Last Tuesday Michael’s father, Perry, and Perry’s sister, Karen came to visit!
They stayed at the illustrious Hotel Obama, which was complete with giant, cheesy portraits of Obama and his family in the lobby. Each room had a different name. Among the room names were: 1865, Chicago, Hawaii and Biden. Perry and Karen spent Tuesday through Thursday touring various sights around Accra and of course absorbing the culture. Tuesday night we ate dinner at Monsoon, an upscale restaurant in Osu, Accra’s nightlife district. The food was delicious! Perry ordered crocodile tail, which tasted like a meaty lobster.
Friday morning Michael, Catherine, Katy and I accompanied Karen and Perry to Cape Coast. We arrived at the guest house in the early afternoon (we had air conditioning in the rooms!!) and we walked into the city to find lunch. We were directed to a restaurant next door to the Cape Coast Castle and dined overlooking the rocky ocean front. Following dinner we scrambled up the rocky ridge next to the ocean, watched waves and of course took pictures. Later that night we caught the tail end of the U 20 Ghana vs. Brazil World Cup final in the lobby of the guest house. Everyone watching the game was extremely animated and cheering wildly. Ghana upset powerhouse Brazil in penalty kicks and as soon as the winning goal was scored, the town erupted. I can only compare the noise to campus / Franklin St. when we won the national championship. We walked out of the guest house and could hear everyone in the town screaming. We decided to head into town to grab dinner and caught cabs. Immediately upon exiting the guest house, we were engulfed in a crowd of Ghanaians cheering, singing and running in the streets. Perry loved the excitement and spent a considerable amount of time hanging out of the window yelling “Obrouni Party!!” (white person party). We stopped at a bar / restaurant in the center of the city and as soon as we exited the cabs, realized we would not be eating a quiet dinner. We watched the town explode for a while, attempting to snap pictures of the madness. A girl who was about eight years old thought Katy had taken a picture of her and told Katy she would “sock her” and bore her tiny fist at us. Inside the bar, people were going crazy. Music was blaring and people waved Ghana flags and soccer balls. We stayed for a while and danced and hung out with all of the locals.
The next morning we headed to the Cape Coast Castle. The castle is an imposing structure, a white stone fortress used during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to house up to thousands of slaves, sometimes for up to a year, to be placed on ships. The tour began with an explanation of slavery in pre-colonial Africa. Prisoners of war and criminals were often taken as slaves in various villages. However, unlike the treatment of slaves in the Americas, slaves in Africa lived in the community, were able to work off their debts and often married into the community and had fairly normal lives. Later during the tour we were led into the holding cells where native Africans were kept. The dungeons were haunting and I can’t possibly imagine living in the squalid conditions. The huge cells were pitch dark with one tiny window per cell providing the only light. It was chilling thinking about all of the people who had died in the cells, and I can’t imagine the trauma experienced by those who survived. Hundreds of people were forced into each cell, left to live for months in these rooms with stone floors, hardly any light and no sanitation facilities to speak of. I know I can never imagine even a fraction of what these people went through, but even standing in the cells was an unforgettable and disturbing experience.
Post Cape Coast Castle tour we returned to the guest house to collect our things and caught cabs to Elmina, another coastal town. Elmina is a fishing town and is home to West Africa’s largest fish market. Immediately upon entering the town, the fish smell was perhaps the strongest and most repugnant smell I’ve ever experienced. The main road was stuffed with row after row of seemingly unending supplies of fish. I can only imagine how the smell of fish must permanently permeate the pores of the townspeople and how immune the locals must be to the stench. We finally arrived at the resort in the afternoon. Pulling into the resort illustrated to me how much I’ve changed since being here. The lush, manicured lawns of the resort, spacious rooms with air conditioning and clean pool seemed like luxuries reserved for celebrities. It was hard for me to believe that I could take a shower with hot water or even have an extra towel to use. Needless to say, Catherine, Katy, Michael and I were overcome with excitement at our living quarters. After settling in we reluctantly left the air conditioning and hung out poolside for a few hours. It felt great to swim in the “bath tub warm” pool water as my mother would refer to it, and to be able to walk on the beach without stepping on trash / feces. We spent the rest of the night enjoying various commodities at the resort, including the restaurant (they had mac n’ cheese and grilled cheese!!!).
The next morning we travelled to Kakum National Park to complete the canopy walk. The park was beautiful, covered in giant, ancient trees and teeming with the noises of various birds and insects. We hiked a few minutes to the beginning of the canopy walk. The canopy walk consisted of huge, swinging rope bridges suspended between huge poles over the canopy of trees. We were up so high and could see literally thousands of trees beneath us! Walking across the bridges was nerve racking, as we were literally only held up by rope, and also there was a large group of obese businessmen from South Africa shaking the bridges behind us with their weight.
On the taxi ride home from the canopy walk, I spotted a sign for an ostrich farm, and insisted to everyone that we pull over to check it out. We drove up to two pens filled with about twenty ostriches total. I’ve decided that ostriches are some of the strangest animals. We originally asked if we could ride the ostriches (apparently they ride / race them in AZ) but the owner of the farm said we would need to give him “small time to train them” before we could ride them. We instead grabbed leafy greens and fed the ostriches out of our hands. We were only separated by a small fence, and a few times I was pretty sure I was about to have my hand bitten. We took some pictures and the ostriches tried to eat Michael and I’s hair (I guess it looks like straw to them?).
When we returned to the resort, we went to check out the crocodile pond which was located about 30 yards away from the club house and contained by a holey wooden fence (so safe!). We tried to lure the crocs out with gifts of leftover chicken, but we only saw a few babies.
Later in the evening, Catherine and I watched the sun set on wooden swings situated just feet from the ocean. It was beautiful. I love the sky here. No matter what time of the day it is, the clouds and sky are a constant source of amazement for me. The clouds consistently look like giant tufts of cotton and almost close enough to touch.
Sunday morning we left early to tour the Elmina Castle, another point used to house slaves before they were loaded onto ships. The castle was similar to the Cape Coast Castle, with the addition of a “death room”, complete with skull and crossbones carved above the entrance way. The small cell was were slaves who were inciting rebellion / resisting were placed. The slaves were then left in the cell to slowly die without food or water. I can’t imagine the mindset of the European forces in charge of the castle. I suppose human rights abuses as horrible as this can never be justified or explained. It’s sometimes unbelievable what humans have been / are capable of. While we in retrospect claim that instances such as slavery and genocide will never happen again, I believe the banality of evil will always allow for normal humans to commit horrendous acts (look at Darfur!).
Another interesting point of our tour of Elmina Castle was a man from Pittsburg who was completing a return to Africa trip. After we heard the man’s story, I completely supported his cultural and spiritual journey back to the place his ancestors has been forcefully taken. However, during the tour of the castle he became increasingly rude. While touring a cell used to punish European soldiers, the man, once he heard it was for Europeans, muttered derogatory comments under his breathe, pushed past everyone in the group and the tour guide and ran out of the cell. Later, when Karen offered to take a picture of him with his camera, he told her rudely that she didn’t know him and that he wouldn’t allow her to take his picture. I’m not sure if this particular man was just naturally abrasive, but considering our surroundings, his actions came across with different implied meanings.
After touring the castle, we headed back to Legon. Along the way we saw a tro-tro stuck in one of the sewage ditches along the roads. Without tow trucks, I can only imagine how it will be removed.
Upon returning to our hostel, we learned we were again without water, but also this time without electricity. Wooo! I hadn’t even thought about this possibility. It was kind of fun using flashlights for a while, until we realized that no electricity = no fans. Boo. Luckily the electricity came back on the next day and hasn’t been off since then for more than a few hours at a time!
Anyway, sorry I’m behind on these entries. Lexi, one of my good friends from UNC came to visit on Thursday! I have things to report from this past weekend. I’ll try to do it before this weekend!!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Benin
The weekend before last we travelled though Togo to Benin!
We left campus around 12:30pm in a private car we’d chartered to take us to Lome. Upon arriving in Lome in the late afternoon, we ate again at Akeif (the delicious restaurant we discovered the previous weekend) and ate hummus, chicken chawrama and burgers. After dinner we hailed a cab to bring us across the border and into Benin. The drive took longer than we expected and we found ourselves driving in the middle of nowhere searching for a hotel to stay the night. After a few hours in the taxi, we finally found a hotel and were dropped off. The hotel was pretty sketchy, with hourly prices and a board in the lobby indicating which rooms had their “mood lights” on. Ew.
The next morning we left around 6am and headed to Ouidah. Upon arriving in Ouidah, we dropped our things at a hotel (which was way more legit than the previous one) and walked around the city. One of the best things about being in a French colonized country is the availability of cheap and delicious baguettes! They are sold on just about every street corner and are flakey and fresh. I’m fairly sure we each ate at least three baguettes that day. Our first destination in the city was the old fort used by the Portuguese in the 17-1800s. The fort had been turned into a historical museum dedicated to the arrival of the Portuguese and the slave trade. In the museum were various interesting artifacts about tribal life as well as some shocking objects used to shackle and transport slaves. Learning about the relationships between the Portuguese slave exporters and local tribal leaders was fascinating. The slave trade consisted of tribes being paid by the Portuguese to capture rival tribes to be exported.
