I’m not a particularly religious person. Although I was raised Roman Catholic I’ve studied more Islam than any other major religion out of mere compassion for innocent Muslims discriminated against post 9/11. I call my self a Unitarian but only for the fact that they are the most accepting and tolerant of different points of view as far as I know. I simply try to live my life doing what I feel is good and right while minimizing the expression of my many flaws. Church is not my favorite thing, but Elyse advised me to check it out and she hasn’t let me down with “must do” Ghana experiences thus far. If there was any doubt as to whether I’d make it, Shara nagged me and my housemates to be up for church at 5am during our (me, shara and Andrea’s) first weekend, despite the fact that we were up till 2 and still jet lagged. We never made it to church that Sunday, I’ve had three spiritual experiences in the past five days. The first of the trio was hiking to a little used place of worship with a Rastafarian. When Americans think of Rastas immediately what comes to mind are probably dread locks, marijuana and Bob Marely. But behind the stereotype is a deep appreciation of loving your fellow man, being a good person and having faith against all odds. Komoyete told us of the struggle to preserve the most spiritual aspects of Rastafarianism in light of Christianity’s sweeping reach in Ghana.
Last night was my second experience. Shara and I went to a Pentecostal service (at the International Central Gospel Church in Osu, Accra) with Olivia, a Ghanaian journalist and friend of our housemate Daan. When we arrived the congregation was in the midst of “worship” which is singing and dancing. We were lucky that they were teaching a new song so we could sing along. After a couple of minutes I closed my eyes and observed the goings on with my ears. There were random shouts of “praise the lord, lord have mercy, hallelujah” as the live band played. At one point everyone started “speaking in tongues”…it was quite the unique experience for to non-religious Obrunis – visiting a Ghanaian church for the first time. After worship, Pastor Smith took the stage. The subject of the sermon was “the luke-warm Christian” – ‘lukewarm is defined as a liquid that is not hot nor cold …thus it cannot be used for its purpose as it is unstable’. He then read a passage from the bible that neither me nor Shara have ever heard …something to the affect of “if you are luke-warm when you come to me I will spew you out”. It was an awfully pertinent subject for us given that Shara is half-Jewish, half-Christian and joked about getting baptized in Ghana just for the experience…and I won’t rehash my feelings about church. As a whole the service was very interesting, intelligent, well articulated and humorous – it was more or less a light-hearted but well directed wake up call to the parishioners as they gear up for their version of Ramadan (from July 1-July 31 they fast from 6am-6pm in the hopes that god will continue to bless them for the second half of the year).
This morning I was invited to the 28th Anniversary Remembrance Service for three assassinated High court Justices. Among the distinguished guests was the Madame Chief Justice of Ghana (more like the president of the judiciary, way more relative power than John Roberts) the Deputy Attorney General and several Supreme, Appellate and High Court Justices, as well as a who’s who of Ghanaian lawyers. The service, hosted by Ghana’s Bar Association, and conducted by The Very Rev. Father Andrew Campbell, commemorates the lives of 3 high court justices, slain by revolutionaries for freeing individuals unlawfully imprisoned by the short-lived John Rawlings revolutionary government. Father Campbell, an Irish ex-pat who has lived in Ghana for almost 40 years, was brilliant. He spoke about the importance of forgiveness – “revenge is human, but forgiveness is Divine”. It was the best Roman Catholic service I’ve been to since I last attended Father Michael’s service at the St. Francis church in Hoboken as a boy of 11 or so. By and large it was a pretty traditional service except when the collection plate came around. At that point the choir busted out the African music from their set list and drums emerged from the woodwork. The Madam Chief Justice then led the congregation in a dance. The service closed with Ghana’s national anthem, marking the first time I’ve had the privilege of hearing the lyrics sung aloud. My experience with Pastor Smith and more so with Father Campbell is that I actually really enjoy church services. Once you get past of the monotony of the rituals and the brainwashing overtones of guilt (not present at all in Father Campbell’s service) church is really enjoyable. Perhaps I will shop around when I get back to the US for a good place to visit when I start to lose sight of what’s important in life.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
weekend of June 25th
We arrive at Big Milly’s guest house with enough time to actually enjoy our evening, bout 7. This place is markedly different from the big city just 45 minutes away. Very quiet, very peaceful. It would become the theme of the weekend. Raining; not many people around. We are greeted by a Ewe/French speaking security guard. Unfortunately between the 3 of us I speak the most French, which gets us no where. We eventually figure it out and get our “dorm rooms” – Actually an open air shack with beds, mosquito nets and trunks for your belongings. Actually pretty cool. We just missed a bbq so we had to get some jalloff rice next door. Not bad, not great. When we return people are playing drums. Tons of Obruni’s but lots of locals too. Toward the end of the evening Andrea’s friend of a friend, Komoyete, meets us. Andrea called him for the first time this summer just an hour or so before we arrived. We chatted with him for a bit and he told us to be ready by 6 so that he could show us around. If he weren’t so relaxed he’d be bursting from the seams with excitement. You can tell he really loves his village.
6am Saturday morning, Komoyete is true to his word. “He doesn’t run on African time he runs on Real time” exclaims Andrea. We jump in the cab and go to a seemingly random house. Trudge through a couple backyards and we’re starting to hit some forest. Komoyete gives tours for people who stay at the guest house on a regular basis. We’re privileged though because his and Andrea’s mutual friend. We get to see a lot more and pay a lot less (in fact we only paid to cost of renting a boat, he covered everything else). Everyone seems to know him. I can’t really get the story straight but he’s pretty high up. At first I thought he was the chief of the village, but I think he’s the heir. His Grandfather is the chief, but his father told us that Komoyete was the chosen one. At any rate Komoyete takes responsibility for the land, water and trees and animals . “this is my water, these are my trees…etc”. He’s a tree steward of the environment and does everything he can to preserve it. I almost lost it when he used the word biodiversity. For some reason I didn’t think it was a word that translated perfectly into Ghanaian English. He was absolutely right though. He had trees I had never seen before, tilapia that he fed so that they would continue to live in his water and eat the algae, bananas, mangos and papaya trees, monkeys, and all sorts of smaller plants. At some point we go to his house and meet his sister and nephew. This boys name is Ebenezer, but Komoyete calls him “Komoyete Jr.” I think he plans on raising him to appreciate nature as much as he does.
7:30 am Komoyete gives us some ‘fresh from the farm’ bananas and makes us some breakfast. While we wait, me, Shara and Andrea just chill outside and watch the trees. A couple times we see Monkeys kamikaze from larger trees to smaller trees. Somehow the branches support them every time. After breakfast we walk to the forest to see a spiritual place in the forest – a place where komoyete, his father, grandfather and some people from the village go for spiritual guidance. The route is a little covered with weeds in some parts and since we wore shorts Komoyete has to hack away a bit to make paths. Some how he doesn’t break a sweat despite his big winter hat (over his dreads) and his black Bob Marley t-shirt.
When we make it to the place we just sorta stand and silence for a bit. Andreas friend Karen said that her and Komoyete would just sit in silence for up to 4 hours just staring out into the world. Shara’s too chatty to let that happen though, which is a good thing because he actually has a lot to say. He tells us how people come to pray and leave sacrifices of alcohol for the spirits. Explains the empty bottles lying around. After some time we head back…stopping along the way for seemingly no reason but to collect our thoughts for up to 10 minutes at a time. One of Komoyete’s nephews makes us an herbal remedy to rub on our mosquito bites. I wish I had some now because as I write this my hands are itching like crazy.
About 10 am we set off for “africa”. It’s an island pretty close to Komoyete’s village. He calls it Africa because it’s more “natural” than other parts of Ghana, especially Accra. “Right now we are in America, I will take you to Africa”. We get a boat, which is manned by a young guy rowing with a gondola oar. Row about 10 minutes and then stop to grab some beans and rice. Row about 30 more minutes to a beachy area, the name of which I can’t remember. It’s definitely where rich tourists come as there is a way to fancy hotel there. We relax there for a bit and then get on the boat to head to “Africa”. Its about another half hour – an hour including all of the stops we take to look at the wild life on the trees. Some pretty sick snails and crabs that just live in the branches. We see amazing birds like hundreds of them at once. “this is not a documentary, this is real life” beams Komoyete with a huge grin. When we make it to Africa it’s a beachy area with grass huts. He brings us to his house on the island where one of his sister’s lives and has a bar. He makes up try akapateshi, a local spirit that Shara has wanted to try all summer. Not good at all. I’ve cleaned wounds with less potent stuff I’m certain.
