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Published: October 5th 2009
Oh…my…gosh, get your shots, grab your malaria medication and get your butt to Ghana. After one day I have been put under a Ghanaian spell and I do not really want to come out of it (it saddens me to know there are only three days left). Forget every single thing you thought about Africa and prepare to be amazed, if not by the cities, towns, or wilderness, by the people. I love Spain, and I loved Morocco, but Ghana, man, I wish there were words. It is a fantastically energetic country with culture, great food, and more than friendly people. Just about every person that we passed welcomed us, they love Obama and everyone and everything that has to do with America now, and for all you who think that foreign languages are impossible (including me), the official language is English; what’s not to love?
If you’re my mom, none of this is news to you, because you decided to read other people’s blogs, but for the rest of you, let’s go to Ghana! If I hadn’t been so tired after my first day I would have finished my first day’s blog then and there probably would have been a lot more excitement, but I will try to tap back into my feelings from my four days in Ghana, because they were always stupendous. The only bad news is that the first two days after Ghana I was dealing with some traveler’s sickness, which was not so fun, but now I am fine and gearing up for extreme Cape Town!
Before I start I want to say that our arrival in Tema (the port city connected to Accra) was the largest group of Americans to come to Ghana in the history of the country (okay let me try to rephrase that, it was the largest amount of Americans to be in Ghana at one time; that’s huge!). Ghana only has about 450,000 tourists a year and most of them come from other countries in Africa and some from Europe. It was the first time Semester at Sea has been there, definitely not the last, and actually quite a big deal for Ghana as a country. Tema is a city as well, but not near as industrialized at Accra, so most people spent most of their time in Accra. The first day I had an FDP, which you all should know what that is now, at Global Mamas. Global Mamas is a non-profit company that was started by Renee from South Dakota. She was in Ghana working in the Peace Corps and decided to come back a couple years later and start the company with her own money to help the women in Ghana. The company works sort of as a micro-loan program, where they provide materials in advance instead of money and then the women have a certain amount of time to make the product and get it back to her. They then sell the products in an online forum in order to compete in global markets, as well as in a store in Accra. They have a distribution center in Minnesota (I think, or somewhere in the U.S.) where they send some of the products to then be distributed to you when you buy online. 40% of the sales have gone straight back to the producers and she has 80 small women-owned business and 500 producers involved in Global Mamas. Their target market is the educated with disposable income mainly in the United States. I think for someone like me, who gets frustrated with globalization and Americanization and selfish business people thinking that they need to take over every market and take all of the money from these little emerging markets, it was really nice to see a business whose sole purpose was to help people. Everyone should go to globalmamas.org or womeninprogress.org and at least check it out (both websites are for the same company). It is a great organization.
On the way to Global Mamas our tour guide stopped the bus and bought fried octopus from a lady carrying a box of them on her head on the side of the road. Of course we all had to try some and really it was pretty good. We got to the Global Mamas shop and we had a few minutes to shop around followed by a short explanation by Renee where she told us all about the company and about she got it started. After that we broke into two groups and they took us on a tour of the markets and later we went to a drumming and dancing workshop. The markets are phenomenal, way more intense that those in Morocco and probably not a good idea to run through without a safe group of people or a guide who knows their way around; you probably would be fine with one of the locals you would undoubtedly meet in about 3 minutes of entering the country. They have everything you could ever need: second hand clothing, cleaning products, music cds, and more fabric than you could possibly imagine. There were rows and stacks that went on for days; it was a maze of wonderful patterns and colors. After the markets we went to a place for a drumming and dancing workshop where we learned Balango—the native African dance to Accra. I have some videos, so I will have to put those in the next video I make. We also learned some drumming sequences and now I just want my own drum to play all the time. Jeremy got one so maybe I’ll just secretly steal it. Really though I want a giant one that I would have to ship because I am pretty sure Delta wouldn’t like me flying with it, especially if I am playing it.
After all the touring and learning we did all day I spoke to a girl named Valerie who was the business manager for Global Mama’s from London (although she is Ghanaian, she spoke perfect English in an English accent because she grew up in London) and I was asking her how she got involved with the organization and why she decided to work for them. She told me that in university as a finance major she did an internship every summer and then ended up right out college getting a job with Lehman Brothers. Her parents eventually moved back to Ghana and so every break she would go to Ghana to visit them and after the collapse of the company she decided to return to Ghana to live. She liked her job, but this just fit her better; she was looking for something different (mind you as well she is probably only 26 or 27) when she came across Global Mamas. I just thought her story was interesting and it is helpful for me to talk to different people I meet, to keep learning about what I may want to do someday.
