A weekend durbar

Another weekend gone, how time flies...

The highlight of this last weekend was going to a durbar on Saturday in Volta Region in the town of Dzodze. I went with a bunch of international students from my drumming class which is the drumming class for foreign students. Our teacher Johnson invited us, and the durbar was held in his home town. He is by far my favorite teacher for he is so passionate about drumming and dancing and he is always smiling. He has been teaching drumming here at Legon for 32 years! The durbar was definitely a most interesting cultural experience.

We took chartered tro-tros to get there and it took a good two and half to three hours, but the ride there at least wasn't too bad. The ride back started off very bumpy and swervy as the driver avoided potholes and who knows what else, and I felt quite nauseous. At that point I also was somewhat dehydrated which couldn't have helped, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Dzodze wasn't a very big town, and when we arrived we were welcomed in what I believe was the compound of Johnson's family, at least he introduced us to two of his sisters, one of whom was the priestess in the nearby shrine. After the durbar we got to go into the shrine, but as nobody explained anythings significance to us, it was rather anti-climatic. STill, when we arrived, they greated us the traditional way, shaking hands with everyone from right to left(it is bad manners to start on the left) and giving us Akepetchie which is the local alcohol and quite strong. Before serving the drink to people though, it is tradition to pour a small amount on the ground as libation to the gods and ancestors.

Then, shortly after that, we were led to where a grand procession was gathered to head to the durbar ground. The chief was there carried in a seat on the heads of four men as the chiefs were carried at the festival at Cape Coast, although here there was only one chief. He looked very regal, and before him were a group of dignified men, walking, who were probably elders for they too wore elaborate head ornaments and carried some ceremonial staffs. In front of these was a group of dancing girls wearing beads on their wrists and ankles and having chalk designs painted on their arms and legs. Then finally in front of these was a small musical troop who set the mood and tempo for the procession. IN addition to the formal procession there were of course a great many other people, including ourselves, who were walking or dancing along around it. Some of the older women were very active in convincing us to join their dancing which of course was quite fun. I think the best part of the afternoon was by far the procession because it had such energy to it, even if one is never quite sure what is going on or the importance of different ceremonial actions.

Eventually the procession came to the durbar ground which is just a field surrounded by chairs and standing room, we got to sit and were soon surrounded by a group of children who entertained and were entertained by us, and I think severely annoyed the older Ghanaians sitting around us. The rest of the afternoon consisted of speeches, predominantly in Ewe the major language of Volta region, music and dancing. At one point we got to dance, which was fun and probably entertained the Ghanaians. I had thought we might also drum, but for whatever reason, we ended up not. The festival was at least in part about palm trees, which grow in abundance in the Volta region and around Dzodze and produce a certain degree of economic return from goods such as palm oil. So some of the ceremonial dancers and most of the cermonial aspects had to do with palm branches. Again there were some dignitaries who poured libation to the gods and ancestors, but the ceremony also started with a Christian prayer... it is interesting to see how the traditional beliefs and Christian beliefs mix(and probably in the north where there are more Muslims, traditional beliefs and Islam mix).

There was one speaker, a government official of some sort, who spoke in English, and he spoke about the theme which was the social development of the region. He spoke of goals laid down the year before, like dormitories at the secondary school and more access to electricity, and of how some had been accomplished while others remained to be more fully realized. He thanked Ghana, president Kuofor, and also urged for peace in the upcoming elections and that no quarrels might break out. I think that is the prayer and hope of every Ghanaian.

While for much of the day I was not exactly sure what was going on, I really enjoyed going, and it was a great opportunity to be a fly on the wall of something so special and yet common to Ghana(special in that it was a big deal, and yet common because I imagined it followed the standard form for durbars) Also, without our teachers invitation, it is probably the sort of thing I would not or could not have done on my own, at least without being some how an intruder. AS JOhnsons guests though, we had a place, and I am sure he had to ask the chiefs permission for us to be there.

Anyways, thats that for now. Tomorrow is a national holiday because its the last day of Ramadan. I think its really cool that Ghana observes both Muslim and Christian holiday!

Malaria and hospitals in general...

So my big news from Ghana is that I had malaria last weekend, which didn't turn out to be half as bad as I thought it was, and I felt 100% better less than a week after getting sick. No giving blood in my near future though.

