The Stilt Village (May 28th)

Since we got into Beyin late on Wednesday, we had to wait until Thursday to go to the stilt village. Our trotro driver from the previous night said the earliest you could go was 7am, so we woke up around 6:15 and were ready to go at 7. Someone at the hotel gave us a ride, squished into his pickup truck, through the small village of Beyin to the dock where you go to the stilt village. We paid in a small building and then boarded a canoe, me in the front and Diana in the back with a guy rowing in the very back, to the stilt village.

Are we really getting in this??

Sunrise on the water

Through the swamp to the lake.

 The stilt village reminded me a little bit of the floating village/stilt village I saw in Venezuela, except this one seemed poorer.
Not a minute after we stepped onto the dock we saw a cat run by, leap to another piece of the dock, miss, fall in the water with a huge splash, and literally shoot out of the water away from us, with villagers laughing all around. This was a dry cat.

The village doesn’t have electricity and they use the lake as their water source. I didn’t get all the specifics from the guide, but apparently they keep it pretty clean since they drink from it. They only have one boat with a motor for emergencies; otherwise they make the 45 minute journey by canoe whenever they want to go to land. There is a primary school in the village, as well as a nursery (which looked more like a preschool), but kids that want/get to go to high school do it on the mainland. Although the water looked very clean, there were piles of trash around the docks in the marsh, and chickens and goats and other animals roaming the docks and the trash.
I can’t help but wonder how they keep the water clean enough to drink if there is so much trash, and if its ever been tested to see how clean it actually is. Our guide scooped some up to drink on our way back, but Diana and I knew that if we drank it we’d have serious stomach issues. The people in the village were very polite and almost ignored us, going about their daily activities. Apparently they can get up to 150 people a day visiting the village, so I guess they are used to it and don’t have time to stop whenever someone comes. There were signs and verbal warnings not to take pictures of the people unless you asked permission, which seems to be the norm in Ghana in general.

After about 1 ½ hours we left again by canoe, and there was a dug-out canoe of villagers leaving at the same time.  They said we could take their picture, so I have a few shots.  I have some videos of the canoes also, but I don’t have the internet bandwidth to upload them here in Ghana.  Maybe after I get home.

After returning to land, we walked back to our hotel through a small village- I could imagine myself living somewhere like it in the Peace Corps.  Then we bounced back to civilization on a few Tro-tros and taxis, and spent the night in Takoradi with Diana’s cousin at her apartment.   We visited Diana’s Grandmother and also met her aunt, who were both super nice.