Cantonments Roundabout

There sure are a few mature trees falling in our neighborhood lately.

On the way home from running errands, I snapped this photo above of Cantonments Roundabout (a.k.a. Togo Circle). It is a series of four photos weaved together digitally for the panorama affect. Kinda cool...except for all the missing trees.

I stopped along the opposite side of the circle to ask a man if he knew what why the trees were being removed. (He is a bit of a road-side artisan cleverly making little objects out of junk, wire and garbage.) He explained that a statue or fountain will be installed - a former governor named Offriotta (sp?) perhaps. He assumes that the trees were maybe even planted by this same person when he lived nearby. Who knows...

When I commented that the trees looked very old, he guessed at least one hundred years old. Perhaps he is right. The tree in the center mostly obscured by stumps is quite large. I stopped counting rings on one stump when I got to 80.

In any case, he clearly had a stong opinion about the trees being removed, attributing some of Accra's water management problems to the lack of trees. Makes perfect sense to me.

In fact Togo Circle probably functioned better as a traffic circle than a true park. Certainly not an urban refuge. The trees were a nice touch though in a city lacking parks and cluttered with billboards.

The image above shows Togo Circle before the cutting.