Photos

Kester, Uncle Simon, me, and Auntie Abigail (My homestay family in Accra)

Me, Jessie, and Claire in the bush in Asaam (aka on Adgyeboat's farm)

A cute little warthog from Mole National Park

Me in Mole National Park

Megan Gurrentz (Colorado) at Antoinette's shop (Antoinette being Ghana's only female master drummer)

Laura, Mara, me, and Jessie having a drum lesson with Antoinette in her shop

Me, Antoinette, and Lisa (who was an SIT student 9 years ago, then did Peace Corps in Swaziland and is now making a documentary about empowering women - aka she is extremely badass, in a really humble and passionate way)

 

 

In other news, we're moving around a lot the next few days. We're in the Volta Region, just left the Central Region, and very very soon we start our 5-week independent research projects. Megan (Colorado) and I went running when we were in the Eastern Region and climbed a hill that overlooked the whole valley, including the river, as the sun was coming up. So beautiful. They speak Krobo in the town we were in. We got to see a really interesting ceremony commemorating when the Krobos were forced down out of the mountain they inhabited. Megan (Colorado) and I got to be within like two feet of the paramount chief.

 

We're working on learning Ewe now, which is what they speak here in the Volta Region (and by we I may actually just mean me... we're not being given any formal classes in it, I just ask people and take the time to talk to the locals, who usually say something in Ewe than say it in English when I don't get it, then teach me the response). We made clay pots the last couple of days - still not finished, but we're leaving tomorrow for a new place so we'll come back for them once they've been fired (on a bonfire of corncobs, grasses, bark and palm fronds). Before that when we were with the Krobos we made beads, since they are apparently master beadmakers there, so we're really getting all sorts of creativity going on.

 

Megan (Colorado) finally gets to enjoy mangoes, which she has been waiting for the entire trip. They've been out of season, but there are lots of ripe ones here in the Volta Region. Life is good.

 

Going back to Cape Coast: I did try to get the fishermen to take me out on the boat, but unfortunately the day I chose to talk to them about it was the taboo day, so I helped them pull in their nets instead. They pull them in by hand using a long thick rope and a team of men, pulling in rhythm to a song they chant. They have several different songs, and each has a different purpose depending on how they are pulling. They always have people in alternating positions on each side of the rope, but the two methods I saw were they either all pull together at a certain beat and then grab lower and then pull again, or they each grab on to a set spot and walk slowly backwards in time with the song. It was fascinating. My hand developed a nasty burst blister pretty quickly from pulling on the rope, though, and I had to go back to the hotel for breakfast (we'd come out to the beach to watch the sunrise again), so I never actually did see either of the two nets I helped with break water. Those ropes are long! It would be really interesting to study the fishing chants, though. Maybe I'd actually get to go out on a boat...

Cape Coast (sick of riding on the bus)

We are in Cape Coast right now. Laura's blog post is much more detailed than mine will be - I'm tired and sick of looking at this slow computer's screen. She wrote hers on a friend's Netbook.

I like it here, but the beaches are covered in poo. People poo, dog poo, pig poo, goat poo, you name it it's there. It's gross. We carefully picked our way over to some rocks this morning and watched the sun come up over the Gulf of Guinea as the fishermen in their long wooden boats (some with sails, most with outboard motors) made their way out to the best spots to cast their small-mesh, gill-nets with random pieces of cork threaded painstakingly onto a thin piece of rope on top and hunks of metal (lead?) strung on a little rope along the bottom of the net. I want to go out on one of those! I'm not sure how to convince the crew to take me out and then bring me back in, but I'm thinking.

One interesting thing about fishing, as well as most Ghanaian activities involving harvesting natural resources, is that they have a traditional method of conservation: taboo. There are certain days of the week for each activity (farming, fishing, hunting, etc.) where it is considered an offense against the gods/ancestors/spirits to go and participate in that activity. For a fisherman, it is fine to sit around mending your net or fixing your boat, but you must not go out and fish on that day, be it Monday or Friday or whatever it happens to be. Apparently the original purpose of these taboos has been lost - allegedly if you ask a Ghanaian why he or she does not fish/hunt/farm/etc. on that particular day, they will say it is because they will anger the spirit of their fishing/hunting/farming spot, or something. It's kind of like their built-in, superstition-based day of rest. Pretty cool.

