Sunday, March 22, 2009
It's been a while..
March 8th
It has been a while since I last posted, and a lot has happened since then. To start with, the Monday following my last post I started to feel sick. I woke up that morning with stomach pain, but not so bad that I couldn’t go to the hospital as usual. While watching some of the nurses and nursing students admit a baby and begin IV fluids, I began feeling dizzy, nauseas, and sweaty. This seemed to ease when I sat down so I stayed for another hour. I began feeling sick again and decided I should go home to nap. After a few hours I woke up and went to class still experiencing pain in my abdomen. I had a surprisingly small appetite that day. The rest of the day went ok, although I tried to sit and not get up and walk around much. That night I had trouble sleeping because I was so hot and I was sweating a lot. I figured that maybe I had eaten something bad and my body was trying to handle it. The next morning however, but stomach was hurting even more and I hardly felt like eating at all. That day was much like the day before and I started to think maybe something else was wrong. Many of the students in the program have gotten travelers diarrhea while here, and been admitted to the hospital because they didn’t recognize it early enough and became dehydrated. One of my friends Reem said she’d had the same kind of symptoms that I did, but I was not experiencing diarrhea so that seemed really strange. That night after writing my paper, I began to suddenly feel extremely achy. Concentrated pains were all down my spine, in my neck and lower back especially. I took some ibuprofen and went to bed early. The aches got worse and spread to my whole body before they got better. I woke up often that night sweating and aching. I spent about half an hour just lying on the bed trying to breath deeply so that I wouldn’t throw up. The next morning my stomach hurt even more, and the aches had been an indicator of flu-like symptoms. I started to think maybe I had malaria and decided to go to see the Ashesi nurse. Right in line with typical ‘Ghanaian time’, she was not in yet (although it was an hour after she was supposed to be). When I finally did get to see her that day, she also thought I had malaria and gave me Alaxin (to kill multi-resistant malaria parasites) and a Vitamin-B complex to stimulate my appetite. The program coordinators wanted me to get a blood test for their records even though the nurse said it was unnecessary. She even said the test might show a negative for the parasite since it was best for me to begin the medication right away and I wouldn’t be able to get the test until the next day. Although if you are interested you should look up more on malaria, the general facts are that it can be caused by a couple different parasitic species passed on by one specific mosquito species. The parasite multiplies in the host’s liver for anywhere between 8-20 days before it ruptures and spreads to the bloodstream causing fever and other symptoms. Usually Ghanaians don’t experience the abdominal pain because they have been infected a number of times. People say that babies usually do feel abdominal pain with infection. In the eyes of malaria I was a baby, since I had never been infected before. Once someone is infected a number of times, the symptoms are less intense at onset, though medication is still needed. Many adults will not even get a blood test or go to the hospital, they will just go to the pharmacy and get medication. By later in the day I had started to take the medication, I was already feeling better. Though the aches and sweating were back, I slept more easily that night. When I told Dedei I had malaria she brought me some chicken and rice that I ate most of (my first real meal in 3 days), though that made my stomach hurt again. I finished the medication in a week and was feeling much better, though still tired, by the weekend to go with the program to Kumasi. When I got the test back from the hospital the following week, it revealed that they could not find malaria parasites. This is what the nurse expected, since I had already begun taking the medication. They also say that sometimes antibiotics will mess up the test, and doxycycline is an antibiotic so that may have had an effect on it as well. The test did say that I had a very small titer of 1/40 p. typhi which is the bacteria that causes typhoid. The nurse said it wasn’t enough for me to worry about, and since I wasn’t feeling any symptoms from it that I would be fine.
We left early Saturday morning to go to Kumasi. Before checking into the hotel we stopped at the market. I forget the name of the market, but I think they said it was the largest outdoor market in West Africa, or something of the like. It was immediately obvious that the people in Kumasi were a bit different than those in Accra. Although still tainted by the tourist industry in terms of trying to trick us into paying too much, they were on average much more friendly and genuine. They get very excited when you speak Twi with them. A woman I walked by said to me “Obruni, ete sen?” and I replied “Obibini, eye. Na won sue?” They find it especially funny when you counter Obruni (white person) with Obibini (black person). She laughed and took my hand, inviting me to her house for fufu and more Twi lessons. We also got a tour of the old Ashanti palace museum. The Ashanti kingdom was one of the most extensive and powerful in Ghana, and the Chief/King is still highly respected. He even has some political power, and the president tries to work with him on specific issues. He has one of the largest educational scholarship funds in Africa. The next morning we made stops at Ntonso, Bonwire (said Bon- wee- ray), and Lake Bosomtwe. Ntonso is also called the Adinkra village, because they specialize in cloth with the Ghanaian Adinkra symbols on them. Each symbol has a specific meaning, and some are used pervasively around Ghana. For example, the most popular one is called “Gye Nyame” which means, “accept god”. This symbol is on peoples’ tablecloths and curtains, billboards, and most obviously on every plastic lawn chair. They showed us how they make the stamping ‘ink’ by pounding bark and then cooking it down until it is a dark brown/red tar-like substance that they can dip the wooden stamps in. Bonwire is also known as the Kente village. Kente is a type of weaving unique to Ghana. There are pieces that are single weave, double weave, and triple weave (more expensive the higher weave it is). Ashanti Kings used to wear large sheets of Kente as a robe, and so some of the designs are named after these Kings. We each got to try our hand at weaving. The base strands are switched by pushing a foot down that is hooked on some string attached to the system. The pictures will better show this technique. From here we went to lake Bosomtwe for lunch at the hotel there. We got a short lecture from a local who told us that the lake was formed a few million years ago by a meteor. They have only one type of fish in the lake, a small tilapia. Other species that have been introduced have not survived. It is the only freshwater in Ghana where there is no chance of contracting a parasite. He also said that the name comes from a local legend. It is said that a hunter was following an antelope (twe is antelope in Twi) into the woods when the antelope leapt into the lake and disappeared. They believed this meant the antelope was a deity (bosom is deity/god in Twi). Therefore they called the lake Bosomtwe.
