Mimi and Avra Take Ghana: Part 2

This is going to be a long one..

After giving mom one day of down time on Monday, we woke up at 2:45 am to get a cab to the STC station to get a 4 am bus to Kumasi! We took a taxi to Race Course, one of the like 8 tro-tro stations in Kumasi, named Race Course cause it used to be where the horses raced until they were all killed… random. We got a tro-tro to Sefwi Wiawso where we met up with Ben, one of the Jews who took us to meet his brother, Joseph, who’s the head of community relations/guest something or other.. We took a tour of the village with his daughter, Sarah, who was 13 and getting ready to prepare for her Bat Mitzvah. She took us to meet other Jewish families in the community, we gave out lollypops to all the kids (total success) and finally ended up at the synagogue. Surreal. It was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I was practically in tears. It was small and simple, a little square building with a door on each side and at the back. There were rows of benches and a few bookcases with siddurim, story books, and other Jewish literature. They had a small ark with a mini torah in it. The Jews of Sefwi Wiawso can’t read Hebrew, only recite it, but some of the children had been learning with a rabbi-in-training who came to live in the village with his wife for a few months. It started to rain when we were in the shul so Sarah read us her favorite story, Purim, and told us all about how they celebrated and how she got to be Queen Ester. The rain stopped and we headed back. We ate yummy rice and stew with an egg and then played spa (THE card game of Ghana) with Rachel, the cutest, smartest 7 year old I’ve ever met (one of Sarah’s sisters). Albert (Rachel and Sarah’s brother) and his friend Joseph came and played spa for a while and mom and I tried Rebecca’s (Rachel and Sarah and Albert’s sister) fufu and palm nut soup. Yum. Then, mom and I bucket showered (we were in the middle of NO WHERE) and then all of the little kids (Sarah, Rachel, Joseph (a different one), Joseph, and Kwabena) came into our room to play with us. Sarah figured out how to use my camera in about two seconds flat and took tons of pictures. They all loved looking at the pictures of Kwame Nkrumah’s grave and memorial which was intense. I think we went to sleep at like 8:30.

Wednesday morning we woke up to catch a bus back to Kumasi. We rented a taxi for the day so we could go to all of the villages we wanted to visit. Our driver, Andrews, was nice but didn’t speak too much English so we were a little nervous. We headed North-East of Kumasi to Wonoo to see Kente cloth being woven. We found a little “worker’s guild” where we were bombarded with the weavers trying to sell us stuff and trying to charge us for taking pictures and for looking at them weave- in the end, we bought a lot of kente and Andrews helped us to bargain and swept us out of there when the guys tried to hassle us more. Then we headed back towards Kumasi to Ntonso to see Adinkra stamping/printing and weaving. Peter, the head of the community, was trained by his father and is now in charge of the little venture they have going. He showed us how the ink is made and let us try stamping it ourselves. Adinkra are symbols with meanings behind them- google them- there’s too many to talk about and they all have awesome little stories. We printed our own cloth and then he showed us how to weave kente. I got to weave for a while which was so cool! I wanted to sit there forever. After that he showed us how to screen print, which I had never done so I got to try that too. We bought some nice strips of Adinkra prints and kente. It was the best part of the afternoon. After that we tried to find a wood carving village and a pottery village but it was sort of a bust so we went back to Kumasi to the cultural center. In Kumasi there’s this whole little walled off area where there’s a museum, some craftsmen/women, a concert venue, and other sorts of community spaces. We went to the museum where our guide, Martha, gave us the best tour ever. We learned so much about the Ashanti region and their kings. Ghana has such a rich history which is still continuing today. There is an Asantehene (King of Ashanti) today who lives in a palace in Kumasi. They had tons of old jewelry (all gold) and clothing- pictures of the past kings. There is a story that a golden stool ascended from Heaven for the Ashanti people that the British demanded from the Ashanti king while Ghana was a colony. The Asantehene gave them a fake golden stool which is now in the museum too. The Ashanti heritage is matrilineal and there are eight tribes. You are required to marry outside your tribe but you follow which tribe you associate with based on your mother’s tribe. Girl power. They even had this drum that they used to take into battle that you rub with a stick and it sounds like a leopard roaring to scare away the enemy. It was pretty cool. We brought Andrews with us too so he learned a little bit about his history. Then we went back to our hotel to meet up with Jenna, Tell, and her boyfriend’s parents (Mike and Pat Rice) for dinner.

