After about a week on my own in Accra, I was joined by colleagues from other teams in the project that I am working in: two from Montpellier, France, one from London, two from Washington State, US – and so, with huge bags full of machines and equipment, we boarded a flight to Tamale.
Tamale is the largest town in the northern part of Ghana with its more than 200 000 inhabitants. Entering the town, though, it doesn’t feel that big, not for someone with a European understanding of a city, meaning dense and high stone and concrete building city centers. The central parts of Tamale had basically no buildings higher than three stories, most only had one, and the cows, sheep and goats that were kept even in the marketplace between stalls selling electronics, hardware and cosmetics gave it all a rural feel. But then again, the more or less randomly built residential areas stretched out far outside of the center, creating a large mixed semi-urban/rural area that was hard to precisely delimit.
In the evening Raymond, a professor at the local university and a collaborator in our project, took us to a bar close to the guesthouse where we were staying. We were seated outside and there were lights hanging from the trees around us. Apparently, it was run by a Swedish guy whose wife worked in an NGO in Tamale. They brewed their own beer and served pizza made in a wood-burned oven. As darkness fell, the patio filled up with Converse-shod and bespectacled women in colorful dresses and men in chequered shirts and full beards. The bar played a nice mix of indie music, including Robyn, Peter Bjorn and John, Tallest Man on Earth and Lykke Li (all Swedish bands). They even served kebab pizza! (For those of you who aren’t acquainted with Swedish food culture, the kebab pizza is a dish that Swedish pizza-makers pride themselves of having invented, a combination of the Italian pizza and the Turkish döner kebab.)
With a home-brewed ale, a kebab pizza and First Aid Kit playing in the background, it was just as if I had entered into a summer bar in a park on Södermalm in Stockholm. Only, it was at least 15 °C too hot and the mosquito bites much more dangerous. A very hipster side of Tamale.
Katja Malmborg 