I have forgotten to mention a very interesting discussion we had in our Twi class early in the week. Our professor is from the Kente village Bonwire, so he was teaching us specific Twi to use in bargaining and telling us how much we should expect to pay for each type. He showed us a design that he had made for President Rawlings when he was in power. He then launched into a story about how they had been friends at one point, before Safo(our professor) had found out about some of the less honorable dealings of the president. He was a writer for a newspaper, and began writing stories about the lies Rawlings had been telling the Ghanaian public. He ended up getting arrested for this and put in jail for a couple of nights. He snuck his stories through the window to someone who brought them to the newspaper and continued to publish them. When he was released, he went back to his village in Bonwire. The police surrounded his house in Accra and took all his books from his library and burned them in an attempt to stop him from writing. He fled the country to la Cote D’Ivoire for 2 months without documents before spending 2 months in Burkina Faso. From there he moved to Nigeria for a year where he began teaching. He was still writing for local newspapers under a pen name, but no longer with a political agenda. When President Kufour came to power, Safo returned to Ghana. He said that the church had taken care of his wife while he had been away. He also said that he certainly would have been killed had he remained in the country. He still writes under a pen name, although it is probably not necessary today. He also told us that he had gone to school in Germany for education, and had decided to start a school for ‘weaker’ children. As I have talked about in my experiences with public schools here, he expressed that ‘weaker’ does not mean that they are slower or mentally handicapped. It is often a certain situation in which they start school late, or are not taught according to their learning styles. On his way back from Germany, all the supplies he had to start the school were stolen in Nigeria. He hasn’t yet been able to start this school, but he hopes that after one more semester of teaching Twi and working with his NGO, he will be able to start the school next year.
In class on Monday, Safo apologized to us for not being able to meet us in Bonwire like he had planned. He told us that he had gone on Friday, and realized that the chief had recently passed away. Someone had decided that they thought he should be the next chief (since it is the village he is from, and he is an intellectual). They ended up capturing him and wrestling him to the floor. Before they could force him into being their chief, he faked an injury and then jumped up and ran away. Needless to say, he was unable to return the following day when we were there. He said it is now safe for him to go back, since they have chosen another chief.
March 15th
After seeing lake Bosomtwe, our chartered bus driver (for the program) took us to the bus station in Kumasi, where he helped us get a bus to Accra on one of his friend’s busses. The trip was relatively comfortable since the bus was air-conditioned. On the busses and tro-tros here, there is an extra seat that flips down into the aisle when the seats behind you have filled up. Therefore, although I had an aisle seat, that wasn’t really the case. A large Ghanaian woman sat beside me and ended up falling asleep on my shoulder.
The next morning we woke up early for our mid-semester break adventure. Meg, Lily, Reem, Mike, Jake, Rachel and I had planned a week long trip to the North of Ghana with the aim of going to Mole National Park. We planned it so that the actual trip would also be an adventure, so that we weren’t just sitting on busses all the time. To begin the trip, we got a tro-tro at Tudu station to Akosombo. On our way to Akosombo (only an hour and a half long trip) we saw some babboons on the side of the road. We probably saw about 20 of them before reaching Akosombo. At Akosombo, we got a taxi to the ferry and bought our tickets for the ferry that was to leave later in the afternoon. The tickets were 7.50 each (and of course the woman did not have change for a 10 cedi note). We then asked a taxi driver to take us somewhere for lunch. He sat and ate with us and told us he would take us around before the ferry left. He took us to the market where we used the bathrooms (women’s urinals are quite the experience) and bought some bread and peanut butter for the trip. The market there was much nicer than the ones in Accra. Although some people do call out “obruni” or ask you to come look at their stuff, it was a much more friendly environment and much less of a hassle. It was smaller as well, although there was still a good selection of stuff. The things for sale were much less touristy, but all the necessities were available. Our taxi driver then took us to the resort hotel overlooking the dam in Akosombo. The dam was built in 1961 under Kwame Nkrumah. It led to the formation of (I think) the world’s largest manmade lake- the Volta. The making of the lake flooded a number of villages and they were made to push back up the banks of the lake. The lake made it so difficult for them to reach any cities for supplies, so the ferry was put in to help them maintain contact. The ferry we were on was bringing water to the villages and empty crates for them to fill with yams. It runs once a week.
After taking pictures of the dam and buying a cold drink at the hotel, we went to the ferry and waited for it to board. We ended up paying the man 20 cedis for the 7 of us and all of his services. He was very grateful as I imagine he doesn’t get too much business from the locals. The ferry was scheduled to leave at 4:00 in the afternoon, so we arrived at about 2:30 so that we could be sure to make it. Of course, we are in Ghana, so the ferry ended up leaving at 6:30 that evening (Ghanaian time). We had met a couple from the UK, and three German girls while waiting for the ferry to board and leave. Lily and I pushed our way through the line so that we could find some good seats for us on the ferry (we are the smallest). We had second class tickets, which meant that we were allowed to sleep in the dining room or on the deck. First class is considered the cabins, of which there are 2. The cabins would have been 30 cedis. Third class passengers were to sit with the crates in the cargo area of the ferry. We ended up on the top level outside, and we watched the sunset and went to bed very early. Some of us slept on the wooden benches, and others on the floor. I had brought 2 yards of kente print cloth, which turned out to be very useful for sitting/lying on, and then as a sheet when it got cool in the night. I also brought the Hawaiian travel pillow the Sweets gave us a while ago, which fit in the top of my backpack and significantly increased the comfort of my trip. The next day the ferry started to make it’s stops at various villages along the route. It made 5 or 6 stops and unloaded the water and crates. The villages were quite rural and poor (as you will see from the pictures).
It became significantly more frustrating as the trip went on. In our Africa in the International Setting course, a group had recently presented on “Africa in the Media”. One of the girls had shown a picture of a mud hut with straw roofing and said that these were the kinds of pictures that google returned when someone searched “how they live in Africa”. She was very upset about this kind of portrayal and called it inaccurate. Although in Accra, most people do not live like that, our traveling showed us the ignorance of that statement. The majority of Ghanaians live in such homes. The mud is actually more fitting for the environment as it keeps the homes cooler when there are not luxuries such as fans and air-conditioning. This observation, and the fact that Ghana is one of the most developed African countries, was upsetting. It seems like it was another example of Africans asserting the fact their pride in a way that makes them seem almost ignorant. Although clearly Africa is portrayed in a negative way more often than the good things are shown, the facts cannot be disputed. Africa contains a number of the poorest nations in the world, for someone to deny this is counter-productive to helping them reach a goal of attaining a higher standard of living.
