goodness gracious

since my last post my SIT study abroad program has ended and grace has come to visit me! we started in accra and visited the UG campus in legon. next we headed to kumasi where grace got a taste of the central market and got to meet my friends and family there. it was great to see everyone again, but also sad to say goodbye. we visited okiakrom, the village where i lived for two weeks, and spent time with JK. i was excited that the children there still remembered me. we also spent a night at lake bosumtwe which is the youngest crater lake in the world and the only in west africa. the lake is about an hour south east of kumasi. it was beautiful there and we stayed at a guesthouse called the rainbow garden village. the lake was like glass until night came and brought a storm that tore the floating dock (that had been there for 4 years) from the shore! after kumasi we headed to cape coast where we visited the black star book shop, and toured the elmina st. george's slave castle dungeon. we took the tour with a group of ghanaians and it had a very different feel than when i took it with my SIT group. and now we are in takoradi. takoradi is a city west of cape coast and this has been my first time into the western region. now i have seen 8 of 10 ghanaian regions. the coast is beautiful. we have spent the last four nights at a guesthouse called the hide out which is right next to a village called butre. we have taken a few day trips to a near by fort and on a crocodile canoe safari! we have also enjoyed relaxing on the beach and meeting other locals and visitors. on wednesday we will be heading back to accra and spending our last night there before flying out on thursday. i can't wait to get home! see you all soon!

love, dane and grace

hide your blenders!

while the rest of the world frantically follows the spreading swine flu outbreak, ghanaians are concerned with an epidemic of a different sort. several newspapers, news stations, and radio programs have reported a serious threat to the people knows as 'sakawa'. sakawa is a juju curse put on young men by evil priests that makes the victim seek out furniture and kitchen appliances. these young men flock to internet cafes to purchase toasters and arm chairs online. others obtain the desired goods in a more destructive fashion. several news reports claim that men have been breaking into homes and businesses to steal refrigerators and microwaves. the headline on the cover page of the daily graphic (the new york times of ghana) states 'sakawa scare is real'.

in other news.... my SIT friends will be leaving tomorrow and i will be joined by another friend to travel ghana for two weeks! i will miss these people and i look forward to seeing them again in the states. happy summer to those of you who have made it there, i can't wait to see you all soon!

love, dane

sidenote

happy birthday/mother's day midge!!

everything is good here, i'm back in accra and will be presenting tomorrow

love, dane

make way knowlton house

after spending a long day in the library and around campus last week, amanda and i had a realization... we are the goofy foreign exchange students of KNUST. perhaps you've seen us on your own campus sporting capris, sleeveless shirts, and over-the-shoulder bags. we are rarely found alone, frequently ride bikes, and enjoy speaking in our native tongues. the average KNUST male dresses in leather shoes, slacks, and a button down shirt. i, however, have chosen to defy these conventions with my sandals, shorts, and t-shirts. these wardrobe selections are less of a fashion statement than they are a survival mechanism to endure the 100 degree afternoons; although i do think i look pretty fly in my chacos.

mangoes and maize are in season (i say maize because that is how ghanaians refer to corn, not just because i really like alliteration) and i have been enjoying them regularly; lots of times we can pick mangoes right off of the trees!

tomorrow amanda and i are traveling to cape coast to visit with friends and to attend a musical show. my friend jones has been working on what he refers to as an opera for his independent research project. the opera tells several stories about kweku ananse (a spider) through high life and hip life music. the show features some of the biggest names in ghanaian music, none of whom you've probably ever heard of (reggie rockstone, maybe?).

my firing with frank has been postponed until saturday so i will be returning early to kumasi to help stoke the kilns. i was going to bring smoar and grilled cheese ingredients to cook over the fire, but then realized marshmallows and cheese don't exist here; nor do any dairy products for that matter, i haven't had a glass of milk in three months.

who's playing floralia???? does anyone still read this???

love, dane

on fufu

after three months in ghana, i confidently can say that i have learned to eat fufu properly. fufu is more than a food, it is an experience and i'll do my best to explain. although it is eaten all across ghana, fufu is the dish of the ashanti people. the ashanti make fufu with cassava and plantain, while others use yams and cocoa yams. ashanti fufu is made by boiling the cassava and plantains in a large pot. the cooked starches are then placed in a mortar by the 'turner'. pounding fufu is usually a two person job and the turner is most commonly a female. she sits in a stool next to the big wooden mortar and after each drive of the pestle, the turner sneaks her hand into the mortar to expose a different section of ingredients. the pounder is usually a man and they stand with a large wooden pestle (about 5 or 6 feet tall). the pair work together to soften the mixture of starches until they reach a soft, doughy consistency. fufu comes either soft or hard depending on how long it is pounded for. the turner then shapes the gooey concoction into a ball--usually between the size of a softball and a muskmelon if it is one serving--and places it into a bowl. one of three types of hot (temperature) soups is then poured on top of the fufu ball - groundnut soup (peanut), palm nut soup, or light soup (egg plant, which is known as garden egg); light soup is my favorite. a meat, either cow, chicken, goat, or fish, commonly accompanies soup. fufu can only be properly eaten after taking apateshi. apateshi, the local alcohol made from palm wine, increases one's apatite and two shots are frequently taken before one begins chopping (what ghanaians call eating) fufu. at restaurants fufu is always served in individual bowls, however, when one eats fufu with family or friends, it is usually served together in one bowl. before eating, one must wash your right hand in a bowl of water that is always provided. when eating fufu, you use your index and middle finger as scissors to cut off a piece of the ball. you then use your entire hand to form the cut off piece into a ball and to soak in in the soup. fufu, like most ghanaian foods, is a vehicle for transporting the soup. the ball is then placed in the mouth and swallowed, never chewed.after the fufu is finished, the eater can cup their hand to scoop the soup into their mouth. by the end of a fufu session, the eater's entire right hand (sometimes up to the elbow) will be dripping with soup; and the eater's fingers will be pruned like when you exit a hot tube after three hours. the right hand is again washed to end the meal. my mother in accra said that you can only eat fufu on sunday and then you must walk around the block and go to bed. for an ashanti, however, it's not uncommon to eat fufu everyday; many claim to eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, everyday! there is nothing polite, sanitary, or attractive about eating fufu, but i have grown to think it is delicious!