Cape Coast is more touristy than most of the other places we've been. Everyone is extremely shocked if you speak Twi (especially since they speak Fante here, which is supposedly mutually comprehensible with Twi, but in my case the comprehension is a one-way thing, i.e. I can't understand them but they can understand me). At one of the Bush Kanteens we ate at (basically just a covered area with tables and various food vendors, usually on a college campus, where students go to get their lunches - you can buy fufu, banku, and other Ghanaian staples, as well as beans, rice, plantains, and all sorts of fruits) here I went to buy a papaya (medium-sized, soft not hard) and three bananas, managing the whole transaction in Twi, and as the lady was cutting everything up for me, she asked if I liked pineapple, too, and threw in a whole bunch of pineapple as a "dash" (more of that social capital I was talking about earlier) for free. It was a delicious fruit salad for 70 pesewas (about $0.50 or less). Today for lunch we went to a vegetarian non-profit NGO that had delicious food and smoothies. Megan (New Orleans) would be better at describing the food options, but it was wonderful. I got an orange, ginger, papaya smoothie (so much ginger - yum!) and split a spicy mushroom salad (they were weird mushrooms, and I actually didn't mind eating them with the cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes and onions they came on) and a tofu garlic sandwich (on whole grain bread!! unheard of here in Ghana). It was wonderful.


On our way there, some of the street vendors selling crafts and touristy things started talking to us as we browsed their shops quickly. I responded in Twi and they (again) got really excited. One of them kept exclaiming, "You have done well! Oh you have done very well!" in Twi, and then he declared that he was going to give something to me so I would remember him always and gave me a miniature djembe on a keyring (or "key holdah! You put your house key on it so that you will know it is there when you are opening your door and looking for where you have put your key," as he described it, in typical Ghanenglish). I feel kind of bad because I can't remember his name now, but it was something-boateng (non-linguist pronunciation guide: bwa-tang). Maybe all I'll need to do to get out on a boat is strike up a conversation (although really, what we know is pretty much limited to greetings, introductions, and bargaining, which we are now quite good at).

Linguistic note: Twi doesn't really distinguish between R and L. Most Ghanaians whom I have had the pleasure of meeting don't have much trouble with the two, but our beloved Papa Attah (SIT staffmember - the name Attah means that he has a twin, in his case a sister) has some really fun ways of saying certain things. Our favorites so far are: "Oh, she has been to the doctor. She is not well. She has typhoid and mararia," and "It is not raining very hard. It is just dizzling."


We also went on a canopy walk today and visited a slave castle. Both were interesting. We gave our mini-Independent Study Project presentations the last three days, showing everybody what we learned during our research projects in the villages. The power and water frequently shut off at our hotel, but oh well. It's comfy, otherwise. At first they brought out about half as much food for all of us as we needed for both breakfast and dinner, but they seem to have caught on (thanks to our leaders having a chitchat with the hotel, I think) and are now bringing out enough food to actually feed 15 hungry college students. The lack of food at the beginning sort of scared me a bit, though, and now I think I'm overly concerned about not having enough food while we're in Cape Coast... working on getting over that. Today we had a nice big breakfast with scrambled eggs that had peppers and tomatoes and onions mixed in, bread, hot beverages (Milo, Nescafe, and British-ish tea), and some watermelon/orange/pineapple. Dinner was beans, rice (plain white, of course, meh), plantains (I still can't eat them), and a big cabbage/tomato/pepper/onion salad. I can rest easy, I believe.