Thursday=longest day of my life. Woke up for a 7 am bus to Tamale. We broke down probably 4 hours outside of Kumasi outside of a tiny village for like 4 hours waiting for a new bus and a mechanic. We sat around, talked with the villagers, tried not to dehydrate considering it was like 837589 degrees outside. A women told Tell that he should give me to her- almost had a daughter swap going on. Finally a bus came and we got off at Damongo Junction to get a ride to Mole but all of the tro-tros had already passed. We found another guy, Kwaku, who was trying to get to Mole on business and he said he called the manager about picking him up. I called the manager too and he said he would send a car for us, but we’d have to pay. Of course. We picked up these other four Danish girls who were trying to get to Mole after a long day of travel also so we said they could come with us. We waited 3 hours at this terrible place where the villagers were SO push and the kids were all over us asking for money and water and food and like would not give us an inch of breathing room and we were all SO exhausted.. but we waited for a car to come (it only takes two hours to get to Mole from where we were…) and then he tried to charge us more than what Kubi (the manager) had told us. I got into a big of an argument with him but it was dark and we were tired and cranky so we just got in. We drove two hours and got to Mole. The manager had left us a “buffet” dinner of rice and salad and chicken so we devoured it and went to bed. On our way back to our room we saw a TON of kob (antelope) sitting and grazing right next to our room. Literally like 4 yards away from us if not less.

Friday. Much better. Woke up early to get a 7:30 am safari with our old guide Abu! I was so happy we found him and he recognized me and Jenna. We took a two hour walking safari- seeing tons of warthogs (Pumba!!) and kobs, even a few bush bucks and a water buck or two. We saw a lot of birds too. We went to the first watering hole but no elephants L we headed to the next one and there were elephants!! There were probably 13 or 14 and they were swimming! They started to head out of the water in the direction we were standing. We got a little panicked. They were SO big and wayyyy too close so we moved out of the way. It was surreal. I could have stood there forever. We headed back and sat by the pool for a while, rested- there were tons of monkeys all over the place stealing people’s stuff it was hilarious. We were all so dehydrated and exhausted from the day before. In the afternoon, we sat at the overlook for a few hours watching and looking through mom’s binoculars spotting tons of elephants and monkeys and crocs and bush bucks and waterbucks and cobs! It was great! Tell climbed up this awesome tree but then a storm started to blow in and we were pretty sure he was going to get stuck up there. We got him down and stood under the awning of the restaurant watching the sky change and the clouds blow in. Intense. Awesome pics (mom will put them up when she gets home!!)

Saturday, we woke up at like 3:15 to get the bus back to Tamale where we got off at Damongo Junction again and got a tro-tro to Kumasi. Driving into Kumasi was so weird cause it was such an industrial change from the north. All of the fronts of trucks and half-built buildings. They were like the city version of carcasses, unlike the animal carcasses of the North. Felt like it was a graveyard. So we got an STC bus from Kumasi to Accra and even without a lot of down time (only like 30 minutes here, 45 minutes there) the trip was still like 16 hours. Long day. We slept at Danielle’s which was nice- we slept like babies.

Today, we’ve just been relaxing, hanging out, packing mom up, doing laundry- responding to emails haha! I got into my China winter term program so that’s the next stop on my travels!! January 09. And I got this Oxfam Change Initiative Program in Boston for a week in July so I’ll be up north so if anyone is around let me know!!

Mom leaves tomorrow night L bummer. But its been awesome having her here- I needed the dose of home!! I’m getting excited about heading home and what’s coming up next but I still have a few more things to do here before I go.. more adventures to come!!