Radio Adars

Community radio is the most important media in Kintampo. There are high rates of illiteracy and newspapers are only able to be understood by those educated to read English. TV is also beyond most people's budget and in any case many houses in the district are without electricity. But the radio is ubiquitous, transmitting music, news and debate in Twi, the local language. This makes radio an ideal medium for communicating health messages. Adars is the local radio station in Kintampo. Mohammed, a journalist for the station showed me round the studio, where a local DJ, 'Mighty Ocean' was taking to the airwaves with popular 'hiplife' tunes.

Soft drinks

Headloading soft drinks for sale - a delicious mixture of lemons and spices. People pass along the streets of Kintampo headloading goods for sale, particularly on market days - yards of cloth, ground nuts, bananas, plastic ware.

Goats in the hold

Food is generally cheaper in Kintampo and many trade by taking foodstuffs and livestock south to sell for a profit. Among the many things that are transported on the night bus to Accra are these unfortunate goats who are packed into the hold, along with other prized foodstuffs. Goat meat is popular for soups and barbecues. It will be a hot and bumpy 8-10 hour ride to the capital.

Kintampo breakfast

Tea and eggs Kintampo style. Most of these stalls are set up in the evening and the stallholders work through until morning to meet the night trade of truck drivers and overnight passengers who pass through Kintampo from the northern parts of Ghana or from the landlocked countries of West Africa such as Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Lipton tea, Nescafe or 'Milo' served sweet with evaporated milk, and a freshly fried omelette with onions, tomatoes and peppers slid into a chunk of 'tea bread', a savoury floury loaf - delicious!

Marriage Blessing, Blood of Jesus Healing Church 12th August 2007

Pastor Danis and his wife, Juliet, have three children and are married under traditional practice. But as Christians they decided to hold a marriage ceremony in the compound of their church, a simple concrete building in a neatly swept compound, shaded with mango and plantain trees. The church has several people sleeping on mats in the church, others sleep outdoors under simple thatched shelters. They have come to the church to seek healing, some for mental illness.
The wedding ceremony involved the trappings of European wedding customs, the frothy white dress, the bridesmaids in matching outfits, the exchange of rings, and the signing of the register. But after the ceremony events took a distinctively Ghanaian turn - the entertainment consisted of various innovative ways to extract money from the guests. The wedding invitation itself consisted of a specially printed envelope - in which you are expected to put your donation, and of course there was a church 'collection' accompanied by joyful singing and dancing.


Then the methods became more unconventional. Guests were first asked to approach an enterprising pastor to touch the bride's bouquet of silk flowers and receive a prayer in return for a donation. The flowers were then auctioned to the highest bidder, with much rivalry and excitement as the women guests tried to outbid each other. Next the women were invited to bring their children to the pastor who asked them to say aloud their ambitions for the future career of their sons and daughters. As they offered their 2,000 cedi (about 10 pence), the pastor said aloud the position which they hoped for, whilst bursting a balloon with a pin. What careers came top? - doctors, nurses, teachers and soldiers were the almost unanimous choices. I wondered how many of the children brought by their hopeful mothers, mostly farmers and traders, will get that far.

Apostles Continuation Church Women's Convention

Conventions, crusades and conferences are a big part of the social and spiritual calender for the many churches in Ghana. Nearly every week there is some form of convention or crusade in Kintampo and the town is regularly festooned with banners advertising 'festivals of prayer', 'miracles crusades' and other revivalist themes. There are conventions for men, women, the youth and students, usually lasting two or three days. Often they have a healing theme. I was invited to join this convention by some friends who are members of the church. Women dressed in their church cloth and headscarves decorated with the church logo began the proceedings with enthusiastic singing and dancing.



