By 1994, many Banda farmers had gone into tobacco farming. Money was advanced to farmers by tobacco companies to purchase the cement and iron sheets needed to build drying barns. The buyers also advanced commercial fertilizer needed to grow the cash crop. A tractor supplied by the company was used to prepare fields for the seedlings and to transport firewood from surrounding areas to the barns. Large amounts of wood were used to stoke fires in the drying barns. South side of Ahenkro, June-July, 1994.
Tobacco was grown as a cash crop in the Banda area during the 1980s and 1990s. Pictured here are wood piles and tobacco barns on the south side of Ahenkro. The wood was collected and brought to town using a tractor. The high demand for wood by tobacco farmers to fuel the drying barns created tensions with women who relied on wood collected from farms to fuel their cooking fires. Ahenkro, June-July, 1990.
Oware is a game of strategy in which players attempt to capture an opponent's counters or beans as they are moved counter-clockwise through a series of twelve cups (6 on each side of the board). Here young boys have made an oware board in by scooping holes in the dirt. They use dried seeds from the pods of a leguminous tree as counters. Ahenkro, 1995.
A young boy has made a lorry (truck) from tin cans and other discarded materials. The wheels are made from worn-out "flip-flop" shoes and the string tied to the front allows him to pull the truck. Behind him in the distance, to the right, is the wooden shed that housed one of the area's first corn-grinding mills. Ahenkro, 2000.
Drying barns on the south side of Banda-Ahenkro used to dry and cure tobacco. Wood used to fuel the fires in the barns is stacked in piles between the barns and was brought in from surrounding farmland by tractor. The high demand for wood by tobacco farmers created tensions with women who relied on wood collected from farms to fuel their cooking fires. Ahenkro, June-July, 1990.
Situated on the south side of Ahenkro against the backdrop of the Banda hills, one of the village's thatch-roofed primary schools (left) and the Junior Secondary School, still under construction but with one metal-roofed classroom in use. Ahenkro, July, 1986.
Main street of Banda-Ahenkro, view to the south, standing near the Banda Cultural Centre. In the distance, one of the passenger vans that made the daily trip to market towns (Wenchi, Sampa) is parked in front of the Omanhene's (paramount chief) palace. Two poles anticipate the arrival of electricity, still some years away. Metal roofs have begun to replace the thatched roofs of earlier years. Ahenkro, July, 2001.
Rights:
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
Publisher:
University of Victoria Libraries
Location(s) Facet:
Ahenkro
Subjects Facet:
Rural electrification; Metal roofing; Transportation; Villages; Streets