After leaving the fort, we went to the sacred python temple. The temple is pretty nondescript from the outside, and appears to be a clearing with a few small voodoo huts in various places. We entered and paid 1000 CFA each (about 3 cedi, or $2.5) as an offering. A guide led us into the clearing and disappeared for a few minutes, bringing a medium sized python with him. He put the python around each of our necks and we took pictures. Katy and I were a little disappointed and asked the guide where the rest of the pythons were. He then led us to a larger hut and opened the door for us to look in. We peered in to see around fifty pythons covering the floor of the hut. It was wild! It looked exactly like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie! The snakes were climbing up the walls and slithering across the floor. Strangely enough, my initial reaction wasn’t one of fear, but rather one of excitement and fondness for the snakes. I think this is most likely because my sister Alex has a ball python whom everyone loves and is a very sweet snake. Don’t worry, we took plenty of pictures of us in the room.
After leaving the temple, we searched for food for a long time. We had a difficult time finding restaurants and when we would find one, they would all be out of food. Eventually we gave up and ate more baguettes. After stuffing ourselves with carbs, we headed to the sacred forest. We paid to enter the sacred forest, and then were asked to also pay for a guide and to take photos. None of us wanted to pay more, so we wandered around by ourselves and sneakily snapped photos when no one was looking. The forest was filled with the biggest trees I’ve ever seen. The trunks must have been at least 40 ft around and the span of the branches and leaves was enormous! The hippie in me wondered what stories the trees could tell and how much they’ve seen. I found myself lost in the natural beauty of the forest, wishing I could know how many generations of people had found shade under the same tree I was sitting under. Near the end of our forest visit, we were approached by a boy and a girl who were selling batik cloth and wood carvings. They looked to be around ten years old and were both adorable! They only spoke French, but we used basic French phrases to introduce ourselves. We ended up hanging out with the children for a while and the little girl taught and played hand games with me.
Later in the afternoon we walked the route des esclaves, the route slaves were marched down to be shipped in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The route was dotted with occasional statues to tribute the slaves and traditional shrines. About halfway through the route a group of about twenty school children spotted us and started chanting “Yovo, yovo!” (white person, white person). They ran up to us, amazed at our white skin and hair and accompanied us for about half a mile. During this time we were swarmed by the children who insisted on clutching our hands and speaking unknown phrases to us in French. We reached the end point of the route, the Door of No Return, around 6pm. The monument was an archway on the beach depicting images of slaves walking toward ships. As we looked at the monument, the sun began to sink and we sat on the beach and witnessed the most incredible sunset I’ve ever seen. The sun blazed red as it slowly crept beneath the palm trees and pirogues dotting the shore. Amazing! After taking about a million pictures of the sunset, we rode zimmy johns (motorcycles) back to our hotel. The ride back was pretty scary at first, considering we weren’t wearing helmets and were speeding along down an unpaved road littered with potholes, but once I got used to it, it was really cool.
Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to head to Cotonou. After dropping our things at a hotel, we left to visit Ganvie, a stilt village. On the way we stopped and ate at a road side stand. We were served a light pink soup-ish substance which was made of maize and sugar. This was accompanied by what I can only describe as soft onion hush puppies. It was probably the strangest breakfast I’ve ever eaten. We took a taxi to the launching point to the stilt village. At the launching point, we joined a French couple on a motorized pirogue. The area surrounding the launching point was extremely dirty and overcrowded. There were tiny wooden sheds where people sold food and goods (and probably also lived) surrounded by a giant open air garbage dump where small children were pooping in plain sight. I can’t imagine sharing these living conditions and I was again reminded of the huge disparity between my way of life and that of these people. We took off from the launching point and were soon in the stilt village. It was so crazy how the village was organized. Literally everything was built directly on the water; homes, shops, a fresh water dispensary, a mosque. We saw a giant floating market where women displayed brightly colored fruits and vegetables, as well as handicrafts on wooden boats. We visited shops along the way which sold jewelry (they have so much ivory! I thought this was illegal!), quilts made of colorful fabrics as well as wooden carvings.
After our visit to Ouidah we grabbed a cab to the art center in the center of Cotonou. The cab ride was long and along the way we saw a funeral procession and a taxi with live pigs strapped to the roof. At the art center, we were overwhelmed with the number of shops selling art. We spent about three hours there and probably only visited half of the shops. While Michael and Catherine continued to shop, Katy and I got bored and met some of the artists who were about our age. One of them introduced himself as Lil Wayne and proceeded to rap various Lil Wayne songs and show me all of the pictures of Lil Wayne he’d downloaded onto his phone. We played drums and other various African instruments with them and even played golf on a course they’d created in a large lawn.
Sunday we ate delicious cheese omelets and croissants at a French restaurant across from our hotel and headed to the Benin soccer stadium where the Benin Squirrels (least intimidating mascot ever) and Ghana Black Stars would be facing off. We headed into the stadium way too early and found ourselves sitting with nothing to do for about two hours. We met some friendly fans who spoke English and chatted for a bit about America. The game started with a huge black hummer and charter bus driving into the stadium and around a track multiple times to the intense excitement of the crowd. When the hummer stopped, the star player of the Benin team got out and the crowd went wild. The actual game wasn’t very interesting, but I spent most of my time observing the police guarding the barrier between the stadium and the entrance. Apparently people with fake tickets were trying to get in and the police were fending them off by using their belts and what looked like a metal pipe to hit the fans. It looked fairly brutal and at one point I looked down to see blood splattered across the pavement. The crowd was looking down on the police, screaming insults and occasionally spitting. During the game Catherine and I bought a plastic bag filled with a dark juice, which we determined was pomegranate and we munched on snacks we’d purchased earlier at a Lebanese-run market.
We ended up leaving the game early to beat traffic to head back home to Ghana. We chartered a taxi to Lome, but were soon stuck in the celebration traffic after Benin won in penalty kicks. The drive took a really long time and the driver at one point pulled over to the side of the road, made some type of grunting noise and left the taxi. After about ten minutes Michael went to find the driver and spotted him sitting at a restaurant eating a meal. Later, at about 9:45pm, the driver attempted to drop us off in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Lome. We eventually convinced him to bring us to the border, and we literally sprinted from the Togo officials to the Ghana officials trying to cross the border before it closed at 10pm. On the way out of the Togo border, the guards were listening to a popular Ghanaian pop song we all love and we sang and danced our way out of the office, to much laughter from the guards.
Phew, it was an exciting weekend. Perry (Michael’s father) and Karen (Michael’s Aunt), arrived last Tuesday and we travelled to Cape Coast for the weekend. I am currently working on this blog entry. I will try to have it up by tomorrow!
We left campus around 12:30pm in a private car we’d chartered to take us to Lome. Upon arriving in Lome in the late afternoon, we ate again at Akeif (the delicious restaurant we discovered the previous weekend) and ate hummus, chicken chawrama and burgers. After dinner we hailed a cab to bring us across the border and into Benin. The drive took longer than we expected and we found ourselves driving in the middle of nowhere searching for a hotel to stay the night. After a few hours in the taxi, we finally found a hotel and were dropped off. The hotel was pretty sketchy, with hourly prices and a board in the lobby indicating which rooms had their “mood lights” on. Ew.
The next morning we left around 6am and headed to Ouidah. Upon arriving in Ouidah, we dropped our things at a hotel (which was way more legit than the previous one) and walked around the city. One of the best things about being in a French colonized country is the availability of cheap and delicious baguettes! They are sold on just about every street corner and are flakey and fresh. I’m fairly sure we each ate at least three baguettes that day. Our first destination in the city was the old fort used by the Portuguese in the 17-1800s. The fort had been turned into a historical museum dedicated to the arrival of the Portuguese and the slave trade. In the museum were various interesting artifacts about tribal life as well as some shocking objects used to shackle and transport slaves. Learning about the relationships between the Portuguese slave exporters and local tribal leaders was fascinating. The slave trade consisted of tribes being paid by the Portuguese to capture rival tribes to be exported.
After leaving the fort, we went to the sacred python temple. The temple is pretty nondescript from the outside, and appears to be a clearing with a few small voodoo huts in various places. We entered and paid 1000 CFA each (about 3 cedi, or $2.5) as an offering. A guide led us into the clearing and disappeared for a few minutes, bringing a medium sized python with him. He put the python around each of our necks and we took pictures. Katy and I were a little disappointed and asked the guide where the rest of the pythons were. He then led us to a larger hut and opened the door for us to look in. We peered in to see around fifty pythons covering the floor of the hut. It was wild! It looked exactly like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie! The snakes were climbing up the walls and slithering across the floor. Strangely enough, my initial reaction wasn’t one of fear, but rather one of excitement and fondness for the snakes. I think this is most likely because my sister Alex has a ball python whom everyone loves and is a very sweet snake. Don’t worry, we took plenty of pictures of us in the room.