The pastors of the church, all men, then lead the women in fervent prayers, urging the women to 'pray hard'. Women are acknowledged by men to be more earnest in their prayers and as they prayed they became more and more transported. The women pray aloud, often repeating over and over 'Jesus, Jesus!' Sometimes they pray in tongues. The pastors move among them also praying and 'laying on hands' with a forceful authority. The women spin and stagger under their touch, eventually falling to the ground to roll in the dust. And what do they pray for? My friend explained why his wife needed to pray so hard - she has only one child, and she prays desperately for another, sinking on her knees to the dust of Kintampo.

Lake Bosomtwi

Katrina came out to Ghana in August for a holiday with her friend, Patrick, and I went down to Kumasi to meet her. We took a trip out to this beautiful lake, surrounded by wooded hills. Fishermen drifted on the lake on wooden canoes, casting their nets into the water. The anthropologist, Rattray, took photos of the lake in the 1920s and it looks little different from the grainy photos which were published in his ethnographies of the Ashanti.

Dagaaba church service

The Catholic church in Jema, the district capital of South Kintampo, hosted a service for the local Dagaaba population who migrated from the north and now form a sizable minority in the nearby villages. Catholicism is strong in the north of Ghana since the first missions. The people sang songs in their language to the rhythm of drums and this xylophone of wood and calabashes. A joyous experience to hear the women ululating and everyone enthusiastically dancing and waving their handkerchiefs.

Watermelon harvest

Farming is the main occupation in the districts. Major products are yams, maize, groundnuts and mangoes. Produce in the market is seasonal - the glut of yellow mangoes and huge buttery avocado pears is followed by pineapples, water melons and oranges which are peeled and squeezed to suck the juice. Other popular snacks are boiled or roasted maize cobs and fresh groundnuts boiled in their pods.

Fetching water

Water supply in Kintampo and the surrounding villages is erratic. In Kintampo not all the houses have piped water supply and the piped water often fails. So many houses have wellls and there are bore holes around the town. In the villages the nearest supply of water may be the river, and it is a common sight to see lines of women and children carrying water up from the river to the village.

Having a bath

Much of life in Kintampo is conducted outdoors at the front of people's mud-brick houses or in the courtyard of compound houses. Women cook over charcoal or wood fires stirring food in large metal pots or stand splitting firewood with heavy axes, children stand in bowls to be thoroughly soaped, others bend double sweeping the ground with grass brooms. Compound houses consist of rooms around a central communal courtyard and are often shared among the extended family. Some of the old compound houses in Kintampo were built with money from the cocoa boom of the 1940s with wooden shuttered windows and railed verandahs. However the preference now is to build self-contained houses and many of the compound houses are crumbling due to lack of maintenance.

Weaving kente cloth

Selling kenkey

Kenkey is made from maize steamed in the leaves. It is eaten with hot pepper sauce, raw onions and fried fish. This is a local kenkey seller whose kenkey is particularly soft and delicious.

Fuller Falls

Fuller Falls is a beautiful series of waterfalls just outside Kintampo - an idyllic place to swim and have one of nature's jacuzzis. This is me with Pamela, an American who is completing her Masters in Public Health at the University of Legon in Ghana. She completed her research project in Kintampo looking at post-natal depression among women in the district.

Healing Jesus Crusade - medicine and miracles

The following morning, thousands flocked back to the marquee to consult with a doctor or medical student from Korle Bu, the main teaching hospital in Accra. Afterwards they were given free medication such as painkillers or vitamins. Among those who came seeking advice were people bringing their relatives with mental illness, one young girl running around outside the tent, talking and shouting. The team unfortunately had no medication for this, and recommended that those with mental illness should be taken to the psychiatric hospital, a long journey to the south. There are no ambulances to convey the mentally ill to hospital, and no police assistance. So the family must meet the costs of transport and call on their young men to restrain a person if they are disturbed and escort them to the hospital. Thus it is not uncommon for those who are severely disturbed, aggressive or abusive to be brought to hospital tied with ropes.