We walk a bit through the village. So refreshing to be away from the smells of gasoline and the blaring of “obruni, obruni come and take a look”. No one is trying to sell you anything here. Then again they barely have anything to sell everyone on the Island gets whatever they need at about 7am from a boat that visits. During the week the kids have to walk about 30 minutes to catch a boat to school. Komoyete is working on getting a boat to and from school closer to the kid’s huts.
We take a less scenic route on the way back. Sorta good because we want to make it back for the match. When we arrive back at Big Millie’s we make it just in time to order dinner. My mood begins to change. Or rather, revert back to the how I felt Wednesday night after the matchup between the US and Ghana was announced. Fettered excitement with pending disappointment. Ghana strikes first. Everyone celebrates around me but I’m silent. At the end of the first half its 1-nil black stars. Second half…the United States dominates the opening minutes. I want them to score…be careful what you wish for. They get the equalizer on a Donavan penalty shot. Everyone is on the edge of their seats for the rest of the half. Both teams survive the rest of the half. It wasn’t enough for Ghana to play the US, the football gods had to drag it out an extra 30 minutes. About 5 minutes into extra time Ghana scores. I manage a slow clap but I’m not happy. When the final whistle blows everyone goes crazy around me. I’m devoid of joy. Never could I have imagined that I would be so affected by a football match. Someone drapes a Ghanaian flag around me at the bar. I’m patient. Eventually he gets the picture and takes it off of me. I couldn’t really get my mood up for the rest of the night but the regea concert infront of my dorm prevented me from calling it an early night. [Right now at work everyone’s busting my chops about the game. Nii (my officemate) was the most cordial about it but my favorite colleague, Osofu was relentless this morning. “Campbell, you forgot to sign the attendance book this morning because you were confused after Saturday’s match”. Followed by my boss , Ema and Didi coming in to offer “their sympathies”.]
Komoyete comes over to me at the bar and took me to the beach to show me a fish he caught. He takes me over to a little sand pit he made, splashes some water around and sure enough there was a pretty big tilapia on the beach. Apparently me and Drea just missed seeing a giant tortoise bury her eggs.
Later we meet some Britons on the beach. Solid guys. They’re all volunteering at an orphanage at a village in the north. Alex has been here for 4 months and Senior for 2. They invited me to play soccer with them and some kids the next day .
The following morning I rolled outta bed and onto the beach. Chilled there for a bit, grabbed breakfast and played some soccer. These little kids are incredible any one of them could easily start on a MLS team at 14 and could make a premiership team as an adult. The sad thing is they’ll never get recognized unless scouts come down to check them out. Maybe the Blackstar’s performance during this cup will open more eyes to the athletic talent of many of these young kids.
After soccer I start to miss home. Last week Osu (the neighborhood I work in) has been getting on my nerves. People constantly trying to sell me stuff and yelling U.S., U.S. at me. It didn’t really bug me before but it get’s old after a while. I love Ghana but sometimes I’d just like to escape for a couple hours… preferably to have some Pinnochio’s pizza with Terri in Harvard Square. I always get homesick though. Even when I went to France (for only 6 weeks) I was missing home about 4 weeks in. It’s just hard sticking out much…people constantly speaking a language you don’t understand. I know when it’s time to leave/when I get back to the US I’ll miss Ghana tons. But right now, if I were given the opportunity to roll my flight back a week or two I’d give it serious thought.
6am Saturday morning, Komoyete is true to his word. “He doesn’t run on African time he runs on Real time” exclaims Andrea. We jump in the cab and go to a seemingly random house. Trudge through a couple backyards and we’re starting to hit some forest. Komoyete gives tours for people who stay at the guest house on a regular basis. We’re privileged though because his and Andrea’s mutual friend. We get to see a lot more and pay a lot less (in fact we only paid to cost of renting a boat, he covered everything else). Everyone seems to know him. I can’t really get the story straight but he’s pretty high up. At first I thought he was the chief of the village, but I think he’s the heir. His Grandfather is the chief, but his father told us that Komoyete was the chosen one. At any rate Komoyete takes responsibility for the land, water and trees and animals . “this is my water, these are my trees…etc”. He’s a tree steward of the environment and does everything he can to preserve it. I almost lost it when he used the word biodiversity. For some reason I didn’t think it was a word that translated perfectly into Ghanaian English. He was absolutely right though. He had trees I had never seen before, tilapia that he fed so that they would continue to live in his water and eat the algae, bananas, mangos and papaya trees, monkeys, and all sorts of smaller plants. At some point we go to his house and meet his sister and nephew. This boys name is Ebenezer, but Komoyete calls him “Komoyete Jr.” I think he plans on raising him to appreciate nature as much as he does.
7:30 am Komoyete gives us some ‘fresh from the farm’ bananas and makes us some breakfast. While we wait, me, Shara and Andrea just chill outside and watch the trees. A couple times we see Monkeys kamikaze from larger trees to smaller trees. Somehow the branches support them every time. After breakfast we walk to the forest to see a spiritual place in the forest – a place where komoyete, his father, grandfather and some people from the village go for spiritual guidance. The route is a little covered with weeds in some parts and since we wore shorts Komoyete has to hack away a bit to make paths. Some how he doesn’t break a sweat despite his big winter hat (over his dreads) and his black Bob Marley t-shirt.
When we make it to the place we just sorta stand and silence for a bit. Andreas friend Karen said that her and Komoyete would just sit in silence for up to 4 hours just staring out into the world. Shara’s too chatty to let that happen though, which is a good thing because he actually has a lot to say. He tells us how people come to pray and leave sacrifices of alcohol for the spirits. Explains the empty bottles lying around. After some time we head back…stopping along the way for seemingly no reason but to collect our thoughts for up to 10 minutes at a time. One of Komoyete’s nephews makes us an herbal remedy to rub on our mosquito bites. I wish I had some now because as I write this my hands are itching like crazy.
About 10 am we set off for “africa”. It’s an island pretty close to Komoyete’s village. He calls it Africa because it’s more “natural” than other parts of Ghana, especially Accra. “Right now we are in America, I will take you to Africa”. We get a boat, which is manned by a young guy rowing with a gondola oar. Row about 10 minutes and then stop to grab some beans and rice. Row about 30 more minutes to a beachy area, the name of which I can’t remember. It’s definitely where rich tourists come as there is a way to fancy hotel there. We relax there for a bit and then get on the boat to head to “Africa”. Its about another half hour – an hour including all of the stops we take to look at the wild life on the trees. Some pretty sick snails and crabs that just live in the branches. We see amazing birds like hundreds of them at once. “this is not a documentary, this is real life” beams Komoyete with a huge grin. When we make it to Africa it’s a beachy area with grass huts. He brings us to his house on the island where one of his sister’s lives and has a bar. He makes up try akapateshi, a local spirit that Shara has wanted to try all summer. Not good at all. I’ve cleaned wounds with less potent stuff I’m certain.
We walk a bit through the village. So refreshing to be away from the smells of gasoline and the blaring of “obruni, obruni come and take a look”. No one is trying to sell you anything here. Then again they barely have anything to sell everyone on the Island gets whatever they need at about 7am from a boat that visits. During the week the kids have to walk about 30 minutes to catch a boat to school. Komoyete is working on getting a boat to and from school closer to the kid’s huts.
We take a less scenic route on the way back. Sorta good because we want to make it back for the match. When we arrive back at Big Millie’s we make it just in time to order dinner. My mood begins to change. Or rather, revert back to the how I felt Wednesday night after the matchup between the US and Ghana was announced. Fettered excitement with pending disappointment. Ghana strikes first. Everyone celebrates around me but I’m silent. At the end of the first half its 1-nil black stars. Second half…the United States dominates the opening minutes. I want them to score…be careful what you wish for. They get the equalizer on a Donavan penalty shot. Everyone is on the edge of their seats for the rest of the half. Both teams survive the rest of the half. It wasn’t enough for Ghana to play the US, the football gods had to drag it out an extra 30 minutes. About 5 minutes into extra time Ghana scores. I manage a slow clap but I’m not happy. When the final whistle blows everyone goes crazy around me. I’m devoid of joy. Never could I have imagined that I would be so affected by a football match. Someone drapes a Ghanaian flag around me at the bar. I’m patient. Eventually he gets the picture and takes it off of me. I couldn’t really get my mood up for the rest of the night but the regea concert infront of my dorm prevented me from calling it an early night. [Right now at work everyone’s busting my chops about the game. Nii (my officemate) was the most cordial about it but my favorite colleague, Osofu was relentless this morning. “Campbell, you forgot to sign the attendance book this morning because you were confused after Saturday’s match”. Followed by my boss , Ema and Didi coming in to offer “their sympathies”.]
Komoyete comes over to me at the bar and took me to the beach to show me a fish he caught. He takes me over to a little sand pit he made, splashes some water around and sure enough there was a pretty big tilapia on the beach. Apparently me and Drea just missed seeing a giant tortoise bury her eggs.