The captain of the ferry and one of his crew members were especially friendly. They talked with us for a while about the stops the ferry makes and other stuff (it was from them I learned about how often the ferry runs, why it runs, etc). After a long trip, we arrived at our final destination Yeji at 11:00 PM the following day. The captain had told us of a hotel Anini that would have showers and other more coveted accomodations. We were very grateful for running water and flush toilets, so we weren’t upset about paying 9 cedis to sleep there for the night. The guidebook had told us that there weren’t any hotels in Yeji that had running water and showers so we had been preparing for much less. We were able to rinse out our clothing and wash our hair, so we were quite happy with that. The men from the hotel came to meet us at the ‘dock’ (beach with a ramp where the boat pulled up to, the plank holding in the cargo is long enough to reach the land and you can just walk from the boat onto the ramp). Apparently tourists often arrive on the ferry and they ended up lodging us, the Germans, and Brits, and two other Germans we hadn’t met until disembarking. We all wanted to get a tro-tro to Tamale the next day, so we decided to meet at the beach at 6 in the morning. We needed to cross the lake to the north side, so we payed some people 3 cedis to carry us across in their large fishing canoe. About 60 other Ghanaians were in the same boat as us, and we were packed in like sardines. There was no way you could sit without being in direct contact with at least 3 other people. The plank I was sitting on (lucky me to sit) was cutting off circulation to my feet, so I had to adjust slightly every so often. The women sitting behind me were talking about my piercings. They weren’t speaking in English so I only gathered as much because she looked at me and was pointing to her nose and ears and then to me. I noticed that one of them had a tattoo of some writing I couldn’t understand on her forearm, and I pointed to hers and showed her mine. She thought that was funny too.
When we made it to the other side of the lake, the canoe was unable to pull up onto the beach because of its size. People from the village (Makanga) came out to meet us and helped catch various items so that we could jump out of the boat into the water. After handing off my shoes and backback, I also jumped from the boat into the almost knee-deep water before reaching the shore. We then got a tro-tro that said they could take us to Tamale. A couple other Ghanaians (besides the various Europeans we had met) made the trip with us. We each payed 5 cedis for the 4 hour journey. We passed through a few villages on our way to Tamale where we added people one-by one into the tro-tro. Although we were pretty stuffed in, and it was uncomfortable and hot to keep adding people, the tro-tro was most likely the only one passing through the towns that day. It would have been cruel to turn people away. It ended up that some people sat on the roof of the tro-tro so that room could be made for two women with babies. Some of the villages we passed through were really interesting. At each village, people would come to the windows with various snacks. Some of the people had very intricate hair styles with wraps and braids etc. Some of them also had a number of piercings (in their noses and ears) and other jewelry. Tattoos were also much more abundant than anything we’ve seen around Accra or in Kumasi. A number of women had tattoos on their faces on their cheek bones outside of their eyes. One woman had extensive tattoos down her neck and chest that looked like they were mimicking her veins. We learned later that these people came either from Burkina Faso or Niger to the north. Those kinds of styles aren’t particularly Ghanaian.
Once we reached Tamale we went to the bus station to try and buy tickets for the 2:00 bus to Mole. We found out that the bus tickets were sold out, and tried to see if we could get a tro-tro instead. The driver wanted to charge us 150 cedis, so that was a definite no. They said that the road was so bad, he had to charge that much because of what it will do to his tro-tro. The bus was going to be 3 cedis, so if necessary we could have stayed the night in Tamale and made the trip the following day. We ended up running into a man who was a tourist employee in Larabanga (the town outside of Mole where we were planning to spend the night). He fought his way for us when the bus arrived, and convinced the bus driver to let all twelve of us (5 Germans, and our 7) stand on the bus (a 2-3 hour trip). We got on the bus and began driving. For the first half hour, the road was paved and standing wasn’t so horrible for me in the back of the bus. Rachel and Meg were in the front of the bus being pecked by chickens. The road began to turn to dirt then, and the typical ‘ridges’ were obvious. For some reason, on the dirt roads in this country it is typical that there are horizontal ridges all along the road. This makes for a constant vibration when you are lucky enough to be in a vehicle. The people near me were joking with me that it was like getting a massage (maybe for them, since they were seated). After about an hour and a half of that a man behind me allowed me to sit where he had been sitting, on his tire (which they spell tyre) cargo by the back door of the bus. The bus began to make stops to let people off at this point, and many women with children had to pass me to get out. They would hand the baby to their neighbor before passing me on the way out. The neighbor would then pass the baby to me, and I would hand the baby off again to the mother waiting outside the bus.
At one such stop, another bus pulled in next to us, and our friends Carly and Erin got off and got on our bus. They had also planned to go to Mole, but had gone up the west side of Ghana through Sunyani. The bus stopped about 20 minutes later (after we all finally had seats) in Larabanga and we got off there to stay the night. We had planned to stay with the Salia Brothers because the guidebook said they were the best place to stay in Larabanga. Al-Hassan met us at the bus and showed us into their guesthouse compound. His twin brother lives at their Savannah Lodge up the road. He opened a room to us so that we could leave our stuff somewhere. We planned to sleep on the roof. After settling in and talking to Al-Hassan for a bit, we walked with him to the Savannah Lodge where his brother’s wife made stew and boiled yams for us. We hung out with their kids Oussie, Adam, Samira, and ‘Monkey’ while we waited. After eating, we walked back to the guesthouse and helped Al-Hassan put our ‘matresses’ (4 inch think foam) on the roof, with a sheet over them. In the middle of the night we woke up to rain, and moved down into the rooms. The tour guide that we had met in Tamale came by the next morning with his friend Mohammad and gave us a tour of Larabanga for 2 cedis each. We were able to see the Larabanga mosque (built in the 1400s), the schools etc. On our tour we were swarmed by children, a typical experience as a white person in Ghana.
In Accra, sometimes you will see a person with a long horizontal scar on one cheek. There are also people with two vertical scars outside their eyes almost to the jaw bone. We had asked our Twi professor (Safo) about these, and he told us that sometimes parents do that when children are very young as a mark of their clan. He himself has two short scars by his mouth on one side. As a child he had convulsions, and they thought that cutting him would allow the evil spirits to leave his body. Sometimes they make cuts around the mouth and nose like cats’ whiskers if a woman had a lot of trouble keeping her children alive. In the more urban areas this is less common now because people know the real medical reasons for such things. Safo had also told us that people used to kill mentally retarded children as a common practice. It was thought that mental retardation was an indicator that a spirit snake had taken the form of a child. The men of the village would tell the women they were taking the child to the river to set the snake free. The women give food offerings for the snake to feast on. Safo found out by following these men that they would take the child to the river and kill and bury it, then eat the food themselves. When they returned to the village they would tell the women the child had eaten, turned into a snake, and swam away.
In Larabanga, the scars were much more common. About 60% of the people we saw had a short scar on their left cheek. We asked our tour guide Mohammad about these scars, and he told us that everyone in the Larabanga community had scars in the shape of a sun around their belly button. With closer inspection of the children (many of them shirtless), we saw that this was true. Mohammad showed us his, and allowed us to take pictures because his were larger than the children’s (whose were more recent in comparison). After the tour we asked Al-Hassan about renting bikes to bike to Mole (which is 6km from Larabanga). Not all of us were able to bike, because he didn’t have bikes to rent us, he had to ask around to see who had a bike they were willing to rent out for a couple days. So 5 of us were able to get bikes. My bike was called the “African Champion” and had no brakes, and only one pedal. Luckily the trip to mole wasn’t very hilly, and brakes weren’t too necessary. On the ride there, we saw more babboons cross the road ahead of us. Just a bit farther up, a large one barked at us from his perch in a tree. When we reached Mole, we went to the edge of the canyon where our motel overlooked two water holes to see an elephant bathing, and another one getting a drink. The food and lodging here was quite overpriced, as it is the only place you can stay in Mole so they can get away with charging so much.
