The Upper NE Region is significantly drier and sparser than the other areas we’ve traveled through. The home sites are collections of circular adobe huts with thatched roofs connected by 3-4 feet high adobe walls. The sites include many members of a big family so they can be quite large with clothing lines and farm animals occupying the middle of the circle the walls and buildings create. Oddly, there are also lots of donkeys around in this area, something we hadn’t seen previously. Sometimes they are being worked as a wagon pull, but more often than not they were milling about and eating grass like all the other animals. Keep in mind that there are not fences at all so all these animals, sheep, goats, donkeys, cows, dogs, chickens and guinea fowl are roaming around the villages and near the roadside.
Our drive from Tamale to Paga on the Burkina Faso border took about 2 hours. Unfortunately a bird flew into our windshield and died—not a great way for me to start the morning. After shedding more than a few tears for the bird, I collected myself to see the sacred crocodiles of Paga. Their sacredness has a sketchy history but basically some guy a long time ago thought the crocs were a blessing because they helped him (not sure how) cross a river and begin the settlement so he deemed them sacred. The town has protected them every since. They claim there are now 500 crocs in a fairly small pond and brag about the children who swim there. Sacred or not, my butt wouldn’t step foot in that water. Anyway, a few villagers walked us out to the edge of the pond with a small, live chicken in hand. They feed the chickens to the crocodiles as incentives for willingly participating in this odd theatre. I had asked them not to feed the chicken while we were there—I had already witnessed enough dying birds for the day. I know they thought I was weird but they obliged and just let the chicken chirp in their hands to entice the crocs out of the water with the noise of the poor creature. Side note—I know in many parts of the world animals are just there for utility’s sake and there are many greater problems at hand than worrying about their treatment, but I am a huge animal lover so things like this really bother me and even hearing the chirping of the chicken near the crocodile pond practically gave me a panic attack. Sure enough 4 crocodiles quickly emerged as we neared, one being the granddaddy of crocs, and we commenced with the oddly posed settings of: human sitting on croc, human holding croc’s tail and human petting croc photos. It was an weird experience.
We then drove from Paga to the hills of Tongo. Tongo is a village around this strange and unexpected outcropping of hills. On the hills lie huge granite boulders, and the people believe a deity exists at the top of the hill among the rocks so they’ve created a shrine. We trekked through the maze of small adobe homes and near small patches of land where people, mostly women, were tilling the land by hand to plant millet. This was midday so the sun was pounding on us and sweat was erupting from our unaccustomed American pores. We finally reached the shrine but Rob and I opted not to go in as the perquisite is rolling your pants to your knees and removing your shirt. My dear husband decided to stay with me and my modesty instead of climbing in to the shrine, but Sam and Ernest gleefully removed their shirts and spent a few minutes in it. Afterwards, we took a few photos from the top of the chief’s house of the family housing units below. They are amazingly intricate mazes of walls and circles, and we were told that 300 extended family members live in one of the groupings. Interestingly, although the cost of 2.5 cedis ($1.75) per month is too expensive for most people there, several houses rent solar panels to help supply electricity. This makes great sense with so much sunlight.
After spending several hours romping among the rocks and hills, we headed back towards Tamale. We stopped briefly to walk about the market and look at the making of the woven smocks worn in the upper region, but we were absolutely spent by the heat, so we headed back to our hotel to call it a day.
