MANASSEH’S FOLDER: A ‘Serene’ reason to visit Volta Region

An aerial view of Volta Serene Hotel on the Kabakaba Hill, Ho

The woman who pronounces locations on Google Drive has a funny accent. Yes, very funny! Try using Google to find a location in any of the “lungulungu” suburbs of your area and listen to how she “butchers” the local names. On this occasion, she was at her usual best. When she said, “Turn left onto Woezor Hotel Road,” the “Woezor” didn’t sound like the name I had heard so many times on Volta Star Radio while I was growing up in Kete-Krachi. Woezor Hotel was one of the places I longed to see if I ever had the opportunity to visit the capital town of my second region. In those days, almost all major events in the regional capital, especially on festive occasions, were held at Woezor Hotel so one often heard it so many times on VSR!

On this night, I was in Ho, but my destination was not Woezor Hotel, which is said to be the oldest hotel in the Volta Region. Woezor Hotel now looks like the village beauty who has lost her gracefulness to old age. So on this occasion, I was headed for the Volta Serene Hotel, a name I heard for the first time when I received the invitation to that weekend’s conference. As I turned onto the asphalted road that snakes upward to the side of the Kabakaba Hill overlooking Ho, what I saw that night excited me.

“Can you climb?” the young woman sitting by me asked as my vehicle screamed in an apparent protest against being subjected to the steep climb to the reception area.

“Why? Don’t you trust my car?” I asked as I braked in front of the reception.

She got out and removed our luggage from the vehicle before I drove down to the parking lot.

The chalets at Volta Serene Hotel

Our luggage was not too heavy, but what made us long for help was the stairs that we had to climb into the reception. The stairs are part of the hilly architecture of the hotel. We were not there to exercise. We were not like Stanbic Bank’s Mawuko Afadzinu, who would come for breakfast the following morning, bathed in sweat and remark that the Volta Serene Hotel was “good for many things.” I hope he didn’t mean anything beyond the fact that if you lodge there, you don’t need to drive anywhere in the morning to climb your kind of “Aburi Hill” to burn excess fat.

The young woman and I both agreed that it was bad that there wasn’t anyone to welcome us and help us into the reception. But Linda Nutifafa, the ever-smiling young woman at the reception apologised profusely when we complained. She explained that the young man who was supposed to do that had gone to attend to someone else.

Linda then offered to help, but the young woman with whom I was traveling would not accept her offer. Linda offered to do so about twice before we got to our door but the young woman declined. Linda ought to have understood her. She was just being her natural self – a woman – Mawu Segbolisa’s most complex handiwork, who sometimes does not know what she wants but expects the son of Adam to know. Woman!

Poolside of the Hotel

“Wow! This should have been a five-star hotel,” the young woman exclaimed when we entered our room. And I agreed. We were told the Volta Serene is a four-star hotel, and we did not have the capacity to upgrade it. But our expectation had been exceeded. And that’s the most important thing.

When we stepped out for dinner at the rooftop restaurant, we were greeted with one of the most spectacular sights one could have on a “dumsorless” night. From the side of the hill, one could see almost all of Ho from that location.

“Did you see the city from here last night?” Scofray Nana Yaw Yeboah, who was also there for the same programme I was attending, would later ask me. He likened what he saw that night to a spectacular sight he had seen in South Africa. The atmosphere was serene, except for a pastor downhill who was leading his congregation through a Friday night prayer service. When the wind occasionally carried his voice to us, I heard him prophesy job promotions, at all costs, to his congregation. And one wonders whether all his congregants were employed, for which reason they would “receive promotion by all means” in their workplaces. That aside, the whole hill appeared serene and one did not need to ask what gave the hotel its name. Even when the noise in the city is at its peak during the day, you only hear it as a gentle hum from Volta Serene Hotel.

I was disappointed when I did not find banku with okro on the menu on my first visit to the restaurant. Why should I come to the Volta Region and eat banku with tilapia and pepper? I could get that from Philipo’s joints in Accra. The only difference between the two is that the pepper that accompanies Philipo’s banku and tilapia sometimes looks like it is being used to feed pigs.