Ghanaian idea of a compliment to a woman: "You have become very beautiful! You have put on so much weight in such a short time!" Hahaha. Big women are attractive here, and almost all the men have no body fat and pretty defined muscles. It's funny watching all the African-American music videos they play on all of our many long bus rides (the roads are always wonderfully bumpy - if the road doesn't naturally have huge ruts and potholes, the government kindly adds large rumble strips at the entrance and exit of every village/town along the road, so you get the experience of driving on a more typical road anyway) and seeing how the beauty ideals are so different. I guess in theory muscular men are supposed to be attractive, but all the videos seem to show big guys strutting with ultra-skinny ladies. It's interesting.

I do not have malaria

Just to clarify, since I've been getting a lot of e-mails lately about this, I do not have malaria. The doctors checked my blood when I first had a fever, muscle aches, weakness, and exhaustion and there were no malaria parasites. They declared I had malaria anyway ("it just hasn't shown up yet") and treated me as if I had malaria. A few days later I was back to my old self. I went and had my blood checked again a week after I had it checked the first time - still no malaria parasites. I do not have malaria. Maybe I never did. Who knows. But the doctor told me that I will be able to give blood later in life (I think that there's an automatic wait period of a few months for anyone who has just returned from Africa) and that when I go to America I will not have malaria hanging over my head, waiting to pop up and manifest itself at any ol' time it feels like it. At least as long as I manage to not get malaria in the next two months...

We are back in Kumasi for a day before we head to Cape Coast.

This past week we went to Mole (pron: molay, for the non-linguist and exactly mole for the linguist) National Park. We got there Sunday, went swimming in a real pool (that involved some "chicken fighting"), ate dinner, and then went to bed to get up early the next morning for our trek through the park. Our guide was quiet and carried a tranquilizer gun. I wish that he had been more informative about the things we saw - but he basically just walked in front of us and told us that if we talked too much we would scare the elephants. We finally saw a water buck, an elephant, a bunch of monkeys, baboons, warthogs, birds, and bugs. There were way more rocks, including a lot of volcanic rock, in the north than in the other places we'd been. Our guide was not very interpretive (unlike Dr/Grandpa/Ranger Bob, as my Death Valley 2009 crew remembers), but I had fun!

Yesterday we went to Paga, which is in the north on the border with Burkina Faso. We saw Burkina Faso from our bus! It wasn't that exciting. We also got to pet live crocodiles at the crocodile pond. That was bizarre. One of them was supposedly over 80 years old. We were on the road driving for probably about 7 hours and only spent about an hour or so in Paga, but I think it was worth it. We saw some traditional painted mud houses, too, and I got to climb on top of a couple (they take naps up there to keep cool and get fresh air) and go inside of them, too. Other than the spider-friendly ceilings, I wouldn't mind living in one, I think. Although I'm starting to realize how wonderful running water really is.

Speaking of running water, we stopped at Kintampo Falls today on our way to Kumasi. I got to stand underneath the waterfall and look up at it pouring down over the rocks in all of its muddy glory. It was a little bit frightening seeing that much water threatening to land on my head and wash me away, but I survived.

We get a little food stipend when we go on trips away from our hotel (where we get fed normally). We can either spend it at a restaurant, which will cost anywhere from 3-10 cedis, or we can just go to a street vendor and get some delicious beans with hot pepper, onions, cassava flour, and yam chips (kind of like fried slabs/wedges of potatoes) for about 50 pesewas (0.50 cedis). You can also splurge and buy a soda or a Malta (non-alcoholic malt beverage with vitamins) for a cedi or less. It can be hard to find stews and sauces with no meat, but as long as there are those street vendors with rice, plantains, yams, beans, etc. it's really not at all difficult to be a vegetarian in Ghana. Most of our group is, actually. And there are stands of fresh fruit all over! You can get papayas, pineapples, oranges (which are green), bananas (some of which are some completely bizarre species), coconuts (hard ones like what we're used to or soft ones with more juice), watermelon (so sweet! they're a different color on the outside, though), and apples (which we are told not to eat since they don't have a thick protective outer coating) for really cheap. They're all fresh and ripe and delicious, and the vendor will chop it up for you right there. Megan (Colorado) bought a bunch of seven bananas for 20 pesewas today out of the side of the bus.

