remedy

I have a cold. Sneezing 50+ times a day and always having a sachet hanging out of my mouth, my host dad gives me some words of advice, saying that if I keep drinking cold water Ill be sick for years. Hot tea is the only cure. So, I sit at the table in the darkness (no power = no fan = sauna), and I drink hot hot tea. He makes a comment about how good the tea smells, which I obviously could not smell at the time. 20 minutes or so later, the smell of pomegranate and raspberry reach my nose. If host dad wasn't right, I must've I sweat it out.     

entrepreneur?

Inspiring words of a very creative mind and business woman~

[starting your own business isn't easy, and as it grows you may feel its becoming too much to handle and you are unable to manage it. But think of it as your child, the first years require a lot of labor, and then it becomes an out of control teenager, but you can't abandon your troubled child, can you?]

GMT

Ghana man time - where everything starts at least 20 minutes late, if at all

stores > markets

The most common way to shop for your everyday needs is at markets, not stores mostly because they sell anything and you can bargain. In Kumasi, I went to a Kejetia market which was an experience that I guess I can say I'm perfectly okay with never having again. Very similar to Madina market which is down the street from where I live but on super steroids. Unfortunately I only have 2 pictures documenting my experience because the first picture I took while in the market, atleast 8 people yelled.

 a view from the street 

Lesson 1 – Cameras are a no go.

So paint a picture of it yourself:

-Its the biggest market in all of West Africa

-People sell things in half fallen down tin huts, and of course out of giant buckets/crates/bowls/cages/coolers/fabrics/etc on their heads. Saw a lady carrying what seemed to me a twin sized mattress and box spring atop her head,(but this is Africa so who knows)

Lesson 2- “Agoooo” means get the hell out of the way.

-90% of the traders are women.

-Some of these women like to relax while at work. Visualize large ladies lying/some sleeping in tightly squeezed areas covering and covered in brightly colored and designed fabrics. It actually looked very comfy, out of the way of everyone else, shaded, cushiony, and still making money.

-You can buy anything, seriously. Clothes, jewelry, soap, dishes, animals (dead or alive), food, shoes, fufu pounders, etc.

-You have about 1 inch of personal space while walking.

Lesson 3 – watch you step, you might hit your head on someones bowl, or you might step in fresh cement (woops)

-Its loud, men walk around preaching in microphones in long African traditional jumpsuits, people yelling what they’re selling, crying babies.

Lesson 3 – White people cheer babies up.

-People like to acknowledge the white people, my favorite name being “vanilla”

-It has the wonderful combined aroma of meat, fish, leather, spices, shoemaking materials, etc.

Lesson 4 – Try not to get lost in the meat section, (fail)

-And its just about 100 degrees

Kumasi

During the 4 days in and around Kumasi, I visited Bonwire village, a cloth stamping village, traditional Asante homes, and a great organization. I enjoyed this area of Ghana, it seemed a bit cleaner than Accra and many many more trees and luscious green grass.

In Bonwire, I stayed in a home with “Uncle Ben” and the queen of the village with Katy and Adjoa. I got to help pound traditional Ghanian dishes, pepper and fufu, both of which have a special technique which I did not master. So I left the pounding to the (rather large) half dressed women wrapped in a fabric wearing an intricate headpiece. The first night, we ate fufu with mushroom and pepper soup (spicy and delicious). We were told by the lady cooking (we think the queen's sister) that it was a vegetarian house because of her church so we were all very thrilled for our next few meals, until we got more fufu with soup and mystery meat..we think grasscutter rodent. Luckily there were 2 cats who made it disappear.

 Pounding fufu

Before consistency

And after

 Learning to mash pepper

dinner

breakfast

the cat who helped us finish

There was no power for 90% of our time there so it was a very quiet village with not much activity, except for kids dancing Azonto style.

Katy and I with the family, queen to the left of me, they all came from a funeral, hence the black

Kente cloths!

trying it out

The weavers hard at work

I went to an ink village where they make ink out of tree bark and then stamp fabrics with it. The ink process was actually pretty cool, basically pounding tree bark, then soaking it, then heat it for some time, then it eventually turns into dark ink, made only out of tree bark. 

The organization we visited was the Yonso Project, a micro finance group that helps the rural areas of Kumasi. Started by a guy 7 years ago, they are currently working in 15 different communities helping traders and have a bamboo project where they make things, bags and bikes, out of bamboo. His story is very inspiring and one thats worth listening to. Here's a link to the site if youre interested - http://www.yonsoproject.org/

The bike shop

Traditional Asante homes

 

Some traditional symbols and their meanings:

"Not all days are equal, some are good, some you suffer"

handcuffs between the symbol of peace

"All feathers of the bird flock together"

Wearing a skirt that the priest wears during religious ceremonies, 

possibly the same skirt in both pictures

turtle turtle

Wedding time

Last weekend I got invited to my friend Rita's friend's wedding, and I gladly accepted. It was at a Pentecostal church and was exactly what I expected of an African religious wedding. Women were dressed in long printed fabrics with matching headpieces and men were dressed in baggy Kente cloths. The wedding started off with about an hour of dancing, then an hour of singing, then an hour of waiting, then the bride and groom came, followed by prayers and vow exchanging, and then proceeded to end with 3 more hours of dancing and the reception. Everyone loved that 3 white girls were dancing in front of the alter, pretending to fit in. I think this was probably the only time Ill get to pop a bottle of champagne in a church.