Later we meet some Britons on the beach. Solid guys. They’re all volunteering at an orphanage at a village in the north. Alex has been here for 4 months and Senior for 2. They invited me to play soccer with them and some kids the next day .
The following morning I rolled outta bed and onto the beach. Chilled there for a bit, grabbed breakfast and played some soccer. These little kids are incredible any one of them could easily start on a MLS team at 14 and could make a premiership team as an adult. The sad thing is they’ll never get recognized unless scouts come down to check them out. Maybe the Blackstar’s performance during this cup will open more eyes to the athletic talent of many of these young kids.
After soccer I start to miss home. Last week Osu (the neighborhood I work in) has been getting on my nerves. People constantly trying to sell me stuff and yelling U.S., U.S. at me. It didn’t really bug me before but it get’s old after a while. I love Ghana but sometimes I’d just like to escape for a couple hours… preferably to have some Pinnochio’s pizza with Terri in Harvard Square. I always get homesick though. Even when I went to France (for only 6 weeks) I was missing home about 4 weeks in. It’s just hard sticking out much…people constantly speaking a language you don’t understand. I know when it’s time to leave/when I get back to the US I’ll miss Ghana tons. But right now, if I were given the opportunity to roll my flight back a week or two I’d give it serious thought.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Weekend of June 18th
Amazing weekend. Hiked two mountains, swam under a water fall, danced it a traditional village festival and met some of the warmest people I've yet to encounter in Ghana.
As last weekend, the journey begins with a mad dash to find the correct tro-tro to our destination. I had an easier time finding the place on my own because I knew the name of the station and grabbed a cab from the barber shop ($1.40 for a haircut btw). There was a minor concern that we wouldn't be able to find our new friend, Jackye because we told her the station across the street and she retained her American phone number (global blackberry) but that notion was soon dispelled when me and Shara found her being led to us by a couple of Ghanians in our direction. Sometimes it really helps being the only Obrunis in an area because it is so easy to find each other. Indeed, while waiting for Andrea a random person declared to me “I think I see your sister up the Junction”, sure enough it was her. When we well all rounded up we set off for our 5 hour trip (2 hours of it was traffic in Accra). By the time we got to Hohea (spelling) we only had time to get to a guest house and knock out for a few hours before our hike.
At 5:30 am we headed to the mountain. Although the lovely owner of the guest house offered to make us breakfast, we didn't have time to wait for her to round up all of the ingredients.(side note: whenever you go to a restaurant to get a meal that is cooked to order, more likely than not someone from the shop has to go to a local market, round up all of the perishable ingredients, and cook everything from scratch. It makes for very fresh but very slow meals.) Instead we opted to buy some fresh bread near the tro-tro station, which was legit the best bread we've had here. For a 30 cents each (I kid you not), we each got a fresh loaf of bread, a bag of shelled peanuts and a piece of this little fried dough thing that tasted like KFC (from what I remember from like 6 years ago). Keep in mind that everything we eat in Ghana, for the most part, is organic. I eat caged free eggs almost every day with organic bread and fruit. The meal we had in Hoea in Whole Foods (or it's progeny) would have been at least $10, and probably not as good.
Mount Afijato is about 900 meteres, straight up. It was basically a vertical staircase in the rainforest with well placed rocks as steps. I was pretty happy that I'm still in shape from the end of last semester and that I wasn't out of breath. But poor Daan, all 4 feet of her, decided to wear jeans and was more than understandably having a hard time keeping up (and in retrospect I feel pretty bad for setting such a fast pace :-/). No matter, it gave us more time to enjoy the scenery on our way up the an amazing view of the volta river . Let me take this opportunity to say, sorry guys. You'll get these pictures when ya get 'em because it took me forever to upload one picture the other day. I'll see if I can email some to Terri for her to post.
When we got down we played the inevitable waiting game for a cab to the water fall. Eventually we made it over to the Entrance of Wili falls, but not before Shara asked a two random women if she can help them make fufu (a tamale like thing made from mashed maize). If she didn't know already, Shara came to find that this is strenuous business. First of all the stick they used was pretty damn heavy, Secondly, they make this dish is like playing music. They take a giant bowl with all of the ingredients. Then one woman moves the giant pieces of vegetable around while the other smashes this giant stick down with all of her might. One false move would certainly break a hand, but I think the teamwork is really illustrative of how much more collectivist the Ghanian culture is compared to the West. At the falls, our tour guide led us through a brisk 40 minute walk to the falls. After hot/sweaty day of walking/climbing there was nothing left to do but jump in the water. Me, Daan , Shara and Andrea made it pretty much right under the falls and Jackye (who wasn't interested in jumping in) got some amazing pictures that you'll just have to wait for :P. We pretty much ran back from there so we can make it back to the guest house to watch the Black Stars take on Australia. Of course not without an absurd transportation situation where we squeezed 8 people in the car, and one in the trunk...
There was a chop-shop right across the street from our place and we had some much deserved beers with some locals and waited the inevitable 90 minutes for lunch. The Draw that Ghana managed didn't evoke the insane celebration of the week before, but the result was good enough to set up a pivotal match against Germany on Wednesday, with Ghana controlling their own destiny (win or draw and we're in :) .
We went to town, of course the first tro-tro broke down and we squished 5 people into like 1 and a half seats.
When we got to Have' we were greeted by Pedro (who had some battle wounds from his village fishing expedition), Grandpa (they are big with the cool grandparents here) and Justice (yeah that's his real name). Both were extremely welcoming. Grandpa actually spent some time in the US, I believe he said working for the FAA …
Diego and Conrad followed soon there after with some of Pedro's work colleagues. Incidentally one of them was a high-school mate of Terri's. We all chipped in a buck to get some ingredients for jalloff rice, and Conrad whipped up a delicious batch. After a glass of a traditional welcoming drink (Guinness and palm wine cocktail...I don't recommend it) we headed to the dance festival. I really can't describe how awesome it was...but basically Google BorBorBor when you get a chance. Everyone gathered in this small area while a dance troupe performed in the middle. Then if you wanted to join the dancing circle you just made your way in (or if you're obviously not Ghanian one of the women will pull you in).
The next morning there was more celebrating of Agadavi. Every year the people of Have' commemorate the day when a huge mudslide (they say volcanic eruption but I think what happened was closer to a mud slide) occurred near town and no one was hurt “not even an animal”. Shara of course wanted to climb a second mountain and get up wicked early on the one day we have to sleep in :-/. So we met up with Diego and Justice, got Ginormous egg sandwiches for $1 and hiked the mountain. It was a great time but unfortunately the path to the top was covered in fallen brush so we couldn't make it all the way up.
When we got back people had arrived at the festival and they were collected money for a new community center. The place we stayed in was definitely not touristy or rich by any means. But they managed to raise about $4,000 US dollars which is an astronomical amount. There was some more dancing but we had to leave to get lunch started. We took all of the Talapia and some ingredients to the bar we went to the night before and the owner grilled up for those who ate fish.
Me and all of my housemates loved Have (“the town with no internet”). If there is a weekend where we do something twice it would probably be visiting that area again. Pedro's colleagues didn't like it so much and kind of complained that it was “removed from civilization”. You can't please everyone I guess. This weekend we're taking a break from traveling so far away. We're staying at a beach house called cocobrite (about 45 minutes outside of Accra) where Andrea knows a tribal chief. Needless to say it's gonna be another great weekend.
As last weekend, the journey begins with a mad dash to find the correct tro-tro to our destination. I had an easier time finding the place on my own because I knew the name of the station and grabbed a cab from the barber shop ($1.40 for a haircut btw). There was a minor concern that we wouldn't be able to find our new friend, Jackye because we told her the station across the street and she retained her American phone number (global blackberry) but that notion was soon dispelled when me and Shara found her being led to us by a couple of Ghanians in our direction. Sometimes it really helps being the only Obrunis in an area because it is so easy to find each other. Indeed, while waiting for Andrea a random person declared to me “I think I see your sister up the Junction”, sure enough it was her. When we well all rounded up we set off for our 5 hour trip (2 hours of it was traffic in Accra). By the time we got to Hohea (spelling) we only had time to get to a guest house and knock out for a few hours before our hike.
At 5:30 am we headed to the mountain. Although the lovely owner of the guest house offered to make us breakfast, we didn't have time to wait for her to round up all of the ingredients.(side note: whenever you go to a restaurant to get a meal that is cooked to order, more likely than not someone from the shop has to go to a local market, round up all of the perishable ingredients, and cook everything from scratch. It makes for very fresh but very slow meals.) Instead we opted to buy some fresh bread near the tro-tro station, which was legit the best bread we've had here. For a 30 cents each (I kid you not), we each got a fresh loaf of bread, a bag of shelled peanuts and a piece of this little fried dough thing that tasted like KFC (from what I remember from like 6 years ago). Keep in mind that everything we eat in Ghana, for the most part, is organic. I eat caged free eggs almost every day with organic bread and fruit. The meal we had in Hoea in Whole Foods (or it's progeny) would have been at least $10, and probably not as good.