in other news.... this past week i continued to make the commute to frank's studio. his studio is in a village called adankwame, which is about an hour north of kumasi. there i have been throwing pots, digging clay, chopping wood, and firing kilns. i will be loading a kiln this week and staying over at the studio on wednesday to fire the kiln through the night.

today i went to the otomfuo tenth anniversary celebration. otomfuo is the ashanti king and he has held the golden stool since 1999. the celebration was held in the soccer stadium and every sub chief in the region gathered around the field to pay their respects to the king. the king gave a speech (actually is was his linguist who did the speaking for him), as well as the current president john atta mills, and the former president jj rowling. after the speeches and greetings, the king was carried into the streets and paraded back to the palace, it was crazy! there were so many people dancing and cheering in the streets and shooting guns into the air (ghanaian fireworks). it kind of reminded me of the parade after the red sox won the world series.

i hope final studies are going well for everyone, i'll be home in about a month!

love, dane

action

yes, it's true, you can see me and three fellow SIT students in the highly acclaimed, cinematic suspense thriller of the century: innocent souls. alex, amanda, toby, and i met kwame on thursday afternoon and naively anticipated a brief view of the ghanaian film industry. kwame took us to board a bus headed for the gold mining town of obuasi, about an hour outside of kumasi. we arrived fairly late in the evening at the super mambo hotel where kwame informed us we would be spending the night. despite our lack of preparation, we agreed and went to the roof top bar where we met the director of the film that we were about to star in. we woke up the next morning at 5:00am, but we were not alone. the entire cast and crew were also staying in the super mambo, and with them we boarded a bus to a near by village where the film was being shot. we ate breakfast with the cast and crew (about 40 in all) on location before filming. we first observed the taping of a scene in which a man fell from a tree while attempting to pick a mango. a thin piece of foam was used at first to catch the crashing man but after his first attempt, a group of men stepped in to catch him trust fall-style. the man hit his head on a rock and ketchup was used to show his injury. the director would keep rocks in his pocket and whenever someone on set was talking during a take, he would throw one at them.

next it was our turn. toby and i were costumed as middle aged fathers manning the barbecue at a saturday afternoon picnic. we played the parts of president obama's lawyer and body guard. alex and amanda were given outfits that were left behind after the last spice girls tour. they were 'our ladies'. the entire village (about 150 people) gathered to watch the filming of our scene! in the film, we had traveled to ghana with our friend david, who we met in america, to visit his family. what else happens in the film?? you and i will both have to wait and see. i do know that there is a godzilla like monster, and a small person (who was wearing a wisconsin badgers hat! and p.s. i saw another favre jersey yesterday!). we finished our scene and returned to kumasi.

on saturday i traveled to a village where i will be doing ceramics. it's an awesome outdoor studio with hand crank wheels and wood fire kilns. i will be working with a man named frank and his five friends and brothers. he is a former student of naab's and lived in china for two years teaching english and studying ceramics.

some new pictures are up! that's me and JK from the village, me and yemi, kintompo falls, and david with cassavas on his head.

love, dane

pictures!

three pictures made it up! hopefully more will come today. the first is from the canopy walk at kakum national park, the second from a soccer game that amanda and i went to on sunday. we watched kotokoo (from kumasi) play against another team from the ashanti region. they are playing in the otuomfo cup. otuomfo is the senior chief of the ashanti region and on the 27th of april he, and the rest of the region, will be celebrating his 10th anniversary as chief. we are going to the final match on the 22nd. the third picture is of an okomfoo or priestess; she was possessed by a spirit and telling us our futures.

on monday amanda and i picked up bicycles to make getting around town a bit easier. since then i have learned that the only thing more amusing to a ghanaian child than seeing a white person, is seeing a white person on a bicycle. amanda is now known by several children as the rough rider.

tomorrow two fellow students, toby and alex, will be coming up to kumasi from cape coast. toby and i scored roles in a ghanaian film that we will be shooting tomorrow. our friend kwame is a ghanaian actor and he got us parts in the film. i can't wait to tell you more about it! ghanaian films usually take about four days to produce so hopefully i will be able to bring a copy home.

this weekend toby, alex, amanda, and i are going to lake bosumti. it is a huge crater lake outside of kumasi and we are going to spend the weekend hiking around it!

a picture of a monkey just got up! hopefully i can get a few more on. have a great weekend!

love dane

back to kumasi

when i sat down at this computer i ambitiously attempted to load 50 pictures into an album... 45 mins later and i think 5 have loaded... but check um out!

http://s647.photobucket.com/albums/uu193/dbjorklund/

i hope it works. if it works, the pictures probably need explanations, but i'm not sure which ones have loaded, i hope they're good ones.

