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