“Buruku, Near Kwahu-Tafo”

The Author, Dr. Kofi Dankyi Beeko, MD

If you, like me, had ever visited the GIANT PYRAMID at Giza in South Cairo, Egypt, and then the structure called Buruku in Kwahu, near Tafo, in Ghana, or you could even say, near Bukuruwa; then you might find it perhaps easier, or maybe not, when talking about the two historical structures, one world-famous, and the other not that much known, in Kwahu, the Eastern Region of Ghana.

The famous Giant Pyramid in Giza was constructed around 2564 BC. It has something to do with the Pharaoh, Cheops, (also called Khufu).  It is now nearly five thousand years old, erected within a period of 20 years, apparently, with the workers, twenty thousand of them, working day and night, (ancient Egypt probably knew Neon-lights).

Some five million chunks of rock were used, hewn distances from afar, and transported down the Nile by some “special vessels”. Its initial height was exactly 147.6 Meters, and it was the world’s tallest man-made structure for 3 500 years.

My problems were many, as one day, I stood “in front of it”, for lack of a better way of putting it, about fifteen years ago.  I had not only stood in front of Khufu’s Pyramid, I had also entered it. But, where is the entrance of Buruku, the structure in Kwahu, which I would like to compare Giza  with?  Buruku looks at you it seems, instead of you looking at it, (or him?).

Don’t argue with me, because, if you stood where I stood that Saturday afternoon fifteen years ago, viewing the mountain or “structure” from “the path”, the only road which even though supposedly man-made, looked like “a nobody-made”, you envisioned the gargantuan human-like head, and you got the feeling coming out of you, as though, the colossal head of the Deity, with his hair brushed fashionably, was looking at you.

Proudly, I was in the mood to make what would have been the most famous picture that day, in the whole of Kwahu.  And why not?  I had a one thousand DollarNikkon Professional Camera.  I pressed on the knob, having viewed more than accurately, but it refused to function. It did not give me the “s-n-a-p-s” sound, which I would recognize,  because, I had used the type before.

“Do you see what I have since a while been trying to tell you? You can’t photograph BURUKU, without first paying for the bottle of Schnapps to pour the libation.  Forget about the Camera!” said KO, not angrily, but all the same reprimanding.

KO is a good friend of mine, who had sponsored the trip that day.  We had a Taiwanese guest, and where she was born back home is mountainous, and superstition isn’t with us here alone.  Deifying mysterious looking trees, rocks, streams, and monkeys, is “practiced”, almost in all parts of the Pacific rim too.

So, we were to accept, as explained to me, the camera might never function again, and the verification would come, when four weeks later, it was taken under guarantee to a Nikon-Dealer in  Duesseldorf.  It could not be repaired, I was given a new machine, and theone “spiritually crushed” by Buruku must have landed in Japan, and my curiosity has stayed where it was.

The dealer wasn’t particularly keen in chasing anything. He had sold a camera, a fault had developed with it, and the manufacturer had paid for the replacement.  Who cares about superstition?   In Kwahu, “Buruku and Odweanoma” are two deified mountains, not man-made, like the Giant Pyramid in Giza!

There is a Priest in charge of Buruku, and a Priestess takes care of Odweanoma, which is the naked mountain at the point, where  the Easter event of “Show-jumping” takes place in Kwahu during Easter, since lately. Buruku must be taller than the “Gizan”  Pyramid.  It must be another 250 Meters higher than the effigy in in Egypt.

It is, therefore, about 750 Meters high. Nobody is known to have climbed it to the top, as against the Biblical even of The Pharaoh, Nepenthe, climbing to the apex of the Pyramid, looking for Moses’s” perceived God”.   If you were to dare it, the Priest should accompany you to the top, after you must have paid all the “rights,” and you buy him all the needed out-fit.

You are likely to encounter him, either in Bukuruwa, a smaller township thanPepease,between the latter, and Kwahu -Tafo.  To my knowledge, there is no undertaking by the Ghana Tourists’ Board, to create any interest in this super-structure, Buruku.

From Tafo, the colonial road which since that eraleads to Adowso, the township, or village from which you join the pontoon which takes you to Donkorkurom, was, or is believed to be “in good condition”.

Adowso is reminiscent of an old commercial township; whenCocoa-growing in Kwahu was vibrant.  Every house by the street-side held a shop.  If you should be disinterested in turning “too soon to the left”, the road would bring you towards yet a dilapidated and forsaken township, (Oworobong), about four-fifths submerged by the “Afram-Volta-Lake.”

This was equally an erstwhile vibrant Cocoa-growing area.Kwahus, Ewes, and Krobos lived and thrived there in perfect peace for a hundred years. Left and right of the road, carcasses of tractors and mummy-trucks would remind you of the mode of transportation in years gone-by.

Looking on to the right, even before Oworobong, the tall mountain which seems to be climbing until it may merge with the skies would remind you of Mt. Fuji in Japan. Depending upon which hour of the day you might be tempted to look up, the top might give the impression, as though, it was raining, or otherwise, clouds-clad.  Even all around such a hostile  incline, Cocoa-farming  was what the men and women lived on. Did anybody ever tell you all that?  Idoubt!

Kofi Dankyi  Beeko, MD

E-MAIL:dankyikofi@yahoo.com

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