Nkrumah's dam

A few days ago Uncle Nasir and I went on a day trip to Akosombo, the site of one of the world's largest dams and THE largest artificial lake in the world.

If you compare the picture on Wikipedia to the picture to the right, you wouldn't know it was the same dam -- and the reason is because the huge whitewater shown in my picture is from the spillway gates, which were opened a few months ago for the first time in 19 years. Why? Because massive flooding upriver in Togo and Benin during the rainy season have raised the water levels so much. (I'm just speculating but can we guess that unusual/extreme weather patterns = climate change?)

The dam, on the mighty Volta River, was the signature economic development project of the Kwame Nkrumah government, and currently supplies over 60% of all electricity in Ghana as well as some that is sold to the countries where the river heads are: Togo, Benin, and Burkina Faso.

Along with a tour of the dam, I managed to catch a ride around the dock with some local fishermen (second photo).