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Mark Moxon's Travel Writing

Ghana: Down the Den

While wandering around town on the afternoon before New Year's Eve, Lukas and I decided to stop off at Kojo's place for a Coke and a laze in the shade. What I hadn't realised was that Kojo's shop doesn't just sell the usual range of corner-shop goodies, like soap powder and cold Cokes; in fact the biggest bit of Kojo's business comes from selling marijuana to the extended Rastafarian family around Kokrobite, and judging by the number of people we saw floating through his place on New Year's Eve, stocking up with herbal essence makes for good business.

Come and Go

As we sat there watching Kojo chopping up his wares, pausing only to pull out the seeds, which he popped into his mouth and chomped with a loud crunching sound, life in the den started to take off. Despite being nothing more than a path through a river bed, Kojo's place is a busy little crossroads, and as the afternoon drifted along, the number of people who popped in to buy packets of grass or smoke a joint was staggering. At one point Lukas caught my eye and commented on how busy it was; I looked around and there must have been ten people sitting round, rolling, smoking or just shooting the breeze.