i'm back in kumasi! our estimated four hour bus ride ended up to be about eight, but we have grown used to that. i am here with three other students from my program doing independent research. we all lived together for a night and then split up a bit. right now i'm living with amanda in a hostel near campus, there are lost of students living there and it has been fun getting to know them. today i began working with naab after the long holiday weekend. easter is a huge celebration here. the entire city looked like the outer ring at the kentucky derby; women were in big hats and men in fine suits, and bright flowers were everywhere. the art studio on campus is busied by students finishing their final projects (one student is building a bed frame out of clay) so tomorrow naab is taking me to a near by studio where i can work.

more to come soon!
love dane

more accra

it's great to be back in accra and to have some free time here. yesterday i was able to walk around the university of ghana's campus; something i had not really been able to do even though we had had classes there. the buildings and greens are beautiful; i think maya angelou described the campus best in her book all god's children need traveling shoes - "the university of ghana with its white buildings and red tiled roofs loomed like a chimera atop legon's green hills. the moroccan architecture of arches, wide, low steps and loggia gave the institution an unusually inviting warmth." i eventually wandered into the library where the dust covered, wooden shelves and pull out card catalog drawers made me feel like indiana jones; and like in any good library, this one was very easy to get lost in.

i decided not to stay with mame vida (my former home stay mother) since returning to accra. as much as i loved her and her family, her home was very far away from campus. instead i have been staying with my friend jones and his home stay father papa quenu. papa is 74 years old and fought with the colonial army when he was 14. he was also the head of security at the university. i have enjoyed staying with him and hearing his stories. papa has a cat named moose, which i assumed was a twi word, but found out that he let a canadian student who was staying with him name the cat. papa has a preschool on his compound and spends most of his days sitting out side watching the kids play, listening to the radio and slapping him self dry with his hanky. papa has been hosting students from america and canada for over 25 years and he says that since his wife died, the only things that make him happy are the children and the whites. papa, however, refuses to host american girls; he will take canadian girls and american boys but he finds all the american girls to be troublesome. papa went to the hospital yesterday with malria but today he is thankfully feeling better.

tomorrow i leave for kumasi! i'll be staying there for a month and working with the ceramic technician at KNUST, naab. naab has set up a schedule for me and i can't wait to start working with him.

happy early easter!
dane

more touring

after two months of being away, we have returned to accra! it's wild how different it feels here after seeing so many other parts of ghana. here are some more stories from the tour...

i forgot to mention that our guest house in krobo had a pet monkey chained to a tree outside of the lobby. we liked to give rodger--as we called him--things like cell phones and pens and see what he would do with them. he usually would just stare at them and then throw them away; sometimes he would put them in his mouth. one afternoon corrina gave rodger a guitar pick which rodger liked very much. rodger held on to the guitar pick and when corrina reached to get it back rodger leaped at corrina and bit her leg! luckily we later found out that rodger had received a rabbis vaccination and corrina is fine except for a small scar and a whole in her pants.

in dagbe we visited a group of women who were tomato collectors and also played music together. we joined the women in their circle of singing and dancing and played along with them on the rattles. unfortunately the rattles (which were hollowed out gourds wrapped in shells) had a cool, dark inside that made a perfect resting place for cockroaches. as we banged the rattles against our thighs countless cockroaches crawled out of the gourds and scattered. the women were unfazed and smashed the bugs with their bare feet; we were all to busy laughing or crying to keep playing.

since my last post, we spent four nights in cape coast. cape coast is an old colonial town that rests entirely along the beach. on our first day there, i walked up the coast with some friends to the cape coast castle. as we walked we quickly realized that the beach has become a giant publicly accepted garbage can and toilet. although our walk felt a bit like what i assume traversing a mine field feels like, we were still able to enjoy a beautiful sunset over the gulf. as we walked back we saw a man walking to shore from the water with a string in his hands. as he surfaced we saw that he had caught a sting ray using a piece of rope with several bated hooks on it and a piece of Styrofoam. a crowed gathered around the man as he dragged the ray onto the beach where he took the hook out of its mouth and ripped off its stinger. the man then stuck his index finger and thumb into ray's eye sockets and carried off the beach.

we returned to the cape coast castle dungeon, as well as the st. george's (or elmina) castle dungeon where we were taken on guided tours. we saw the cells where thousands of west africans were held before being taken across the atlantic. i felt a similar denseness to the air as i felt visiting the concentration camps in germany and the killing fields in cambodia. both tours were emotional experiences but also provided me with a much greater understanding of the trans atlantic slave trade.

we travelled a short distance outside of cape coast to kakum national forest where we traversed the only canopy walk in africa. it was so high! we crossed a series of seven rope bridges to different platforms that were built around tree trunks. it felt the high ropes course at camp but more so. after our canopy walk we listened to a music group that lives and performs at the park. there group is called kukyekukyeku (pronounced koo-che-koo-che-koo) who perform to spread knowledge about social issues concerning the park and ghanaian life. they played instruments made of long bamboo shoots that they banged against wooden boxes to create vibrations. the different sizes of shoots made different tones.

i have three more days in accra before heading back to kumasi to begin my independent study! hopefully i'll have time to post again before i leave. hope all is well!

