- Title: GHANA: PAA JOE - GHANA'S DESIGNER COFFIN GURU.
- Date: 24th January 1996
- Summary: ACCRA, GHANA (RECENT) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. TRACK/GV: DESIGNER COFFINS IN WORKSHOP (2 SHOTS) 0.21 2. MV: COFFIN DESIGNER PAA JOE WITH VISITOR 0.26 3. MV/MCU: CHICKEN, CAR AND FISH COFFINS (4 SHOTS) 0.43 4. MCU: PAA JOE SPEAKING ABOUT COFFINS (ENGLISH) 0.57 5. GV: RELATIVE VISITING WORKSHOP 1.06 6. MCU: RELATIVE ASKING FOR COFFIN FOR HIS CHIEF (3 SHOTS) 1.28 7. MV: PAA JOE AT WORK ON COFFIN 1.34 8. MCU: PAA JOE TALKING TO RELATIVE ABOUT PRICES (2 SHOTS) 1.50 9. MV: PAA JOE AT WORK (2 SHOTS) 1.58 10. MV/MCU: APPRENTICES WORKING ON COFFINS (5 SHOTS) 2.16 11. MV/MCU: TOURISTS LOOKING AT COFFINS (5 SHOTS) 2.41 12. MCU: TOURIST SAYING COFFINS ARE BEAUTIFUL (ENGLISH) 2.49 13. MV/MCU: PAA JOE LOOKING AT PHOTOGRAPHS OF PREVIOUS DESIGNS, INCLUDING MERCEDES-BENZ & AIR CANADA AIRCRAFT (8 SHOTS) 3.24 14. MCU: PAA JOE SAYING HE WOULD LIKE TO BE BURIED IN COFFIN SHAPED LIKE HIS TOOLS (ENGLISH) 3.45 15. MV/MCU: PAA JOE POLISHING CASKET (3 SHOTS) 3.58 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
- Embargoed: 8th February 1996 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: ACCRA, GHANA
- City:
- Country: AFRICA Ghana
- Reuters ID: LVADN5TDD71FSGT7XOF5U6LZ7OTV
- Story Text: INTRO: They're hand-crafted and colourful; a work of art.
But would you want to be buried in one? That's the question you might have to answer when visiting Ghana's designer-coffin guru, Paa Joe.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- These are the works of one of Ghana's master craftsmen. His reputation stretches across the country and beyond. His clients are prepared to spend up to a year's salary to secure one of his creations.
But the irony is that these works of art are destined to end up two metres underground. Paa Joe is in the coffin business.
For the past 19 years he's seen fishermen, businessmen and farmers to their final resting place - encased in the tools or symbols of their trade. From fish to chicken, Paa Joe has made them all. No request is beyond his skills.
His customers are prepared to travel hundreds of kilometres to secure his services.
The average designer coffin takes up to three weeks to complete. But Paa Joe says in some special circumstances he can finish the work in three days.
Paa Joe learned his skills from Kane Kwei, the first carpenter to create designer coffins. Today he works with a number of apprentices to ensure his skills are passed on. These men work up to 18 hours a day. Their labour is unpaid, but the reward is a training that will some day enable them to set up their own business.
All aspire to Paa Joe's success. His reputation has attracted customers from far and wide. He exports designer coffins to America, where they are used in exhibitions rather than burials. At some 1200 U.S. dollars a casket, its a lucrative business.
The international interest in his work often brings the curious to his workshop just outside the Ghanaian capital, Accra.
Over the years he's been in business, Paa Joe has made an amazing array of coffins. One businessman was buried in his favourite status symbol - a Mercedes Benz.
The use of designer coffins is practised mainly among those of the animist religion. However comic the coffin may seem, its serious business for the bereaved, and many will plunge themselves into debt to secure a Paa Joe casket.
Many Christian preachers have banned the designer coffins. They claim a burial service which involves a giant onion or a chicken makes a mockery of a dignified occasion.
But Paa Joe need not worry. His main problem is keeping pace with demand. And when his time comes, he wants to be buried in a coffin designed in the shape of one of his tools - a saw or a plane or a hammer.
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