Mount Afijato is about 900 meteres, straight up. It was basically a vertical staircase in the rainforest with well placed rocks as steps. I was pretty happy that I'm still in shape from the end of last semester and that I wasn't out of breath. But poor Daan, all 4 feet of her, decided to wear jeans and was more than understandably having a hard time keeping up (and in retrospect I feel pretty bad for setting such a fast pace :-/). No matter, it gave us more time to enjoy the scenery on our way up the an amazing view of the volta river . Let me take this opportunity to say, sorry guys. You'll get these pictures when ya get 'em because it took me forever to upload one picture the other day. I'll see if I can email some to Terri for her to post.
When we got down we played the inevitable waiting game for a cab to the water fall. Eventually we made it over to the Entrance of Wili falls, but not before Shara asked a two random women if she can help them make fufu (a tamale like thing made from mashed maize). If she didn't know already, Shara came to find that this is strenuous business. First of all the stick they used was pretty damn heavy, Secondly, they make this dish is like playing music. They take a giant bowl with all of the ingredients. Then one woman moves the giant pieces of vegetable around while the other smashes this giant stick down with all of her might. One false move would certainly break a hand, but I think the teamwork is really illustrative of how much more collectivist the Ghanian culture is compared to the West. At the falls, our tour guide led us through a brisk 40 minute walk to the falls. After hot/sweaty day of walking/climbing there was nothing left to do but jump in the water. Me, Daan , Shara and Andrea made it pretty much right under the falls and Jackye (who wasn't interested in jumping in) got some amazing pictures that you'll just have to wait for :P. We pretty much ran back from there so we can make it back to the guest house to watch the Black Stars take on Australia. Of course not without an absurd transportation situation where we squeezed 8 people in the car, and one in the trunk...
There was a chop-shop right across the street from our place and we had some much deserved beers with some locals and waited the inevitable 90 minutes for lunch. The Draw that Ghana managed didn't evoke the insane celebration of the week before, but the result was good enough to set up a pivotal match against Germany on Wednesday, with Ghana controlling their own destiny (win or draw and we're in :) .
We went to town, of course the first tro-tro broke down and we squished 5 people into like 1 and a half seats.
When we got to Have' we were greeted by Pedro (who had some battle wounds from his village fishing expedition), Grandpa (they are big with the cool grandparents here) and Justice (yeah that's his real name). Both were extremely welcoming. Grandpa actually spent some time in the US, I believe he said working for the FAA …
Diego and Conrad followed soon there after with some of Pedro's work colleagues. Incidentally one of them was a high-school mate of Terri's. We all chipped in a buck to get some ingredients for jalloff rice, and Conrad whipped up a delicious batch. After a glass of a traditional welcoming drink (Guinness and palm wine cocktail...I don't recommend it) we headed to the dance festival. I really can't describe how awesome it was...but basically Google BorBorBor when you get a chance. Everyone gathered in this small area while a dance troupe performed in the middle. Then if you wanted to join the dancing circle you just made your way in (or if you're obviously not Ghanian one of the women will pull you in).
The next morning there was more celebrating of Agadavi. Every year the people of Have' commemorate the day when a huge mudslide (they say volcanic eruption but I think what happened was closer to a mud slide) occurred near town and no one was hurt “not even an animal”. Shara of course wanted to climb a second mountain and get up wicked early on the one day we have to sleep in :-/. So we met up with Diego and Justice, got Ginormous egg sandwiches for $1 and hiked the mountain. It was a great time but unfortunately the path to the top was covered in fallen brush so we couldn't make it all the way up.
When we got back people had arrived at the festival and they were collected money for a new community center. The place we stayed in was definitely not touristy or rich by any means. But they managed to raise about $4,000 US dollars which is an astronomical amount. There was some more dancing but we had to leave to get lunch started. We took all of the Talapia and some ingredients to the bar we went to the night before and the owner grilled up for those who ate fish.
Me and all of my housemates loved Have (“the town with no internet”). If there is a weekend where we do something twice it would probably be visiting that area again. Pedro's colleagues didn't like it so much and kind of complained that it was “removed from civilization”. You can't please everyone I guess. This weekend we're taking a break from traveling so far away. We're staying at a beach house called cocobrite (about 45 minutes outside of Accra) where Andrea knows a tribal chief. Needless to say it's gonna be another great weekend.
June 24th -- Black Stars/ USA advance
Thanks to some last minute heroics from Landon Donavon, Josie Altadore and a caravan of red, white and blue charging toward the goal in the 92nd minute, the US is advancing to the round of 16. I got to witness the brillance at Epos Sport when I snuck over across the street. There I met up with Evans, a local kid that showed me how to get to my bus stop after my first day of work. He really wants to go to the United States to coach soccer (he walks with a limp so I assume that's why he has jumped right to coaching) but visas to the US are nearly impossible to get for young Ghanaians. He had a huge american flag draped around his back when I walked in and was pouring his heart in soul into urging our guys on. When we pulled off the game winning goal he exclaimed "oh I'm so excited, I think I almost cried!"
After the US match I came back and threw on my Ghana Jersey, some new Ghana shorts that my boss bought for me and my wrist and captain's band and left work early. Everyone always shouts "ay Stephen Apiah" at me when I wear my Black Stars Gear, I'm guessing because we both have shaved heads because my jersey doesn't have a name on the back. I picked up my house mates near my bus stop (minus Daan b/c it was "too hot") and we came back to Epos. We met up with Evans again and of course there were an insane amount of people in epos, but Evans saved us seats in the first row. The game was hard fought, and although the Black Stars lost 1-nil , we got a little help from Australia (who defeated Serbia) to make it into the round of 16. That's the good news. The most unfortunate world cup news for me, Drea and Evans is that because Ghana did not win their group (by losing to Germany) and the US won their group (by scoring more goals than England, even though they both have 1 win and 2 ties) the US and Ghana will now face off this Saturday at 2:30 pm eastern time. Drea and I are really torn up about it .
Firstly we both grew up supporting US soccer. As a soccer player in the US you are constantly told that your sport isn't tough enough, real or what have you. You're pushed around by the Football coach for use of the school's facilities, and that same coach will try to steal the best players on your team to be a kicker. Drea is also from Kearny, NJ which is soccer town, USA.
However we are now full supporters of the Black Stars. For all of the strife that Ghanians face everyday some how the one thing that will always put a smile on their faces is a proud performance by their men in red, green and yellow. We've both said that we won't watch the game and support who ever moves on to the round of 8. I bet Shara will make us watch it though. She thinks we're being selfish for even questioning who to root for during this game because Americans will soon forget this world cup squad if we in it all but Ghana would never forget the 2010 Black Stars should they even make it to the 1/4 final. Deep down I know she's right but I still can't bring myself to root against the USA.
So this weekend, I will not be not busting out the American flag shutter shades and I'm leaving my black stars jersey at home. Somebody let me know when it's over.
After the US match I came back and threw on my Ghana Jersey, some new Ghana shorts that my boss bought for me and my wrist and captain's band and left work early. Everyone always shouts "ay Stephen Apiah" at me when I wear my Black Stars Gear, I'm guessing because we both have shaved heads because my jersey doesn't have a name on the back. I picked up my house mates near my bus stop (minus Daan b/c it was "too hot") and we came back to Epos. We met up with Evans again and of course there were an insane amount of people in epos, but Evans saved us seats in the first row. The game was hard fought, and although the Black Stars lost 1-nil , we got a little help from Australia (who defeated Serbia) to make it into the round of 16. That's the good news. The most unfortunate world cup news for me, Drea and Evans is that because Ghana did not win their group (by losing to Germany) and the US won their group (by scoring more goals than England, even though they both have 1 win and 2 ties) the US and Ghana will now face off this Saturday at 2:30 pm eastern time. Drea and I are really torn up about it .
Firstly we both grew up supporting US soccer. As a soccer player in the US you are constantly told that your sport isn't tough enough, real or what have you. You're pushed around by the Football coach for use of the school's facilities, and that same coach will try to steal the best players on your team to be a kicker. Drea is also from Kearny, NJ which is soccer town, USA.