love, dane

tour report

since my last post from tamale our educational tour has taken us all across ghana. we started in a small village in the central region called krobo that is best known for its beads and bead making. krobo uses beads in several different ceremonies. the most popular ceremony is a female right of passage called dipo where young girls completely cover themselves in beads and dance. we met with a group of queen mothers and young girls who told us about the process. we spent one afternoon in krobo with a bead maker. he showed us how he recycles empty bottles to make beads. he smashed guiness (for some reason guiness is the most popular beer in ghana) and schnapps bottles that he bought from local bars and then placed the shards into small molds which he then put into a kiln. next he pulled the molds out of the kiln and drove a nail through the formed beads to make a hole to put string through. we also visited a botanical garden outside of krobo where we found magic beans! these beans, however, do not grow stalks to the heavens; after you suck on a bean for a bit it changes the taste of anything you eat into a sweet taste, even hot peppers. in krobo we stayed at a guest house and when we returned home one afternoon a group of kids playing soccer waved at us to come join them. i was a bit hesitant after dislocating my shoulder in my sleep two nights earlier (luckily i was able to reduce it myself so it wasn't to bad), but decided to play. i started out playing a game of possession with some kids when another team arrived. the coach asked me what position i played and everyone laughed when i tried to show him on my hands a midfielder. we ended up playing a whole 90min game and it reminded me why i love soccer so much. ghanaians don't play as physical a game as americans do; they do move the ball as fast as i have ever seen though which is difficult on an uneven dirt field. the game ended right before the sun set behind a collection of mountains surrounding the field.

from krobo we travelled to a town on the boarder of ghana and togo called dagbe. in dagbe we learned a traditional war dance and got to visit the beach twice. the waves were huge! i felt like a blueberry in a blender. togo has a strong french affiliation so when we visited the boarder we were able to find and enjoy loaves of french bread with avocado and onion; we returned twice to for this sandwich.

now we are in vume; a pottery village in the volta region. we have spent two days working with a group of women who make and sell pots. the techniques they use are unlike anything i had ever seen before. they dig their own clay from a hillside near the volta river and fire their finished pots by covering them in palm leaves and tall grasses and setting them on fire. i am excited to return to vume during my independent study to learn more about their processes. tomorrow we will be leaving vume and driving to cape coast where we will be visiting another national park and a few former slave castles.

did you get rid of your green and gold number 4 jersey after brett signed with the jets? if so, it might have ended up in ghana! today i saw the fifth favre jersey i've seen since being in ghana.

we have been speaking twi far less frequently since leaving the ashante region, however, i did recently learn my new favorite response to 'how are you?' - bokoo se ntaafoo awoo - means literally i am cool like the birth of twins. ghanaians consider birth a very difficult but beautiful process so when a women gives birth to twins its a very cool thing. i think that's a lot cooler than a cucumber.

me reko didi - i'm going to eat. much love!

dane

elephants!

this afternoon we returned from two nights at mole national park. we arrived in the afternoon and spent the first night sleeping in tents that had been donated to the park from the u.s. army. they did a pretty good job of keeping us dry during the rain. i met a couple from the netherlands who were staying at the park and they asked me if i 'had met zee baboons yet.' then they showed me their truck and all of the damage that these crazy, red-assed monkeys had done to their vehicle. luckily they stayed away from our tent. we woke up ealry the second day and met telle, our guide for a two hour walking tour of the forest. telle took us to an elephant who was eating and was not nearly as excited to see us as we were to see him. the elephant began to charge us when he saw us and telle yelled 'run' as he cocked his shotgun. luckily the elephant stopped and we were able to come back and take its picture a million times. we also saw monkeys, warthogs, and antelope on our walking tour. when we returned to the campground we were preparing to leave the park and return to tamale when seven others and i decided that we wanted to spend another night. we booked a room in the motel and a jeep tour of the park. we left that afternoon on our safari and got to ride on the top of the jeep! on this tour we got to see a whole family of elephants, as well as crocodiles and baboons. that evening we met a few guys whose parents worked at the park and they had grown up their. they took us down into the forest (the motel is located on highest point in the park) to a watering hole to get a closer look at the crocodiles. moses, our friend, said that their were over 50 crocs living in the pond. he also told us about his friend who likes to swim across the pond! we didn't try.

tomorrow morning we return to kumasi for one night before departing on our educational tour. this tour will take us to cape coast, the voltal region, the central region, and several places in between. the tour will last two weeks and then we begin our independent study! i can't believe how fast this semester is moving. i hope everyone enjoyed their spring break and hopefully i'll be able to keep you updated during our tour as well as share some more stories!

go badgers!
dane

tamale is hot!

tamale is really hot! our seven hour bus ride dropped us in what feels like a completely different country; northern ghana is sooo much different than the south. the north is much more desert like; the languages here are different; the dress, dance, music, food, and architecture are all different. yesterday afternoon we attended the last day of a week long festival celebrated by the dagomba people to honor the birth of mohammad. all of the kings from the northern region traveled to the central mosque in tamale to greet the high priest. the kings came on horses and over 10,000 citizens filled the streets to welcome them. when a king arrived, people would fire gun shots into the air to show their appreciation for them. ghanaians don't have fireworks, but they do have guns and they just as loud and exciting. lots of music and dancing accompanied the festival and when a king or an elder would dance, people would honor them by pressing money against their head. sometimes the money would stay and the dancer would keep it or else it would fall to the ground and children would hover beneath to collect it.

we are currently staying in hostels and have been having lectures in the mornings on northern culture and economy. today we learned about the role of the kings and the chiefs in the north. this afternoon we are visiting a shea butter farm.

