Bolgatanga Countryside

Yesterday we decided to have a small outing in the countryside. We visited Sirigu Women’s Organisation for Pottery and Arts (SWOPA) founded by Maleine Kasise when she retired from Ghana’s civil service in 1995. Women in the area can come to the Center to do traditional paintings and sculpture using red mud … There are baskets and batik as well as pottery and paintings made by the women of the community being sold in the small store in the compound. Last time i came there was a huge selection of incredible Pottery that really was magnificent.

Going through the countryside you could have gone back in time … the few electrical lines gives away our modern times … but otherwise it is a land that time has forgotten. Or perhaps not … because for as far as the eye can see there are no elephants or giraffes or zebra or … only freely wandering cows, donkeys, sheep, goats and the occasional chicken …

All through the savannah grasses are pathways used by the people of the community … it is where they walk or bike to and fro … couldn’t help but think what a different kind of hiking/biking holiday that would be!!

The roads here are the packed rutted red earth and Bertie crept through them …

At Swopa there was a meeting going on with lots of people coming and going. We were kind of ignored … and in the store there was only a very small selection of pottery. They were beautiful but more utilitarian and dark black … didn’t catch my heart and since getting pottery home takes a lot of care i sorta breathed a sigh of relief. Last time the pottery was so gorgeous a lot of it jumped into my luggage before i knew it and i was lugging it all around … all the way back to Accra, around the Amsterdam airport for umpteen hours only to have it fall off the luggage cart in the Montreal airport!! aah!

And then we headed home … i walked a bit along the road … trouble with being in a car, you don’t walk much. It was a gorgeous day to saunter along ….. with Bertie and Dela puttering along in front.