Healing Jesus Crusade

Dag Heward-Mills, medical doctor turned superstar healing evangelist, came to Kintampo for two nights in July producing a fever of anticipation in the town. As the sun set buses brought in people from neighbouring villages and thousands of people thronged to a vast marquee erected on a large field on the edge of town. Young men with limbs deformed through polio, arthritic old ladies bent double, women bearing children, the blind with long staffs, hoards of curious children, devout Christians from the town's churches, and Muslims. An atmosphere of expectation and excitement built up as the self-styled healing 'Bishop' urged the crowd to expect healing miracles and promised that Kintampo would never be the same again. After music from the choir accompanied by energetic dancing and fervent prayers, a collection was taken in large flourescent sacks and people were urged to sow a 'seed offering' for their healing. Heward-Mills then gave a homily following which the crowd were offered 'salvation cards' in which to sign their names to show their acceptance of Christ. Thousands grasped eagerly for the cards, despite the fact that many were illiterate, holding them in the air and repeating a prayer of commitment to Jesus Christ. The crowd were then invited to place their hands on the place where they were afflicted whilst Heward-Mills prayed for the healing of the sick and breaking of the devil's power. To the strains of 'He's a healing Jesus' at his invitation hundreds of people began to flock to the front of the tent to proclaim their healing. There were gasps and excited chatter as a wheelchair was lifted aloft and a woman made her way to the stage to stagger across it to the encouragement of a grinning Heward-Mills and the cheers and applause of the crowd. Thereafter a parade of people stumbled across the stage to proclaim they had been healed, or to beg for a healing prayer. Thousands of people returned home many convinced they had seen a miracle and the crusade was the topic of town gossip for several days.

Kintampo scenes

If there is an image of Africa it is the red earth. Aside from the main roads around Kintampo, the roads are unpaved. Driving towards villages in taxis and trotros you become covered in red dust. If it is raining, you may become mired in red mud.
Football is immensely popular and played everywhere, by children and young men. Most do not have football boots, and play in bare feet or flip-flops, 'Charlie wote' as they are called. Some do manage to get a pair of battered football boots or trainers from the second-hand shoe stalls at the market or by the side of the road. I saw one man playing with one foot bare, and his striking foot in a trainer, evidently only one was fit for wear.

Tetteh Quarshie's cocoa plantation

Tetteh Quarshie was the man who brought the first cocoa seeds to Ghana and thus began what became the major export industry for Ghana. He created Ghana's first cocoa plantation up in the hills of Mampong, just outside Accra. So if you are wondering where your chocolate comes from, these yellow pods which contain the cocoa seeds, is where it all begins. Here you can buy Kingsbite, a locally produced chocolate, but it is prohibitively expensive for many Ghanaians, and much of the cocoa goes for export. Recently cocoa powder has been marketed as a health product and is becoming increasingly popular, often sold in the local pharmacies called chemical sellers. Another important product of cocoa is cocoa butter, which is sold everywhere in big plastic pots. The thick cream makes your skin smell like chocolate.

International Central Gospel Church

The International Central Gospel Church in Accra is one of the biggest in Ghana. It is headed by the charismatic Mensa Otabil, whose motivational style of preaching has made him immensely popular, especially it seems among the aspirational and upwardly mobile English-speaking urbanites. This was the second of two services, each attended by a congregation of thousands. It was held in the huge auditorium in a new complex of buildings. The backdrop to the stage shows a mural which includes depictions of a rocket, a soaring eagle and a stairway to heaven, all conveying the year's theme of 'elevation', both spiritual and material.

Isabella

Isabella, a nurse tutor from Pantang psychiatric hospital, in her finest for a wedding.

Friends and colleagues from Ankaful and Pantang

Mrs Mornay, director of Ankaful NTC, visiting us at Pantang


Sharing a laugh with Philip, one of the nurses from Pantang hospital.


Rita, a nursing colleague from the UK and Lola, a nurse from Ankaful psychiatric hospital


Usher, the driver from Ankaful, receiving some book donations.