alright i need to run, hope all is well!

okiakom

i'm back!! the village was a wild experience and i don't really know where to begin...

when we (me, 5 girls, 2 staff members, and a cook) arrived at okiakrom (about an hour outside of kumasi) we were immediately greeted by a man named jk and about 800 kids. jk was our housing coordinator in the village who also worked on a cocoa farm. jk took a special liking toward me, since i was the only man in the group, and would often grab me throughout the day for "small small apatshi" which meant shots of the local gin. one morning jk arrived at my window and said, "dan, wake up, today we go for goat." jk and i spent two hours that morning wondering the village comparing goats and goat prices; after small small apateshi. we eventually decided on a nice goat for 20 cedi; jk dragged it back to our home and gave me a stick to beat it with from the back. we then spent the afternoon slaughtering the goat, cleaning the goat, cooking the goat, and eating the goat with help from several other village members. eating the goat was a bit difficult...

march 6th was ghana's independence day and we were brought to a near by village to watch a parade of local school children. each school in the area trains their 30 students with the best looking uniforms to march in the parade. parents cheered as their children marched by and would sometimes run our and stick money in their pockets. we even got to march with the last school! after the parade, there was a lot music and dancing... but no egg toss

in the morning we would meet with different village leaders and observe activities that were taking place. in the afternoons we all picked a different area of village life to study; i studied education and village games and spent my afternoons working at the primary school. i taught math and english in a four grade class. it was difficult to know if the students understood what i was teaching them, but the teacher was very grateful to have me around. kids were everywhere in the village so i was very happy to be able to help out in the school.

one afternoon we went with the queen mother--a village leader--to a nearby village called asakore. every 60 days several village leaders gather to hear concerns from members of the village. we sat in on a land dispute case, but had a fairly difficult time understanding the twi. after the case we were able to witness the swearing in of a new chief. a village chief had died three years ago and there had been much controversy over who would replace him. usually a chief is replace in 3 days but this case took 3 years! after the swearing in, the village members raised the new chief on their shoulders and marched him through the streets while singing and dancing. this parade was interrupted, however, by a group of protesters who were in favor of a different candidate. a fight broke out between the two parties and when someone smashed a car's windshield, we decided to move away. the police eventually interfered and fired a few shots into the air to disperse the crowd. we were then led to a nearby house to meet the new chief and several other village leaders.

there is sooo much more but i will have to write about it later. tomorrow we leave kumasi at 7:00am for tamale and i need to get back to our hotel. we will be in tamale for 2 weeks, where we will be visiting mole national park, and then we will depart on our educational tour all across ghana. my health is still well! and i am continuing to love my time here. i hope everyone is doing well and i promise some more village stories once we have settled in tamale!

love, dane

kumasi updates

i'm not sick yet!

i also learned recently that my ghanaian name is kuesi. ghanaians usually go by two names; their ghanaian name and their western name. most go by their ghanaian name and give their western name to visitors. the interesting component to this name philosophy is that ghanaians receive their name in correlation with the day that they were born. kuesi is short for kuesiada which means sunday; all boys who are born on sundays are named kuesi and all sunday born girls are named kuesia. i imagine this makes it fairly difficult for teachers taking roll. ghanaians love it when we answer "wo din de sen? (what is your name?)" with our ghanaian name.

food continues to be one of the most difficult aspects of fully embracing the ghanaian culture; i have been overwhelmed with starches and spices. when i meet up with my classmates in the morning we usually find ourselves talking about how much fufu we were served the previous night or how much tom-brown (rice porridge) was in our bowl for breakfast. most ghanaian dishes you are not supposes to chew because it will stick to your throat; we americans have discovered that ghanaian food often times comes out as quickly as we swallow it in (we have given a new meaning to the ashanti symbol of pride and independence that rests in the middle of their flag--the golden stool). the golden stool was destroyed to prevent the british from stealing it, and on good days here we claim that "we have found the golden stool," other days we are still searching.

on sunday jeff took me to church. this church was unlike any church i had ever experienced before (which aren't many, but that's besides the point). the whole time we were singing and dancing, throwing our hands to the sky and screaming. it was a lot of fun; my tie was loose by the end of it and i put some pretty serious pit stains in my only dress shirt.

yesterday we visited an okomfoo-- an akan priest. she performed a ritual which entailed her becoming possessed by her spirit husband and then dancing with us and telling us about our lives and our futures. she was dressed in traditional garb and began the ritual by smashing an egg and pouring gin and flour on it. after dancing and awakening the spirit and letting it enter her body she brought us into a room individually for consolation with the spirit (there was also a translator present). she didn't provide me with any information that was too crazy; she only said to stay in school so that i can help support my family one day. however, my friend bri's first child will be a girl, and if toby stays in school, he will become the president of the USA!

in class this week we have continued with our twi in the mornings and we have been dancing and drumming in the afternoons. twi has gotten harder; the word papa has four different meanings depending on how you pronounce it! our dancing a drumming has been in preparation for a final performance that we will be putting on for our host families. i will be playing drums for the performance (even though i think i'm a better dancer). the men are usually the drummers and since there are so few of us we have taken on those rolls. we have gotten pretty good, however, i think our families with still laugh at us.

