kumasi

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Alright, I know I’ve been slacking lately. But in my defense, the electricity has been going out a lot so I haven’t even gone near my computer lately. I’ll backtrack a bit.

Last weekend the entire ISEP group went to Kumasi. Kumasi is the second largest city in Ghana located in the ashanti region, about a five hour drive north of accra. Traveling as a big group of obruni’s is such a different experience as traveling in a small group. I prefer the latter but it was still a fun trip and much easier than having to personally make all the arrangements. The first place we visited was the royal palace -although Ghana is democratic, the king still has cultural importance. While there, I was given the name asantewaa by our guide which is the same name one of my Ghanaian friends gave me awhile ago. (Asantewaa was a woman who led ghanaian troops against the british and was later exiled because of it, apparently it’s a very strong name.) I definitely prefer it to the “day-names” that everyone is given according to their gender and the day of the week that they were born on. I’ve been told my day-name at least ten times but I can never remember it.

We also visited both kente weaving and stamping villages. Kente is a traditional cloth that is weaved using a pretty complex loom into long narrow strips of colorful patterns. I got to try it out, it’s more difficult than it looks and would certainly be a tedious job. I bought the strip of kente that I worked on and you can totally tell the part that I did because it looks pretty bad compared to the rest of it ha. The stamping village had strips of already-made kente available to be stamped using traditional ink (which we were shown how to make) and stamps portraying the adinkra symbols. I’m not sure what I’ll ever use these for, but I think they’re cool to have. After the villages, we stopped by a street lined with wood-carving shops and a cultural art center that supports local artists. I’d talk about some of the stuff I got, but it’d ruin the surprise for the people that I got them for.

I have a friend whose sister lives in Kumasi and we met up with her and her friends the one of the nights we were there to go out with them. We stopped by a couple spots and danced for most of the night -had a great time. In the morning we made one last stop at the central market before leaving then started the drive back to accra. The only bad thing about traveling on the bus is that someone tends to put on really cheesy Ghanaian films and turns the volume up too loud to sleep through. I guess it makes for funny entertainment if nothing else.

I went to the post office this week to pick up another package from my parents. Once again, I had to open the package in front of the customs officer for them to decide how much tax I should pay. The only thing in the package was a digital camera that was obviously new and I was immediately told that there was a flat rate of 60 cedis (about 40 USD) for importing electronics like this. Luckily I had been talking to this officer for a little while and when I told him that I didn’t have that much on me -he bypassed the “official paperwork” or whatever and had me pay a fraction of that. This was an instance where the fact that the officers can charge according to their discretion worked in my favor. And I didn’t have to talk to the lady who took my granola bars, so it was a much better experience than last time. My camera broke over a month ago and I’m soo happy to have one again. Thanks again mom and dad!

Spent Friday night on campus at this fair-type thing going on near mensah sarbah hall for its hall-week. The only really notable thing that happened was that the boys from commonwealth and the boys from sarbah -the vandals and the vikings- got in a fight, destroyed the stage somehow and delayed the live music because they couldn’t stop singing and chanting after the fight. Kind of ridiculous. Even more so because the administration says they can’t really do anything to control this kind of behavior -especially from the commonwealth boys- because the groups are very powerful.

I spent today at a beach in teshie called shining beach with a few rasta guys who sang reggae songs while we laid on the hot sand. The water was warmer than at kokrobite or bojo, but it was also dirtier so I didn’t swim for too long. Still, it was an amazing way to spend a sunday.

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Comments

[Rabiya Khan]

Kumasi
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