The following afternoon, however, I had my banku with okro soup. And in the evening, there was “abolo”. When we ordered “abolo” that Saturday evening from our room, it delayed a little. When the waiter arrived with the food, the young woman whom I had gone there with complained and he apologised profusely. When he turned to go, the young woman called after him to come for his money, the extra-charge for serving us in the room.

“For being late, you don’t owe anything,” he said politely and bowed out. She looked at me and smiled with approval. She, or rather we, had saved 10 cedis!

It’s been a little over 10 years since I came to live in Accra but I have not been accustomed to the stressful life in Accra to a place of comfort. I feel relieved when I travel outside Accra. The beauty of Volta Serene Hotel was evident from how many of the conference attendees, including the Media Commission’s George Sarpong, were taking photographs of the place on our last day. You know Ghanaians often do that when they visit “abrokyire” or “solmitinga.” In Ghana, however, it is rare to have a beautiful hospitality facility and at the same time have people with an equally beautiful attitude managing it. That combination in our republic is rarer than experienced commercial sex workers who are virgins.

Whenever I find one, I make a mental note to go there again. And that was what the young woman with whom I went to Volta Serene and I agreed when Linda and Mark, as well as the accountant, bid us farewell on Sunday, February 12, 2017. However, there will be more I expect to see in my next visit.

By my next visit, Mr. Eric Kutortse and his team will have finished the additional 78-room expansion of the hotel, which will come with a gym, minibar, shop, a spa and additional conference rooms. I also expect to eat more local cuisine. I expect that Saturday night at Volta Serene will be made a borborbor night so that visitors can witness a live performance of most beautiful music in the world when they visit. It won’t hurt to disturb the serenity of Volta Serene on Saturday night and give guests the real feel of Volta, will it? With a little innovation, Volta Serene Hotel should be a tourism destination for people who want weekend get-aways to shake off the suffocating stress of the city. After all, it’s a little over two hours’ drive from Accra if one is careful to pass through Oyibi, Somanya and join the rout at Akuse instead of enduring the Traffic in Tema.

In my next visit, I will like to see more indigenes of Ho invest in their hometown. My friend, Kwame Sowu Jnr., has been embarking on a solo invest-in-Ho campaign, especially on social media and I could not agree with him more when I experienced Volta Serene. Facilities such as Volta Serene Hotel attract conferences and visitors to the city. When they visit, they buy fuel, food and other goods and services. They help to spread

They help spread wealth and give employment. The hundreds of people whose livelihoods depend on Volta Serene Hotel will not be a burden on the government. The smartly dressed young men and women who work at Volta Serene Hotel will not have to troop to Accra to add to the teeming youth who hopelessly knock on doors with exaggerated CV’s tucked under their sweaty armpits.

Geoffery is one of the readers of my column who works at Volta Serene Hotel

Daavi Sedinam in Ho Bankoe, who sells okro and cassava dough, will have a good market for her produce and can afford to pay for Emefa’s fees at the university. Businesses like Volta Serene Hotel, which are located outside the prime areas of the country, are not only there to serve the interest of the investors.

Last Thursday, my news crew and I were stranded in Kpandai because the three small guesthouses were all fully booked before we got there in the night. Wulensi, we were told, did not have a better option and the curfew in Bimbilla was in place so we could not continue our journey. Our luck was that Mr. Mutala, an accounts officer at the Kpandai Senior High School, was generous enough to share his room with us. If you know any rich man or woman from Kpandai, tell them to go back home and invest so that many more visitors like me would not get stranded.

A view of Ho from the Volta Serene Hotel

Anyway, those of you whose main interest in this article was the young woman with whom I went to Volta Serene Hotel, here is your answer: She is my wife. But it seems people are so used to seeing married men with their side-chicks at conferences that even if you introduce your wife, some people are skeptical. They would ask you the following day if she was really your wife. “Serwaa” and I are yet to get over that experience at the Volta Serene Hotel.

The writer, Manasseh Azure Awuni, is a journalist with Joy 99.7 FM. His email address is [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are his personal opinions and do not reflect, in any form or shape, those of The Multimedia Group, where he works.