Oh, yeah - anything you could ever possibly want (except fast internet and fast computers, which exist NOWHERE) is available at your window when you ride in a bus or a tro-tro, usually. People carry unbelievable loads on their heads and conveniently arrive at your window, calling out in a nasal-y voice (that would be interesting to study) their wares: ice watah! plantains! oranges! pens! etc.

I bought two smocks. They're the kind that girls can wear, too, so I wore one to Paga yesterday. There was a guy named Achala with a woven, slightly conical hat who had one on, too (he showed us the mud-building village and taught me how to say thank you in Kasem, one of the languages spoken in that area). He got really excited when he saw me wearing it. Megan (New Orleans) got a really colorful one that she's wearing today. They're woven and thick, but baggy/breezy and really comfy.

Oi, it just started raining outside. At least the rain is warm here! Everything is warm. The cold bucket showers really aren't bad at all. Washing clothes by hand is. My knuckles still haven't adjusted and are red and raw again. Some day I will be a true Ghanaian and have hands of rock! Or I'll just return home to washing machines in all their (lazy) glory.

Walewale

The internet here is ridiculously slow. We are leaving for Mole National Park in an hour. We'll get to spend the night there, too. Yay!

The power went out for pretty much the whole day yesterday. The night before, Ghana won in soccer and the whole country ran out into the streets to celebrate. We ran out and joined them as they sang, beat whatever drum-like things they could find, and ran up and down the streets with joy. Everybody was really happy. We saw people driving like maniacs on their motorcycles and all the taxis were honking their horns. The livestock that wander all over everywhere (sheep, goats, even big cows) were all really confused and scared. They sort of just huddled together with perplexed/frightened looks on their faces.

Up north further there's a town called Walewale (non-linguist pronunciation guide: wall-ay wall-ay; linguist pronuncation: walewale). When people ask where I'm from and I say, "Walla Walla" they usually respond, "Oh! Walewale?" -pause- "You are Ghanaian?" -confusion-  It's fun.

The sky is beautiful here. It looks so big, and the clouds are gorgeous. There are frequent rain/thunder/lightning storms and then it's even more exciting, when the whole sky lights up with a big burst
of lightning.

Okay, out of time. I hope this posts.

Tamale! And no MPs (aka no malaria!)

We are now in Tamale, which I love (even though it's hot) and even though they laughed when we asked if we would have internet, it turns out we do! We're here for one week total (so like, 5 more days) and we're split into two groups - half live at a guest house near where we have class and half (incl. me) live a 7 minute taxi ride away at a hotel with running water and air conditioning! It's amazing. Megan (Colorado) and I got up early and did some yoga in the hallway, and a Ghanaian stopped and said, "No. This is how you do it. Stand with your legs together, do not bend, reach down, touch the ground. See, I help you." We nodded, he left, we did headstands (didn't know I could do that).

So, exciting news: I had my blood tested one week ago and there were no malaria parasites (MPs), but they still decided I had malaria and treated me for it. Today I went in and got my blood tested again (this time for typhoid too, just to be sure) and there were no MPs and there was no typhoid of either variety. They say I need to go in for lab work again right before I leave the country, but if there are no MPs then, too, then I'm set.

Less exciting news: Jessie got malaria and typhoid. She's back from the hospital and resting now.

