Damongo Travel Guide

 grets Says:  To give you a taste of rural Ghana, take a stroll through the village. You will see people cooking outside their houses, little shops with the front open out to the road, barbers where men are having their hair neatly trimmed or women with their elegant and imaginative... 

 grets Says:  There is no well in the village, so water has to be brought in containers from the well which is over a mile away. Washing is carried out in the traditional way, there are no washing machines or Laundromats here, just bad backs and chafed hands. Drying is done by draping the... 

 grets Says:  Protocol states that you must always greet the village chief and ask permission to enter the village before you go in. This is very important to follow, as we found out in one of the villages we entered (without gaining permission from the chief) and were chased away by a... 

 grets Says:  Most of the local villagers we saw, had facial adornment in the form of scarification. This is way of distinguishing one ethnic group from another. Not only do they make a mark to show the ethnic group, also the village they are from, as well as the actual family. This... 

 grets Says:  This is a common sight in every village all over Ghana (and the rest of West Africa). Yam is pounded in these tall, wooden, hollow containers with a long, wooden mallet for about half an hour to make fufu, the main staple of the area. Fufu is similar to a dumpling, and is... 

 grets Says:  The cooking is mostly done over charcoal (see previous tip) outside in the courtyard. The women are the main cooks in the family (sometimes helped by the young children – picture five), and here you can see a woman pounding kapok nuts (pictures one, three and four) to make a... 

 grets Says:  The villagers also derive some income from making and selling charcoal. I've often wondered why people cook over charcoal. It seems so labour-intensive to stack up wood in huge, dirt ovens and bake it slowly down to little black lumps. Why not just burn the wood? To make... 

 grets Says:  The villagers grow peanuts or monkey nuts as they are also known, for sale in the local markets. The peanut is actually a member of the legume family (technically not a nut at all) and is native to South America, although very popular in West Africa, where it is used... 

 grets Says:  The villages consist of family compounds, with the man having his own hut and each of his wives having a hut each, in which the young children will also live. A man can have up to four wives legally, but some have more. The huts are built around a courtyard, where most of... 

 grets Says:  The Dagomba people, although they live in close proximity to the Gonja people, sometimes in the same village, they speak a totally different language: the Dagbani language, which belongs to the More-Dagbani sub-group of Gur languages. The main group of Dagomba people live in... 

 grets Says:  Gonja is the name of a Kingdom in Northern Ghana, but the name is also used to describe the people of this kingdom. The Gonja kingdom was established in 1675, ruled by the Ngbanya dybasty. The kingdom is also known as Ghanjawiyyu. The Gonja language is spoken by...