After we finished up with the FDP we decided to stay in Accra for a little while before the Welcome Reception. Because we were not ported right in Accra there was a shuttle bus that ran from the ship to Accra (about a 45 minute drive) and it dropped off at a gas station right in the middle of town. We had to wait in the gas station parking lot to catch the bus to the Welcome Reception and we were of course bombarded by Ghanaian children begging for money, young Ghanaians trying to sell bracelets and asking for items for school (which they probably did not even go to, but who knows) while we were waiting. So after this five minutes of waiting, I ended up with a new bracelet (which I did not show any interest in, but it just ended up on my arm when I turned around) and I lost a pen to a teenage boy who said he needed it for school, so I will hope that he is using it for classes right now.
Anyways I know you all must be curious about the Welcome Reception I keep referring to; this something the ship puts together with the universities of our inter-port students so that we can meet more international students in each country that we go to. So we had some delicious Ghanaian food, watched a great drumming and dancing performance, heard the Minister of Education and the Minister of Tourism of Ghana speak, (I said it was a big deal that we came here) and mingled with a bunch of Ghanaian university students. It was probably one of my favorite things, okay maybe not (just wait for what is coming), but it was very unique and an awesome opportunity I may not have had if I was just traveling independently. Ahh, did I mention how amazing the food was (I know I did, but wanted to reiterate a point); my mouth is salivating just at the thought of the steak kebobs with the Ghanaian spices and the hummus. I think overall the consensus of all of the students, faculty, and staff after just the first day in Africa, was that this was by far the best port so far, surpassing with flying colors both Spain and Morocco, which again I loved very much. The world is just so fun!
The next day I got up at the crack of dawn ready to head out on my cultural immersion. I had two croissants (yea, one was for you mom; actually it was my only option at breakfast at 5:30 a.m.) and jumped on the bus. We enjoyed a scenic drive along the Accra plains to the unexplainable village of Torgorme (pronounced To-Go-May) that is located along the Volta River just beyond a very modern dam (I hope Mom and Dad, maybe Pope that reminds you of the “damn” tour out west). This was a real village, no tourists, that had agreed to take us in for a night. I wish I had a video of the bus pulling into the village and us getting off the bus. The whole village came out to greet us and while some were out in the center area, some of the kids were running along side the bus; others were running in from all directions all in their school uniforms. The kids and some of the families we were going to be staying with were lined up to shake our hands as we got off the bus and I cannot even explain the emotions coursing through my body at this moment. These people were so genuinely happy to have us there and to show us all about their lives and at the same time they were so innocent and unaware of the world we were coming to them from and I found that utterly fascinating. After we made it through the crowds of welcoming children (I am pretty sure 75% of the village was children and 25% adults) we found our seats and an elaborate ceremony that felt beyond surreal began. Here we were in a small village in the Volta Region of Ghana in AFRICA and I had never felt more accepted, loved by a foreign population, and truly comfortable.
To begin the ceremony we each got up and shook hands with the paramount chiefs, the elders, and the body guards of the village (yes this is a very real thing; we later asked our host sister about the chief and what he does and she told just that he pretty much just sits around and hangs out and I thought that he had an important title for such a chill job). Then all the kids and some of the adults put on a traditional drumming and dancing performance for us and it was magnificent to see these teeny little girls dancing so intensely and so on cue and together just feeling the beat. The dance sort of resembled a chicken dance, especially when us Americans joined in and attempted the traditional dancing. After the dancing there was a naming ceremony in which we were all given traditional African names. Mine is Ama (because I am a girl born on a Saturday) Dzidefo (pronounced Diz-de-fu), which means “courageous.” You all can let me know if you agree with that name or not! The ceremony was pretty long because there were about 35 or 40 of us that each had to be called forward to receive our name; we had to attempt to pronounce the name into a microphone so that the whole village could laugh at our inability to say our own names, then we received a beautiful handmade bracelet and bowl with our names on it. Since I was sitting in the back row and the ceremony was so long I pretty much just talked to some of the kids, taught them how to high five, and took pictures.
After we received our families and were shown where we would be spending the night, we got back on the bus to go somewhere to have lunch. I felt sort of bad, but we really could not eat any food they would have prepared for us. After lunch we returned to the village where we all just spent the day touring the village and hanging out with our families. I really think for you all to get a real understanding and for you all to have a real appreciation you will have to see my pictures of the people and this village. Kelsey (my roommate for this home stay) and I toured around with our host cousin, really we called her our sister because we really were adopted by her uncle, but he pretty much left us with Edith (pronounced “E”-dit) who took it upon herself to be sure we saw every last inch of the village (which I was totally happy about). We saw some of the women making pottery; we watched some volleyball (Jeremy and Aaron were playing with them, again I have some video and pictures) and soccer; we watched an excruciatingly slow cooking process by another host mother, took pictures of the billions of chickens and goats living among the people in harmony with cats and dogs too; visited their school (which I loved and wanted to attend); went down to the river; saw some Kente cloth weaving (traditional cloth and craft of Ghana); and made several little children cry. Let me explain: some of the very little children had never seen white people like us and so to them we were very, very frightening. One little boy (who I have a wonderful picture of) was just kind of running around, entertaining himself, singing and dancing to himself, he then looked up as we came around the corner and took one look at Kelsey and I, started immediately crying (I mean screaming and balling) and took off running to his mom. Edith thought it would be a good idea to follow him, so we approached him as he was clutching on to his mother’s legs for dear life and I crouched down to his level and was sort of talking to him (in English which he did not understand) and I just told him that we were nice and we were not going to hurt him. Finally he stopped crying and his mom let me take his picture and then I showed it to him, so I think by then he realized that we were not really all that scary. Later on we watched some more pottery making and then taught some of the kids the Macarena, which they all enjoyed learning.
