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