Exploration time. I have no work to do today as it is Saturday so I went to look around. My modest aim was to find the cultural centre, the military museum and to find somewhere to eat.

The first job of the day was to change some money. The problem with this is that my bank in England gave me some very old battered notes and no one in Ghana including the banks will accept it. I was eventually was able to change my small notes but it took a while. After this I went on to find the cultural centre.

I couldn't find the cultural centre. I found the fort though. It is said to be the oldest building in Kumasi as the British army burnt the whole city to the ground around 1900. This is a shame as the old city of Kumasi was supposed to be very beautiful with wide roads and elegant houses. The modern city is not beautiful at all. The fort houses a museum about the Ghanaian Army and for GHC 10 you get a tour guide to take you round. It is not very big and is a slightly ugly squat red painted building. There are captured weapons from the Second World War and more recent peacekeeping duties in Ruanda and The Congo. The most interesting bit were the photos from the early years of the gold coast regiment where the British (you and me) would not allow the solders from Ghana to wear shoes as they were regarded as inferior. This had changed by the war and the solders from Ghana were called to fight the Italians in Ethiopia and the Japanese in Burma. I have never thought much about how the war affected countries in Africa. I am very Euro-centric in my thinking and I would like to be better at understanding what life is like in places far from home.

With these thoughts going round my head I got directions from the guide and went on to the cultural centre and the excellent little museum of Ashanti history. The Ashanti deserve their own blog entry so you will have to wait for that, but I can say if you are in Kumasi these are well worth the visit.