Cliff Kibbe, who spent time in Wa as a child, is looking to get in touch with Sheila and George Ando. Click here for more information.
I am currently a graduate student at Duke University. I spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer living and working in Wa, Ghana and met my lovely wife, Barikisu Bea Anderson of Suuriyiri, there. Wa is a small city of about fifty thousand people in the northwestern corner of Ghana, West Africa. It is the capital of the Upper West Region, which includes Lawra, Tumu and Nandom. An interesting page devoted Lawra and Navrongo in the Upper East Region can be found at Lawra and Navrongo Home Page. A good page devoted to the Peace Corps experience in Tumu is Trevor's Tumu Page.
Click on one of the areas below to learn more about Wa.
For the authors personal home page, click here.
The palace of the Wa-Na, ruler of the Wala traditional area. The
building is an excellent example of the Sudanese style of traditional
architecture.
A detailed history of Wa can be found in Wa and the Wala, by
Ivor Wilks, available at university libraries.
For links to other Ghana related sites click on the flag below.
For a deeper appreciation of Ghana, spending some time in one place with
the local people is invaluable.
Send me email if you
have any comments.
Page last updated on January 19th, 2002.
Travel
Those going from Kumasi, in southern Ghana, to Bobo Dioulasso (or the
other way around) will probably stop in Wa. There are several hotels
that are reasonable -- Kunateh Lodge, near the Ministries, or the Catholic
Guest House (commonly known as "teegbere" or "stretch your legs").
Upland hotel on the west side of town, is quite comfortable but inconveniently located.
The airport has been renovated so that the runway no longer crosses the
road to Lawra, making it easier for the occasional flight. The UWCA
internet cafe is still active.
Moving On
There is bus service from Wa to Kumasi (three times a week), to Accra
(three times a week alternating with Kumasi), to Tamale (daily), and along
a line from Wa to Hamile (daily). The Tamale bus stops in Larabanga,
which is the closest town to the entrance of the Mole National Park.
Greetings
Greetings are as important in Wa as in the rest of Africa, and failing to
greet someone is very rude. Wala people are pleased to be greeted in
their own language, even if that is all that you can say. The standard
greetings are:
The individual who has been greeted will reply to you with a series of
questions each of which can be answered "O be son" ("It is well").
History
Wa has been occupied for several hundred years. The original
inhabitants were Lobi, who now live mostly in Burkina Faso and the Ivory
Coast. They were displaced by the Dagaare, who were in turn displaced by
the Wala. The Wala are an aggregation of different peoples- Moshi from
Burkina Faso, Manding from Mali and Hausa from Nigeria - who settled in
Wa attracted by the devotion to Islam and the commercial opportunities
offered by the trade between the forest and the desert. Indeed the name
of the town Wa means "come" in the Waali language. Dumba Festival
The central traditional event of the year in Wa is the Dumba festival,
which takes place in late September. It is partially a celebration of the
harvest, partially a means of insuring success in the upcoming year's cycle
of planting and harvesting and generally an excellent opportunity to have
a good time. The preliminary events are several days of drumming and dancing
and visits by traditional chiefs from outlying villages of the Wala traditional area.
The culumination is a dramatic ceremony in which the chief of Wa steps
over a cow lying on the ground. If he does this successfully, the coming
year will be a success. However, if any part of his body or clothing
touches the cow, the coming year will be a poor one and the chief is not
likely to survive it. As would be expected, a very small cow is
generally used. So far as I know, he is always successful.
Proverb
The Waali language is rich in proverbs. A couple of interesting ones
are:
The exact interpretation of these is left as an exercise. The
orthography of the Waali is my own and in all likelyhood, quite wrong.
The ethnologue database has more information on the
Waali
language.
Food and Agriculture
Agriculture is important in Wa. The most important crops are maize
(kamaana), millet (chi), rice (mui) and beans (benga). Groundnuts (peanuts
for us Americans, jenne for the Wala) are the most important cash crop
and are also an important food crop as anyone who has ever had a
satisfying bowl of Wala groundnut soup can testify. The most common
vegetable is okra (maanee). Extraordinarily, some visitors to Wa find
the slimy texture of boiled okra unpalatable.
There is a pressing need for improvement in farming techniques,
especially in agro forestry, the combination of farming with planting of
useful trees. A resource for this broad subject can be found at the
International Center for Agroforestry.
One organziation that offers such an
opportunity is VOLU.
They organize volunteer work camps of three to four weeks in length.
Perhaps they will offer something in Wa, in which case the information on
this page would be pretty useful!
twa@acpub.duke.edu