So in my experience at least(there were four or five of us who got malaria in the last week and we all had slightly different experiences) having malaria means having a very high fever, feeling achey like when one has the flu, and having diarhea which dehydrates you and is generally all around unpleasant. I got sick Thursday evening, decided to stick the night out, went to the student clinic Friday morning where a doctor asked me a few questions and agreed with my self-diagnosis, went to the hospital for lab testing and received some really hardcore drugs. Naturally I slept most of the weekend, but even by Saturday I was feeling if still slightly week 90% better. And as far as being sick, or malaria goes, it was the perfect weekend to get it because I wasn't travelling and really hadn't planned anything too big, so I was close to treatment and wasn't disappointed to miss out on anything exciting. Overall, I was pretty impressed by my experience with Ghanaian healthcare for except for the waiting, there was a lot of waiting, it seemed pretty thorough...

This week I have taken it kind of slow just to be safe, but the big activity has involved hospitals once again. This time I wasn't sick though, but rather there was a compulsory medical exam for all international students to deem if we were fit to attend university(which led to a lot of speculation of what one would do if they weren't deemed fit seeing as classes are already half-way through, and also to a lot of speculation if one refused to go would they be deported...) Anyways, rather reluctantly I went, and spent a sum total of six hours at the hospital getting really very little done. The first day they give you and x-ray and lab testing, and then the next day you have to return to pick up your results and see a physician for a medical examination which consisted of I'm not really sure... blood pressure, pulse, an eye test and a periphery examination of my x-ray and lab results... To top it all off, it turns out I didn't even have to take the examination because I had a letter from my physician back home, but even though that was what we thought, we were initially told by the doctors at the hospital and our program head that it didn't matter... I found out that they figured it out too late, the letters did count... Ah well, I suppose it is a cultural experience of sorts in hospitals in general...

In other news, I get to go to a durbar in the eastern region this Saturday with my drumming class which should be a lot of fun and hopefully generate a more intersting blog post than this one. However, this one does sum up my life recently... malaria and hospitals in general:)

My adventures in Accra

So here is an update on my adventures of yesterday... I feel like I learned as much in four hours about Ghana as I have in the last four weeks, but that is getting ahead of myself a little.



Myself and Sarah, a girl in my program, are going to be volunteering this semester with a local NGO called Cencosad that does community empowerment and development work. Their recent focus has been on educating about reproductive rights in Ga Meshie, a very high density area part of the city. It could probably be classified as a slum, and the people's whole lives take place in the very crowded area. Yesterday was our first day on the job so to speak, although I confess while I feel I learned a lot about Accra and Ghana, I don't actually know what our exact responsibilities with the organization will be.



The head of the project we will be working with is a graduate student here at the university, so we were able to meet up with him on campus and bum a ride down to the office(otherwise, like on the return trip, it is a good hour's tro-tro ride). Nii, the project head, is also the most chatty Ghanaian I've met yet, and I think the whole time we were with him conversation was kept up. He asked us some questions, but also he had a lot to tell us about Ghana, Cencosad, the Ga people(which is the ethnic group of Accra and who speak a different language than Twi... go figure...).

Some highlights from the general conversation is that he does not think the election this December will be fair and sees Ghana as still having a lot of corruption... political campaign signs are everywhere but the general concensus among other students seems to be that they don't know who they are voting for... most people who have said clearly want the main opposition party as opposed to the ruling party, but the reason they give is that the NPP had their chance and a change is needed... we use that line in the US, but it doesn't always mean change will really come, but I guess hope is a fundamental element of democracy... He also talked some about NGOs and how some are there to actually work and some are what he called brief-case NGOs, there for the money...

At the office we got to read the quarterly reports and see what reproductive right education actually meant on the ground. Cencosad tries and reach as many people in the Ga Meshie community as they can through dramatization, education including peer education in the schools, and sensitization of local leaders... it is definitely a project still very much underway, and from some statistics we were given, a very much needed one... there is a lot of common misconceptions and sometimes the message they teach is as simple as it is ok to say no to sex...

From the office we were given a grand walking tour of the neighborhood which was incredibly educational and eye-opening. Ga Meshie probably isn't that much poorer than a lot of neighborhoods in Accra, but it is so very dense that it definitely strikes one. There is a lot of unemployment, and one of the main economic activities is fishing which is a dieing industry as the fish supplies become increasingly more scarce and as trawlers take the place of the local canoes... the human cost of efficiency... traditionally the men fished and the women smoked it and sold it... We got to talk with one of the fishers, although Nii had to translate, and it doesn't sound like an especially easy livelihood at all...