However we are now full supporters of the Black Stars. For all of the strife that Ghanians face everyday some how the one thing that will always put a smile on their faces is a proud performance by their men in red, green and yellow. We've both said that we won't watch the game and support who ever moves on to the round of 8. I bet Shara will make us watch it though. She thinks we're being selfish for even questioning who to root for during this game because Americans will soon forget this world cup squad if we in it all but Ghana would never forget the 2010 Black Stars should they even make it to the 1/4 final. Deep down I know she's right but I still can't bring myself to root against the USA.
So this weekend, I will not be not busting out the American flag shutter shades and I'm leaving my black stars jersey at home. Somebody let me know when it's over.
Monday, June 21, 2010
June 21st
Awesome weekend. I'll post about it in the coming days. Highlights include : hiking two mountains, swimming under a water fall and dancing in an African Festival.
Friday, June 18, 2010
June 18th
Today marks two weeks that I've been here.I was naive enough to believe I would be immune to culture shock but after the first couple of days I didn't know if I made the right choice coming here. There's nothing wrong with the people, the food or even the bucket showers. But it took a bit to get used to the transportation system, the lack of urgency to get somewhere on time and even the contradictions of the court system (super formal yet wicked disorganized). I'm happy to say that I'm definitely getting into the swing of things. There's nothing like catching your tro tro just before it leaves, wind in your face as the mate jumps into the moving vehicle and slams the door. You can sit back and relax because you know you're gonna be on it for a while and if you need a snack, drink, ironing board (ok exaggerating a little), no worries because as soon as you hit the inevitable traffic you will be bombarded with a traveling shopping mall with a plethora of goodies. I got 8 weeks to go and something tells me they're gonna fly.
Don't forget to watch the US take on Slovenia today at 10am eastern time. And the Black Stars face Australia at Noon eastern and Saturday !
Don't forget to watch the US take on Slovenia today at 10am eastern time. And the Black Stars face Australia at Noon eastern and Saturday !
Thursday, June 17, 2010
June 17th
Hey Y'all,
Busy week work wise. Shara and Drea came to Osu to watch the game South Africa game last nite. Shara really wanted to check out this ex-pat bar called "Ryan's pub" that was in her guide book so we went there. Wouldn't recommend it. It's the kinda place that Westerners go to avoid the locals. I'm trying to upload pics but with Ghana internet its taking forever. I'm creating a google web album to make it easier to upload and I'll post the address to it when i get it done. The 5 of us (Grandma's volunteers) + a new American volunteer are gong to the village of Hoi to hike the tallest mountain in west Africa (not really that big 2.5 hours up?) and check out a village festival.
Busy week work wise. Shara and Drea came to Osu to watch the game South Africa game last nite. Shara really wanted to check out this ex-pat bar called "Ryan's pub" that was in her guide book so we went there. Wouldn't recommend it. It's the kinda place that Westerners go to avoid the locals. I'm trying to upload pics but with Ghana internet its taking forever. I'm creating a google web album to make it easier to upload and I'll post the address to it when i get it done. The 5 of us (Grandma's volunteers) + a new American volunteer are gong to the village of Hoi to hike the tallest mountain in west Africa (not really that big 2.5 hours up?) and check out a village festival.
Back logged posts
June 13th
On Friday I got my first substantial work assignment from the lead Partner of the firm I'm interning with. I don't think it's really appropriate to talk much about it on here (if my law school nerds want to talk about it I can tell you as much as I'm allowed).
As for the weekend, the adventure for me, Shara (henceforth Eliza Thornberry) and Drea started as soon as we got to Nkurma circle to catch the bus (aka a TroTro with a little extra room, and air conditioning) . When we heard that we had to go to Keneshi station (a short work from the circle) we think “oh yeah no problem”...but nothings ever that easy in Accra. The first challenge was finding the “station”. We asked the owners of a bunch of different new stands and they pointed us in some general direction but never really helped us more than that. When we finally found the damn thing it turned out to be a giant parking lot filled with tro tros. None of them were clearly labeled so you had to ask the all of the drivers for the one you want. With a little luck we finally found it and were able to get on shortly before we left.
After the 3 hour ride (with traffic) we checked into our hostel where I encountered the first forigen people (outside of the ones that I live with) all week. The 3 of us had a pretty chill night on the roof of the hotel and prepared for our long Saturday
The next morning we set out to see Cape Coast Castle. As I alluded to in my mini post on Friday, the castle served as a slave trading center. I've read about all of the atrocities of the slave trade in several works books and biographies, so I all I can do as our tour guide led us through was shake my head. Many of the Ghanian's made loud exclamations of anger and I couldn't help but wonder if they blocked out the history of the slave trade in their minds? Do they even bother to teach it in school? Or was it just that time doesn't heal all wounds?
One of the Ghanian castle visitors approached me as we walked around, declaring “ I think you are Ghanaian”. Confused I told him shyly that I was American but he retorted “oh no, no, you may live in America but I feel that your heritage is Ghanian”. That's all together possible. This gentleman was the first of many Cape Coasters to advise me to further explore my African heritage, no matter how distant in time. Even young Ghanian men that we hung out with after watching the USA game implored me to explore as much of Ghana as I can while I'm here.
After the castle we went the kakoom national park. It is home to leopards, elephants, snakes, rare butterflies, monkeys, all types of strange ruffage and much more. However during the day many of the animals are afraid to strut their stuff so we were (resided) to simply the trees. What better way to enjoy them though than from above? Here's where the scariest time of my trip so far came. Most people who know me are probably away that me and heights aren't exactly best friends forever. At the suggestion of Elyse and the chiding of Eliza Thornberry and Andrea I had no choice but to face my fears and partake in the “canopy walk” which is basically a series of 7 narrow , shaky bridges, surrounded by flimsy nets, in between trees about 40 meters high. Although my fears were faced, they certainly weren't conqured because I probrably wouldn't do it a second time.
Later we went to Hans cottage, where Eliza Thornberry (note: this is a Nickelodeon cartoon reference for those who don't get it. She's an explorer who lives in Africa with her parents and talks to animals) was souped to touch some crocodiles. Though we saw one, we didn't get close enough to touch it and instead opted to swim in the hotel pool and eat a snack of plantain chips, rather than swimming with the crocs and becoming a snack for them.
That night we watched the USA battle England to a draw at the Oasis hotel. It was a pretty chill beach side spot, costing all of $7 a night per person. Here we met some local dudes who were putting on a street show later that night (I'll post those pictures tomorrow). The star of the show was Xman. Despite his name he was a pretty down to earth dude and was one of the biggest advocates of me getting to know as much of my heritage as I can. Another guy I met, nicked named “Fish” is a chef at a healthfood/breakfast spot we tried to go that morning, but was closed. (There was a surpising number of vegetarian reasturants in cape coast, including bobab tree which Elyse recommended to me. Unfortantley the oweners chef hadn't shown up for work yet :-/ )
Surprisingly the highlight of the weekend wasn't our excursion to cape coast, but rather Ghana's first match of the 2010 World Cup against Serbia. We all donned our Black Stars Jerseys, painted our faces and went to Eso's pub, a sports bar across the street from my law firm. The girls were amazed by how developed the neighborhood of Osu was compared to the neighborhood we live in, a fact I suppose I took for granted. The atmosphere during the match was like none I ever experienced in any sporting event, live or on Television. Red, Green and Gold the bar and the volume was defeaning, from the vuvuzelas (South African Trumpets) , to chants and songs. When Ghana finally scored their first goal in the 80' or so minute, the owner had to run out from behind the bar to warn us that if we jumped and celebrated too hard, the deck we were watching the game on might collapse. After the match, jubilation sweept the streets of Accra ...
June 9th
Court was much the same song and dance as my first day. I did get to see a whole hearing from start to finish regarding an estate issue but that's kinda dull for my non-law school readers. The most interesting part of my day was my trip home. I was planning on meeting my friends at “labadi beach” for “reggea night”. I set out for the “tro tro” and I was fine until all of a sudden the thing starts smoking (not enough water on the engine). So then I catch another one that went to “labadi” but wasn't close enough to the beach for me to walk. Luckily a kind teenager named Agnes walked me all the way to the stop to get one that would put me right out front (and she even talked to me while I waited and made sure I got on the right one this time! If you haven't figured it out by now, I'd be screwed without the kindness of strangers so if you come across a foreinger who seems to talk funny and can't seem to figure out how to get exactly where he needs to get, try helping a brother out if you can.