  Even the babies got to dance!

Rita and her younger sisters

 After the wedding we went back to Rita's home where her parents and siblings live. The tiny road to the house was hmm, Im not sure how to describe it, but I was very impressed that the taxi car made it in one piece. Rita's mother was the sweetest, she made us boiled plantains and spicy cocoa yam leaf (spinach-like) goodness.

And almost stole a baby

beaches, broken glass, & botanical gardens

My home stay is in North Legon, about a 20 minute commute or an hour walk to campus. So far I love living with a host family, my host parents (Auntie Agnus and Daddy) are so sweet, welcoming and very interesting to talk to. They are retired civil servants and have a lot to say about the government, education system and whatnot. Extended family and tenants also live in the house so there are a lot of people, probably about 18 total. There are also 2 roosters that live right out side my window and love to be loud at all hours of the day, especially between 2 am and 10 am.  My daily schedule is a lot different now, I'm up in the morning by 7 and usually go to bed by 10.  When I get home from campus at around 6, the power usually goes out, so I find myself having tons of relaxing and very hot evenings. Power outages happen at least once a day, sometimes for an hour, and sometimes for the entire day. I don’t mind the darkness, but not having a fan sure is killing!

The home stay! The porch is perfect for early morning reading.

Kobi 2, one of my host brothers 

Laundry day!

I let the kids in the house use my computer to watch a DVD one day, and I was more entertained by them than the actual show with the dancing, singing, and the yelling of favorite scenes and characters. I now get asked multiple times a day, “Auntie Lindsay may we continue the video?”

Places I've been so far - Takoradi, Bojo Beach, Tetteh Quarshie Cocoa Farm, Aburi woodcarving village, botanical gardens, TK beads

Some friends and I ventured out to the western coast of Ghana in hopes to find beautiful beaches, and that we did. I also found my brother, Bill! He's been working in Takoradi so we were able to have a family reunion in Ghana! When we arrived, it was around 11pm, and we were dropped off on some random street and were on a mission to find the driver of the company Bill is working for. After about 30 minutes of wandering, the driver found the 4 obrunis walking around confused and we were taken to a bar to meet Bill. That night we stayed at the boss's house with AC, comfy beds, and had hot showers with running water. We were all overly excited for that. In the morning we woke up early to head to Busua Beach, about an hour away.

We tried some surfing during the day and by night we were listening to live music. Although the surfing wasn't too much of a success for me, the best part was lying on the board in the waves taking in the pure beauty. In front of the surf shop we were at were a bunch of kids doing flips off of a ball that was half in the sand. They loved it, they didnt stop all day! That night we slept in a cozy little bungalow right on the beach. In the morning, we had the pleasure of running into PancakeMan who made us crepes and JuiceMan who had freshly squeezed orange juice. We also met FlourBagMan during our breakfast, who showed us bags and clothing that he makes out of used flour bags. After an extremely relaxing beach weekend, we headed back to Accra Sunday afternoon.

My brother and I

Catchin them waves

Excited kids

Our bungalow!

While I'm on the subject of beaches, I'll mention Bojo Beach. It was about 30 minutes from Accra, so its very close to where I'm living. My friends and I had gotten there early so we were practically the only people there. To actually get on the beach, we had to canoe across a river! Favorite part. The river was swamped with tons of uniquely painted fishing boats too.

Ghanians are very religious 

My study abroad group took a to the very first cocoa farm in Ghana and a woodcarving village. The cocoa farm was started in 1879 by Tetteh Quarshie, who actually snuck the cocoa pods into a suitcase and came to Ghana. The original tree from 1879 was still there! I tasted the cocoa right out of the pod, which tastes nothing like chocolate, its more of a sour goo (still good though). I also had the cocoa after they had dried which tasted a bit more like chocolate, just extremely bitter.

All of us at the farm

The cocoa pod, fresh cocoa, and dried cocoa 

When we went to the woodcarving village, we were able to eat some actual Ghanian chocolate, so it was a wonderful day.  Not to mention the giant woodcarvings I saw that were bigger than me.  That day we also went to the botanical gardens where we saw tons of trees, some viney, giant, spicy, and even carved.

A carver doin his thing

The trees!

And then I found bead heaven in Ghana! A place named TK beads that makes beads out of recycled glass. When a friend and I first went, we thought the trotro would bring us right to the place, but we were wrong. We were told it was right past “police barrier,” and when we got dropped off, there were no police or barrier in sight. Luckily all of the people in the town were super friendly and wanted to help us find where it was, but no one seemed to have heard of TK beads. So we just started walking, feeling pretty hopeless at this point.. until an older women came along who knew where it was, who then ended up coming with us. Yay! When you first walk through the gate, you see giant piles of glass bottles, broken windows, and anything else glass since the beads are made there. The showroom of the beads is overwhelming, being in there and trying to pick out favorites was probably the hardest thing to do thus far in Ghana. They’re all so unique, some are hand painted while some are left the colors of the glass.

Wednesday my group and I will be going to Kumasi to do a rural home stay for 5 days. Excited!