That afternoon we took a walking safari tour. The first animals we saw were two elephants at a smaller watering hole. Another one came towards them from the left. We saw a lot of different kinds of antelope. The ones that look like deer are called Cops, or Corps (I’m not sure, I couldn’t understand our guide very well). Though my suite-mate Ashley had gone to South Africa for her break, and she said there they call them Impalas. We also saw Bushbuck and Waterbuck. There were Warthogs everywhere, even in the parking lot for the motel. We saw a group of Babboons as well, but they were too quick to get a very good picture. Guinea fowl were also pretty common (and pretty tasty as we found out later, a lot like chicken but more flavorfull). The next day we did a driving tour and saw a lot of the same animals, but no Elephants. Since they are wild animals, you just have to get lucky. We were really lucky the first day to see as many as we did so we were happy. That night we went back to the Salia Brothers. I was sitting reading and Al-Hassan was looking at the tattoo on my foot. He was saying how the Tibetan looks a lot like Arabic. He taught me how they write their vowels (as a dot or other design above or below the consonant it follows), and how to write my name. In the schools in the north, students are taught Arabic and English because the Islamic influence is so much more pervasive. In every small village, there is a mosque. The picture of the mosque (not the old famous one) is typical of the mosques there. Every time they have their prayers, the project them over the loudspeaker. The first night we stayed in Larabanga we woke up to the prayers at about 5 in the morning. He also told us a bit about his and his brothers lives. It had been hard for them to get an education, because it is less valued in the more rural areas. He also was telling me about why it was necessary for him to come to the bus to get us when we had come from Tamale. He said that sometimes the villagers in Larabanga will try to convince tourists that the Salia Brothers are full, and that they should do a homestay with them. Sometimes these people are the subjects of theft and overcharging, so Al-Hassan tries to tell them to leave, and to get to those who have made reservations with him beforehand. He had even told us to leave laundry with him during the day we were gone. He washed our clothes for us, as the dirt there is quite dry, and gets everywhere very easily. We told him we didn’t mind doing it ourselves, but he said we would never be able to wash it all out and we should just let him do it. He was one of the nicest people we met on our trip. It was really refreshing to meet people who were genuinely interested in helping us throughout the trip. It seems like the tourist/urban mentality has not reached them to the same degree as it has in the city. Al-Hassan was also telling us that often it is the people who aren’t satisfied with what they have, who move to the city. It breeds an aggressive mentality.
We got on the bus back to Mole the next morning at 4:30 and reached Tamale at about 7:30. We went to the STC bus station and bought overnight tickets to Accra for 19.50. This was the most expensive thing we had payed for the whole trip, but the bus was comparable to Greyhound, and the trip was going to be 10-12 hours long. The bus wasn’t supposed to leave until 4:00 that afternoon, so we decided to visit the market. The traditional market in Tamale was interesting because they sold fetish items, like animal skins and furs, feathers, etc. I bought some beads and fabric. We had originally planned to stay the night in Tamale, and Dedei had asked us to stay at her sister-in-law Wilhemina’s hotel (the Picorna hotel). We had decided that it would be best to just go back to Accra as soon as we could (since we had a mid-semester term paper due the next day), we planned instead to have lunch with her at the hotel. After lunch, she sent us on our way with meat pies (ew) and Tampico (tropical citrus juice, yum) for the bus ride. We had stopped at a pharmacy to get sleeping pills so that we could sleep for most of the bus ride.
Along our ride home, we stopped at a couple rest stops to use the ‘bathroom’s and get some snacks. On this trip, I began to take a liking to the hard boiled eggs some women sell. They peel them and cut them open for you and then put a salty pepper sauce between the halves. Each egg is only 25 pesewa each. Fan-choco also became a favorite of mine. Often, men with coolers on a bike, or on other wheels of some sort with travel the roads honking their horn (kind of like the ice cream man). They carry Fan-ice, Fan-yogo, and Fan-choco. The Fan-ice is like soft-serve vanilla ice cream. It is very creamy, so a lot of people like it but it is too rich for me. The Fan-yogo is a frozen yogurt (literally yogurt that has been frozen). Fan-choco is frozen/slushie chocolate milk. It is perfect when it is really hot out. Each of these ice creams comes in a closed off plastic wrapper/bag, like the sashet waters you can buy for 5 pesewa. To eat them, you have to bite off a corner, and then squeeze the contents into your mouth.
Overall, a very successful trip. It also only cost me 200 cedis (~ 140$, since the dollar has gone up again to 1.39 of 1 Ghana cedi! It’s like I’m getting richer… almost).
March 22nd
Not very much exciting has happened this week. We had class as usual. Our time here is now more than half over. We leave in less than two months. I will be sad to leave, and excited to be home. I will definitely miss Ghana, but there are things I will not miss (like being stared at everywhere I go, asked for money, being disrespected because I am a white woman, being overcharged for things etc.). I will miss the weather, my roomates, the food, the friendliness and willingness to help others and more. I’ve been thinking a lot about the reverse culture shock recently, which I think will be quite surprising. I’m going to have much less patience with people who take what they have for granted for one thing. I will also have to get used to the fact that most things are punctual and begin when they say they will, that prices are set, that water, electricity, and internet ALWAYS work, and everything is more advanced, clean, and modern.
Another thing that is obvious in Ghana is that every child is just about born dancing. It is a way that people here celebrate life, and everyone loves to do it. We went yesterday to the engagement ceremony of one of Dedei’s cousins. Although we didn’t understand most of what they were talking about, it was clear that there was a lot of thanking God, and gift giving to both sides of the family. There was a lot of singing and dancing as well. Some of the women were wearing dresses made of authentic Kente, which must have been expensive. Dedei’s (meaning first born) sisters Korkor (second born), and Kai (third born) sat with us at the ceremony because Dedei was unable to attend. They were quite friendly, but not as conscious of our ignorance of their culture and customs as Dedei is. Sometimes Korkor would speak to us in Ga, and we would just have no idea what she was saying. One time, it turned out she was telling us to open her car door for her (which may have been expected? We were unsure..). It was definitely interesting to see their traditional ceremony though because it isn’t as common anymore. Apparently they also were bargaining over the bride price. Weddings have become more Westernized with the introduction of Christianity and church weddings. They do carry out traditional ceremonies though as well, to keep expressions of their own culture.
