a fever, the police station, and a jilted chief

Last week was rather exciting. I woke up Tuesday morning with a fever and a sore throat. "No Malaria," Dada said. It lasted for two days and then was gone, so I was happy. I stayed home from school on Tuesday and Wednesday. I have to take back all the bad things I said (and thought) about the P4 class. On Wednesday, the ENTIRE class, including the teacher, walked to the house during their breaktime to wish me a speedy recovery. How nice was that???

David (the volunteer from Canada) had been planning a weekend excursion for the obrunis. Initially it was scheduled to be a three-day trip to Adangomase, a Kente-cloth weaving village outside of Kumasi, a trip to a cultural museum, and a visit to a nearby shrine. Due to limited finances, we cut it down to a one-day trip (Saturday). However, Maaike and I still went to Kumasi on Friday night, spent the night, and met up with the others in Adangomase on Saturday morning.

The adventure began when we stepped off of the tro-tro in Kumasi Friday afternoon. As we wove through the crowd of people buying and selling goods on the sidewalk, I turned around and noticed that Maaike wasn't behind me. I walked backwards for a bit, and found her clutching her backpack with a horrified look on her face. "My wallet's been stolen." Yikes. She had a lot of money in her wallet. No good. She had a quick meltdown and recovered. What could we do? We continued on to the post office, where I had two packages waiting. As usual, our postmen friends were happy to see us, and one of them, Edward, even gave Maaike five Ghana cedis (about five bucks) so she could "call her Dad to get more money." Again, how nice was that???

We got a room at the Presbyterian Guesthouse and upon Maaike's mom's advice, headed to the police station to file a report about the theft. It was now dark outside, but the police headquarters were close by, so we walked. We rolled up to the front gate and checked in with the "guard" (some kid who was hanging out by the gate). He told us to go to the third room with the open door on the ground floor. The building was pretty big, but not too many of the rooms were open and occupied. We walked past about 20 officers doing drills with their large rifles (Nathan says they're AK47's) in the grass. We found the third room with it's door open and walked in. It wasn't a very big room, and there was one light bulb in the middle of the room (ok, maybe two light bulbs, but it was dark). There were about 10 people inside already, so I just told Maaike I'd wait outside (and watch the officers doing their drills). No, no...a man sitting inside told me to come inside and sit down. He motioned toward a wooden bench and a pair of plastic lawnchairs. I pulled up a seat next to him on the wooden bench. Maaike stepped up to the counter to report her crime, while the 8 or so police officers filled their guns with ammo for the night shift. The man next to me leaned over and said quietly, "Are you afraid?" I was a little bit, but of course I said, "Please. NO. Are you?" He laughed and said, "No." Turns out he was just visiting his little brother, who was an officer. So, I sat there for awhile, and then the 20 officers that were outside finished their drills and flooded the room. Then they all started to load their rifles. One guy sat down next to me, laid his AK in his lap (pointed at me) and then bent over to tie his shoe. I just hoped the safety was on or something, in case he dropped it.

After about 15 minutes, some of the officers came over and started talking to me. They were wondering why two obruni girls were hanging out at the police headquarters on a Friday night. I told them my friend's money had been stolen and that I was just there with her. By the end of the hour and a half, we were all joking and laughing and they were trying to teach me Twi. Maaike gave her phone number to a cute officer (actually, he copied it off of her police report). The funniest part is that he told her that she resembled his Swedish penpal, Linda Engstrom.

On Saturday morning, we headed to Adangomase to meet up with Katy, David, and Nathan. We got to see some of the local weavers weaving Kente cloth. It is quite amazing and an incredibly intense process. The thread is woven into strips about 6-8 inches wide and up to about 10 feet long. Then the strips are sewn together to create larger pieces of fabric. The garments are traditionally worn by Ghanian royalty. I took lots of pictures and one day, you'll get to see them. =)

After we browsed in all the cloth shops, we headed to another nearby village to see a shrine. David was really excited about this visit. We pulled up to a house in our taxi, and our driver got out and was talking to an older man on the side of the street. The driver then told us to wait for a minute, while the man went inside the house. After a few minutes, we walked into the house, and on into a room where the old man from the street was sitting perched up in a chief's throne. We were so confused. Where was the shrine? The man looked incredibly annoyed and we all just let David take the lead. Nathan, Katy, Maaike, and I sat on a wooden bench, while David was invited (as our leader) to sit on a special little stool beneath the "chief." David explained that we were there to see the shrine and the "chief" demanded a bottle of Schnapps and 10 Ghana Cedis from each of us. What??? We didn't know we had to bring such gifts to see the shrine. None of us had brought Schnapps and we were all opposed to paying 10 bucks to see a shrine. David was completely stressed out and the chief became more and more disgusted with us. David tried to barter, offering one bottle of Schnapps and one Ghana Cedi from each of us. The chief would not hear of it. He told us "we were not ready to see the chief." We weren't quite sure what was going on. Apparently, the visits to the shrine and the chief were connected, which we were unaware of. The more David tried to explain, the angrier the chief guy became. We just wanted to get the heck out of there...so we high-tailed it to the door and luckily, our taxi driver had waited for us. I guess we need to do more research next time.

As the five of us rode back in the taxi (Nathan and David squashed together in the passenger seat, and us girls in the backseat), we laughed about getting kicked out of the house. Then, Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares" came onto the radio, and after Katy, Maaike, and I were finished belting out the chorus (because that's all we knew), I told David if his band ever needs any Du-Wop girls, to let us know. We'll work for cheap: A bottle of Schnapps and 10 Ghana Cedis each.

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