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