Tamale is great, though. People don't shout, "Obruni!" at you. They'll say, "Hello!" and "How are you?" but it's much more of a brief encounter like what we're used to. Much more relaxed. There are bikes and motorcycles all over though, so it's sometimes scary to walk along the pathway. Oh, and it's super hard to find vegetarian food that's cheap. Normally you can get a stew or a soup or something with no meat, but not in Tamale! "Vegetables? What do you mean vegetables?" An army man tried to help Megan (Colorado) and me find food today, but ultimately he didn't and we finally found a little stand that sold fried yams and beans and we bought some bread, too. Then we bought a bunch of bananas to split, too. Luckily we only have to fend for ourselves for lunch - we get served breakfast (omelette with vegetables, bread, peanut butter, bananas, and hot drinks [yellow label black? tea, Milo semi-chocolaty drink, or nescafe instant coffee-like beverage]) and dinner (hot vegetable stew on rice and sometimes yams with oranges on the side) at our hotel. It's pretty good.

Linguistic note: Almost everybody here knows English pretty well, but the primary language seems to be Dagbani, which is the language of the Dagomba people. I'm working on learning some while we're here, but we aren't getting any formal lessons, so I just ask people. Some know Twi, but I feel really weird using it because I never know if they know Twi or not, and if they do, they almost always know English, too, and just look at me like I'm assuming they don't know it. So I begrudgingly use English, and try to pick up more Dagbani where I can.

Today we went to a Women's Cooperative Shea Butter production place. They let me help grind up the shea nuts by putting them on a rock and hitting them with a little wooden mallet-like thing (it's more like a pestle but kind of hourglass shaped). That was cool.

The people in this area are predominantly Muslim. Dress is more conservative than it was in the south, and women usually wear head coverings. I do anyway, since my head still has very little natural sun protection (it's growing back fast, though!), but they have lots of really pretty scarves here so a bunch of our group got some. There are also traditional smocks (I swear they have a different name, but they won't tell us because they say we won't understand - I'll work on it) that are made of a thicker material which a lot of men wear, and supposedly women wear, also (but longer, dress-versions). I've never seen a woman wearing one, yet, but the men wear them over top of another shirt, which makes no sense to me, since it's way hotter here than it was further south and they're putting on a thick smock over top of a regular shirt, which is already bad enough. I asked one of our professors about it (he always wears one), and he said they're used to it. I like the feel of the material.

Yesterday we were instructed to find kola nuts (and their purpose), guinea fowl (and their purpose), and smocks (and whatever else we could find out about them) at the market. Kola nuts come in two varieties: red ripe ones and green unripe ones. Both are edible. They aren't very nut-like, but I'm not really sure how to describe them. They have the consistency of something like a really unripe apple. Apparently they have caffeine (or something - Yemi told us that they haven't been chemically analyzed yet, but people chew them to help them stay away on long drives) and they taste terrible (except to people who have been chewing them for 10 years or so) and if you chew them way too much for way too many years your teeth will start to be stained red or brown a little bit. We also heard a rumor that if you chew them and then drink water or pito (a locally-made alcohol made from fermented maize, millet, or guinea something grain) it makes the water or pito taste better. That one was unconfirmed. Yemi laughed at that and said, "Some of us put sugar into bitter things to make them taste better. Here they combine two really bitter, bad-tasting things (kola nuts and pito) and think that it is good. Oh, well, life is interesting."

And I've been asked what the currency here is, so here's a quick run down on that. They use the Ghana Cedi, or New Ghana Cedi, which is close to the value of a dollar. If you bring a $100 bill to a forex bureau they will give you a rate of about 1.60 (aka 1.60 Ghana Cedis for 1 US Dollar). If you bring in a $20 bill they will give you a rate of about 1.40. If you bring in a $1 bill they will give you a rate of 0.50 (aka 50 pesewas), which you could then exchange back for about $0.30 cents, which you could exchange back on and on until you had no money. What fun!

The single pesewa (like a penny) isn't really used. In the 1 1/2 months I've been here I've received one, ever, and I've never had any opportunity to spend it. Everything is rounded to the nearest 5 pesewa coin, including satchel water, which is actually only worth about 3 or 4 pesewas. If you buy a bag of 30 satchel waters, it costs one cedi. If you sold all of those for 5 pesewas, you'd get one and a half cedis. Good deal.