After leaving the temple, we searched for food for a long time. We had a difficult time finding restaurants and when we would find one, they would all be out of food. Eventually we gave up and ate more baguettes. After stuffing ourselves with carbs, we headed to the sacred forest. We paid to enter the sacred forest, and then were asked to also pay for a guide and to take photos. None of us wanted to pay more, so we wandered around by ourselves and sneakily snapped photos when no one was looking. The forest was filled with the biggest trees I’ve ever seen. The trunks must have been at least 40 ft around and the span of the branches and leaves was enormous! The hippie in me wondered what stories the trees could tell and how much they’ve seen. I found myself lost in the natural beauty of the forest, wishing I could know how many generations of people had found shade under the same tree I was sitting under. Near the end of our forest visit, we were approached by a boy and a girl who were selling batik cloth and wood carvings. They looked to be around ten years old and were both adorable! They only spoke French, but we used basic French phrases to introduce ourselves. We ended up hanging out with the children for a while and the little girl taught and played hand games with me.
Later in the afternoon we walked the route des esclaves, the route slaves were marched down to be shipped in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The route was dotted with occasional statues to tribute the slaves and traditional shrines. About halfway through the route a group of about twenty school children spotted us and started chanting “Yovo, yovo!” (white person, white person). They ran up to us, amazed at our white skin and hair and accompanied us for about half a mile. During this time we were swarmed by the children who insisted on clutching our hands and speaking unknown phrases to us in French. We reached the end point of the route, the Door of No Return, around 6pm. The monument was an archway on the beach depicting images of slaves walking toward ships. As we looked at the monument, the sun began to sink and we sat on the beach and witnessed the most incredible sunset I’ve ever seen. The sun blazed red as it slowly crept beneath the palm trees and pirogues dotting the shore. Amazing! After taking about a million pictures of the sunset, we rode zimmy johns (motorcycles) back to our hotel. The ride back was pretty scary at first, considering we weren’t wearing helmets and were speeding along down an unpaved road littered with potholes, but once I got used to it, it was really cool.
Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to head to Cotonou. After dropping our things at a hotel, we left to visit Ganvie, a stilt village. On the way we stopped and ate at a road side stand. We were served a light pink soup-ish substance which was made of maize and sugar. This was accompanied by what I can only describe as soft onion hush puppies. It was probably the strangest breakfast I’ve ever eaten. We took a taxi to the launching point to the stilt village. At the launching point, we joined a French couple on a motorized pirogue. The area surrounding the launching point was extremely dirty and overcrowded. There were tiny wooden sheds where people sold food and goods (and probably also lived) surrounded by a giant open air garbage dump where small children were pooping in plain sight. I can’t imagine sharing these living conditions and I was again reminded of the huge disparity between my way of life and that of these people. We took off from the launching point and were soon in the stilt village. It was so crazy how the village was organized. Literally everything was built directly on the water; homes, shops, a fresh water dispensary, a mosque. We saw a giant floating market where women displayed brightly colored fruits and vegetables, as well as handicrafts on wooden boats. We visited shops along the way which sold jewelry (they have so much ivory! I thought this was illegal!), quilts made of colorful fabrics as well as wooden carvings.
After our visit to Ouidah we grabbed a cab to the art center in the center of Cotonou. The cab ride was long and along the way we saw a funeral procession and a taxi with live pigs strapped to the roof. At the art center, we were overwhelmed with the number of shops selling art. We spent about three hours there and probably only visited half of the shops. While Michael and Catherine continued to shop, Katy and I got bored and met some of the artists who were about our age. One of them introduced himself as Lil Wayne and proceeded to rap various Lil Wayne songs and show me all of the pictures of Lil Wayne he’d downloaded onto his phone. We played drums and other various African instruments with them and even played golf on a course they’d created in a large lawn.
Sunday we ate delicious cheese omelets and croissants at a French restaurant across from our hotel and headed to the Benin soccer stadium where the Benin Squirrels (least intimidating mascot ever) and Ghana Black Stars would be facing off. We headed into the stadium way too early and found ourselves sitting with nothing to do for about two hours. We met some friendly fans who spoke English and chatted for a bit about America. The game started with a huge black hummer and charter bus driving into the stadium and around a track multiple times to the intense excitement of the crowd. When the hummer stopped, the star player of the Benin team got out and the crowd went wild. The actual game wasn’t very interesting, but I spent most of my time observing the police guarding the barrier between the stadium and the entrance. Apparently people with fake tickets were trying to get in and the police were fending them off by using their belts and what looked like a metal pipe to hit the fans. It looked fairly brutal and at one point I looked down to see blood splattered across the pavement. The crowd was looking down on the police, screaming insults and occasionally spitting. During the game Catherine and I bought a plastic bag filled with a dark juice, which we determined was pomegranate and we munched on snacks we’d purchased earlier at a Lebanese-run market.
We ended up leaving the game early to beat traffic to head back home to Ghana. We chartered a taxi to Lome, but were soon stuck in the celebration traffic after Benin won in penalty kicks. The drive took a really long time and the driver at one point pulled over to the side of the road, made some type of grunting noise and left the taxi. After about ten minutes Michael went to find the driver and spotted him sitting at a restaurant eating a meal. Later, at about 9:45pm, the driver attempted to drop us off in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Lome. We eventually convinced him to bring us to the border, and we literally sprinted from the Togo officials to the Ghana officials trying to cross the border before it closed at 10pm. On the way out of the Togo border, the guards were listening to a popular Ghanaian pop song we all love and we sang and danced our way out of the office, to much laughter from the guards.
Phew, it was an exciting weekend. Perry (Michael’s father) and Karen (Michael’s Aunt), arrived last Tuesday and we travelled to Cape Coast for the weekend. I am currently working on this blog entry. I will try to have it up by tomorrow!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Togo
Last Friday, Michael, Katy, Catherine and I attended my roommate’s dance show. My roommate’s name is Ashley and she’s a senior at the University of Montana, studying dance. The dance show was really cool. It was a mix of traditional African dance and contemporary dance. My favorite was a piece where all of the dancers wore crazy masks and climbed on top of each other (kind of like stunting!).
Michael, Katy, Catherine and I left around 6am to travel to Togo on Saturday. Togo is the country to the east of Ghana. It’s a tiny country and was colonized partly by the French. We took a tro-tro to the bus station, and then boarded a bus to Lome, Togo (the capital city). The four hour ride was nice because I had a window seat and watched the scenery go by. We passed through huge fields that looked like the scenery in Lion King. We also passed through multiple villages and saw people dressed in traditional outfits going to funerals and weddings. We arrived at the Ghana / Togo border around 1pm and crossed the border. Immediately upon crossing into Togo, its differences from Ghana were apparent. Everyone was speaking French and driving around on motorcycles. I ended up using the few French phrases I’d learned during a trip to Paris in high school to get us to a hotel. Along the way we met a very helpful woman who directed us to a hotel and even called the hotel a half hour later to make sure we had arrived safely. The eagerness of people to Togo to help was further embodied by the owner of the hotel we stayed at, who went above and beyond to make sure we knew where to eat, how to get to the spots we wanted to visit, etc.
After settling in at the hotel, we ventured out into the city to find some lunch. We started out walking, which was interesting because all of the main roads are covered in sand because it is a beach town. The beaches were beautiful, with palm trees dotting the white sand and colorful fishing boats, called pirogues moving through the waves. We eventually came to a French / Lebanese outdoor restaurant. We ate hummus which was served with delicious, juicy tomato wedges and fresh pita bread. We also got French chicken burgers which had coleslaw on them that tasted like cucumber sauce and French style fries in the burger. We all pigged out and even had leftovers to bring back to the hotel. After leaving lunch we travelled to the marche des feticheurs, to look for fetish items. It was around 5pm when we got there, so most of the vendors were closing up, but we saw lots of herbs / dried fruits and other items used in traditional medicine. We also saw carved fetish dolls used in voodoo rituals. Later in the evening we went to a nicer restaurant / bar that was playing American rap music and ate really good pizza and falafel.
The next morning we left early and grabbed a taxi to take us to the boarding docks. We weren’t really sure that our destination was accurately translated to the driver, and when we started driving through basically a field of tall grass on a dusty path we became skeptical. However, soon we pulled up to a dock with a single pirogue. We took a pirogue to Togoville, a small village across the water. Togoville is very rural and many naked children wearing only waist beads ran around the streets in between goats and chickens. We first visited two massive, sacred trees which are the center points for the village. We also saw a fertility shrine to a spirit known as Mama Fiokpo and a bull that will be sacrificed soon in a village ritual. We then went to the house of priestess where we were instructed to take off all of our clothes and put on traditional clothes given to us. We sneakily managed to keep most of our clothes on underneath and headed to a waiting room where other villagers were waiting to see the priestess. Upon waiting, we were informed that we would be required to pay a large sum to see the priestess so we decided to leave.
We then crossed the main area of the village to visit the Catholic cathedral built by the Germans. The church is a huge, imposing structure on the outside and a beautiful, colorful wonder on the inside. Basically all of the wall space in the structure is covered in detailed depictions of bible stories with the largest picture being the last supper with a giant rainbow over the entire thing. About 20 yards from the cathedral is a large shrine to the virgin Mary who was allegedly seen walking on the lake in the early 1970s. At first I was confused by how Catholicism could coexist so well with the traditional religion of the area, but upon further pondering I realized how similar they are. The shrine of the virgin Mary is very similar to the fertility shrine to Mama Fiokpo and the way the villagers venerated ancestor spirits is almost the same as how Catholics regard saints. These are just a few of the similarities, but I will refrain from rambling about religions.