It has been a while since I last posted, and a lot has happened since then. To start with, the Monday following my last post I started to feel sick. I woke up that morning with stomach pain, but not so bad that I couldn’t go to the hospital as usual. While watching some of the nurses and nursing students admit a baby and begin IV fluids, I began feeling dizzy, nauseas, and sweaty. This seemed to ease when I sat down so I stayed for another hour. I began feeling sick again and decided I should go home to nap. After a few hours I woke up and went to class still experiencing pain in my abdomen. I had a surprisingly small appetite that day. The rest of the day went ok, although I tried to sit and not get up and walk around much. That night I had trouble sleeping because I was so hot and I was sweating a lot. I figured that maybe I had eaten something bad and my body was trying to handle it. The next morning however, but stomach was hurting even more and I hardly felt like eating at all. That day was much like the day before and I started to think maybe something else was wrong. Many of the students in the program have gotten travelers diarrhea while here, and been admitted to the hospital because they didn’t recognize it early enough and became dehydrated. One of my friends Reem said she’d had the same kind of symptoms that I did, but I was not experiencing diarrhea so that seemed really strange. That night after writing my paper, I began to suddenly feel extremely achy. Concentrated pains were all down my spine, in my neck and lower back especially. I took some ibuprofen and went to bed early. The aches got worse and spread to my whole body before they got better. I woke up often that night sweating and aching. I spent about half an hour just lying on the bed trying to breath deeply so that I wouldn’t throw up. The next morning my stomach hurt even more, and the aches had been an indicator of flu-like symptoms. I started to think maybe I had malaria and decided to go to see the Ashesi nurse. Right in line with typical ‘Ghanaian time’, she was not in yet (although it was an hour after she was supposed to be). When I finally did get to see her that day, she also thought I had malaria and gave me Alaxin (to kill multi-resistant malaria parasites) and a Vitamin-B complex to stimulate my appetite. The program coordinators wanted me to get a blood test for their records even though the nurse said it was unnecessary. She even said the test might show a negative for the parasite since it was best for me to begin the medication right away and I wouldn’t be able to get the test until the next day. Although if you are interested you should look up more on malaria, the general facts are that it can be caused by a couple different parasitic species passed on by one specific mosquito species. The parasite multiplies in the host’s liver for anywhere between 8-20 days before it ruptures and spreads to the bloodstream causing fever and other symptoms. Usually Ghanaians don’t experience the abdominal pain because they have been infected a number of times. People say that babies usually do feel abdominal pain with infection. In the eyes of malaria I was a baby, since I had never been infected before. Once someone is infected a number of times, the symptoms are less intense at onset, though medication is still needed. Many adults will not even get a blood test or go to the hospital, they will just go to the pharmacy and get medication. By later in the day I had started to take the medication, I was already feeling better. Though the aches and sweating were back, I slept more easily that night. When I told Dedei I had malaria she brought me some chicken and rice that I ate most of (my first real meal in 3 days), though that made my stomach hurt again. I finished the medication in a week and was feeling much better, though still tired, by the weekend to go with the program to Kumasi. When I got the test back from the hospital the following week, it revealed that they could not find malaria parasites. This is what the nurse expected, since I had already begun taking the medication. They also say that sometimes antibiotics will mess up the test, and doxycycline is an antibiotic so that may have had an effect on it as well. The test did say that I had a very small titer of 1/40 p. typhi which is the bacteria that causes typhoid. The nurse said it wasn’t enough for me to worry about, and since I wasn’t feeling any symptoms from it that I would be fine.
We left early Saturday morning to go to Kumasi. Before checking into the hotel we stopped at the market. I forget the name of the market, but I think they said it was the largest outdoor market in West Africa, or something of the like. It was immediately obvious that the people in Kumasi were a bit different than those in Accra. Although still tainted by the tourist industry in terms of trying to trick us into paying too much, they were on average much more friendly and genuine. They get very excited when you speak Twi with them. A woman I walked by said to me “Obruni, ete sen?” and I replied “Obibini, eye. Na won sue?” They find it especially funny when you counter Obruni (white person) with Obibini (black person). She laughed and took my hand, inviting me to her house for fufu and more Twi lessons. We also got a tour of the old Ashanti palace museum. The Ashanti kingdom was one of the most extensive and powerful in Ghana, and the Chief/King is still highly respected. He even has some political power, and the president tries to work with him on specific issues. He has one of the largest educational scholarship funds in Africa. The next morning we made stops at Ntonso, Bonwire (said Bon- wee- ray), and Lake Bosomtwe. Ntonso is also called the Adinkra village, because they specialize in cloth with the Ghanaian Adinkra symbols on them. Each symbol has a specific meaning, and some are used pervasively around Ghana. For example, the most popular one is called “Gye Nyame” which means, “accept god”. This symbol is on peoples’ tablecloths and curtains, billboards, and most obviously on every plastic lawn chair. They showed us how they make the stamping ‘ink’ by pounding bark and then cooking it down until it is a dark brown/red tar-like substance that they can dip the wooden stamps in. Bonwire is also known as the Kente village. Kente is a type of weaving unique to Ghana. There are pieces that are single weave, double weave, and triple weave (more expensive the higher weave it is). Ashanti Kings used to wear large sheets of Kente as a robe, and so some of the designs are named after these Kings. We each got to try our hand at weaving. The base strands are switched by pushing a foot down that is hooked on some string attached to the system. The pictures will better show this technique. From here we went to lake Bosomtwe for lunch at the hotel there. We got a short lecture from a local who told us that the lake was formed a few million years ago by a meteor. They have only one type of fish in the lake, a small tilapia. Other species that have been introduced have not survived. It is the only freshwater in Ghana where there is no chance of contracting a parasite. He also said that the name comes from a local legend. It is said that a hunter was following an antelope (twe is antelope in Twi) into the woods when the antelope leapt into the lake and disappeared. They believed this meant the antelope was a deity (bosom is deity/god in Twi). Therefore they called the lake Bosomtwe.