this may be my last post for a bit; on sunday we leave kumasi for our village stays. i can't believe we are already leaving kumasi, saturday marks our one month departure from the states, but i feel like we just landed in accra yesterday. for the villages we will be split into three groups of six students and staying in different villages in the ashanti region. none of these villages have electricity or running water, and many of the huts we will be in are without beds so we are bringing along some mattresses. in the village we will each be studying a different aspect about the culture within the village. this maybe wood carving, education, palm wine tapping, chiefdom, or anything. i'm still not sure what i want to study. each night in the village we have a different event to attend. these will usually be ceremonies or performances of some sort. we will be in the village for 10 days so make sure to check back here then and i promise some wild stories!

in kumasi i have met a few times with the ceramics technichion at KNUST to discuss my independent study project. his name is naab (i think that i mentioned him before) and i have really enjoyed getting to know him. he is in charge of making clay and glazes, running firings, and several other tasks around the ceramics studio. he also spends much of this time at local corries and villages where he finds materials to use in his clay bodies and glazes to substitute for materials that he would otherwise have to import (for example naab collects shells from the coast to grind up and us in white glazes in place of calcium carbonate). i am really excited to work with naab for my project, he has lots of friends in nearby villages where i will be able to observe wood firings and i will also have full use of the studio at KNUST.

alright, i think that is all the news for now, but make sure to check back in 10 days or so! i hope everyone is doing well, ghana sb 09 anyone? let me know

love, dane

guac in ghana

the guac turned out better than i had expected, however, now i am a bit nervous; jeff told me that my guacamole was the first time he had ever eaten uncooked vegetables... i had been wondering why all ghanaian food is served hot... i hope i don't end up with cholera! i don't think my family enjoyed my cooking as much as i did, my brother's and sister's facial expressions made me realize what i must look like when i eat fufu. i even caught nana fake dipping a plantain chip and then telling me he enjoyed my cooking.

we started dancing and drumming in class last week in the afternoons, a group of performers from KNUST have been joining us and teaching us their skills. we are still learning the basics so everything is fairly repeditive but its been really fun and funny. yesterday some friends and i found the pool on campus. it was really fun until jones (whose real name is jules, but ghanaians cannot pronounce the oo sound so we switched it) jumped off the high dive and ruptured his eardrum.

almost all of the girls in our group left for the night to visit a crator lake 45 mins outside of kumasi, its the largest natural lake in west africa, i think that me and the two other guys are going to check it out next weekend. this weekend were just going to chill im kumasi. i played soccer again this morning with nana and joyce and then taught jeff how to do sudokus, he had a handheld sudoku player but didn't know how to use it.

have a good weekend!
dane

kumasi

we made it to kumasi! the drive took about six hours, but i would guess that our average speed was about 25 mph because of traffic and road conditions. kumasi is wonderful and so is my new host family. i live directly across the street from KNUST (kwame nkruma university of science and technology) which is where we have classes in the afternoon. this location gives me lots of extra time to hang around campus after class because i can just walk home. in the morning i wake up at about 6:30 and catch a 30 min trou trou to KASS (kumasi anglican secondary school) where we have twi classes. then we catch another trou trou to KNUST for lunch and afternoon classes. the first afternoon at KNUST we toured around the several different art facilities by the head of the art department. i met a professor name naab who works in the ceramics department and am going back tomorrow to talk with him and trade glaze recipes. in the afternoons we have also had lectures from different professors on observation and interviewing techniques and ethnography ethics. this morning after twi class we went to the central market which is the largest market in west africa! we walked around the miles of vendors and practiced our barganing skills that we learned in class. i bought two payas (avocados), a gyeene (onion) and two ntoosi (tomatoes); i'm going to try to make my family some guacamole, i have a feeling it may not be some of my best stuff... especially since we will be eating it with plantain chips.

my parents are named joyce and erik both working on their masters in business administration at KNUST; they are both really excited to have me around and love to speak twi with me. they want to eventually open up a chain of restaurants. i have one brother jeffery who is 18 years old and has been taking care of me; he took me on a tour around campus and the neighborhood. he is currently on his mandatory break after graduating from high school and is waiting to go to the university where he wants to study human biology to become a surgeon. i eat most of my meals with jeffrey out on their porch.I also have an older sister named shila who is 23 and two younger siblings; nana is a 10 year old boy who loves to play soccer and joyce is a 12 year old girl. our family lives on the second floor of a two building compound. my parents rent out the bottom floor and the second building to students at KNUST from accra.

other ghana observations...
-it's totally cool to pick your nose wherever and whenever
-6 people died at a soccer game last week between accra and kumasi from heat exhaustion
-although homosexuality is illegal in ghana, it's very common to see two young men or women walk together holding hands
-ghana recently had the closest election in its history, however, everyone is 10 times more excited and interested in obama
-there is no waste management here
-cipro is nice
-it's the dry season, but since we have been in kumasi we have had two huge storms, one this afternoon

alright i need to get going, but here are a few responses to some comments...

nye - yes
molls - what's an SkB?
alex - yes i do look a little south korean, have you kicked over any eggs yet in italia?
grace - you're a fufu
lars - you're a wenis

i miss you all!!!
love, dane

last day!!

today is our last day in accra....until we come back in a month. last night i went to the beach with some friends and watched the sunset over the gulf, unfortunately our view was blocked by some clouds but i'm sure there will be more opportunities. yesterday afternoon we had a guest lecturer name john collins who is a professor of high life music. for class we had to read a book called 'all gods children wear travelling shoes' and john collins was mentioned in the book. high life is the traditional music of ghana and he told us how it came about. this morning we went to a dance studio in new town, accra. we watched a group dance, sing, and play drums. the owner of the studio invited us on stage afterward and taught us a few moves. tonight i will be having my last meal with mama vida for a while, i'm not sure what she's cooking though (or if we'll even eat together).