The last stop on our Togo trip was another village visit to Glidji. We travelled to Glidji by taxi and set out to find the voodoo shrines the village is known for. We were directed to what appeared to be a small house with various doors with names painted across the top. We walked around for a while, trying to figure out what was going on. Soon, an old man with a cane walked towards us and asked us what we were doing. We were relieved that he spoke English, and soon found out that he was from Ghana. He brought us to the house of the high priest of the village and we waited in a courtyard for the priest to greet us. The priest welcomed us and introduced us to two voodoo priestesses. We thought we were going to have a tour of the voodoo shrines, but before we knew it we were buying a bottle of gin for a voodoo ritual. We were lead into a voodoo shrine for a male ancestor (I can’t remember his name). The shrine was more or less a small crawlspace with a sand floor. In the center of the room was a shrine with various candles, bottles and objects (the most interesting of which was a Barbie doll). We were directed to sit on a wooden bench along the wall of the room. The priestesses brought in some type of smoking wood / incense in a kettle that smelled weird / I liked because it kept the mosquitoes away. The priest began chanting and the priestesses sang along and clapped. A few minutes into the ceremony, one of the priestesses took a glass of water and instructed us each to take a sip. The next thing I knew, Michael was having water spit on him. I slowly realized this too was to be my fate and fought back the urge to laugh / cringe when it was my turn. After the spitting water ordeal, the priestess filled up the glass with gin and instructed us to take a sip. I was really really worried that after this the priestess would spit gin on us, but luckily this was not part of the ritual. The voodoo ritual went on with more chanting and clapping , we also had some type of holy oil squirted on us as well as baby powder. To finish, the priest shook a handful of special shells and threw them into a shallow dish. Two of the shells landed face up, and the other two face down, which supposedly meant that we all would be blessed with good luck. After the ceremony was over, the priest and priestesses insisted that we all take a series of photos with each other. It was kind of like voodoo glamour shots.
The voodoo good luck didn’t kick in, however, because we couldn’t find a taxi from Glidji and ended up having to walk a mile or two back to a station. Whenever we walk anywhere, we usually attract a few locals who approach us, talk to us and basically attach themselves to us. We were having casual conversation with them when Catherine broke out her hand sanitizer and started passing it around. It was so funny to watch the locals use the hand sanitizer. They thought the smell was strange and stared obsessively at the bottle trying to figure out what it was.
We eventually made it back to Lome, collected our bags from the hotel and exited to the border. We chartered a private taxi back to Legon, since it was around 8pm and all of the buses had left. On the way back we saw a 4-5ft. ball python crossing the road! (Alex, it was like a huge Baby snake!) I wanted to go back and take pictures of it, but Katy, Catherine and Michael are lame and were too afraid. However, we are going to a python shrine this weekend in Benin so I will have my fill of snakes.
This week so far hasn’t been too crazy, I wrote a paper about the origins of the dance we’ve been learning in one of my classes. Apparently the dance was discovered by a hunter who used magic to conceal himself to observe dwarfs (who supposedly all have one leg that’s longer than the other) perform dances. Good to know? Michael inadvertently agreed to marry the crazy old woman who sells baked goods outside of our hostel. Also, Katy and Michael both received packages so we got to eat cheez-its, cookies and starburst. Delicious!
We’re leaving to travel to Benin tomorrow! Will report more next week!
Michael, Katy, Catherine and I left around 6am to travel to Togo on Saturday. Togo is the country to the east of Ghana. It’s a tiny country and was colonized partly by the French. We took a tro-tro to the bus station, and then boarded a bus to Lome, Togo (the capital city). The four hour ride was nice because I had a window seat and watched the scenery go by. We passed through huge fields that looked like the scenery in Lion King. We also passed through multiple villages and saw people dressed in traditional outfits going to funerals and weddings. We arrived at the Ghana / Togo border around 1pm and crossed the border. Immediately upon crossing into Togo, its differences from Ghana were apparent. Everyone was speaking French and driving around on motorcycles. I ended up using the few French phrases I’d learned during a trip to Paris in high school to get us to a hotel. Along the way we met a very helpful woman who directed us to a hotel and even called the hotel a half hour later to make sure we had arrived safely. The eagerness of people to Togo to help was further embodied by the owner of the hotel we stayed at, who went above and beyond to make sure we knew where to eat, how to get to the spots we wanted to visit, etc.
After settling in at the hotel, we ventured out into the city to find some lunch. We started out walking, which was interesting because all of the main roads are covered in sand because it is a beach town. The beaches were beautiful, with palm trees dotting the white sand and colorful fishing boats, called pirogues moving through the waves. We eventually came to a French / Lebanese outdoor restaurant. We ate hummus which was served with delicious, juicy tomato wedges and fresh pita bread. We also got French chicken burgers which had coleslaw on them that tasted like cucumber sauce and French style fries in the burger. We all pigged out and even had leftovers to bring back to the hotel. After leaving lunch we travelled to the marche des feticheurs, to look for fetish items. It was around 5pm when we got there, so most of the vendors were closing up, but we saw lots of herbs / dried fruits and other items used in traditional medicine. We also saw carved fetish dolls used in voodoo rituals. Later in the evening we went to a nicer restaurant / bar that was playing American rap music and ate really good pizza and falafel.
The next morning we left early and grabbed a taxi to take us to the boarding docks. We weren’t really sure that our destination was accurately translated to the driver, and when we started driving through basically a field of tall grass on a dusty path we became skeptical. However, soon we pulled up to a dock with a single pirogue. We took a pirogue to Togoville, a small village across the water. Togoville is very rural and many naked children wearing only waist beads ran around the streets in between goats and chickens. We first visited two massive, sacred trees which are the center points for the village. We also saw a fertility shrine to a spirit known as Mama Fiokpo and a bull that will be sacrificed soon in a village ritual. We then went to the house of priestess where we were instructed to take off all of our clothes and put on traditional clothes given to us. We sneakily managed to keep most of our clothes on underneath and headed to a waiting room where other villagers were waiting to see the priestess. Upon waiting, we were informed that we would be required to pay a large sum to see the priestess so we decided to leave.
We then crossed the main area of the village to visit the Catholic cathedral built by the Germans. The church is a huge, imposing structure on the outside and a beautiful, colorful wonder on the inside. Basically all of the wall space in the structure is covered in detailed depictions of bible stories with the largest picture being the last supper with a giant rainbow over the entire thing. About 20 yards from the cathedral is a large shrine to the virgin Mary who was allegedly seen walking on the lake in the early 1970s. At first I was confused by how Catholicism could coexist so well with the traditional religion of the area, but upon further pondering I realized how similar they are. The shrine of the virgin Mary is very similar to the fertility shrine to Mama Fiokpo and the way the villagers venerated ancestor spirits is almost the same as how Catholics regard saints. These are just a few of the similarities, but I will refrain from rambling about religions.
The last stop on our Togo trip was another village visit to Glidji. We travelled to Glidji by taxi and set out to find the voodoo shrines the village is known for. We were directed to what appeared to be a small house with various doors with names painted across the top. We walked around for a while, trying to figure out what was going on. Soon, an old man with a cane walked towards us and asked us what we were doing. We were relieved that he spoke English, and soon found out that he was from Ghana. He brought us to the house of the high priest of the village and we waited in a courtyard for the priest to greet us. The priest welcomed us and introduced us to two voodoo priestesses. We thought we were going to have a tour of the voodoo shrines, but before we knew it we were buying a bottle of gin for a voodoo ritual. We were lead into a voodoo shrine for a male ancestor (I can’t remember his name). The shrine was more or less a small crawlspace with a sand floor. In the center of the room was a shrine with various candles, bottles and objects (the most interesting of which was a Barbie doll). We were directed to sit on a wooden bench along the wall of the room. The priestesses brought in some type of smoking wood / incense in a kettle that smelled weird / I liked because it kept the mosquitoes away. The priest began chanting and the priestesses sang along and clapped. A few minutes into the ceremony, one of the priestesses took a glass of water and instructed us each to take a sip. The next thing I knew, Michael was having water spit on him. I slowly realized this too was to be my fate and fought back the urge to laugh / cringe when it was my turn. After the spitting water ordeal, the priestess filled up the glass with gin and instructed us to take a sip. I was really really worried that after this the priestess would spit gin on us, but luckily this was not part of the ritual. The voodoo ritual went on with more chanting and clapping , we also had some type of holy oil squirted on us as well as baby powder. To finish, the priest shook a handful of special shells and threw them into a shallow dish. Two of the shells landed face up, and the other two face down, which supposedly meant that we all would be blessed with good luck. After the ceremony was over, the priest and priestesses insisted that we all take a series of photos with each other. It was kind of like voodoo glamour shots.
