bring us to Paga. The prize they charge makes Fadila cross her arms, lean against a car and put on a hurt face. I am annoyed. Maybe this is her way of bargaining but I want to get on. This won‘t bring us anywhere. Finally we sit in the car and drive another hour from Bolga to Paga. Our driver is more interested in his teeth than in the other cars on the road. The rearview mirror is broken from the windscreen and is now used as a hand mirror. When we reach the crocodile pond, the reason for our visit, the taxi driver directly hands us over to a smiling man who is in charge of a ,museum“ opposite to the pond. He shows us some huts gathered around a compound and talks about how this is all made by his ancestors. I doubt the authenticity of these artefacts, but don‘t want to be impolite and nod a lot. We are led in a room with dusty masks and handcrafts where we are supposed to buy purses or necklaces, made by the man and his family of course. Then we are asked how much we want to donate to the community. What community? I want to ask. He explains that he can‘t charge us as we are all his daughters but we should still pay something. He is obviously disappointed by our donation but I am not willing to play the happy dumb tourist for him. We are shown to the crocodile pond where some boys are already waiting, eager to collect the entrance fee, camera fee and the cost for the crocodiles‘ food. With the chicken the boys call the biggest crocodile out of the water. When it is calmly crouching at the edge of the water, the boys direct each of us, one after another in three different positions. I imagine how each tourist shows exactly the same picture to his friends to prove the (staged) encounter with the crocodile. One of the boys has a horse and Leticia and Fadila are as fascinated by the horse as by the crocodile. The same procedure begins. We are heaved onto the horse, a picture is taken, new position, picture... Afterwards, we are charged for the „use of the horse“. The hen is given to one of the smaller crocodiles and then the show is over. All the way through, the taxi driver has followed us, asking whether we are enjoying ourselves. He wants to wait for us because we might not find a different taxi for our way back to Bolga. That is actually all I want to do. Go back. We are not the only ones with this aim. On our way back the three of us are crammed in the taxi with three other passengers and a baby. We stop at a gas station and wait for a long while but the driver offers no explanation. The music is way too loud so I ask the driver to turn the volume down. When we alight I am in a very bad mood. For the service the driver offered us apart from the transportation, he says he can‘t charge us, as we are all brothers and sisters. We should give him as much as we think appropriate. I don‘t say what I think would be appropriate to say but I cut the prize down as much as I can. It definitely makes me feel better. Before we look for a Trotro back to Tamale, we want to visit one of Leticia‘s sisters, Fanny, in her school. It is too late for visitors, but we are allowed to see the house mistress. On our way to her office, we pass the dormitory and meet Fanny herself - by pure chance. It is dark by now and as we have to get back, we don‘t stay long. The taxi we take from the school to the bus station brings us to the wrong station and it takes some discussion to make him bring us to the right place. Finally we get into a Trotro. Suddenly, people are scrambling out of the car again, into a second one. „Get out, get out!“ I try, but as a woman is climbing over me, I can‘t move. We somehow manage to get into the second car as well which soon leaves. I don‘t understand what happened. I am just glad we are heading back. The time passes very slowly. My back hurts, every bump makes my head or arm hit something. Most windows are open and wind rushes in. I try to cover my head but the wind is everywhere. We didn‘t eat anything during the day so Fadila buys some fish at a stop. I hear the crunching behind me, the voices of the passengers seem louder than usual. After I don‘t know how long, we alight. I can‘t stop smiling when I see that Ibrahim and Baba are waiting at a junction to take us to the house. I go straight to bed.