alright, sorry for the short post but i need to go get packed up and clean my room! i will post again as soon as i can from kumasi; it may be a few days till i can get my barrings down and locate an internet cafe. i hope everyone is doing well!

enjoy your life,
dane

the weekend, and more

i spent saturday night playing with the help boy who lives in mama vida's house. his name is kuesi and he is 8 years old. he has been living with mama vida for 2 years and next week he gets to start school! kuesi wakes up before me, goes to sleep after me, and works all day long. he washes clothes, does the dishes, sweeps, and fetches water. his family lives in a village in the north and is paid 2 ghana cidi (about $1.50) a month. we played cards and pick up sticks. at first he was very timid and polite around me but by the end of the night, he was joking and smiling.

my brother calvin woke me up on sunday morning at 6:00am. we were going to play soccer and he said that if we didn't get there early enough then we wouldn't be able to play. we got the the field (or sand box) at about 6:45. there were about 60-70 young men there warming up and passing around. calvin and i fist played 3 vs 3 on a smaller field with a few other guys and then one man asked me to come play on the big field. it was really fun but i got tired quickly. i was surprised how organised the game was, they even had coaches and a ref. the twi word for 'western person' is 'obruny' however this word has come to mean 'white boy' where ever we go everyone refers to us as 'obrunies' by the end of the soccer game, i was so dirty that the men called me 'abibany' (black person).

mama vida has a goat tied up in her front yard and one night i asked her if it was a pet. "no" she said, "the goat was a christmas gift, we are waiting for it to get fat enough and then we eat it. would you like to be here for it?" i told her i would like to be around and she said that they would wait to slaughter the goat till i returned to accra and then she would make goat fufu. fufu is the national dish of ghana and i had it for the first time for lunch a few days ago. fufu is heavy, i told my mom i had it for lunch and she said that you should only eat it on sunday and then walk around the block and then sleep. fufu is made by pounding yams and corn meal with a huge pestle. it kind of looks like churning butter. fufu is about the same consistency as pizza dough, only looser. it is eaten with your hands (as is every food here) and dipped into soup.

yesterday morning i had a twi test and then in the afternoon we went to the studio of an artist named kofi setordji. he is a painter, sculptor, print maker, film maker, and philosopher. he calls himself a creator. kofi believes that artists cannot change the world, he believes that art is like road signs; people have the opportunity stop and recognize art and it will assist them in their life, or people can ignore them and face danger. kofi has done a lot of work surrounding the genocide in rwanda and is currently working on an instillation dealing with identity. his compound was the first quiet place i have experienced in accra and i really enjoyed meeting him and listening to him speak. we made small wire sculptures with him, i made a spider.

on my trou trou ride home yesterday i sat next to a young school girl (all students here wear uniforms). she was probably about seven or eight years old. about ten mins in to my ride home, this small girl tapped me on the should and said "are you from south korea?" i laughed and told her no, that i was from america, and i asked her what she knew about south korea. she said that she has a friend there and wanted to know if i knew her.

we have two more days in accra before we leave for kumasi. we leave on friday morning at 7:00am and it is about a five hour bus ride north west. it will be said to leave mama vida's home but i am excited to experience something new!

ps - thanks sammy for the title recommendation!

acraa

after writing my last post, i discovered acraa traffic! my half an hour ride to school took two hours on the way home. traffic in acraa is like traffic in new york city, but with two-lane dirt roads, no traffic lights, and big vans instead of taxis. each trau traus is a two man operation; one man is the driver and the other is the mate. the mate collects the money from passangers, opens and closes the door, and yells out the window to try to collect more riders. when a passanger wants a stop, they tell the mate and he then bangs on the side of the door to let the driver know to pull over. i catch a trau trau two blocks from my house at a stop called st. johns and go to legon, which is where the university is located. it's not uncommon for drivers to pull over to go to the bathroom, buy some water, put air in the tires, or fill up the tank (when a trau trau gets gas, they leave the engine running!)

cell phones are everywhere in accra. most people have them and tons of people sell prepaid mins on the streets. people buy little tickets with a scratch off bar and then type in the number beneath to fill their phone with mins. because of this system, you don't have to pay for incoming mins. when a girl likes a guy, she will 'flash' him, which means she will call his phone and then hang up right away so that the guy has to call her back and pay for the mins.

meals at mama vida's are interesting. in ghana, meals are not a time to sociolize, they are for survival. we all eat at different times and at different tables, when i ate with papa last night, we sat back to back and mama watched us while we ate. as soon as i finish my food, mama quickly comes by to pore more on... i usually have to stop her, portions are huge!

mama vida doesn't have running water, which makes showers, shits, and laundry quite different than what i'm used to. to shower i walk outside and fetch a bucket of water from the outside spicket and bring it back to the house. after i use the toilet, i poor more water on top to flush the bowl. last night i did my laundry for the first time, mama vida laughed at me and had the helper boy assist me.

i have had twi (pernounced chwee) class every morning and we have had lots of interesting guest lecturers talk to us in the afternoon. they have discussed the economy, gender studies, education, and funerals.

tonight we are going to the beach!! i read that the sunset over the gulf is beautiful so i'm excited for that. there is a music festival celebrating bob marley's 100th birhtday that we are all going to check out.

still no luck with the pictures... sorry

abeshia! (see you when i see you)
dane

AKWAABA!!