The voodoo good luck didn’t kick in, however, because we couldn’t find a taxi from Glidji and ended up having to walk a mile or two back to a station. Whenever we walk anywhere, we usually attract a few locals who approach us, talk to us and basically attach themselves to us. We were having casual conversation with them when Catherine broke out her hand sanitizer and started passing it around. It was so funny to watch the locals use the hand sanitizer. They thought the smell was strange and stared obsessively at the bottle trying to figure out what it was.
We eventually made it back to Lome, collected our bags from the hotel and exited to the border. We chartered a private taxi back to Legon, since it was around 8pm and all of the buses had left. On the way back we saw a 4-5ft. ball python crossing the road! (Alex, it was like a huge Baby snake!) I wanted to go back and take pictures of it, but Katy, Catherine and Michael are lame and were too afraid. However, we are going to a python shrine this weekend in Benin so I will have my fill of snakes.
This week so far hasn’t been too crazy, I wrote a paper about the origins of the dance we’ve been learning in one of my classes. Apparently the dance was discovered by a hunter who used magic to conceal himself to observe dwarfs (who supposedly all have one leg that’s longer than the other) perform dances. Good to know? Michael inadvertently agreed to marry the crazy old woman who sells baked goods outside of our hostel. Also, Katy and Michael both received packages so we got to eat cheez-its, cookies and starburst. Delicious!
We’re leaving to travel to Benin tomorrow! Will report more next week!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Hot Hot Heat
Well, it seems Ghana is getting hotter than I could have ever imagined. It’s so weird to experience the weather getting warmer at a time when I’m used to fall starting. It’s been in the mid to upper nineties all week during the day, sunny without any clouds. Normally, I could handle this heat but it’s coupled with heavy humidity. However, the international students seem to be the only ones affected. Basically all of the Ghanaians at the University wear jeans or trousers during the day, and I even saw a girl wearing a jacket and scarf out today. I don’t understand how these people do this, because I generally wear shorts / a skirt /a dress and immediately start sweating profusely as soon as I step outside. Luckily, it cools down (maybe to about 75 degrees) at night, so we have a small break from the heat.
Unfortunately, the water has been out again in the hostel. I’m not sure if I’ve blogged about this already, but everyone here drinks water out of plastic bags. You rip the corner off of the bag and then proceed to suck it / squeeze it out. So, when the water goes out, you have to use the bagged water for brushing your teeth, washing your hands and washing your face. I don’t know if any of y’all have tried it, but washing your face with a bag of water is difficult. I find myself holding the bag near my face, closing my eyes and squeezing / hoping I don’t miss my face. It’s pretty funny to watch other people use the bags of water for various hygienic activities and provides some much needed comic relief from the situation.
Yesterday, we travelled to the Togo embassy to apply for visas. We will be going to Togo this weekend and will spend Saturday and Sunday exploring. On our way back to campus, we caught a taxi and had an interesting conversation with the driver. It seems the driver’s aspiration is to gain entry to the U.S. and live in Brooklyn, NY (Alex, I told him to live in Prospect Park). Once I told the driver we were from America, he became very excited and asked if we would invite him to our country. I told him of course, I invite him to the U.S. He then asked if we could accompany him to the U.S. Embassy, because they “love the white man and ladies” there and we could surely help him get a visa. I tried the best I could to explain to him America’s strict immigration laws and visa lottery system, but I’m not sure I got my point across. The driver also told me his brother sells gold and diamonds in the black market and to call him if I’m interested.
Also yesterday, we had our usual Monday dance class. The dance studio is a large, open air room with a wooden floor. There are a few fans, but they are hardly ever on. Needless to say, a lot of sweating goes on in this room. Anyway, this is beside the point. We’ve been learning a traditional dance for a few weeks, and we also have learned a song to go along with it. It sounds something like this:
Nack ee nay
Nack ee nay
EE bee nack ee nay
Jay jay
Obama bama shoeessss
The song has something to do with the oldest girl in a household, but I’m not exactly sure. It’s pretty difficult to simultaneously do African dance while singing in a different language. Yesterday, instead of continuing learning our dance (which has been pretty boring considering we only learn 2-3 movements per class) one of the T.A.s led us in a sort of warm up / aerobics routine. It was so much fun! We were jumping all over the studio, doing fan kicks and shakes, etc. It made me really miss cheerleading / dance and just moving around wildly in general.
During my last Human Rights in Social Work Practice class the professor began by discussing current events that have been happening in West Africa. Apparently in rural West Africa, Albino parts are considered to be extremely valuable and to have mystical powers which convey wealth and prosperity to the owner. Recently, a 14 year old Albino boy was killed so that his body parts could be sold on the black market to witch doctors. It was shocking to hear about this type of crime, especially since I’ve mainly been in Legon and Accra, where rural villages and traditional practices are miles away and not visible on the surface. Apparently hunchbacked people (who are fairly common here) are also valued for their body parts. It’s pretty insane / really sad what people will do for money. There is an obvious, large black market for dangerous and dangerously acquired items such as arms, diamonds, body parts, etc. Another shocking practice I learned about is Trokosi, a traditional (but still occurring) practice in which in order to atone for a family member’s sin, a virgin girl is given to priests of the village’s shrine for life. (this is a really interesting / horrible practice if you care to look into it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_servitude#In_Ghana). I really can’t fully grasp the amount of traditional practices that are still common in rural villages here. The lives of people growing up in the cities are completely different from the lives of people growing up in rural villages. It’s a sometimes depressing / captivating case study of the effects of colonization and globalization. Clearly, the traditional cultures of the villages still exist, yet in the cities, the culture of the West has permeated everything from the religious beliefs to popular dress and music. I think this is a unique situation only really present in certain stages of developing countries. It’s very obvious here the divide between the older generations and the people my age and younger. Even just observing the difference between popular dress provides evidence of the divide. All of the older women I’ve seen (those who look about thirty or older) wear long dresses made with bright, traditional fabrics, and all of the younger women I’ve seen wear Western style jeans and shirts. Most of the younger people speak fluent English, while the older people generally stick to Twi. I’m not sure exactly what I’m trying to say here, I’m mostly just trying to make sense and draw conclusions from all of the observations I’ve made. I believe in twenty years, with the constant influence from the West and the continuous change into a more developed country, Ghana will have changed tremendously. Anyway, sorry for that large chunk of Sociology major babble.
Volunteering, like many things here, has been disorganized and slow moving. Upon returning to the hospital for the third time, I was informed that the counseling for HIV/AIDS patients is done in Twi, the local language, and so I would be of little help. I’m aggravated at the lack of volunteer opportunities here, as this was one of the things I was most excited about doing while on this program. There are so many practices here that I would love to work with (FGM, prostitution, human trafficking, witch camps, HIV/AIDS, etc.) but I'm having a really difficult time finding opportuinities / most of these issues are not discussed or acknowledged, there are few NGOs, etc. However, I am not willing to give up my pursuit. One of the girls on my program brought me a card with contact information for a human rights and gender organization, so I am planning on visiting the organization tomorrow.
Well, I believe I will grab my shower things and see if any of the surrounding hostels still have water, as I am covered in the daily dirt / sweat. Everyone has to promise to still love me and want to hang out with me even if I come back dirty and smelly : ).
I’m very excited about travelling to Togo this weekend, and will have more to report on Monday!
Unfortunately, the water has been out again in the hostel. I’m not sure if I’ve blogged about this already, but everyone here drinks water out of plastic bags. You rip the corner off of the bag and then proceed to suck it / squeeze it out. So, when the water goes out, you have to use the bagged water for brushing your teeth, washing your hands and washing your face. I don’t know if any of y’all have tried it, but washing your face with a bag of water is difficult. I find myself holding the bag near my face, closing my eyes and squeezing / hoping I don’t miss my face. It’s pretty funny to watch other people use the bags of water for various hygienic activities and provides some much needed comic relief from the situation.
Yesterday, we travelled to the Togo embassy to apply for visas. We will be going to Togo this weekend and will spend Saturday and Sunday exploring. On our way back to campus, we caught a taxi and had an interesting conversation with the driver. It seems the driver’s aspiration is to gain entry to the U.S. and live in Brooklyn, NY (Alex, I told him to live in Prospect Park). Once I told the driver we were from America, he became very excited and asked if we would invite him to our country. I told him of course, I invite him to the U.S. He then asked if we could accompany him to the U.S. Embassy, because they “love the white man and ladies” there and we could surely help him get a visa. I tried the best I could to explain to him America’s strict immigration laws and visa lottery system, but I’m not sure I got my point across. The driver also told me his brother sells gold and diamonds in the black market and to call him if I’m interested.
Also yesterday, we had our usual Monday dance class. The dance studio is a large, open air room with a wooden floor. There are a few fans, but they are hardly ever on. Needless to say, a lot of sweating goes on in this room. Anyway, this is beside the point. We’ve been learning a traditional dance for a few weeks, and we also have learned a song to go along with it. It sounds something like this:
Nack ee nay
Nack ee nay
EE bee nack ee nay
Jay jay
Obama bama shoeessss
The song has something to do with the oldest girl in a household, but I’m not exactly sure. It’s pretty difficult to simultaneously do African dance while singing in a different language. Yesterday, instead of continuing learning our dance (which has been pretty boring considering we only learn 2-3 movements per class) one of the T.A.s led us in a sort of warm up / aerobics routine. It was so much fun! We were jumping all over the studio, doing fan kicks and shakes, etc. It made me really miss cheerleading / dance and just moving around wildly in general.