I have forgotten to mention a very interesting discussion we had in our Twi class early in the week. Our professor is from the Kente village Bonwire, so he was teaching us specific Twi to use in bargaining and telling us how much we should expect to pay for each type. He showed us a design that he had made for President Rawlings when he was in power. He then launched into a story about how they had been friends at one point, before Safo(our professor) had found out about some of the less honorable dealings of the president. He was a writer for a newspaper, and began writing stories about the lies Rawlings had been telling the Ghanaian public. He ended up getting arrested for this and put in jail for a couple of nights. He snuck his stories through the window to someone who brought them to the newspaper and continued to publish them. When he was released, he went back to his village in Bonwire. The police surrounded his house in Accra and took all his books from his library and burned them in an attempt to stop him from writing. He fled the country to la Cote D’Ivoire for 2 months without documents before spending 2 months in Burkina Faso. From there he moved to Nigeria for a year where he began teaching. He was still writing for local newspapers under a pen name, but no longer with a political agenda. When President Kufour came to power, Safo returned to Ghana. He said that the church had taken care of his wife while he had been away. He also said that he certainly would have been killed had he remained in the country. He still writes under a pen name, although it is probably not necessary today. He also told us that he had gone to school in Germany for education, and had decided to start a school for ‘weaker’ children. As I have talked about in my experiences with public schools here, he expressed that ‘weaker’ does not mean that they are slower or mentally handicapped. It is often a certain situation in which they start school late, or are not taught according to their learning styles. On his way back from Germany, all the supplies he had to start the school were stolen in Nigeria. He hasn’t yet been able to start this school, but he hopes that after one more semester of teaching Twi and working with his NGO, he will be able to start the school next year.
In class on Monday, Safo apologized to us for not being able to meet us in Bonwire like he had planned. He told us that he had gone on Friday, and realized that the chief had recently passed away. Someone had decided that they thought he should be the next chief (since it is the village he is from, and he is an intellectual). They ended up capturing him and wrestling him to the floor. Before they could force him into being their chief, he faked an injury and then jumped up and ran away. Needless to say, he was unable to return the following day when we were there. He said it is now safe for him to go back, since they have chosen another chief.
March 15th
After seeing lake Bosomtwe, our chartered bus driver (for the program) took us to the bus station in Kumasi, where he helped us get a bus to Accra on one of his friend’s busses. The trip was relatively comfortable since the bus was air-conditioned. On the busses and tro-tros here, there is an extra seat that flips down into the aisle when the seats behind you have filled up. Therefore, although I had an aisle seat, that wasn’t really the case. A large Ghanaian woman sat beside me and ended up falling asleep on my shoulder.
The next morning we woke up early for our mid-semester break adventure. Meg, Lily, Reem, Mike, Jake, Rachel and I had planned a week long trip to the North of Ghana with the aim of going to Mole National Park. We planned it so that the actual trip would also be an adventure, so that we weren’t just sitting on busses all the time. To begin the trip, we got a tro-tro at Tudu station to Akosombo. On our way to Akosombo (only an hour and a half long trip) we saw some babboons on the side of the road. We probably saw about 20 of them before reaching Akosombo. At Akosombo, we got a taxi to the ferry and bought our tickets for the ferry that was to leave later in the afternoon. The tickets were 7.50 each (and of course the woman did not have change for a 10 cedi note). We then asked a taxi driver to take us somewhere for lunch. He sat and ate with us and told us he would take us around before the ferry left. He took us to the market where we used the bathrooms (women’s urinals are quite the experience) and bought some bread and peanut butter for the trip. The market there was much nicer than the ones in Accra. Although some people do call out “obruni” or ask you to come look at their stuff, it was a much more friendly environment and much less of a hassle. It was smaller as well, although there was still a good selection of stuff. The things for sale were much less touristy, but all the necessities were available. Our taxi driver then took us to the resort hotel overlooking the dam in Akosombo. The dam was built in 1961 under Kwame Nkrumah. It led to the formation of (I think) the world’s largest manmade lake- the Volta. The making of the lake flooded a number of villages and they were made to push back up the banks of the lake. The lake made it so difficult for them to reach any cities for supplies, so the ferry was put in to help them maintain contact. The ferry we were on was bringing water to the villages and empty crates for them to fill with yams. It runs once a week.
After taking pictures of the dam and buying a cold drink at the hotel, we went to the ferry and waited for it to board. We ended up paying the man 20 cedis for the 7 of us and all of his services. He was very grateful as I imagine he doesn’t get too much business from the locals. The ferry was scheduled to leave at 4:00 in the afternoon, so we arrived at about 2:30 so that we could be sure to make it. Of course, we are in Ghana, so the ferry ended up leaving at 6:30 that evening (Ghanaian time). We had met a couple from the UK, and three German girls while waiting for the ferry to board and leave. Lily and I pushed our way through the line so that we could find some good seats for us on the ferry (we are the smallest). We had second class tickets, which meant that we were allowed to sleep in the dining room or on the deck. First class is considered the cabins, of which there are 2. The cabins would have been 30 cedis. Third class passengers were to sit with the crates in the cargo area of the ferry. We ended up on the top level outside, and we watched the sunset and went to bed very early. Some of us slept on the wooden benches, and others on the floor. I had brought 2 yards of kente print cloth, which turned out to be very useful for sitting/lying on, and then as a sheet when it got cool in the night. I also brought the Hawaiian travel pillow the Sweets gave us a while ago, which fit in the top of my backpack and significantly increased the comfort of my trip. The next day the ferry started to make it’s stops at various villages along the route. It made 5 or 6 stops and unloaded the water and crates. The villages were quite rural and poor (as you will see from the pictures).
It became significantly more frustrating as the trip went on. In our Africa in the International Setting course, a group had recently presented on “Africa in the Media”. One of the girls had shown a picture of a mud hut with straw roofing and said that these were the kinds of pictures that google returned when someone searched “how they live in Africa”. She was very upset about this kind of portrayal and called it inaccurate. Although in Accra, most people do not live like that, our traveling showed us the ignorance of that statement. The majority of Ghanaians live in such homes. The mud is actually more fitting for the environment as it keeps the homes cooler when there are not luxuries such as fans and air-conditioning. This observation, and the fact that Ghana is one of the most developed African countries, was upsetting. It seems like it was another example of Africans asserting the fact their pride in a way that makes them seem almost ignorant. Although clearly Africa is portrayed in a negative way more often than the good things are shown, the facts cannot be disputed. Africa contains a number of the poorest nations in the world, for someone to deny this is counter-productive to helping them reach a goal of attaining a higher standard of living.
