The Nakore Mosque sits in the village of Nakore, a short ride southwest of Wa, and represents the Sudanese mud-brick tradition at its most purely architectural. The building's tapered buttresses rise like organic fingers from the ground, and the wooden toron poles jutting from the walls serve both as handholds for annual replastering and as a visual signature of the style that links this corner of Ghana to the great mosques of Mali and Burkina Faso.
This is a working mosque, not a museum, and should be visited with that in mind — respectful dress, no entry during prayer times, ask permission before photographing the interior. The village itself is quiet and the walk around the mosque compound takes only a few minutes, but the building rewards careful attention. Look at how the walls taper and thicken near the base, how the wooden beams anchor the mud against the elements. It is a construction technique that has been refined over centuries without recourse to concrete or steel.