You are welcome to the Wa, Ghana home page!
This web page was the first (and maybe is still the only) web page devoted to the city of Wa, Ghana; in all of its aspects, and to the Wala people. It is intended that this page be of use to scholars of Africa, as well as travelers and all those who enjoy Africa. It is also hoped that this page will be a means of communication for Wala people throughout the world.
According to the Ghana News Agency, GNA, the Wa-Na Alhaji Yakubu Seidu Soale II, has died. He passed away Monday morning, September 4, 2006. Minga na ven kuu
My name is Thomas Anderson. I am currently an employee of the U.S. Federal government in Washington, DC. I was formerly a graduate student at Duke University. I also 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 city of about two hundred 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, or just scroll down, to learn more about Wa.
For a description of my personal experience as a volunteer, 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.
Wa is unusual for northern Ghana in having a written history that extends back several centuries.
A detailed history of Wa can be found in Wa and the Wala, by
Ivor Wilks, available at university libraries or at amazon.com.
A photo of the festival in 1992
The Waali language is rich in proverbs. A couple of my personal favorites:
What is the weather like in Wa today? It's hot!
For a deeper appreciation of Ghana, spending some time in one place with
the local people is invaluable.
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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").
The 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, such as "E tuma be son?" ("Is your work well?") 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 Cote d'Ivoire. They were displaced by the Dagaare, who were in turn displaced by
the Wala. The Wala adopted the Dagaare language and modified it, simplifying some of the grammar and introducing Hausa and Arabic loan words. 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 culmination 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.
Proverbs
The exact interpretation of these is left as an exercise. The
orthography of the Waali is my own and is, in all likelihood, 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. More information on this topic is available at:
My favorite picture from my time in Wa, young Lydia harvests groundnuts
Perhaps they will offer something in Wa, in which case the information on
this page would be pretty useful! Disclaimer: I have no personal experience with this organization.
A nice page of links to other Ghana oriented websites
Page last updated on October 13, 2024. Thanks to the good folks at angelfire.com for hosting (for free!).
New!
Online Waali-English dictionary!
Please send me email if you have comments, questions or suggestions!
thomas.anderson127@gmail.com
