Its September 10, the radio on my side bed that would normally start with Bernard Avle’s voice was no where near, rather a noisy but cool breeze filled the room, oops! no the windows are sealed the cool breeze was rather from the air conditioner, That was unusual, at home my AC is turned on sparingly and in hot seasons. I walked up to turn of the AC from the switch and the setup of the room in the dark was not my usual room.
I woke up in Prampram. The noisy wind was from the Sea just outside the room where I slept. my eyes were wide open now and its 7am. I jump off the bed for a quick jog around the beach, on returning to the hotel my emotions were that of one who had been to an amazing place and forgot his camera or phone and wont be able to tell the stories with pictures, well i would have to do it again just for the bragging right and I did.
Docking Fishing boats
This is an exercise I have seen many times but either on TV or from a far off distance and now I was so close, in fact so close I could smell the fish about to be offloaded, the lyrics of the songs these macho men were singing, and the energy that beamed just to bring in the catch. One man sat on the sand with a cylindrical metal (probably a part of a wrecked ship) as a drum whacking it from side to side and creating a rhythm to which the macho men would sing (songs about women, life, etc) while timing their pull. The way this is done is pure genius, they placed similar cylindrical metals (just like the one used as a drum) beneath the boat and dragged it along while singing charge songs so the pull can be uniform. It took about 2 hours and over 20 men to pull in the boat.
Buying and selling fish
Now the agreement between the buyers and sellers probably had been done and dusted as no talking was done when the boat is hulled in. When the boat was about 10 minutes away from docking, these buyers (mostly women) would begin rinsing and arranging their baskets, then stand akimbo (as if this was some ritual) waiting for the boat to finally dock with ropes dangerously holding the boat to shore. while the buyers stand on the beach, some of the fishermen go back and forth with trays bringing the fish from the boat and filling each basket to the brim. I asked one woman how much one basket of fish would cost and she thought for a while and said “8 million” and was perplexed until I realized she was talking in Old Ghana Cedi terms so i shouted 80 cedis and she said yes, ha! I fumed. She stood there supervising the offload of the fish into her 6 baskets before she covered them with sacks and left only to return with a whole “battalion” of women and girls who would carry these on their heads to their house I suppose.
Doing the do
Now this was the one activity that was appalling. People squatting freely and defecating. when i saw this my walk on the beach became that of a careful tourist who didn’t want a particle of fecal matter to stray unto any part of his/her feet. From Old men and women to adolescent to kids it was as if that was the norm (actually it is the norm), people didn’t mind being naked, even the old. I saw one of the fishermen on the boats who was stack naked from the waist down and his manhood hung freely from his loins without showing a shroud of shyness and no one was surprised but myself and my friend. We fixed our gaze on this young man thinking he would do something about it but no he was walking up and about the beach as though he was asked to sound the bell with his manhood for lunch. Back to the core the issue, defecating on the beach was not at all a sight to behold, beyond that the beach was full of plastic waste. Something must be done Sam George.
Swimming & rowing lessons
At a point I was curious as to how these kids could swim and be extremely confident in the sea, swimming, jumping and playing in the sea while I stood there scared of the waves that even washed to the shore and would run trying hard to avoid it. Then on our way back to the hotel we heard some kids playing at a higher ground, we followed the sound they made we saw how; they were playing in a lagoon much smaller and more shallow than the sea. they had a smaller canoe and were paddling it as thought they were at sea while some kids stood on the banks watching like teachers, again almost all these kids were stack naked and didn’t care we were taking pictures. They were practicing in the lagoon for future career in the actual sea they were learning how to swim, they were learning how to paddle a boat, they were learning how to dive and how to handle a situation of a capsized boat.
Carving boats
Mornings at the hotel were not mornings without the sound of a chainsaw noisily cutting through wood, when i first heard the sound I thought the hotel folk were felling trees behind the hotel until I was curious enough to take a stroll there and realized they were carving boats. I sat there for a few minutes, one man was carving the original boat shape out of a log and another was building the body of the boat with wood and nails while another was sealing holes with some material on a finished one, it all seemed like hard work and these guys were doing it easily while talking at the top of their voice to overcome the sound from the chainsaw.
Conclusion
Prampram was rejuvenating and fulfilling. Prampram is a place where the town folk live freely and are closely knit. The beach clearly must be their most loved location for all the good and the not so good but definitely if you want to buy fish or want to experience the making of the fish you eat with kenkey you need to visit. I hear the fishing methods are way different from those at the Labadi beach. At the beach children are seen mostly hoisting kites, digging holes in the sand, building sand castles or those reaching puberty are seen helping pull in the boats or helping cart the fish in trays from the boat to the baskets.