i can't believe that i have only been in ghana for four days! i have too much to write about but i will do my best...

we (17 other students, 15 girls and 2 guys from all over the states) arrived in accra late friday night after having some time to bond in london and on the plane rides. both plane rides took about 6 hours which wasn't too bad, especially on bitish airways... do they fly madison to new london? we all recieved our bags and then were rounded up by papa atta--our program manager, yemi--one of our academic directors, and autie ester--another manager. we boarded a bus and traveled to a near by hostel where we would be "staying for three nights and enjoying our lifes" yemi and papa atta said. the hostel nice and the three guys (toby is from bates and jules is from new jersey) all split a room. we ate eggs and bread for breakfast every morning and had orientation during the afternoon. master drummers from the university of ghana came to play for us and teach us how to dance.

on our second full day in accra we watched (on tv) the ghanaian youth soccer team play in the youth african cup championship; they beat cameron 2-0!! it was very exciting. after the game we attended a funeral. this funeral was not like any that i had ever attended. funerals in ghana last for three days. the first day consists of drummers playing late into the night. the second day is the burrial, and the thrid day (which is what we attended) is a celebration to honor. in ghana they believe that life is not destroyed, it is only transformed and therefore a celebration is held to honor the passage into a new way of life. the celebration lasted from 2:00-6:00pm and had drums playing the entire time. every one sits in a square and claps and sings while a few people dance in the middle, and then the people in the middle pick someone from the outside to dance with them... it's kind of like a middle school snowball but less organized. the locals laughed at us while we danced but we improved quiet a bit over the four hour span. we also began taking classes at our hostel, we are learning the language twi (akwaaba means welcome, we hear it a lot) and dance and about ghanaian culture.

yesterday we left the hostal and traveled to the university of ghana, legon. here we waited for out homestay parents to pick us up. mama vida, my host mother, quickly arrived and gave me a big hug. she drove me to her house after picking up her son calvin (14) from school. mama vida and papa francis also have a daughter victoria and several others living in their home. family in ghana always refers to the extended family. andy is mama vida's nephew and he is my roommate. he is a big kid and wants to play american football. there are also two girls from sweeden and a girl from germany in mama vida's house, they are volunteering at an orphanage in accra for 3 months.

this morning i woke up at 6:00, showered, had breakfast and then cought a trau trau to the university. a trau trau is like a 15 passanger van... but they fit a lot more than 15 into them. we start class at 8:00 and go until lunch at 12:00 after lunch we went in to the medina market and wandered the streets for a bit.

okay i have to run so that i can make it home for dinner, but now that we are going to the university, i will have more oppertunities to use the internet. i will try to post some pictures later this week!! i hope everyone is well, (i have not gotten sick yet... but they told us during orientation that statistics show that half of us will visit the hospital). i will write again soon!

love, dane

hello friends, and FAQs

hi everyone!

tomorrow night i will be leaving JFK airport and embarking on a journey! i am flying to ghana where i will be studying and exploring for the next four months. i am going to do my best to keep all of you (who are interested) updated on my whereabouts and adventures through this blog. i am not bringing my computer with me but will be visiting several internet cafes to post on this here, so check by every once in a while for some stories, photos, and updates. i wont have my phone either for the next four months so don't bother calling; however, i would love to hear what is happening in your lives so please comment on this blog or send me emails at dane.bjorklund@conncoll.edu. i may also be able to skype at some of the internet cafes, so if you're into that kind of thing we might be able to chat for a bit... keep in mind the 5ish hour time difference, depending on where you are located. below is a bit more information regarding this upcoming semester that you might be wondering about...

where is ghana?

ghana is in west africa. it is just above the equator and is bisected by the prime meridian (and therefore sometimes considered the most central country in the world!). ghana has a coastline on the atlantic ocean and holds the worlds largest artificial lake--lake volta. i will be spending the majority of my time in accra (the capital city), and kumasi. i have two home-stays (one in accra and one in kumasi) and one village stay in the ashanti region. i will also be going on several excursions to different national parks and forests, and even a monkey sanctuary! ghana gained its independence from the united kingdom in 1957 and therefore the national language is english.

why are you going to ghana?

i knew that i wanted to study abroad so first i picked a program and decided on a region. i will be traveling and studying through the SIT (school of international training) program. SIT is an independent program and is not affiliated with a specific university in the usa or in ghana (although we will be attending a few lectures and classes at the university of ghana in accra).  SIT focuses on learning on location and individual research. the theme of my program is arts and culture and we will be meeting with several local artisans and crafts people. i will be taking a language course (twi), but most of the other academic work is based on field studies. the SIT program ends with an independent research project where i will be traveling on my own to research an area of my own personal interest (i haven't yet decided on what that will be... maybe something with storytelling or with clay). i knew i wanted to go to sub-saharan  africa because it is a region that i have never experience before and it is a place that i feel will challenge me emotionally, academically, and physically. 

who will you be with?

because the SIT program is independent, i will not be with other kids from my school. i will be with a group or 18 other students from all across the county (none of whom i know) and two professors. 

how long are you away?

i leave tomorrow night (january 29th), my program ends may 15, and then i am staying for two more weeks to travel. i will be back in wisconsin on may 29th.

alright i cant think of anymore questions, but if YOU have any for me, please feel free to post a comment. i hope you all have great semesters and i hope you enjoy reading about my studies and adventures. take care, and i hope to hear from you soon!!!

much love,

dane