Another aspect of this small area was the remnants of the slave trade, for there was both James Fort and Usher Fort which had been used in that evil trade, and one of the markets, Sengal, still bares the name given it after the people brought down from the north and sold there... The area used to contain both the Dutch and the British Accra, but again only remnants remain, like how the London market which used to be where the Europeans shopped is now a meat market(and the amount of flies upon the meat there, including the head and tail and other odd parts of bulls was slightly nauseating...).

It was hot, we got slightly dehydrated, but soaked it all up. This probably only captures part of what I learned, for I feel there was more, but clear thoughts allude me... I do think though that whatever we do end up doing there will be invaluable, and I only hope we bring to Cencosad as much as I imagine we will take away from it.

My weekend in Kumasi...

I wrote a lot about my weekend in Kumasi in my journal, so for this blog entry I will just type up some inserts from my time. It was definitely a good and rewarding weekend...

We left campus Friday morning, very much on time(which is remarkable) packed like sardines in a van too small to hold us all. Auntie Theresa, our program head, promised to get another van and come with the last few people shortly... As it was, I was in the first van sharing with my bag the very little room sitting on a wheel seat afforded. We tried to sleep on the drive, tried because the roads are so bumpy(in addition to questionable road quality, there is a remarkable number of speed bumps).
It was getting late in the afternoon when we finally reached KUmasi, home acocrding to my guidebook to 1 million people and to the Ashanti kingdom. In many ways it resembles Accra except for perhaps not so toxic. First we went to teh Ashanti palace museum which although perhaps not the most exciting guided tour was interesting on that prior to it, I knew very little about the kingdom. The current king I believe is the seventeenth, and the crown is passed down through the maternal line; moreover, a queen mother(not inherently the mother of the king; sometimes instead being grandmother, sister, aunt, niece of the king...). The current queen mother is over a hundred years old.
The Ashanti fought several wars with the British during the early years of colonialism, refusing to be humiliated. One such campaign was led by the queen mother when the king was imprisoned at Elmina castle. Incidentally, Mavis, a girl at Peace and Love orphanage, told me that story the other day, at least of sorts... She told me how the white men came, took all the gold and killed the people and then they came and took the children and killed the people but then a girl(she was actually quite old at the time and queen mother) took and hid the ceremonial gold stool and led a resitence which saw Kumasi besieged and eventually the palace sacked. I had not been sure what to believe about what Mavis tole me(some of her other tales of her own personal narrative I suspected being as much projected hope as reality). At her telling, of how the white men came and killed, I could not help being self-conscious of my skin...
At one point, the AShanti ruled almost all of present day Ghana spilling into Togo and Cote D'Ivoire. ONe line that stuck out was 'the Ashanti are a peace-loving people, so they are always ready to go to war'... Not exactly the best mode of peacemaking in my view. Still, overall the museum gave a good sense of what it means to be Ashanti, and as the Ashanti tend to be proud of who they are, that is a good thing to know. And that was only Friday...

We stayed at a guest house at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology which was very nice, especially because we had our first hot showers in a month... perhaps we got more excitement out of that then is quite rational...

Saturday was a very full day as well as we went to three different craft villages(a kente cloth one, a cloth dying one and a wood carving one) where we got to see how things were made and were encouraged to spend our money. This weekend definitely had a shopping component too it, and especially in the villages one had the sense that the villagers viewed as rather like walking pocket books, and vendors here can be ruthless. My favorite line was ' and after we negotiate the price we can talk about marriage'. I shot that guy down a little, pulling in my imaginary fiance as leverage... he is very convenient to keep around... It was interesting to note at the villages though it was the men who did the most skilled artisan work. There are definitely gender rolls here, like only men can be fishermen.
We got to go to the market in Kumasi(the name is elluding me and I don't know how to spell it) which is supposed to be the biggest in Ghana and perhaps in West Africa. It was definitely big... At markets I feel much less like a walking pocket book and generally just in the way... Some people hiss to get your attention, but mostly because we are Oburuni's...
Inevitably on our whole program weekend trips a bus full of Oburinis even driving attracts a lot of attention, especially with the children who greet the sight of us with excitement; waving, chasing the bus even , and loud and happy shouts of Oburuni, Oburuni. We stopped at the market again briefly Sunday morning and got thoroughly lost with one of our Ghanaian student guides; we had absolutely no idea how to get back to the van...

