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Published: December 5th 2007
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Tastes Like Chicken
This is how the tour guides tempt the crocodile from its pond. Paga, Northern Ghana
Eco-tourism or community centred tourism projects are popping up all over Ghana. The North of Ghana has a long dry season - which scorches the earth and makes growing almost anything impossible. The Savannah grasses start to dry up in November and they won’t see rain again until April. The harsh growing conditions coupled with difficulties securing land has driven many young people to turn away from farming.
Those who don’t go south in search of education have started looking right in their own backyard for opportunities. Many have started community based tourism projects - everything from crocodile petting zoos to slave camp tours. They are digging into their culture to turn sacred rituals into modern day photo opportunities. Others are turning a tarnished past into a profitable future.
The village of Pagga straddles the border between Burkina Faso and Ghana. The tiny village is remarkable only in that it boasts two of these eco-tourism projects - and it’s sustained by travelers who are entering and leaving both countries.
The Paga Crocodile Pond provides a solid 10 minutes of entertainment for the average Ghanains daily wage. The entry fee is 2 dollars, sacrificial chicken 3 dollars, photo
Man's Best Friend
This is for you mom! fee 1 dollar, but telling your mother you pet a crocodile - that’s priceless.
The young guides - in the late teens at most -- tie your chicken to a string. He then flings the chicken around his head until it is sufficiently dizzy, disorientated and ready to be used as live bait.
The young boys are armed only with a thin stick and the unwavering faith that the crocodile will behave itself.
Once the crocodile has eaten - it is happy to let visitors hold it’s tale while it smiles for the camera.
From the crocodile pond you are herded to an old slave camp where yet more young male tour guides await your arrival.
The fee is also 2 dollars - and you are told you will be expected to make a further donation as part of the tour.
An 18 year old boy explains the history of the camp - He leads you down a well worn path and you can’t help but be transported back into a time when slavery was very much alive and a significant part of the economy. People were kidnapped by their own countrymen to be sold to the white slave
A Diverse Experience
It is a sombering experience -- and it seems very strange to go straight from the crocodiles to a slave camp. traders.
I asked our guide if it was hard to have to relive that terrible history everyday - he said the past is the past. He said he can honour those who died as slaves on that very land by making sure people don’t forget about what happened.
It’s an oral history - passed down through the generations with some variations no doubt included along the way. His grandfather told him the stories - and now he tells visitors to the centre.
After seeing where the rocks were worn down from being used as bowls, you are taken to a part where five men from the local village spend the day waiting for tourists to come. They then beat the rock and sing - a version of what they believe the slaves would have sang to raise their spirits.
They are glorified buskers - and their only payment is donations from visitors. Their songs honour the people who died in slavery. They volunteer to do the work because the land is their forefathers - and they feel they must carry on the tradition.
We are shown the area where people were lined up to be selected for sale - and
Our Young Guide
This 18 year old has found a way to make a living in eco-tourism the rock where people who tried to escape were chained naked to and made to sit the entire day in the scorching heat.
The mass graves of those who died are only metres away - marked only with a simple rock.
The camp tourism project serves as a somber testament to the history - but it also provides a future for the local young people who run the tours.
As we leave- a tour group of young Ghanaian students had just pulled in - it made me wonder what it would be like in Canada if school children were taught about the parts of our history that most would rather just forget about. When was the last time a bus of young school children visited an Indian residential school?
All in all -- I learned a lot from each incredibly diverse experience.
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Saw Mort
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Brave
Nice to see you online and hope to see you in Thailand again. Do you have a nice trip? I don't have any special comment but just happy to see you in Travelblog.