Well I get to labadi beach but it starts pouring. If you thought getting around was hard in the hot sun, the rain is impossible. I wish I can say I ducked in to some small chop shop and chatted the locals about the Black Stars chances against Serbia this Sunday but I can't. The only thing around was the “labadi beach hotel”, a high-end joint for foreigners doing “Africa Lite”, so I escaped there for a bit. After dark, I set out to try my chances with the tro tro. I took off my shirt to add a layer of protection for my netbook and sought cover under a small bus shelter. Hours past and I felt like I could still see the same cars not too far in the distance, and every tro-tro and taxi that past was not accepting customers. I knew then it would be impossible to get home without a little luck. Again luck twice in the form of a teenage Ghanian girl who shouted out from a newish volkswagen “hey you, where are you going”. I took a few seconds to check my gut, and it told me this was the only way I was getting home. I told her first junction and she waved me over. There a found a father, the girl and two other kids. So was less than a week in Ghana and I've already been in a car accident and I've hitchhiked. After about an hour and a half in traffic we made it to first junction and from there I grabbed a “shared taxi” to my street. I'll never complain about the Metro again.
Today I met the lead partner of my firm for the first time. Everyone has spoken so highly of him all week and I can see why. He's extremly sharp and eloquent, and has a good sense of humor. He wants me to brief him on my first week in the office tomorrow so he can figure out how to use me better for my remaining time here.
This weekend Shara, Andrea and I are going to “Cape coast”. It's most famous for being a hub for slave trading (possible that my ancestors once past through there”. We're going to see the castles (as Elyse suggested) the national park, and possible take in Ghana's world cup match at a local bar. I hope to have some great pictures to finally share!
On Friday I got my first substantial work assignment from the lead Partner of the firm I'm interning with. I don't think it's really appropriate to talk much about it on here (if my law school nerds want to talk about it I can tell you as much as I'm allowed).
As for the weekend, the adventure for me, Shara (henceforth Eliza Thornberry) and Drea started as soon as we got to Nkurma circle to catch the bus (aka a TroTro with a little extra room, and air conditioning) . When we heard that we had to go to Keneshi station (a short work from the circle) we think “oh yeah no problem”...but nothings ever that easy in Accra. The first challenge was finding the “station”. We asked the owners of a bunch of different new stands and they pointed us in some general direction but never really helped us more than that. When we finally found the damn thing it turned out to be a giant parking lot filled with tro tros. None of them were clearly labeled so you had to ask the all of the drivers for the one you want. With a little luck we finally found it and were able to get on shortly before we left.
After the 3 hour ride (with traffic) we checked into our hostel where I encountered the first forigen people (outside of the ones that I live with) all week. The 3 of us had a pretty chill night on the roof of the hotel and prepared for our long Saturday
The next morning we set out to see Cape Coast Castle. As I alluded to in my mini post on Friday, the castle served as a slave trading center. I've read about all of the atrocities of the slave trade in several works books and biographies, so I all I can do as our tour guide led us through was shake my head. Many of the Ghanian's made loud exclamations of anger and I couldn't help but wonder if they blocked out the history of the slave trade in their minds? Do they even bother to teach it in school? Or was it just that time doesn't heal all wounds?
One of the Ghanian castle visitors approached me as we walked around, declaring “ I think you are Ghanaian”. Confused I told him shyly that I was American but he retorted “oh no, no, you may live in America but I feel that your heritage is Ghanian”. That's all together possible. This gentleman was the first of many Cape Coasters to advise me to further explore my African heritage, no matter how distant in time. Even young Ghanian men that we hung out with after watching the USA game implored me to explore as much of Ghana as I can while I'm here.
After the castle we went the kakoom national park. It is home to leopards, elephants, snakes, rare butterflies, monkeys, all types of strange ruffage and much more. However during the day many of the animals are afraid to strut their stuff so we were (resided) to simply the trees. What better way to enjoy them though than from above? Here's where the scariest time of my trip so far came. Most people who know me are probably away that me and heights aren't exactly best friends forever. At the suggestion of Elyse and the chiding of Eliza Thornberry and Andrea I had no choice but to face my fears and partake in the “canopy walk” which is basically a series of 7 narrow , shaky bridges, surrounded by flimsy nets, in between trees about 40 meters high. Although my fears were faced, they certainly weren't conqured because I probrably wouldn't do it a second time.
Later we went to Hans cottage, where Eliza Thornberry (note: this is a Nickelodeon cartoon reference for those who don't get it. She's an explorer who lives in Africa with her parents and talks to animals) was souped to touch some crocodiles. Though we saw one, we didn't get close enough to touch it and instead opted to swim in the hotel pool and eat a snack of plantain chips, rather than swimming with the crocs and becoming a snack for them.
That night we watched the USA battle England to a draw at the Oasis hotel. It was a pretty chill beach side spot, costing all of $7 a night per person. Here we met some local dudes who were putting on a street show later that night (I'll post those pictures tomorrow). The star of the show was Xman. Despite his name he was a pretty down to earth dude and was one of the biggest advocates of me getting to know as much of my heritage as I can. Another guy I met, nicked named “Fish” is a chef at a healthfood/breakfast spot we tried to go that morning, but was closed. (There was a surpising number of vegetarian reasturants in cape coast, including bobab tree which Elyse recommended to me. Unfortantley the oweners chef hadn't shown up for work yet :-/ )
Surprisingly the highlight of the weekend wasn't our excursion to cape coast, but rather Ghana's first match of the 2010 World Cup against Serbia. We all donned our Black Stars Jerseys, painted our faces and went to Eso's pub, a sports bar across the street from my law firm. The girls were amazed by how developed the neighborhood of Osu was compared to the neighborhood we live in, a fact I suppose I took for granted. The atmosphere during the match was like none I ever experienced in any sporting event, live or on Television. Red, Green and Gold the bar and the volume was defeaning, from the vuvuzelas (South African Trumpets) , to chants and songs. When Ghana finally scored their first goal in the 80' or so minute, the owner had to run out from behind the bar to warn us that if we jumped and celebrated too hard, the deck we were watching the game on might collapse. After the match, jubilation sweept the streets of Accra ...
June 9th
Court was much the same song and dance as my first day. I did get to see a whole hearing from start to finish regarding an estate issue but that's kinda dull for my non-law school readers. The most interesting part of my day was my trip home. I was planning on meeting my friends at “labadi beach” for “reggea night”. I set out for the “tro tro” and I was fine until all of a sudden the thing starts smoking (not enough water on the engine). So then I catch another one that went to “labadi” but wasn't close enough to the beach for me to walk. Luckily a kind teenager named Agnes walked me all the way to the stop to get one that would put me right out front (and she even talked to me while I waited and made sure I got on the right one this time! If you haven't figured it out by now, I'd be screwed without the kindness of strangers so if you come across a foreinger who seems to talk funny and can't seem to figure out how to get exactly where he needs to get, try helping a brother out if you can.
Well I get to labadi beach but it starts pouring. If you thought getting around was hard in the hot sun, the rain is impossible. I wish I can say I ducked in to some small chop shop and chatted the locals about the Black Stars chances against Serbia this Sunday but I can't. The only thing around was the “labadi beach hotel”, a high-end joint for foreigners doing “Africa Lite”, so I escaped there for a bit. After dark, I set out to try my chances with the tro tro. I took off my shirt to add a layer of protection for my netbook and sought cover under a small bus shelter. Hours past and I felt like I could still see the same cars not too far in the distance, and every tro-tro and taxi that past was not accepting customers. I knew then it would be impossible to get home without a little luck. Again luck twice in the form of a teenage Ghanian girl who shouted out from a newish volkswagen “hey you, where are you going”. I took a few seconds to check my gut, and it told me this was the only way I was getting home. I told her first junction and she waved me over. There a found a father, the girl and two other kids. So was less than a week in Ghana and I've already been in a car accident and I've hitchhiked. After about an hour and a half in traffic we made it to first junction and from there I grabbed a “shared taxi” to my street. I'll never complain about the Metro again.
Today I met the lead partner of my firm for the first time. Everyone has spoken so highly of him all week and I can see why. He's extremly sharp and eloquent, and has a good sense of humor. He wants me to brief him on my first week in the office tomorrow so he can figure out how to use me better for my remaining time here.
This weekend Shara, Andrea and I are going to “Cape coast”. It's most famous for being a hub for slave trading (possible that my ancestors once past through there”. We're going to see the castles (as Elyse suggested) the national park, and possible take in Ghana's world cup match at a local bar. I hope to have some great pictures to finally share!
Monday, June 14, 2010
June 14th
Since I’m losing so much time on the Tro Tro due to traffic, I’ve decided I’m just going to work long hours (avoiding both the morning and rushhour traffic) and learn as much as possible at the firm. This Morning was a long day at court, but luckily my day was broken up with lunch with my boss and some colleagues. They love poking fun at me about eating African dishes, but luckily they had my favorite (Red Red) so I didn’t have to pretend that I liked it more than I really did. Lunch in Ghana is pretty funny actually. Once the food arrives you can hear a pin drop. “My good friend, there are no friends during Chop” says my boss to me just before he dug into his fufu and goat stew with his bare hand. That was fine with me because I was pretty hungry and no one would have to judge the Obruni for eating his lunch with a spoon (although red red pretty much requires one anyway). This afternoon I have two related assignments and I hope to be done by 19:00 GMT. With that in mind I better end my break. Hope to post about my weekend/pictures tomorrow.