The captain of the ferry and one of his crew members were especially friendly. They talked with us for a while about the stops the ferry makes and other stuff (it was from them I learned about how often the ferry runs, why it runs, etc). After a long trip, we arrived at our final destination Yeji at 11:00 PM the following day. The captain had told us of a hotel Anini that would have showers and other more coveted accomodations. We were very grateful for running water and flush toilets, so we weren’t upset about paying 9 cedis to sleep there for the night. The guidebook had told us that there weren’t any hotels in Yeji that had running water and showers so we had been preparing for much less. We were able to rinse out our clothing and wash our hair, so we were quite happy with that. The men from the hotel came to meet us at the ‘dock’ (beach with a ramp where the boat pulled up to, the plank holding in the cargo is long enough to reach the land and you can just walk from the boat onto the ramp). Apparently tourists often arrive on the ferry and they ended up lodging us, the Germans, and Brits, and two other Germans we hadn’t met until disembarking. We all wanted to get a tro-tro to Tamale the next day, so we decided to meet at the beach at 6 in the morning. We needed to cross the lake to the north side, so we payed some people 3 cedis to carry us across in their large fishing canoe. About 60 other Ghanaians were in the same boat as us, and we were packed in like sardines. There was no way you could sit without being in direct contact with at least 3 other people. The plank I was sitting on (lucky me to sit) was cutting off circulation to my feet, so I had to adjust slightly every so often. The women sitting behind me were talking about my piercings. They weren’t speaking in English so I only gathered as much because she looked at me and was pointing to her nose and ears and then to me. I noticed that one of them had a tattoo of some writing I couldn’t understand on her forearm, and I pointed to hers and showed her mine. She thought that was funny too.
When we made it to the other side of the lake, the canoe was unable to pull up onto the beach because of its size. People from the village (Makanga) came out to meet us and helped catch various items so that we could jump out of the boat into the water. After handing off my shoes and backback, I also jumped from the boat into the almost knee-deep water before reaching the shore. We then got a tro-tro that said they could take us to Tamale. A couple other Ghanaians (besides the various Europeans we had met) made the trip with us. We each payed 5 cedis for the 4 hour journey. We passed through a few villages on our way to Tamale where we added people one-by one into the tro-tro. Although we were pretty stuffed in, and it was uncomfortable and hot to keep adding people, the tro-tro was most likely the only one passing through the towns that day. It would have been cruel to turn people away. It ended up that some people sat on the roof of the tro-tro so that room could be made for two women with babies. Some of the villages we passed through were really interesting. At each village, people would come to the windows with various snacks. Some of the people had very intricate hair styles with wraps and braids etc. Some of them also had a number of piercings (in their noses and ears) and other jewelry. Tattoos were also much more abundant than anything we’ve seen around Accra or in Kumasi. A number of women had tattoos on their faces on their cheek bones outside of their eyes. One woman had extensive tattoos down her neck and chest that looked like they were mimicking her veins. We learned later that these people came either from Burkina Faso or Niger to the north. Those kinds of styles aren’t particularly Ghanaian.
Once we reached Tamale we went to the bus station to try and buy tickets for the 2:00 bus to Mole. We found out that the bus tickets were sold out, and tried to see if we could get a tro-tro instead. The driver wanted to charge us 150 cedis, so that was a definite no. They said that the road was so bad, he had to charge that much because of what it will do to his tro-tro. The bus was going to be 3 cedis, so if necessary we could have stayed the night in Tamale and made the trip the following day. We ended up running into a man who was a tourist employee in Larabanga (the town outside of Mole where we were planning to spend the night). He fought his way for us when the bus arrived, and convinced the bus driver to let all twelve of us (5 Germans, and our 7) stand on the bus (a 2-3 hour trip). We got on the bus and began driving. For the first half hour, the road was paved and standing wasn’t so horrible for me in the back of the bus. Rachel and Meg were in the front of the bus being pecked by chickens. The road began to turn to dirt then, and the typical ‘ridges’ were obvious. For some reason, on the dirt roads in this country it is typical that there are horizontal ridges all along the road. This makes for a constant vibration when you are lucky enough to be in a vehicle. The people near me were joking with me that it was like getting a massage (maybe for them, since they were seated). After about an hour and a half of that a man behind me allowed me to sit where he had been sitting, on his tire (which they spell tyre) cargo by the back door of the bus. The bus began to make stops to let people off at this point, and many women with children had to pass me to get out. They would hand the baby to their neighbor before passing me on the way out. The neighbor would then pass the baby to me, and I would hand the baby off again to the mother waiting outside the bus.
At one such stop, another bus pulled in next to us, and our friends Carly and Erin got off and got on our bus. They had also planned to go to Mole, but had gone up the west side of Ghana through Sunyani. The bus stopped about 20 minutes later (after we all finally had seats) in Larabanga and we got off there to stay the night. We had planned to stay with the Salia Brothers because the guidebook said they were the best place to stay in Larabanga. Al-Hassan met us at the bus and showed us into their guesthouse compound. His twin brother lives at their Savannah Lodge up the road. He opened a room to us so that we could leave our stuff somewhere. We planned to sleep on the roof. After settling in and talking to Al-Hassan for a bit, we walked with him to the Savannah Lodge where his brother’s wife made stew and boiled yams for us. We hung out with their kids Oussie, Adam, Samira, and ‘Monkey’ while we waited. After eating, we walked back to the guesthouse and helped Al-Hassan put our ‘matresses’ (4 inch think foam) on the roof, with a sheet over them. In the middle of the night we woke up to rain, and moved down into the rooms. The tour guide that we had met in Tamale came by the next morning with his friend Mohammad and gave us a tour of Larabanga for 2 cedis each. We were able to see the Larabanga mosque (built in the 1400s), the schools etc. On our tour we were swarmed by children, a typical experience as a white person in Ghana.
In Accra, sometimes you will see a person with a long horizontal scar on one cheek. There are also people with two vertical scars outside their eyes almost to the jaw bone. We had asked our Twi professor (Safo) about these, and he told us that sometimes parents do that when children are very young as a mark of their clan. He himself has two short scars by his mouth on one side. As a child he had convulsions, and they thought that cutting him would allow the evil spirits to leave his body. Sometimes they make cuts around the mouth and nose like cats’ whiskers if a woman had a lot of trouble keeping her children alive. In the more urban areas this is less common now because people know the real medical reasons for such things. Safo had also told us that people used to kill mentally retarded children as a common practice. It was thought that mental retardation was an indicator that a spirit snake had taken the form of a child. The men of the village would tell the women they were taking the child to the river to set the snake free. The women give food offerings for the snake to feast on. Safo found out by following these men that they would take the child to the river and kill and bury it, then eat the food themselves. When they returned to the village they would tell the women the child had eaten, turned into a snake, and swam away.
In Larabanga, the scars were much more common. About 60% of the people we saw had a short scar on their left cheek. We asked our tour guide Mohammad about these scars, and he told us that everyone in the Larabanga community had scars in the shape of a sun around their belly button. With closer inspection of the children (many of them shirtless), we saw that this was true. Mohammad showed us his, and allowed us to take pictures because his were larger than the children’s (whose were more recent in comparison). After the tour we asked Al-Hassan about renting bikes to bike to Mole (which is 6km from Larabanga). Not all of us were able to bike, because he didn’t have bikes to rent us, he had to ask around to see who had a bike they were willing to rent out for a couple days. So 5 of us were able to get bikes. My bike was called the “African Champion” and had no brakes, and only one pedal. Luckily the trip to mole wasn’t very hilly, and brakes weren’t too necessary. On the ride there, we saw more babboons cross the road ahead of us. Just a bit farther up, a large one barked at us from his perch in a tree. When we reached Mole, we went to the edge of the canyon where our motel overlooked two water holes to see an elephant bathing, and another one getting a drink. The food and lodging here was quite overpriced, as it is the only place you can stay in Mole so they can get away with charging so much.