That evening we all reconvened in the center of the village for dinner and another session of dancing and drumming. Before dinner we all just played with the children and took pictures. We played some “London Bridge is falling down…” and “ring around the rosey…” as well as taught them some other things that were similar to the Macarena. All of the kids also loved having their pictures taken and would repeatedly ask for us to take their picture and when it got dark they especially loved the flash and would jump every time it went off. After our playtime they brought in food for us and it was really awkward because all the village people made a giant circle outside of an imaginary line around our tables. We were all sure to finish all of food, because it was just such a strange phenomenon to have all of these people watching us eat all of this food and not have them join in. We tried to eat quickly and get back to interacting with the families in some dancing. It was a great night, the dance was about two counts of dancing followed by two claps and you did this in a circle as you moved around. After a while the circle broke up and we added some different moves to their traditional ones, especially when we failed at their version of the chicken dance. Later I had a little dance off with two girls that were probably not any older than five (I think they won, but they were loving it and so was I). After the dancing broke up for the night we showed some of the teenagers the “Soldier Boy” dance and tried to teach them it (just as we didn’t get the chicken dance, they did not get the “Soldier Boy” dance, so we decided we were even). All and all this day will be forever scorched into my memory as one of the best experiences and one of the most fun days I have ever had.
The next morning we got up and said a sad goodbye to our families, exchanged information, had breakfast and hopped on the bus for our next adventures. Half of the group decided to go to a reserve with baboons and then head back to the ship, while the other half of us decided to drive to go hiking up the highest mountain in Ghana and then to the scared monkey sanctuary in Tafi Atome. The drive in itself was very much an adventure; most of the time I was flying through the air and attempting to hold on as we flew all over the bus. I am sure one of the times I was trying to sleep I got about a foot of air. The infrastructure of Ghana is fairly weak and so even the paved roads were like this and it got even more interesting on the dirt roads. On the way to the mountain we had to stop for some of the people to go to bathroom in this other small village along the road and all of us girls had to squat in a small concrete room with a small hole out the side and pee; it was quite an interesting experience. The hole was on the side of the concrete, not in the floor, so we pretty much just peed on the floor, which I am sure I haven’t done since I was a small child, if ever. I am so glad I was the first one to use these facilities. Sorry if you didn’t want to hear about that, but it was part of my time in Ghana and I think a funny story that shouldn’t be forgotten. After about 3 and ½ hours we got to the foot of Afadjato Mountain where we climbed 2950 feet to the top of Ghana’s highest peak, get this, only to get to the top and see all of the surrounding mountains were a little higher. I am guessing that Afadjato was just the only climbable one; either way it was so fun and a great way to get to know some of the group we were with, especially since we were only about 15-20 after we lost half the group. After that we went to the Tafi Atome village to see Ghana’s sacred endangered monkeys. This was another one of my awesome experiences (okay every single experience was awesome and each different in its own way). The people gave me a banana and told me to stand underneath this tree that was full of these little creatures and hold it up. Now they told me not to peel it and to hold on tightly to the base and see what the monkeys did. Sure enough I was interacting with monkeys completely in the wild (they were not in cages, they just lived in the trees outside the village) and these monkey would come down a branch toward me, reach down, peel the banana exactly like a human would, take a piece of the banana and climb back up into the tree, then the next would come down and repeat the same process until all of the banana was gone. Sometimes they would have a little squabble over who was going to get some of the banana, but they would settle it and then one would come down and take some. Then with the other banana I went to another tree (by the way I watched these monkeys practically fly from one free 10 feet or so to next to get to the tree I was below) where the monkeys were much higher up and the man told me to try throwing it to them. So I broke a piece off and tossed it to them and unlike my old dog, Bogie, they caught it every time without failure with their little hands and then shoved the banana into their mouths using two hands. It was quite an intimate and unbelievable experience. The rest of the day was spent on the bus back to the ship.