Friday, June 11, 2010
June 11th
Jotted down some notes from wednesday and thursday but I haven't been near the internet and my thumb drive doesn't work here. I'm heading to cape coast this weekend with Shara and Andrea (I'll be sure to visit the canopy walk and the castles, Chaye!) . Cape Coast was basically a trading hub back in the day, most notably for slaves. If you're African American it's possible that your have ansesctors that passed through there. I'll be sure to get lots of great pictures of the castle and other sites. Be sure to root for the US (vs England Saturday at 2:30 Eastern time) and the Black Stars (vs. Serbia, 1o:00am Eastern Time) this weekend!
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
June 8th
Left my thumb drive at work, so can't upload pics , womp womp.
First day of work was awesome, except for waking up an hour early after dreaming I was an hour late :-/. I met Evans at the Tro-Tro stop at 6:30. To get an idea of how big these things are, imagine either the Joey, a Jersey City Dollar Van, or the Trader Joes shopping shuttle (depending on where I know you from....and if you don't know what any of those things are imagine a sardine can with wheels) ...shrink that down to 2/3's the size....but then throw in twice the people. Add a potholed filled road and you got one sweaty party before work. In the end i got to work 20 minutes early and got to cool off in the AC (which felt too luxurious).
I met my office mate, Nii (pronounced Knee) before anyone else came in and he invited me to court. We set off at about 8:30 with DD (the most Junior associate and my assignments manager) and Christian and the firm's driver, Tony. Christian took me under his wing right away, grabbing me away from the rest of the group to file a motion with him. The process was kinda crazy. First Cristian pushes through the line and shoves our affidavit through a bank teller type window. Then we got the newly stamped document back and ran (literally) over to the bank to pay the court fees and get another stamp (they love stamps in Ghana). Finally we ran it back the the first office wheeeeeeeeeeeeere...we had to wait for hours to get it photo copied...to spare me that boredom.
I was sent to meet up with Nii who was about to argue for a hearing. In case you haven't heard, Ghana is pretty prone to power outtages. Today just happened to be one of those days and the courts lost power. Nii and I ran up and down the stairs peeking our heads in different court rooms, but none of the judges were sitting. After a couple of hours of this business I met back up with Christian to try to get the documents in order. Long story short, the Ghanaian court system is as big of a bureaucracy as the American court system!
Eventually I was driven back to the office where I was advised to research any book I wanted in the entire legal library until Christian and DiDi got back :-/ I decided on the Ghanaian rules of civil procedure. This turned out to be helpful a couple hours later when I was assigned by DiDi to draft a memo related to a court pleading. Overall I'm excited about the firm. There are lots of things that interest me including landlord tenant, human rights and family law. There are also things not so "public interest" that i'll be assigned too, but I'll try to keep that (although much appreciated) to a minimum so I can stay true to the purpose of my fellowship. Phew, time for bed to do it all again tomorrow! Promise I'll get a few pics up by the end of the week.
Monday, June 7, 2010
June 7th
You never really know what the highlight and lowlight of your day is going to be ahead of time. When I woke up this morning I would have guessed that the highlight would be meeting the lawyers at my firm, and the low light being something silly like Evans being late to pick me up(he was in fact by 30 minutes!) or sweating through my dress clothes on the Tro-Tro (common public transportation system). But the main partner wasn't in today so my short visit at the firm was just “ok”. So then maybe the highlight would be trying red-red for the first time (a Ghanian stew made from what looks to me like black eyed peas, served with sweet fried plantains) and the low light the waitress spilling some of said red-red on my khakis :-/. Perhaps the highlight could have even been acquiring a Black Stars (Ghanian National Team) Jersey for a mere 12 cedis (about $8).
Nope. In fact the highlight turned out to be me, Evans and Marcos emerging unscathed from the car accident we were in on the way home. (The lowlight is clearly the accident itself). One minute I'm admiring the water crashing against the coast from across the highway...the next minute I'm about 10 feet from being in the water.
We were driving southbound when a car inadvertently clipped us from behind. Normally we would have been ok, but at that very moment a motorcycle had passed us on the other side. In order to avoid hitting the motorcyclist , Marcos had to swerve. When he did so we jumped over the divider and spun around a couple of times , toward the sea. Fortunately for all of us, Marcos was able to bring the car to a halt, just seconds before reaching a ditch not 3 feet away from us (or worse the water itself!) We all got out and gave each other the traditional handshake/snap and Evans proclaimed “god was on our side”. Within a minute about 10 guys came up to us and did the same handshake, telling us we were very fortunate. Then we all pushed Marcos car out of the mud, which only suffered a dent from the clip and a flat tire or two, and one of Marcos's fellow taxi drivers drove by to pick us up. While pushing the car, Evans pointed out that we were most lucky not because Marcos brought the car to a stop before hitting the ditch (though of course that prevented us from getting injured) but because there were no other cars barreling down on us when we entered the opposite side of the road. (We spun around so much though I hadn't even realized we were on the other side of the road at that point!)
The strangest thing is my Dad (Sean and Aunt Missy can verify this) experienced a similar accident when he was younger. His good friend Stewie was driving and he was clipped, jumped over the divider, spun several times and finally stopped. An ordinarily busy road was inexplicably vacant, preventing any serious injury. I know they say like father like son, but geeeze!. Well, bottom line is we all made it out safe.
Tomorrow I start my job for real. I'm sharing an office with a lawyer there and I have a pretty nice desk :). One of the legal secretaries is going to be putting work together for me so she told me to tell her what my interests are tomorrow and she'll try to work around those interests. It also seems like I'll be making several court appearances so I'm pumped about that.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
June 6th
Last night, Me, Pedro and Dan were going to join Andrea, Shara (the American girls) in downtown Accra. But when we went to get our taxi we found them sitting outside of Grandma's shop with Prince (the organizer of another volunteer program) and two guys from Prince's staff. The 8 of us decided to stay outside the shop and play the most pg rated version of “never have I ever” ever played. Including such diddies as “never have I ever stayed in the same room as someone I loved”, “never have I ever eaten banku” and “never have I ever applied for an internship”.
I got to talking to Prince a little bit. Grandma is his Aunt, which explains why she hosts so many volunteers. Prince and Evans are good friends and they both started with Prince's volunteer organization when they were younger. Prince was inspired in the third grade by a minister who told him he should apply his diligence in school to help the community. Prince works part time as a computer specialist (he has a degree in computer science) and when volunteers are low, he contributes his personal salary to to maintain his volunteer organization. It's really amazing how hard these young men work to better their country.
Today I did some laundry with Pedro and Dan. I didn't really have a much to do, but I wanted to get the hang of washing my clothes by hand. It wasn't bad at all, but let me take this opportunity to say to whoever reads this thing please please please, cherish your washers, dryers, showers and tap water. Taking baths with buckets makes the cold water situation in Gewirz (my law school apartment building my first year) look like paradise. I'm not complaining though, but the little western comforts are easy to take for granted. Keep in mind I'm in the capital city of Africa's "golden child" though, so other parts of Ghana (like poorer regions in the North) and other countries certainly have much less access to water and electricity.
I made good use of some buckets of water today to create my own gym. I went on a warm up run on the road in front of my house where I discovered I was more dehydrated than I thought :-/. But I was fine once I came in and drank some water. I was then able to do some pushups, jumping jacks and weighted exercises with different sized buckets of water! In yo face NY Sports Club.
After lunch, me and the other volunteers hit a local restaurant known as a chop bar in Ghana) ,because Dan was still hungry, ( about 15 minutes from our house. On they way we stopped from some coconut water (way better than Zico, Boots) in a giant coconut for only 50 peswas (like 35 cents). We found out that we can watch all the world cup matches on big screen tvs at this particular chop bar. That fact combined with the discovery of Pedro's favorite local drink (a hard cider called Savannah Dry ) means we'll probably be frequenting this place during the Cup.
For dinner, Grandma made Banku (the plantain/cassava tamale ball type thing Evans and Marcos had yesterday) with fish and palm nut stew for the other volunteers and bean curd and okra for me :) . The other volunteers aren't really digging Banku, but they're all polite and they eat as much as they can. I have no problem with it, but it is quite heavy so I will never buy it for myself for lunch. I can see myself making it once or twice in the winter though (so Terri, Rob and Charlene get excited for that!!)
