Things are fairly quiet here in Ghana. As one of the few countries in Africa with a stable political system and economy it is not fraught with war or militant factionalism. The gold-mine operates under the motto "The Right Way, The Safe Way, Every Day" and judging by the few cases of work related trauma that we see in the clinic, this motto is adhered to fairly well. I live a quiet life in the residential village. In fact, I am sheltered almost completely from "Ghana" being restricted to moving from work to the village.
The only time I really feel as though I am in Africa is when I drop one of our staff up into the neighbouring village at the end of the day when she can't get local transport. Kenyasi is a small but bustling village, in the typical African fashion, with all the shop fronts and daily life right on the street. On a Friday night it has more bustle than usual, buses dropping staff in the town navigate the perilously narrow streets and all manor of lifestock and family life are being herded home. Last night I had to come to a halt in the middle of the main street, mid-wave to a group of gorgeous little children in oversized t-shirts with gleaming white teeth in a cheeky smile, as a very small goat leapt out in front of me. Stopped, I couldn't see where it was over the bonnet of my large 4WD; fortunately a bystander smiled broadly, gave the universal "wait" signal of hand held up like an Indian "How" and reached under the front wheels and dragged the goat out by its tail.
The only time I really feel as though I am in Africa is when I drop one of our staff up into the neighbouring village at the end of the day when she can't get local transport. Kenyasi is a small but bustling village, in the typical African fashion, with all the shop fronts and daily life right on the street. On a Friday night it has more bustle than usual, buses dropping staff in the town navigate the perilously narrow streets and all manor of lifestock and family life are being herded home. Last night I had to come to a halt in the middle of the main street, mid-wave to a group of gorgeous little children in oversized t-shirts with gleaming white teeth in a cheeky smile, as a very small goat leapt out in front of me. Stopped, I couldn't see where it was over the bonnet of my large 4WD; fortunately a bystander smiled broadly, gave the universal "wait" signal of hand held up like an Indian "How" and reached under the front wheels and dragged the goat out by its tail.
The drive too and from work through the luxuriant jungle and past the tailings mounds still gives me pleasure, which can rapidly vapourise arriving at the entrance to the mine camp where lines of cars wait to be searched and slowly passed through the electronic boom gate. Impatiently, I sit for up to 10 minutes in the morning waiting my turn to swipe my cards and trundle slowly into the compound, slushing through muddy potholes and crowds of workers swarming towards their departments.
Still, all things must be put into perspective and compared with crossing Erez (from Israel to Gaza) the boom gate is a small and painless thing.
Erez resembles an airport from the Israeli side, constructed of steel and glass with vast linoleum terminals, countless security cameras and personnel and passport booths. The procedure to enter Gaza is relatively straightforward; assuming you have the "coordination" (permission from the Israeli side to enter Gaza which is only given to NGOs, journalists and few Palestinians) you arrive to the gate, hand over your passport and wait in the full sun or driving rain for anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours for the authorities inside the building to issue the "coordination papers". Clutching this paper and passport, you proceed through a gate and into the terminal building and go to Passport Control. A short interrogation later you are permitted to pass and cross the terminal, through electronically controlled turnstiles until reaching the wall which separates Israel from Gaza. Usually, as you approach the wall the gate will slide open allowing you to cross onto the Gaza side but sometimes it will not open, and you must wait, trapped between an 8-metre high wall and impenetratable gate and a security fence until the gate opens. After the wall the "tunnel" winds through security fences until discharging you from between bombed concrete walls and perilously flapping sheets of roofing iron onto a rutted, pot-holed (bomb-holed) dirt road flanked by skeletons of buildings crumbling into ruin since being destroyed by Israeli tanks and bombs. Another 500m of wasteland, like a modern-day apocalypse, must be crossed to reach the nearest point that vehicles can reach. A short car ride past donkey-carts hauling scrap from the ruins and around craters in the road takes you to the Hamas checkpoint to register foreign persons entering Gaza and then you are on the road towards Gaza City. A distance of approximately 100km from Jerusalem to Gaza and it takes a minimum of 2.5 hours, despite 75km of this being on first-world standard roads.
Coming back out of Gaza is the reverse procedure with extra bells and whistles. Arriving at the Palestinian terminal (a shipping container amongst the desolation with a tea stand propped at one end) you give your passport, the details of which are radioed through to the Israeli terminal to confirm you have permission to cross. After a variable amount of time you are returned your passport and set off across the wastelands towards the terminal. On a good day, the gate in the wall will slide open as you approach, on a bad day the gate stays determinatedly closed and you wait. Once inside the gate, you must open your bags and show them to a camera stationed on the ceiling, otherwise face the wrath of the faceless voice that yells from the intercom to follow instructions and show your bag. Then you're at the mercy of the electronic gates and turnstiles - green light = go, red light = wait. Two turnstiles later you arrive at the baggage check, where all electronic items including laptop, phone, power cables, USB flash-drives, camera etc must be separated out and sent through the x-ray machine and the remainder of your bag will follow. Once your belongings have gone through you are directed to the "body-machine" - a glass doored booth which opens eerily as you approach. You are directed to place your feet on the marks on the floor, put your hands above your head as the doors click shut and the scanner whizzes 180 degrees around and back. If this is satisfactory, the doors will open and you step into electronically controlled booths while the images of your scan are analysed. If this is satisfactory you may proceed to the conveyor belt, where if you are lucky your personal belongings have arrived. If said personal items are not there, you have to go out through yet another electronically controlled turnstile to find your belongings being thoroughly searched by security before being returned to you. Then, passport control, another interrogation, this one usually considerably longer than the entrance interrogation, out of the terminal building, across the carpark, through another turnstile and you're free!
Boom gate at Camp A is a breeze really!
