Mankoadze
Coordinates: 5 ° 19 ′ N , 0 ° 40 ′ W
Mankoadze - also called Mankwadzi , is a village with around 2,400 inhabitants on the Atlantic coast of the West African state of Ghana , in the Gomoa district of the Central Region .
location
Mankoadze is about 70 kilometers from the capital Accra . The connection there is good, as there is a well-developed expressway - the only one of its kind in all of Ghana. Mankoadze is located directly on the beach and merges into light mountainous terrain, the highest mountain of which is called Manko , which gave the village its name: manko-adze means "under the deficiency" in the local language of the Fante (like the second largest Ghanaian city Kumasi (“ Kum -asi”) in the language of the Ashanti means “under the kum tree”).
As in the entire Central Region, the climate is dry to hot and humid, with maximum precipitation in June-August. Kassawa , pineapple , papaya and manioc are grown, but the savannah in the hinterland is rather unsuitable for agriculture, which is why the majority of the approximately 2000 inhabitants of the village are engaged in fishing ; especially the men and male children of the village devote themselves to this profession.
Fishing
Mankoadze shows the typical nature-dependent subsistence economy : You catch as much fish as the sea gives, and this is then processed for your own purposes; There is no sale to markets. International shipping is proving to be fatal here, because for several years Chinese cutters have been permanently caught far off the coasts and fish away from the villages for food.
After the fish is caught, it is dried usually in special coal stoves and then almost every meal - usually Fufu Banku and ( manioc - cassava - plantain pastes) - eaten.
education
The village has two schools: the Primary School and the Junior Secondary School , the first part of Ghana's secondary education. A senior secondary school is not planned; if a child makes the leap to this level, it usually drives in one of the next two largest cities, Winneba and Apam . Winneba in particular is of great importance to Mankoadze, both economically and in terms of infrastructure.
religion
There is only one place of worship in Mankoadze, the John Wesley-Methodist Church . The building on the town's main street, right next to the taxi rank, was donated by a US visitor. Besides the Methodists there are other denominations in Mankoadze: Baptists , Presbyterians , Adventists . These celebrate their services in the school buildings or in the open air. The number of people with no religion is also high.
meaning
Mankoadze gained some notoriety in Ghana because of the relatively high proportion of migrant workers who work in the deep-sea port city of Tema , which the first President Kwame Nkrumah had built in the 1960s to strengthen the country's foreign trade. Numerous shipowners and forwarding agents there come from the area around Mankoadze, which is why there is also a Mankoadze roundabout in Tema . Also the current chief of the village, Mr. Turkson, is a well-respected entrepreneur in Tema.
tourism
Mankoadze is especially worth mentioning because of its tourist potential, which is well above the country's average: the white sandy beaches are lined with tall coconut palms and the sea is clear blue. The sloping hill country offers ideal conditions for building holiday homes. Those in charge in Winneba recognized this and allowed Mankoadze to supply electricity and running water much earlier than the villages in the hinterland. As soon as the lines were completed, the first camps and private individuals settled down. European film teams often come to the area and book the facilities on a weekly basis. Mankoadze has one of the most promising tourism potentials nationwide, but also in comparison with the already prosperous Central Region.