African sleepover

From left, these are some of the girls on my program: Carolyn, me, Nan, and Caroline. We had a sleepover at one of our program staff member's house--African style :).

Meet Fanta

Meet Fanta. I and Fanta get along very well in Ghana. Although I am of the opinion that soda is terrible for you, I get almost no sugar in my diet here, so a sugary Fanta every once in a while is a huge treat...

Cardinals fans in Africa!

For those of you who are Cubs fans, you better watch out, because I am building up a fan base for the Cardinals in Africa!
(By the way, these are the kids in my host family, Owura, Joe and Jemima)

Fufu

Fufu is a dish that most Ghanaians love...you pound plaintain and cassava until it becomes very soft. This is me pounding fufu, or trying to...

Conference & cake

This past week I attended a conference on “Leadership, Human Rights, and HIV/AIDS”—all in the context of women’s issues, especially domestic violence. The organization that I am interning with, the Ark Foundation, organized the conference. During that week I stayed with one of the women staff members from my study abroad program (Aileen), which turned out to be one of the best aspects of the week. The conference itself was a really helpful introduction to domestic violence issues in a Ghanaian context—this is an especially important time for domestic violence in Ghana for 2 reasons: (1) there is currently no law against domestic violence, but there is a domestic violence bill in Parliament that will be either passed or not passed in December; and (2) from 25 November through 10 December are the 16 Days Against Gender-Based Violence (a UN-sanctioned annual event). So, to make a long story short, there was a lot of material to cover in five days, so it was an exhausting but enlightening week.

Yeah, and the “cake” part of the title refers, of course, to the big 21st birthday—Aileen, along with her husband and another girl from my program, took me out for a lovely dinner on the beach. It was quite a memorable evening…I managed to take about 3 sips of alcohol, but let me tell you, I haven’t really acquired (nor do I intend to acquire) a taste for beer.

So, here’s why I loved staying with Aileen in two words: her brother. She lives with her brother, her mom, her four-year old daughter, and her husband. Well, in actual fact, her husband lives in Germany for most of the year, and only comes to Ghana four about six weeks every year. That sort of situation is pretty common here.

Aileen’s brother's name is Chris (but he also has a Ghanaian name, Nana Yaw)—he is 27, and extremely charming. Usually when I am unfamiliar with people I am a bit shy, but he refused to let me be timid. Anytime I would grow quiet, he would draw me into conversation or make me laugh, or at least ask why I wasn’t talking. The night after my birthday, he and I talked for an especially long time. I think part of the reason I found myself drawn to him was that he was one of the first people here who has asked lots of in-depth questions about my life at home. Most people just ask the basics, or ask about my life as it relates to Ghana. Chris got me talking about the parts of my life that I hold most dear.

Ok, I could go on, but I don’t want to flatter him too much :). But let me tell you, when Chris said he wished I could stay longer, I just had to bite my tongue, because I think I was wishing it even more than he was. But, life just keeps rolling forward, and I’m moving to the Eastern region in a couple of days…

I will write more once I’ve spent some time living at the domestic violence shelter in the Eastern region. For now—baabae (that’s byebye with a Ghanaian accent).

Dancing and taxi rides

Recently my group attended a traditional Ghanaian festival—or, tried to attend one. We ended up showing up too late to see most of the activities. We did, however, get to see the procession of one of the queen mothers. In traditional Ashanti style, she was dressed in beautiful Kente cloth, with plenty of gold jewelry. I took a video of her coming towards us with her entourage, but unfortunately I didn’t get a good picture that I can post. Oh, yeah, by the way—I decided that I am not going to give up on posting pictures after all, because I stumbled upon an internet café recently that allowed me to post them. The problem is the café is about an hour and a half from where I am, so I might not be back there for quite some time.

Anyway, so the queen mother and her entourage stopped right in front of us with drumming and dancing and bells clanging, and the Ghanaian women started saying, come, come, dance with us! I and my friend Nan were in front, so we sort of got shoved into it…so both of us danced with the queen mother. Ha! Quite an unexpected event. But let me tell you, after being forced to dance in front of an audience of about 300 Ghanaians at the Kumasi wedding (during my second week in Ghana), dancing in front of any Ghanaian audience smaller than 100 people is a cinch J.

On a separate topic, I have discovered that taxi rides are cultural gems here. At the beginning of my stay, I rode almost solely in trotros (stuffed with people) or in shared taxis with other members of my study abroad group. Now that I have been here for a while, though, I find myself alone in taxis much more often, and let me tell you, my conversations with taxi drivers teach me a lot about the culture. Usually all I have to do is say one sentence in Twi, or introduce myself as Afia Boateng, and the conversation is nonstop from there. Some of the drivers, after such conversations, offer to reduce the original price or, in one case, not charge me at all. That stems from this amazing attitude among Ghanaians that you should always help people/do them favors, because one day they might help you, or if not you, then your children. So, as fond as I am of the trotros (that is half sarcasm), I’m really starting to enjoy the conversations that I can have when taking taxis.

One more thing—I think I’ve figured out why I never feel bored here. Although there is less reading and formal “work” to do on a daily basis here, I realized the other day that my analytic/academic skills are constantly being utilized, even if unconsciously. Every day, even after being here for more than two months, I find something aspect of Ghanaian culture to wonder about/puzzle about/ask about.

Ok, that’s all for now. Mabre, enti mereko (I’m tired, so I’m going to get going).

This is a picture of my two host brothers--Joe (left) and Emmanuel (right). Emmanuel goes by Owura when he's around the fam...but Joseph just goes by Joe. They are awesome kids.

Here's a picture of me with my host dad and mom at a wedding in Kumasi...