In which I describe Zebilla...

The internet in Zebilla is painfully slow, that is, when it works at all.  I have been trying to upload photos for the blog but not so far successfully.  I will keep trying but it may be that we have to wait until we go to Bolgatanga, about 30 miles west which may prove more successful.

Zebilla is remote.  Very remote.

Zebilla is hot.  Very hot.

 

At present it is the rainy season so we are surrounded by lush green vegetation.  Millett and maize are planted hap hazardly wherever there is a spare patch of soil.  Rice grows in the wetter lowlands.  There are some beautiful, tiny yellow butterflies flitting around in abundance; frogs croak; a rather loud local pigeon begs to be noticed.  Lizards of all shapes and sizes abound.  I didn’t realize how noisy they are!

We are told that come the dry season all of this fertile land will become arid and brown and I can believe it, having experienced the heat.

A variety of livestock roams around freely: goats, pigs, chickens, guinea fowl.  If you are not woken up by a helpful cockerel each morning then the call to prayer emanating shortly afterwards is sure to get you!

 

 

Zebilla is a town of some 23,000 ( I found this figure somewhere but it seems rather large).  The main road cutting through the town is a busy thoroughfare filled with bikes, motor bikes, tro tros (the local bus, like a minibus), buses and lorries.  It is alive with kiosks, huts and traders making and selling their wares from early morning until dusk.  On market days there is a cacophony of chatter; greetings, trading, bargaining, all of which is a bit overwhelming for the “nasara” (white man). Couple this with the fact that we have no idea what many of the products on sale are – strange powders, dried fish, nut like fruits, oddly shaped vegetables – and it becomes an endless game of “name that object”!

 

 

                  

Moving further back from the main road are the channels of dirt tracks leading to the living areas.  These can vary from the traditional courtyard farm houses built around a shady tree using mud bricks and a local render with thatching and corrugated iron roofs, to something more like ours, the “white” house. 

Our house is basic but adequate.  Well, apart from the mosquito prevention!  We spent a large part of the weekend stuffing old plastic bags and fabric into the holes in the doors, walls and netting.  They still get in!

 

 

Zebilla is incredibly friendly.  Large proportions of time are spent in greetings.  These are filled with genuine warmth and are a reminder to all that life is precious and it is a joy to be alive each new day.  If you need something you only have to ask and help will be forthcoming.