During my last Human Rights in Social Work Practice class the professor began by discussing current events that have been happening in West Africa. Apparently in rural West Africa, Albino parts are considered to be extremely valuable and to have mystical powers which convey wealth and prosperity to the owner. Recently, a 14 year old Albino boy was killed so that his body parts could be sold on the black market to witch doctors. It was shocking to hear about this type of crime, especially since I’ve mainly been in Legon and Accra, where rural villages and traditional practices are miles away and not visible on the surface. Apparently hunchbacked people (who are fairly common here) are also valued for their body parts. It’s pretty insane / really sad what people will do for money. There is an obvious, large black market for dangerous and dangerously acquired items such as arms, diamonds, body parts, etc. Another shocking practice I learned about is Trokosi, a traditional (but still occurring) practice in which in order to atone for a family member’s sin, a virgin girl is given to priests of the village’s shrine for life. (this is a really interesting / horrible practice if you care to look into it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_servitude#In_Ghana). I really can’t fully grasp the amount of traditional practices that are still common in rural villages here. The lives of people growing up in the cities are completely different from the lives of people growing up in rural villages. It’s a sometimes depressing / captivating case study of the effects of colonization and globalization. Clearly, the traditional cultures of the villages still exist, yet in the cities, the culture of the West has permeated everything from the religious beliefs to popular dress and music. I think this is a unique situation only really present in certain stages of developing countries. It’s very obvious here the divide between the older generations and the people my age and younger. Even just observing the difference between popular dress provides evidence of the divide. All of the older women I’ve seen (those who look about thirty or older) wear long dresses made with bright, traditional fabrics, and all of the younger women I’ve seen wear Western style jeans and shirts. Most of the younger people speak fluent English, while the older people generally stick to Twi. I’m not sure exactly what I’m trying to say here, I’m mostly just trying to make sense and draw conclusions from all of the observations I’ve made. I believe in twenty years, with the constant influence from the West and the continuous change into a more developed country, Ghana will have changed tremendously. Anyway, sorry for that large chunk of Sociology major babble.
Volunteering, like many things here, has been disorganized and slow moving. Upon returning to the hospital for the third time, I was informed that the counseling for HIV/AIDS patients is done in Twi, the local language, and so I would be of little help. I’m aggravated at the lack of volunteer opportunities here, as this was one of the things I was most excited about doing while on this program. There are so many practices here that I would love to work with (FGM, prostitution, human trafficking, witch camps, HIV/AIDS, etc.) but I'm having a really difficult time finding opportuinities / most of these issues are not discussed or acknowledged, there are few NGOs, etc. However, I am not willing to give up my pursuit. One of the girls on my program brought me a card with contact information for a human rights and gender organization, so I am planning on visiting the organization tomorrow.
Well, I believe I will grab my shower things and see if any of the surrounding hostels still have water, as I am covered in the daily dirt / sweat. Everyone has to promise to still love me and want to hang out with me even if I come back dirty and smelly : ).
I’m very excited about travelling to Togo this weekend, and will have more to report on Monday!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
As of late
Sorry it’s been so long since my last post!
School has kicked into full gear (aka my professors have been showing up on a regular basis and we had our first assignment). Also, our internet as been out for the last few days.
Our first assignment, a group paper on the history of criminal justice, turned out well. Although we had to have our faculty advisor set up an appointment for us to speak with our professor and the professor showed up an hour late, we finally understood the assignment and turned it in Friday.
My endeavor to volunteer with HIV/AIDS has seen some progress. Catherine and I finally had an appointment to gather information, and I hopefully will be starting next Wednesday volunteering with a woman who counsels patients with HIV/AIDS. I’m very excited about this and I will report more about how my first day goes.
Last Friday, I was in my Human Rights and Social Work Practice class, and the professor started talking about 9/11. He spoke about how terrorism was a real threat, not only to Americans, but to everyone in the world. It was strange to be in Africa and still hear about the effects of terrorism. The professor mentioned that the war in Iraq was a completely different issue, but supported the efforts of the military in Afghanistan. I can’t remember the last time I talked about 9/11 on the anniversary in school, so I guess it was just odd to all of a sudden be experiencing it in a foreign country.
Last Sunday some students from UNC and some students from PennState went to Champs to watch the Panthers vs. Eagles game. Champs is a sports bar in central Accra that shows many American sports games. Although they were only able to find the Dallas Cowboys game on the television, the food was exciting. They had an entire “Texi Mexi” section, which included chimichangas and nachos. Needless to say, I was really pumped about eating Mexican food which I’ve been craving. The bar is obviously tailored to American tourists and has dishes such as apple pie with ice cream and burgers.
On Saturday Catherine, Katy, Michael, Jordan, Matt and I travelled to Accra’s largest open air market, Kanta Mantu (sp?). The market was teeming with vendors selling literally everything you could ever think of. Among the sights was a woman carrying dead roosters in a bowl on her head. We headed into the market and walked through city block after city block of vendors selling shoes, soccer jerseys, clothes, etc. As soon as the vendors saw us (white people) coming, they would grab our arms and not let go until we jerked our arms away. It was kind of a hassle to actually get to the vendors we were interested in, but when we did it was a treasure trove of very inexpensive soccer jerseys and shoes.
Saturday night Catherine, Katy, Michael and I went to Champs for karaoke night. We took a cab ride over in which the driver barreled down the highway tailgating and passing every car we came into contact with. While I thought twenty years of riding on the highway with my father driving would prepare me for anything, we all found ourselves clutching the handles on the doors and gasping as we slid into tiny spaces between cars. Champs turned out to be a lot of fun, we talked to an American in his late forties who was eager to discuss politics (we were too until he revealed Fox news was his primary news source and that it was the least biased of all) and also two men from Lebanon. Catherine and I entertained everyone at the bar with our own rendition of “Ice Ice Baby”, and we also sang hits from Journey and Bon Jovi. The taxi ride home proved to be more eventful than the first. Everything seemed normal until the driver politely asked Michael to pass him a giant liquor bottle from under the seat, and then proceeded to take bottle shots as he drove stick shift. When we arrived at the hostel, Catherine, Katy and I jumped out of the backseat and Michael stayed in the front seat to pay the driver. We waited for Michael inside the front door of the hostel to pay, when suddenly the three guards outside the door yelled and started sprinting towards the taxi. Of course, yet again, the driver had decided to try to charge us more for the ride and yet again Michael had gotten stuck in the taxi. It’s annoying how service people here assume that because we’re Americans it’s okay for them to attempt to rip us off constantly.
Cultural Observation:
Most every day we buy fried egg sandwiches from a small stand in the night market. The stand is run by two young women whom up until this incident I assumed were in their mid twenties. I was waiting for my egg sandwich the other day when the woman asked me what my name was and how old I was. I then asked her the same questions, to which she replied, “how old do you think I am?” I guessed 24, based on the fact that she seemed mature and was always working at the stand. She laughed and revealed to me that she was eighteen, and that the other woman who ran the stand (who is also about six months pregnant) is seventeen. I guess this shouldn’t have been so shocking to me, but it hit me rather hard that these girls were at least two years younger than me, yet running a business and starting a family. While in America these girls would be considered young adults, perhaps graduating from high school, hardly ready to start their “adult careers”, it is perfectly normal here for these girls to be financially independent. Standing at the egg sandwich cart, I made a realization. While it’s easy to say deep down, we’re all human and therefore all the same, it’s difficult to deny the fact that I have a completely different life trajectory than the majority of the women here. Apart from the obvious observation that these women have little access to higher education, they also expect to have certain things: a family, a job, a home, at an age when most American girls are worried about what prom dress to buy. I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that Americans’ concept of childhood is completely different from that of the wider world. For examples, what we consider child labor may be an accepted and necessary means of survival for families in less developed countries.
Today, Monday, we have school off because it is the 100th birthday of the first President of Ghana. There is a ceremony taking place at the monument dedicated to him, but not much else going on. We’ve been spending the day doing a bit of homework and relaxing. Not much planned for the upcoming week, but we might travel to Togo, the country to the east of Ghana, this weekend!
School has kicked into full gear (aka my professors have been showing up on a regular basis and we had our first assignment). Also, our internet as been out for the last few days.
Our first assignment, a group paper on the history of criminal justice, turned out well. Although we had to have our faculty advisor set up an appointment for us to speak with our professor and the professor showed up an hour late, we finally understood the assignment and turned it in Friday.
My endeavor to volunteer with HIV/AIDS has seen some progress. Catherine and I finally had an appointment to gather information, and I hopefully will be starting next Wednesday volunteering with a woman who counsels patients with HIV/AIDS. I’m very excited about this and I will report more about how my first day goes.
