BBC NEWS | Africa | Toil and triumph at Radio Hill

Wednesday, 19 June, 2002, 15:05 GMT 16:05 UK Toil and triumph at Radio Hill
The sense of isolation was liberating for volunteers
Entering the remote Ankasa rainforest for the first time was strangely reminiscent of driving into New York.

A red earth track parts the trees and forms a straight avenue that left us looking up in wonder at the towering outgrowths on either side.

I was here to visit a remote clearing – a few hours trek into the forest – where Raleigh International was building a ranger camp to help Ghana's under-resourced Wildlife Division police the reserve more effectively.

Arriving late in the afternoon with no prospect of reaching the site before nightfall, we set up our mosquito nets with the wildlife rangers on the doorstep of a natural "architectural" wonder that would put Grand Central Station to shame – Bamboo Cathedral.

A forest path opens out on to the side of a small valley where vast bamboo plants form a nave-like chamber, pierced by shafts of light.

A river runs along the valley floor and looking along it more antechambers can be seen stretching into the distance.

Colonies of ants

It was an awesome sight and we visited twice; once in the evening and again early the next day just as the first rays of light were filtering through the canopy.

Later that morning we set off in a tractor-trailer, down a muddy track to the drop-off point from where we would hike to the building site, 14 kilometres into the forest.

Half an hour into the journey we were halted by a fallen tree blocking the track, forcing us to abandon the trailer and shoulder our rucksacks – while our porters hoisted the group's supplies on to their heads.

It was a relief when we finally left the track and branched off into the humid forest itself, out of the sun.

Here we walked in single file, led by a Wildlife Division ranger.

Several times we quickened our step as we crossed colonies of ants on the forest floor.

In the last few minutes of the walk, every huge tree seemed as if it would be the last one we'd be rounding, before we suddenly hit a slight incline, heard the sound of people working and found ourselves at Radio Hill.

Daily life

The last nine weeks have seen Raleigh's volunteers build the site up almost from scratch.

Tree roots and vegetation have been cleared using machetes and saws, timbers have been cut in a portable mill and the group of 14 has worked on everything from the floorboards to the fly screened windows.

Daily life has revolved around building work on the ranger hut and camp duties.

When there was no rainwater, all the site's water needed to be hand-pumped and filtered from a stream 10 minutes' walk away – at the bottom of a hill.

A team of four worked all day on water duty, and after a day of climbing and pumping, they valued every drop.

When rain arrived it usually came in deluges.

But the group stayed dry under tarpaulin tents and as the building developed, in the ranger hut itself.

The real bonus was that the water was collected in a tank and meant a few days off the water rota.

The main connection with the outside world was a shortwave radio set with which regular communications were held with Raleigh's field base in Accra.

Far from being restrictive, the sense of isolation was liberating for many of the volunteers.

Project manager David Morrice summed it up: "The fact that we have been so self-contained has meant that everyone who has worked on this site can look back with an incredible sense of achievement and say 'I built that'."