I apologize for how long and rather unedited this blog entry is, but the internet is really slow today and I am almost out of paid time... Look for my next blog entry which is all about today's educational adventures where I feel like I learned as much in four hours about Ghana as I did over the last four weeks, but like I said, I am running out of time and my typing fingers are getting cramped...

A month

I have been here a month today... it seems both longer and shorter looking back... it feels as though we only just arrived but also as though we have been here forever... One thing is true without a doubt, I have grown very comfortable being here. I remember the first week being nervous about everything, and now I am quite confident.

This week especially seems to have disappeared. I suppose it is only Thursday, but we leave at 9 tomorrow morning to go to Kumasi a city in the central region. It is the capital of African crafts and home of the biggest market in West Africa. It is also the capital of the Ashanti empire in its day. I think it promises to be a very good weekend.

This week was taken up with classes and volunteering... Like I said, I started at the orphanage and hope to go again this afternoon(and need to leave soon so this entry will be pretty short...). I hope to volunteer one or two afternoons a week as I am able. Yesterday I went and checked out Cencosad a local NGO that does community empowerment and development work. I hope to as I am able again to volunteer there. We met with the lady in charge, and this morning I met with the man in charge of one program(he is a graduate student here on campus, and hopefully I will be able to catch rides with him when I go down...). I am not sure exactly what I will be doing, or how well my schedule will fit, but I am excited about that prospect as well.

We drove to check out Cencosad yesterday, and if I haven't already mentioned it, let me digress on the phenomena of driving in Accra. While stopped at lights, vehicles are hoarded by sellers carryin there wares often on their heads or in their hands, anything from food to odd commodities like a bathroom scale, screwdrivers or even yesterday I saw a puppy. Some young men will wash your windows hoping to get paid(we were warned that if the windows are open, they are also prone to snatch one's purse and run away). And along so many roads people have their wares set up along the road... everything from food again to racks and racks of suit coats, purses, shoes, really anything one can imagine... and then you will drive by a place where there are people lined up on the ground in rows taking an afternoon siesta. It is not uncommon to come accross people napping wherever you go because often the same person will be at a store or market all day for near on 12 plus hours, so it makes sense that at some point they would rest...

p.s. this didn't post last Thursday when I wanted it to, so here is a second try.... a bit late...

the computer ate my blog entry...

So I feel compelled to start this blog entry with a lament... on Sunday I had nearly completed an excellent update when the power in my hostel was cut off and I lost my nearly completed entry... it made me sad... the power only was off like two minutes too... I mean, if the power is going to crash and make me lose my work, it might at least be an actual glorified blackout... I'm just kidding about that last one because I really was glad that the lights came back on...

Let that also serve as an excuse if this update is less excellent than it should be... So like I mentioned in my last entry, Saturday we headed to Cape Coast to see the tail end of their week long festival. It was a good seven hour drive to be in Cape Coast for four hours(one of which consisted of waiting for our lunch at a very slow restaurant...). It was totally worth it though because festivals are fun, and this one was no different. Granted, it was also very hot and crowded, but the parade was what really sealed the deal for a good day. The parade was more a procession really of all the chiefs(probably Fante chiefs because Cape Coast is a Fante region) and they were all decked out in their traditional attire and were being carried in these fancy seats above the crowd. They looked very royal and regal and I got some very good pictures. It definitely spoke of a different side of Africa than the designer clothes and American music that one finds on the streets... a little less westernized... The chiefs aren't just symbolic rulers of bygone days though; apparently they still maintain power as regional leaders in the government.
I went to church Sunday which was fun; I got to sing in a mix of English and Twi... I really like singing praise songs in different languages...

Yesterday, Monday that is, I started volunteering. I am going to be volunteering at a local orphanage about half an hour away by tro-tro. The orphanage seems quite well run and the kids I got to play with all seemed pretty happy. There are about sixty kids, and the big ones help look after the little ones and the hired help seemed very attentive and there is a pretty steady stream of volunteers who go in and out all week... I plan on going at least afternoons a week...

That's that for now:)

Maakye(goodmorning),

Another week down... time is going by very quickly here...