Last Friday, I was in my Human Rights and Social Work Practice class, and the professor started talking about 9/11. He spoke about how terrorism was a real threat, not only to Americans, but to everyone in the world. It was strange to be in Africa and still hear about the effects of terrorism. The professor mentioned that the war in Iraq was a completely different issue, but supported the efforts of the military in Afghanistan. I can’t remember the last time I talked about 9/11 on the anniversary in school, so I guess it was just odd to all of a sudden be experiencing it in a foreign country.
Last Sunday some students from UNC and some students from PennState went to Champs to watch the Panthers vs. Eagles game. Champs is a sports bar in central Accra that shows many American sports games. Although they were only able to find the Dallas Cowboys game on the television, the food was exciting. They had an entire “Texi Mexi” section, which included chimichangas and nachos. Needless to say, I was really pumped about eating Mexican food which I’ve been craving. The bar is obviously tailored to American tourists and has dishes such as apple pie with ice cream and burgers.
On Saturday Catherine, Katy, Michael, Jordan, Matt and I travelled to Accra’s largest open air market, Kanta Mantu (sp?). The market was teeming with vendors selling literally everything you could ever think of. Among the sights was a woman carrying dead roosters in a bowl on her head. We headed into the market and walked through city block after city block of vendors selling shoes, soccer jerseys, clothes, etc. As soon as the vendors saw us (white people) coming, they would grab our arms and not let go until we jerked our arms away. It was kind of a hassle to actually get to the vendors we were interested in, but when we did it was a treasure trove of very inexpensive soccer jerseys and shoes.
Saturday night Catherine, Katy, Michael and I went to Champs for karaoke night. We took a cab ride over in which the driver barreled down the highway tailgating and passing every car we came into contact with. While I thought twenty years of riding on the highway with my father driving would prepare me for anything, we all found ourselves clutching the handles on the doors and gasping as we slid into tiny spaces between cars. Champs turned out to be a lot of fun, we talked to an American in his late forties who was eager to discuss politics (we were too until he revealed Fox news was his primary news source and that it was the least biased of all) and also two men from Lebanon. Catherine and I entertained everyone at the bar with our own rendition of “Ice Ice Baby”, and we also sang hits from Journey and Bon Jovi. The taxi ride home proved to be more eventful than the first. Everything seemed normal until the driver politely asked Michael to pass him a giant liquor bottle from under the seat, and then proceeded to take bottle shots as he drove stick shift. When we arrived at the hostel, Catherine, Katy and I jumped out of the backseat and Michael stayed in the front seat to pay the driver. We waited for Michael inside the front door of the hostel to pay, when suddenly the three guards outside the door yelled and started sprinting towards the taxi. Of course, yet again, the driver had decided to try to charge us more for the ride and yet again Michael had gotten stuck in the taxi. It’s annoying how service people here assume that because we’re Americans it’s okay for them to attempt to rip us off constantly.
Cultural Observation:
Most every day we buy fried egg sandwiches from a small stand in the night market. The stand is run by two young women whom up until this incident I assumed were in their mid twenties. I was waiting for my egg sandwich the other day when the woman asked me what my name was and how old I was. I then asked her the same questions, to which she replied, “how old do you think I am?” I guessed 24, based on the fact that she seemed mature and was always working at the stand. She laughed and revealed to me that she was eighteen, and that the other woman who ran the stand (who is also about six months pregnant) is seventeen. I guess this shouldn’t have been so shocking to me, but it hit me rather hard that these girls were at least two years younger than me, yet running a business and starting a family. While in America these girls would be considered young adults, perhaps graduating from high school, hardly ready to start their “adult careers”, it is perfectly normal here for these girls to be financially independent. Standing at the egg sandwich cart, I made a realization. While it’s easy to say deep down, we’re all human and therefore all the same, it’s difficult to deny the fact that I have a completely different life trajectory than the majority of the women here. Apart from the obvious observation that these women have little access to higher education, they also expect to have certain things: a family, a job, a home, at an age when most American girls are worried about what prom dress to buy. I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that Americans’ concept of childhood is completely different from that of the wider world. For examples, what we consider child labor may be an accepted and necessary means of survival for families in less developed countries.
Today, Monday, we have school off because it is the 100th birthday of the first President of Ghana. There is a ceremony taking place at the monument dedicated to him, but not much else going on. We’ve been spending the day doing a bit of homework and relaxing. Not much planned for the upcoming week, but we might travel to Togo, the country to the east of Ghana, this weekend!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
One Month In
The week after our trip to Volta region seemed to be pretty uneventful.
Classes went on, some of my professors showed up, about half didn’t. My Social Work and the Law Courts class (the one I was most excited about because it involves my two career interests), was pretty interesting. I don’t actually mean the material (which we haven’t gotten to yet), but the experience. Katy, Michael and I arrived at 7:15am to our class, which starts at 7:30am. By the time we got there, the room was already packed. I would estimate that this classroom was built to hold 50 people comfortably. However, by the time 7:30am arrived, there were at least 150 people crammed into every possible space in the room. I found myself sharing a desk / chair combo with Katy and Michael. The professor arrived around 8:15am and proceeded to spend the next two hours calling out students’ names and dividing everyone into 21 different groups. He then explained each group was in charge of a research project. He didn’t actually call out Michael, Katy or Is names and instead just said “Oh, the three of you in the back! You’re all in a group together.” (we’re the only non-Ghanaians in the class). He then told us to talk him after class so he could explain the project. We pushed to the front of the classroom as quickly as we could at the end of class; only to find our professor had left. We ran to the social work department only to be told that our professor had left for the day and that we weren’t allowed to have any of his contact information. This was extremely aggravating considering we haven’t received a syllabus or any information about this project we have to do. It’s really difficult to get used to the way the university operates.
On Sunday we left the hostel early and traveled into Accra for the Ghana vs. Sudan soccer game! It was a World Cup qualifier game and the city was alive with Black Stars spirit. We bought our tickets and bought drinks near the stadium. Whenever you buy a drink in a glass bottle (which basically everything comes in) you have to bring the bottle back to the vendor when you’re finished. We took our drinks to a food vendor and after we finished eating were enjoying our drinks sitting at a table under the shade. A woman eventually came up to us and tried to take our empty bottles. We told her we had purchased them from another vendor and had to bring the bottles back, but were still sitting at the table because we had finished our food. She started screaming that we were “stupid foreigners”, and that we weren't allowed to sit at her table without ordering more drinks. Catherine turned to her and told her that we would have bought drinks from her, but now weren’t going to because of her rudeness. The woman (who was probably about 6 ft and 200 lbs) turned quickly to Catherine and said, “the next time you insult me, I will hit you”. Needless to say, we quickly left.
Getting to our seats in stadium was also an interesting experience. I’ve noticed that anywhere there is a large crowd, Ghanaians don’t form a line, but instead just push each other to get wherever the line is going. The entrance to the stadium was a tiny doorway with a revolving door, and there were hundreds of people trying to get in. We ended up right in the middle of the crowd, and there were more than a few times I thought I might be pushed down to the ground and trampled to death at any time. After a few dozen minutes in the sweltering heat being pushed by hundreds of Ghanaians, we entered the stadium.
Everyone in the crowd was cheering basically nonstop through the game, which I loved. I tried to learn the cheers and songs, but I don’t think they were in English so I’ll have to try to pick them up next time. The game was really fun to watch and Ghana won 2-0! Near the end of the game, people in the crowd pulled out road flares and flame torches and set them off in their hands above everyone’s heads. It was pretty crazy / probably really dangerous. I can’t imagine what would happen if someone tried to set off a road flare at an NFL game…
After the game we went out with a graduate student we had met and a few of his friends in downtown Osu. We had a great time and they showed us some nice spots in the area to go at night.
Nothing too exciting has gone on since Sunday. A new vegetarian food stand opened in the market near the hostel and we’ve eaten there everyday this week. My favorite is the tofu sandwich which is marinated tofu, lettuce, beans, avocado, tomato, cucumber and sauce on wheat bread. It’s pretty delicious and I’m looking forward to trying other things from the stand. I’ve been surprised at how non-picky I’ve been since I’ve been here.
Catherine and I have been to the university hospital twice this week trying to work out volunteer opportunities. If all goes well, I’ll be volunteering in the HIV/AIDS clinic there.
Classes went on, some of my professors showed up, about half didn’t. My Social Work and the Law Courts class (the one I was most excited about because it involves my two career interests), was pretty interesting. I don’t actually mean the material (which we haven’t gotten to yet), but the experience. Katy, Michael and I arrived at 7:15am to our class, which starts at 7:30am. By the time we got there, the room was already packed. I would estimate that this classroom was built to hold 50 people comfortably. However, by the time 7:30am arrived, there were at least 150 people crammed into every possible space in the room. I found myself sharing a desk / chair combo with Katy and Michael. The professor arrived around 8:15am and proceeded to spend the next two hours calling out students’ names and dividing everyone into 21 different groups. He then explained each group was in charge of a research project. He didn’t actually call out Michael, Katy or Is names and instead just said “Oh, the three of you in the back! You’re all in a group together.” (we’re the only non-Ghanaians in the class). He then told us to talk him after class so he could explain the project. We pushed to the front of the classroom as quickly as we could at the end of class; only to find our professor had left. We ran to the social work department only to be told that our professor had left for the day and that we weren’t allowed to have any of his contact information. This was extremely aggravating considering we haven’t received a syllabus or any information about this project we have to do. It’s really difficult to get used to the way the university operates.