That afternoon we took a walking safari tour. The first animals we saw were two elephants at a smaller watering hole. Another one came towards them from the left. We saw a lot of different kinds of antelope. The ones that look like deer are called Cops, or Corps (I’m not sure, I couldn’t understand our guide very well). Though my suite-mate Ashley had gone to South Africa for her break, and she said there they call them Impalas. We also saw Bushbuck and Waterbuck. There were Warthogs everywhere, even in the parking lot for the motel. We saw a group of Babboons as well, but they were too quick to get a very good picture. Guinea fowl were also pretty common (and pretty tasty as we found out later, a lot like chicken but more flavorfull). The next day we did a driving tour and saw a lot of the same animals, but no Elephants. Since they are wild animals, you just have to get lucky. We were really lucky the first day to see as many as we did so we were happy. That night we went back to the Salia Brothers. I was sitting reading and Al-Hassan was looking at the tattoo on my foot. He was saying how the Tibetan looks a lot like Arabic. He taught me how they write their vowels (as a dot or other design above or below the consonant it follows), and how to write my name. In the schools in the north, students are taught Arabic and English because the Islamic influence is so much more pervasive. In every small village, there is a mosque. The picture of the mosque (not the old famous one) is typical of the mosques there. Every time they have their prayers, the project them over the loudspeaker. The first night we stayed in Larabanga we woke up to the prayers at about 5 in the morning. He also told us a bit about his and his brothers lives. It had been hard for them to get an education, because it is less valued in the more rural areas. He also was telling me about why it was necessary for him to come to the bus to get us when we had come from Tamale. He said that sometimes the villagers in Larabanga will try to convince tourists that the Salia Brothers are full, and that they should do a homestay with them. Sometimes these people are the subjects of theft and overcharging, so Al-Hassan tries to tell them to leave, and to get to those who have made reservations with him beforehand. He had even told us to leave laundry with him during the day we were gone. He washed our clothes for us, as the dirt there is quite dry, and gets everywhere very easily. We told him we didn’t mind doing it ourselves, but he said we would never be able to wash it all out and we should just let him do it. He was one of the nicest people we met on our trip. It was really refreshing to meet people who were genuinely interested in helping us throughout the trip. It seems like the tourist/urban mentality has not reached them to the same degree as it has in the city. Al-Hassan was also telling us that often it is the people who aren’t satisfied with what they have, who move to the city. It breeds an aggressive mentality.
We got on the bus back to Mole the next morning at 4:30 and reached Tamale at about 7:30. We went to the STC bus station and bought overnight tickets to Accra for 19.50. This was the most expensive thing we had payed for the whole trip, but the bus was comparable to Greyhound, and the trip was going to be 10-12 hours long. The bus wasn’t supposed to leave until 4:00 that afternoon, so we decided to visit the market. The traditional market in Tamale was interesting because they sold fetish items, like animal skins and furs, feathers, etc. I bought some beads and fabric. We had originally planned to stay the night in Tamale, and Dedei had asked us to stay at her sister-in-law Wilhemina’s hotel (the Picorna hotel). We had decided that it would be best to just go back to Accra as soon as we could (since we had a mid-semester term paper due the next day), we planned instead to have lunch with her at the hotel. After lunch, she sent us on our way with meat pies (ew) and Tampico (tropical citrus juice, yum) for the bus ride. We had stopped at a pharmacy to get sleeping pills so that we could sleep for most of the bus ride.
Along our ride home, we stopped at a couple rest stops to use the ‘bathroom’s and get some snacks. On this trip, I began to take a liking to the hard boiled eggs some women sell. They peel them and cut them open for you and then put a salty pepper sauce between the halves. Each egg is only 25 pesewa each. Fan-choco also became a favorite of mine. Often, men with coolers on a bike, or on other wheels of some sort with travel the roads honking their horn (kind of like the ice cream man). They carry Fan-ice, Fan-yogo, and Fan-choco. The Fan-ice is like soft-serve vanilla ice cream. It is very creamy, so a lot of people like it but it is too rich for me. The Fan-yogo is a frozen yogurt (literally yogurt that has been frozen). Fan-choco is frozen/slushie chocolate milk. It is perfect when it is really hot out. Each of these ice creams comes in a closed off plastic wrapper/bag, like the sashet waters you can buy for 5 pesewa. To eat them, you have to bite off a corner, and then squeeze the contents into your mouth.
Overall, a very successful trip. It also only cost me 200 cedis (~ 140$, since the dollar has gone up again to 1.39 of 1 Ghana cedi! It’s like I’m getting richer… almost).
March 22nd
Not very much exciting has happened this week. We had class as usual. Our time here is now more than half over. We leave in less than two months. I will be sad to leave, and excited to be home. I will definitely miss Ghana, but there are things I will not miss (like being stared at everywhere I go, asked for money, being disrespected because I am a white woman, being overcharged for things etc.). I will miss the weather, my roomates, the food, the friendliness and willingness to help others and more. I’ve been thinking a lot about the reverse culture shock recently, which I think will be quite surprising. I’m going to have much less patience with people who take what they have for granted for one thing. I will also have to get used to the fact that most things are punctual and begin when they say they will, that prices are set, that water, electricity, and internet ALWAYS work, and everything is more advanced, clean, and modern.
Another thing that is obvious in Ghana is that every child is just about born dancing. It is a way that people here celebrate life, and everyone loves to do it. We went yesterday to the engagement ceremony of one of Dedei’s cousins. Although we didn’t understand most of what they were talking about, it was clear that there was a lot of thanking God, and gift giving to both sides of the family. There was a lot of singing and dancing as well. Some of the women were wearing dresses made of authentic Kente, which must have been expensive. Dedei’s (meaning first born) sisters Korkor (second born), and Kai (third born) sat with us at the ceremony because Dedei was unable to attend. They were quite friendly, but not as conscious of our ignorance of their culture and customs as Dedei is. Sometimes Korkor would speak to us in Ga, and we would just have no idea what she was saying. One time, it turned out she was telling us to open her car door for her (which may have been expected? We were unsure..). It was definitely interesting to see their traditional ceremony though because it isn’t as common anymore. Apparently they also were bargaining over the bride price. Weddings have become more Westernized with the introduction of Christianity and church weddings. They do carry out traditional ceremonies though as well, to keep expressions of their own culture.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)