Tomorrow I meet the firm I'm working for, learn how to take the tro-tro (local bus) and tie up other loose ends. I'll try to upload the videos and pictures I have in the coming days. However, since I'm starting work I probably won't be trekking over to the internet cafe everyday so I'll be posting fewer and more far in between.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
June 5th
June 5th
Here we run on GMT, which is about 4 hours ahead. I have read though, and my fellow volunteers have reiterated, that Ghanaians are infamously terrible with time. They usually run an hour or two late, which is understandable given the traffic. Pedro warned me that Evans, my program coordinator, subscribes to the “Ghanian standard time”. So when I was awoken by one of my “nieces” at 8:30am alerting me that Evans was coming at 9, I casually strolled into the dining room and had a quick breakfast with Pedro. Pedro thought 9 meant 11 to Evans so I thought I'd have enough time to exercise in my room, take a shower and get dressed. To my surprise though, I was alerted at 5 minutes to 9 that a car had arrived for me. No matter, I just got dressed real quick and grabbed my stuff and met Marcos (Evan's friend) in the dining room.
We set out on a number of quick errands on the way to the Dream Ghana office. Luckily it wasn't raining today so I got a good luck at some of Nangua. There are a ton of dirt roads and I've never seen so many chickens, goats and people running around with goods balanced on their heads! It's quite a site and Marcos bet me I wouldn't find another like it anywhere in the US. Of all the things I did today the ride over was the coolest. I'm in the car surrounded by Ghanian's either selling or buying goods, carrying babies, what have you and “Waving Flag” comes on the radio. As the car bumped along the pothole filled road it finally hit me, “Wow I am in Africa”. We finally arrived about 30-45 minutes later at the office. I was introduced to Rashida and the 4 of us took turns taking pictures inside the office. Then we set out to the bank to exchange my travelers checks, but they don't do that on the weekends...whoops.
Evans, Marcos and myself set out to have a drum lesson at the “Art center” in Accra Central. It was pretty cool and I wasn't terrible. (A video soon to follow!) The rasta that owned “Trinity art center” told me all about the drum making process, and showed me all of the awesome wood carvings. He gave me a cool bracelet as an akwaba (welcome) gift. Of course I'll be patronizing his shop to thank him for the drum lesson and bring gifts back home.
I told Evans that I would like to learn some history about Ghana so he brought me to the Dr. Kwame Nkrumah Mermorial park (More pictures to follow!)He was basically a beast guy who one Ghana's independence and was the first president of Ghana. He was educated at Lincoln university in Pennsylvania and subsequently UPenn. The park was beautiful and included a museum, the original car Dr. Nkrumah used for State business (a powder blue Cadillac!) , and a tomb that holds both him and his Egyptian wife.
After the park we stopped by the Supreme court (picture to follow). It's closed on Saturdays so I couldn't go in but that outside was pretty cool. After our brief trip to the court we set out for Osu, another commercial neighborhood in Ghana and the neighborhood I'll be working in. (Oh and if you're curious my firm is called Painstil, Painstil & Co.)
We had lunch at a chop bar, which is basically a small cafe that serves beverages and traditional Ghanaian food. Evans and Marcos had their favorite dish banku (ground yams and plantains and molded into a dumpling shaped like a foot ball) in a stew and goat meat. Evans had one of those giant star beers and Marcos had a Guinness (which is 7.5% alc here...what?!?) I had a peanut soup called Nkatenkwan with two hard boiled eggs and 3 giant rice balls (called omo tou) with a pepsi. Lunch was definitely welcome at this point in the day after a bit of walking and drum playing in the hot sun.
At lunch I learned that you can purchase a giant sack full of half litter bags of purified water (about 30 bags per sac) (they give them for free at lunch) for one cedi! That was great news because 1.2 cedis for a liter and a half would add up over 10 weeks, especially in this heat. As soon as I got back to grandma's shop I paid for my bottle I got yesterday and picked up a sac of water (pedro picked up the tab for the beer) . Then I watched the rest of the Ghanian friendly against Latvia. They won 1-0 and hopefully gained a little more confidence going into the cup. I'll be rooting for the Black Stars (they are named for the symbol of their flag, representing African Unity) until they face the US in elimination rounds, in which case I'll have to quietly root for the Yanks.
Dan actually just walked in and told me about her experience with Ghanian standard time haha. We'll probably go out tonight so Pedro and Dan can blow off some steam from their week hard at work.
That's all until next time. And if my posts are too long..too bad just skim them ;P.
June 4th
June 4th 2010
Just jotting down some first impressions of Ghana. I was first struck by a brick wall of heat and humidity when I got off of the plane. I was relieved to realize that it was due at least in part to the airplane.
My custom agent was very friendly. I was worried that we was going to take my protein away, but he was mostly just curious about how you use it and the main ingredients.
They weren't joking when they say it's the “rainy season” it's been raining pretty much all day. Evans says that it rains almost everyday, but often times only for an hour.
The ride from the airport to my host family's house was awesome, it could have only been better if it weren't raining! There were many dirt roads and ruffage for a bit of the trip, but once we got to the town of Teshie (a section on the outskirts of Accra) the streets were decently paved (except one with a ton of potholes!) and lined with shops and people selling goods...mostly on their heads. I asked Evans and he said kids practice balancing things on their heads from when they are small. This one woman was balancing legit a 2 feet high, 2 feet diameter tray of bread, impressive.
I was delighted to meet my host mother, or should I say “grandma”. “Everyone calls me grandma, and I hope you will do the same”. I'm staying with a big family that includes “Grandma” her daughter, some grandchildren, and the men of the house who I have not met yet. Grandma owns a shop and I was able to snag a big bottle of water on credit until I am able to change my money, man that was convenient. Grandma made a point to tell me that I would not go hungry as a vegetarian and that she was very good at preparing tofu. Further, she would not make me any meat or fish, which was nice to hear b/c on the plane I was actually contemplating eating fish while I was over here...but I always shutter at the thought of eating animals.
While unpacking I met two American girls (law students at Fordham) who just arrived yesterday. They are doing similar work. One is from NY and the other from Kearny, NJ, not too far from me. After I finished unpacking I fell asleep for a couple of hours, woke up, and fell asleep for a couple more hours haha.
When I awoke I went to search for grandma so I can give her the table cloth I brought her from the States, when I entered the room 3 beautiful children (2 boys and the youngest child, a girl) informed me that she was at the shop, so I just went back to my room. About 10 minutes later they came rushing in wanting to play! The oldest (about 8) is named Michael. The next (maybe 5 or 6) is named Emmanual. And the girl was a 3 year old named Akku. Maybe I'm not around kids that often anymore, but I'm always so impressed by how smart they are. Especially akku, who was curious about all of my stuff from the first second (put this on your hand so I can see it re: my lotion). The three of them passed around my American Flag shutter shades , wrestling around on my roommates bed (sorry Pedro) and trying on my shoes. Soon there after I was invited to watch TV.
I tried to make a video of my room, but I was (welcomely) interrupted for dinner.
I had dinner with another volunteer woman from China(Born)/Singapore(lived for the past 10 years) named Dan. We talked about everything from our life before this experience (family, schooling, hobbies) to sports (she's a big steve nash fan) to her experience in ghana (she's been here for 4 weeks already). We shared our stories over Jaloff rice, which is rice in a tomato based sauce with Ghanain spices. Grandma made mine with tofu and sliced carrots (how nice of her!) and she made it with chicken for the other volunteers. Dan is here doing journalism, although her degree is in electrical engineering. Shes currently wrapping up a stint at a Ghanian newspaper, but in two weeks she's going to work at a radio station.
Pedro came home about an hour into dinner. He's a real chill guy. He talked to us about wrapping up his latest project, a data base tracking statistics for violence against women in Ghana over the past 18 months. He also shared his crazy experience getting home after a (free booze) event at the Canadian High Commission last night. After Dan went to sleep (she has work in the morning) Pedro and I went to Grandma's shop for a Ghanian beer. ( I was able to give Grandma the table cloth I got her and she loved it :) ) We were actually able to share one because they are like 24 oz each (for like a cedi). It weren't bad, especially since it was the only cold beverage I've had all day. I talked to Pedro about similar stuff that I did with Dan. He actually has a law degree, but is thinkng about getting a master's degree in development. After spending 5 weeks working on human rights, he feels like a general focus on Human Rights is too broad. He has a girlfriend back home and he called her for a couple minutes . Hopefully I'll be calling Terri by the time I post this.
We chatted with Shara and Andrea (the two American Girls) for a bit when they arrived home. Andrea has a connection at a beach house a couple hours away so the 5 of us may be taking a trip next weekend.
It's 10:50, and I'm not really tired (JEEEEEEEEEEET LAAG) but with nothing else much to do I'm going to try to go to sleep.
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