On Sunday we left the hostel early and traveled into Accra for the Ghana vs. Sudan soccer game! It was a World Cup qualifier game and the city was alive with Black Stars spirit. We bought our tickets and bought drinks near the stadium. Whenever you buy a drink in a glass bottle (which basically everything comes in) you have to bring the bottle back to the vendor when you’re finished. We took our drinks to a food vendor and after we finished eating were enjoying our drinks sitting at a table under the shade. A woman eventually came up to us and tried to take our empty bottles. We told her we had purchased them from another vendor and had to bring the bottles back, but were still sitting at the table because we had finished our food. She started screaming that we were “stupid foreigners”, and that we weren't allowed to sit at her table without ordering more drinks. Catherine turned to her and told her that we would have bought drinks from her, but now weren’t going to because of her rudeness. The woman (who was probably about 6 ft and 200 lbs) turned quickly to Catherine and said, “the next time you insult me, I will hit you”. Needless to say, we quickly left.
Getting to our seats in stadium was also an interesting experience. I’ve noticed that anywhere there is a large crowd, Ghanaians don’t form a line, but instead just push each other to get wherever the line is going. The entrance to the stadium was a tiny doorway with a revolving door, and there were hundreds of people trying to get in. We ended up right in the middle of the crowd, and there were more than a few times I thought I might be pushed down to the ground and trampled to death at any time. After a few dozen minutes in the sweltering heat being pushed by hundreds of Ghanaians, we entered the stadium.
Everyone in the crowd was cheering basically nonstop through the game, which I loved. I tried to learn the cheers and songs, but I don’t think they were in English so I’ll have to try to pick them up next time. The game was really fun to watch and Ghana won 2-0! Near the end of the game, people in the crowd pulled out road flares and flame torches and set them off in their hands above everyone’s heads. It was pretty crazy / probably really dangerous. I can’t imagine what would happen if someone tried to set off a road flare at an NFL game…
After the game we went out with a graduate student we had met and a few of his friends in downtown Osu. We had a great time and they showed us some nice spots in the area to go at night.
Nothing too exciting has gone on since Sunday. A new vegetarian food stand opened in the market near the hostel and we’ve eaten there everyday this week. My favorite is the tofu sandwich which is marinated tofu, lettuce, beans, avocado, tomato, cucumber and sauce on wheat bread. It’s pretty delicious and I’m looking forward to trying other things from the stand. I’ve been surprised at how non-picky I’ve been since I’ve been here.
Catherine and I have been to the university hospital twice this week trying to work out volunteer opportunities. If all goes well, I’ll be volunteering in the HIV/AIDS clinic there.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Volta Region
Last Friday we (the UNC study abroad group) left at 7 am on a bus to travel to the Volta region.
Our first stop was a tour at the Volta dam, where the majority of power in Ghana is generated. We were shown how the energy is harnessed and the process by which the energy is converted into electricity.
Our second stop was a monkey sanctuary! The monkey sanctuary is inhabited by four families of monkeys. In ancient times, the monkeys were considered gods and worshiped by the tribal peoples. The monkeys in this particular sanctuary were called Mone. They are small monkeys with long tails. So cute! We walked through trails with a guide who made noises to call the monkeys. Soon we were surrounded by one of the families and given bananas. The monkeys would climb down the branches, lean onto our hands and peel the bananas with their tiny fingers.
The next day we climbed up the tallest mountain in Ghana. The climb was a straight incline the entire trip and at many points we hand to crawl on our hands and knees along the rocks. I don't normally enjoy hiking, but I really enjoyed the challenge. The climb was long and after about an hour we reached the top. Standing on the top of the mountain was amazing. Although I don't like heights, the view from the top was beautiful. Miles were visible of dense forests dotted occasionally by small villages. Soon after we arrived at the top, a group of local children reached the top and surrounded us with smiles and endless questions about who we were and if we could take pictures of them. They reminded me of Thomas, because I could totally see him sprinting up a huge mountain and then running around once he got to the top.
After a quick lunch at the hotel (they had mac n cheese!) we hiked to the Wli Falls. Along the way, our guide pointed out cocoa trees, coconut trees and bananas trees. The waterfall was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. We decided to try to swim into the pool the waterfall drained into and under the waterfall. We got about halfway to the fall when the spray hit us. It literally felt like thousands of tiny needles stabbing me all over my body. Needless to say, we didn't get much closer to the waterfall. Upon exiting the waterfall pool, I was pulled by about six different Ghanaians who were overjoyed to have a picture with someone so white.
We returned to our hotel, exhausted from all of the physical activities. We ate dinner and soon heard drumming and yelling coming from the village near the hotel. We traveled down the road to find a group of about fifteen children playing drums in the street. They pulled us into their circle, and soon we found ourselves dancing along to the music. We learned that there was a church service going on in the village and we went to check it out. The church service was outdoors and very lively. The sermon and singing were in a local language, but the spirit and excitement of the people didn't need to be translated into any language. There was much music and dancing as well.
The next day our tour guide informed us that we would be having a "relaxing, leisurely day" visiting caves and a local weaving workshop. However, the "relaxing, leisurely" description turned out to be false. We soon found ourselves climbing up yet another mountain to reach the caves. We then had to climb basically vertical sheet rock with small indentations to reach each cave (there were five). There were more than a few times when I looked down and realized if I made one wrong move I would probably fall down the side of a mountain. Our guide was a wiry older man who climbed everything holding a machete. It's amazing how many completely normal things here would be very illegal in America.
Later in the day we traveled to a Batik workshop, where village women used wax and dye to make patterned cloth. We also visited a weaving workshop where very detailed patterns were woven.
On the way back to our hostel, we stopped at the Volta Lake. The lake was beautiful and I really want to go back and rent a small canoe. While there, we stood on a giant area that 40 years ago had been completely covered by the lake. Global warming!!
Our first stop was a tour at the Volta dam, where the majority of power in Ghana is generated. We were shown how the energy is harnessed and the process by which the energy is converted into electricity.
Our second stop was a monkey sanctuary! The monkey sanctuary is inhabited by four families of monkeys. In ancient times, the monkeys were considered gods and worshiped by the tribal peoples. The monkeys in this particular sanctuary were called Mone. They are small monkeys with long tails. So cute! We walked through trails with a guide who made noises to call the monkeys. Soon we were surrounded by one of the families and given bananas. The monkeys would climb down the branches, lean onto our hands and peel the bananas with their tiny fingers.
The next day we climbed up the tallest mountain in Ghana. The climb was a straight incline the entire trip and at many points we hand to crawl on our hands and knees along the rocks. I don't normally enjoy hiking, but I really enjoyed the challenge. The climb was long and after about an hour we reached the top. Standing on the top of the mountain was amazing. Although I don't like heights, the view from the top was beautiful. Miles were visible of dense forests dotted occasionally by small villages. Soon after we arrived at the top, a group of local children reached the top and surrounded us with smiles and endless questions about who we were and if we could take pictures of them. They reminded me of Thomas, because I could totally see him sprinting up a huge mountain and then running around once he got to the top.
After a quick lunch at the hotel (they had mac n cheese!) we hiked to the Wli Falls. Along the way, our guide pointed out cocoa trees, coconut trees and bananas trees. The waterfall was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. We decided to try to swim into the pool the waterfall drained into and under the waterfall. We got about halfway to the fall when the spray hit us. It literally felt like thousands of tiny needles stabbing me all over my body. Needless to say, we didn't get much closer to the waterfall. Upon exiting the waterfall pool, I was pulled by about six different Ghanaians who were overjoyed to have a picture with someone so white.
We returned to our hotel, exhausted from all of the physical activities. We ate dinner and soon heard drumming and yelling coming from the village near the hotel. We traveled down the road to find a group of about fifteen children playing drums in the street. They pulled us into their circle, and soon we found ourselves dancing along to the music. We learned that there was a church service going on in the village and we went to check it out. The church service was outdoors and very lively. The sermon and singing were in a local language, but the spirit and excitement of the people didn't need to be translated into any language. There was much music and dancing as well.
The next day our tour guide informed us that we would be having a "relaxing, leisurely day" visiting caves and a local weaving workshop. However, the "relaxing, leisurely" description turned out to be false. We soon found ourselves climbing up yet another mountain to reach the caves. We then had to climb basically vertical sheet rock with small indentations to reach each cave (there were five). There were more than a few times when I looked down and realized if I made one wrong move I would probably fall down the side of a mountain. Our guide was a wiry older man who climbed everything holding a machete. It's amazing how many completely normal things here would be very illegal in America.
Later in the day we traveled to a Batik workshop, where village women used wax and dye to make patterned cloth. We also visited a weaving workshop where very detailed patterns were woven.
On the way back to our hostel, we stopped at the Volta Lake. The lake was beautiful and I really want to go back and rent a small canoe. While there, we stood on a giant area that 40 years ago had been completely covered by the lake. Global warming!!
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