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