Go Ghana!

---

February 06, 2007

AN: We heard through some other international students that ISH1 served pancakes and coffee in the mornings. Chantel was especially excited about this. They were good, served with syrup, and instant coffee. The pancakes were good, but they were more like crepes… doughy crepes that don’t taste like crepes or pancakes at all.

That evening when returning to ISH2 there were to large groups of students, approximately 30-40 of them gathered around two 20 inch TVS, equipped with rabbit ear antennas. The TV screens were very snowy, making the picture far from good. It was clear that this reception of the Ghana vs. Nigeria game was a big deal and any picture would make these students happy. The snowy fuzzy picture reminded me of the first time my father placed an old RCA TV in my room. There were 13 channels, however, only 4 of them provided any images, but with the few snowy images that I was able to get, I was happy, and so were these students watching the game. They cheered, screamed and yelped in traditional Ghanaian languages and as well in English. Either way we couldn’t decipher the English from the Ghanaian languages, but both of us understood them clearly. The energy was electrifying. Arms waved, people yelling; it’s interesting how united people get, and of course sports separate people as well. I’ve seen the riots at football stadiums in the UK and who can forget Vancouver’s own hockey inspired riot of 1994. The energy these students shared reminded me of the arguments people would tell me when defending the Olympics and it’s importance; about how the Olympics brought countries tighter and bonded people. Although I never doubted any of those arguments, being a person with occasional closet left wing tendencies, I still voted no against the Olympics. However, at this moment, I truly felt and understood those arguments. Sure, I’ve been to heated hockey games at home and also on occasions traveled south of the border to attend IV league games a various universities, however, it was the fact that these students could not afford to attend the game, own personal TVs or even go out to the local bars, but their love for the game and their country was so strong that it united them among other students to gather around two 20 inch TVs with horrible picture to watch the game.

CHANTEL - So being a soccer fanatic and from a family that will only get up early by choice when its to watch world cup soccer games I was super happy joining in to watch the game. There is nothing like an enthusiastic soccer crowd to get things going. Never mind that this was one of the only nights here so far that we actually had to go to bed early for because we were leaving for the coast in the morning. We had given up worrying about all the administrative crap, coming to the conclusion that we really only need to register to pay for accommodation, so if the International office wants our money then they have to register us, we can make do with everything else ourselves. I am tired of wasting time and getting nothing accomplished - plus we have way more important things to focus on, like working with the Queen Mothers and exploring Ghana. Anyway we headed into the dorm to get some sleep and were faced with the massive crowd of students. I looked at An and said that there was absolutely no way we were going to be anytime soon - we both smile and take a seat, careful to avoid getting jumped on each time Ghana scores.
AN - Ghana had won and everyone went wild!!! With each passing minute more and more students gathered out side our dormitory, ISH2. We were told it was due to the fact that our building had the largest Nigerian students as residents. They soon came in hoards, running around and screaming like crazy!!! They were gathering in the parking lots that were between ISH1 and ISH2. The crowd was made up of mainly men. This lasted for several hours.

CHANTEL - Ghana and Nigeria have had quite the soccer rivalry. Nigeria felt that they should have been the ones to go to the world cup instead of Ghana and they proceeded to claim that they would have gone much farther then Ghana in the world cup if they had gone. This “friendly” match was called by Nigeria to prove that they are a better team. Unfortunately for them Ghana kicked butt winning 4-1. Now our dorm is made up of about 2 dozen international students with the rest being either Ghanaian or Nigerian, so the whole building was split pretty evenly into fan groups. As Ghana pulled ahead the Nigerian students went nuts, ripping out the cable cords, turning off the tv’s, breaking things…it got a bit insane - I had to move to the other side of the room and wedge myself between two huge Ghanaian friends in order to be able to watch the end of the game. It was awesome, one of the best atmospheres for watching a live sporting event. And the reaction afterwards was priceless. The massive mob running through campus and then congregating in our parking lot was pretty impressive. I had to leave the safety of our balcony and head down into the crowd to check it out. I ended up taking refuge off to the side of the action with some of the American girls as cars draped with Ghanaian flags did doughnuts in the parking lot.


AN - That evening after the game Chantel and I met Miss Elizabeth. One of the many seamstress that come to the rooms of the students offering to make clothing. We have heard about these dressmakers and were very excited about the prospect of having some new attire to wear. So Miss Elizabeth came into our room, plopped down on my bed and proceeded to unload two very large size bags of shirts, dresses, beads and fabrics. We were warned by several of the students that Miss Elizabeth was crazy… in the sense that she sometimes appeared in people’s rooms, she would insist that girls get dresses made, etc, etc. She seemed harmless at the time, just very quick to say that anything she sold looked very good on you and that you should buy it.

By the time Miss Elizabeth left our room and the giant mob had gone home. It was well past our bed time. We had approximately 3 hours of sleep before Reuben was to pick us up and take us to Cape Coast at 6 am.

---