It's Friday morning and I was supposed to be on a bus headed to northern Ghana right now, but the bus broke down so this weekend will be a more local one and we will head north in October instead. I don't really mind because had we gone we would have traveled three weeks in a row(we have another trip to Kumasi next weekend) and that was a bit much. Also, they say that there is a higher chance of seeing elephants in October than September up north, and we all are hoping on elephants.

Plans for the weekend currently include going to a Karoake bar for somebodies birthday tonight, going back to Cape Coast tomorrow for a festival happening there, and hopefully going to church Sunday morning. I have yet to go to church and am hoping it is more encouraging than the frequent evangelists who come into class before the lecturers arrive and preach fire and brimstone at us... religion is everywhere in Ghana in a way we Americans are not used to so used to instead the highly political dance of separation of church and state that America practices... Taxis and tro-tros carry religious messages on their windows, shops have names like God is good fruit stand and on Sunday the world largely shuts down as stores close so their owners can attend church...

This afternoon I am going to the market with friends which is always fun. Medina, located fairly close to our campus, is the second biggest market in Accra(I believe). I have yet to go to Markola which is the biggest, but Medina is an experience in itself. It sprawls over blocks and blocks and carries everything from electrical appliances to shoes and all sorts of food from the stalls with packaged everything to the produce and fish vendors with their wares piled high in cascading towers. One of my favorite things to see are the snails(apparently people eat them) but they are in the market still alive and easily the size of my fist. I don't generally buy food there because there is a little market, we call it the Night Market because it is open late into the night(a girl said until midnight or one) just by our hostels and it is by far the best place to eat, or at least the cheapest, on campus. I can get rice, sauce, cabbage stew and fried plantains all for less than a cedi(about the equivalent of an American dollar) and it definitely fills you up. Medina though is the place to go when you want to get off campus and is a good place to buy fabrics. Ghana has beautiful fabrics and it is relatively inexpensive to buy some and then have a seamstress sew something for you; I got a dress made the other day... Medina is also the place to go for pots and silverware or radios; I bought a radio the other day and can now listen to the BBC world news and don't feel nearly so cut off from the rest of the world.

Well, I have probably rambled on enough for one post and will save some random reflections for the next one... I would say goodbye in Twi, but I don't remember how:)

My weekend in Cape Coast

It is Monday today so back to class, but this past weekend my program went on a trip to Cape Coast which is three hours away from Accra... Overall, it was a very fun experience...

We left Saturday morning and the first thing we did in Cape Coast was to go to Kakum National Park which is a rainforest. The main attraction there is a canopied walkway of swinging bridges high over the forest floor. The place was mobbed which was trying at times(one thing Ghanaians do not do well is wait in line). It was beautiful though and very cool to get to look down and see the rainforest spread out beneath you. We didn't see any animals(I heard they only come out at night) but this next weekend we are going to northern Ghana and will go to Mole National Park where I have heard we get to hike in and see elephants... very exciting...

We stayed in a sweet resort on the beach and got to play and hangout Saturday evening(college students are still quite good at playing...)

Then Sunday morning we had the more sobering experience of going to Elmina Castle which is a UNESCO world heritage site and I believe the oldest castle in Africa built in the 1400s by the Portugese, taken over by the Dutch, the British and finally with independence the Ghanaians. It was the last place many people were taken before being boarded onto ships and taken to the New World in what our guide called the Evil Trade, slavery. Our tour was deeply moving, the conditions there during the evil trade were awful, the Europeans treated the Africans worse than one would treat animals for where one will clean an animals stall, the slaves were left to waste away in their own filth... Only the strong survived to be boarded on ships and face the awful conditions of the Middle Passage... Our guide was right, it truly was an evil trade, and while some may say that slavery existed in Africa before the arrival of Europeans it was not that type of slavery but a slavery where the slave was treated with dignity and it is said that it was hard to tell who was a freeman and who was a slave... the slavery imposed by Europeans is a unique kind of evil...

On a happier note, we started our Twi langauge class last week so we will hopefully be able to communicate a little better with people we meet on the street in their own language. It is interesting to be in a country where the official language is English, a legacy from colonial days, but where that is nobodies first language. I believe there are around 70 different languages spoken in Ghana although Twi is the biggest especially in the Accra region. All I remember from the other nights class though is medi emo which means I eat rice, and as far as phrases go, that is a good one because it is very true and we eat rice every day...