My final day in Ghana (☹) I participated in Habitat for Humanity. This is an organization that I am pretty involved in back at home and in Delaware so I wanted to make sure that I did it once while I was abroad to see how it differed and I’ll tell you that mostly it differed in the strenuousness of the work. I am not that weak of a girl, at least for a girl, and I was exhausted at the end of the day. We went to Kibi (or Kyebi) in the Eastern region of Ghana again along some more rollercoaster-like roads. Our jobs were brick making and brick laying, as well as some digging and filling in. Half of the group hand made each brick (which we were later using to build the house) with some sand and cement and left them to dry in sun. They probably made over 100 giant cement bricks, each approximately 10 times the size of our tiny little red bricks. We on the other site spent the first hour moving over 100 bricks from one pile to right next to where the rest of the group was laying bricks. I had the brilliant idea of making a chain and passing each brick so we didn’t have to walk 30 feet or so carrying these extremely heavy bricks. This method proved very effective. After we moved all of the bricks some of us took pick axes and started to tear up the ground to loosen it into dirt we could cart over to fill in the foundation. I wish I had a video or at least pictures of me heaving this huge pick axe back over my shoulder and then flinging it with as much force as I had into the ground to loosen the dirt. After about an hour of that I was really beyond exhausted and we were sort of out of jobs because we had to wait for the concrete paste to set in between the layer of bricks they had just laid so we went to check out the brick making processes and then gave out starburst candies to some of the kids in the village (this village was not nearly as populated with children as Torgorme and not near as energetic), but the people were equally as nice and forever welcoming and thankful for their little candies (which probably made them sick, as much as we are not used to their food, candy is probably a new addition to their diet). After that they fed us (which is most likely what made me sick for the next two days, again I am fine now and it really wasn’t that bad; I was out of commission for one day in which we didn’t even have class).
The day after Ghana on the ship we cross the Equator at exactly 0 degrees longitude and 0 degrees latitude, which I thought was a pretty cool thing. So apparently when you cross the Equator for the first time via boat there is a whole situation and succession of events that take place. I would have more to say about it if I had taken part, but I spent a large part of the day in bed. But anyways what happens is the crew gets all dressed up in toga-like costumes and runs up and downs the halls banging on doors and drums waking everyone up at 8 a.m. and then at 9 a.m. we were summoned to the 7th pool deck, where King Neptune (our captain all painted green with a funny wig, I’ll have to get pictures from Jeremy) met us with his posse. Then each student went up two at a time to have pink and green goop (supposed to be fish guts) poured on them, then they jumped in the pool and then had to kiss fish (real, dead ones). After every single student that wanted to did this, they began shaving heads. Surprisingly quite a few girls and a lot of the guys participated in this; right now I cannot tell anyone apart if they have a shaved head on the boat. All in all it was a pretty fun day for those that were not watching movies in bed, actually I thoroughly enjoyed the alone time, because that does not exist on this boat or when traveling because you are not allowed to walk around in any of these countries by yourself. Also from the moment we stepped on this boat we have been going full speed ahead, so it was probably some much need R&R. Be prepared parents because we will probably sleep for a good week when we get home after this. It is crazy because we go hard-core in our classes for about 6 days with projects, exams, and papers, and then we go even harder in port to be sure we do not miss out on a single experience.
All right, I hope all you plan to get to Ghana now, if not at least I hope that I have place the country into your mind at least because it deserves that space if nothing else. There really is no country like it and I am really at a loss for more words to describe it to you. It is such a warm country full of such loving and incredible people, everyone I talked to met some Ghanaians who immediately befriended them and took it upon themselves to be sure that each and every one of us had a spectacular time in their country. So what are you waiting for, get those bags packed and go already!
Gosh I just hate my life; tomorrow I will be waking up at 6:30 a.m. to see the sun rise, hopefully spot some whales, watch the pilot boat exchange (a man will jump from a small boat on to our boat while we are moving to help us get into port, it happens every time but I haven’t witnessed it yet) and then experience the arrival into the one and only Cape Town, South Africa. It is supposed to be one of the best ports to get up to see us come into, nearly rivaling Hong Kong, so we will see tomorrow morning. I hope you are all enjoying reading about my travels and maybe it is even inspiring some future travels, because really that is the real purpose of documenting all of this. For now, hasta luego!
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Adela Sanchez
non-member comment
Africa!
Hi Kristin, I enjoyed reading your experience in Ghana. Amazing! I have an uncle, mom's brother, who lived in Burkina Faso (and spent much time also in the Ivory Coast and Ghana) for 10 years as a missionary priest. If it had not been for the illnesses he contracted while living there I am sure he would have never left. He truly was immersed in love with the culture and people. I was always moved by his letters and pictures. Reading your blog just confirms that the people of Africa are really special. Look forward to seeing pictures one day. Take care, Adela