The currency recently underwent an overhaul (hah...) so some people still quote prices in the old cedi. It would take 10,000 old cedis to equal 1 New Ghana Cedi. So if someone says that a piece of candy costs 500, they actually mean it costs 5 pesewas. It gets confusing because sometimes they will drop the "thousand" and just say "150" meaning "150,000" which would mean 15 Ghana Cedis. Sometimes you have to just point at the amount of money that's meant, but really you just have to know what a decent price is to begin with. This is crucial in Ghana, where there are almost no fixed prices for things.

The traditional Ghanaian economy relied heavily on social capital (I have no idea if that's the right capitol/capital, but this computer won't let me have more than one window open at a time so I can't go check), and to a large extent it still does. However, in dealing with "the West" they are being forced more and more to revert over to a system based more on immediate monetary gain. The transition seems to be a bit difficult, as one can imagine. With the traditional system, the price can be reduced down to a monetary loss for the seller, on account of a buyer being their friend. This may seem like a bad way of doing business, but when there are five tomato sellers all sitting next to each other (which they do - that's a whole different story), that buyer will probably come back to the one who sold her/him tomatoes for a really low price based on friendship. Or maybe a banana seller will tell you the price is 20 pesewas for 3 bananas, but then when you pay she/he will throw in an extra one. They are building up relationships, which are more important than finances. Paco can probably explain the economics of it better (and maybe he has already?) - I just added his blog to the links on the left so if you have extra time to kill, you can read that as well.

Okay, out of Internet time. We go to Mole national park on Sunday and get to spend the night! Oh, and I'm feeling awesome. I was a little bit more exhausted than normal the first few days after my fever broke, but I'm pretty much back to normal now.

Tomorrow (or Two Weeks In A Rural Ashanti Village)

For the last two weeks our group was split between three rural villages. Five were in Benim. An hour and a half's walk away, five were in Asaam. Twenty minutes' walk away from Asaam, five were in Naama. I was happy to be in the middle village, Asaam. It was great to actually live close to the other students, finally, even if it was a little bit frustrating to be so far from Benim.

It rained alllll the time. Great rivers of mud would form throughout the village and then just as quick as they came, they'd dry up and the sun would beat down harder than ever (no clouds blocking it anymore). We spent most of our time at SIT headquarters, aka the Assemblyman's house. He's the government representative for the village to the district capitol. He's this super sweet 71-year-old man who sang us a song saying how much he would miss our smiling faces when we said good bye last night. He said to remember that we always have a home in Asaam.

My room was a little concrete thing with a dim blue light and a thin little mattress, but it wasn't so bad. The toilets were concrete blocks that each had a hole cut in them with a little toilet seat stuck on top.. All showers were taken by bucket. Water was fetched from a watering hole 15 minutes away, each way (usually the school kids fetched it for us, thankfully). And every time you walked anywhere you would have to greet and talk to five or six different people... there and back. In Twi. Oh, and at night all the little children in the village crowded around our window and stared at us, calling, "Obruni! How are you? Lydia! Lydia! Jessie! Grace! Abena (Ismatu)! Claaa-gurgle-phlegm (Claire...whose name is particularly tricky for the Ghanaian tongue)! Lydia!" My name was a favorite... it is apparently a common name in Ghana, so whenever visitors from the neighboring villages came to Asaam they were usually greeted with "Lydia! Lydia!" They always got my name right :)

Rather than taking classes, we worked on a miniature version of our future independent study projects. We learned a lot more Twi (informal classes in the evenings and talking to people all the time every day in it) and learned a lot about village life from talking to the Assemblyman and the villagers. Also, since everybody did different mini-ISPs we got to learn from each other, too. I did mine on plant identification (hah, Dr. Perez Perez, I finally got to take that class you never would let me take!) so I got to go out to the bush almost every day and film herbalists/farmers tell me in Twi about the plants and their uses. I now can cure impotency, menstrual cramps, headaches, fevers, and all sorts of other things. And I know five or six different ways to increase breast milk production. I'm a bit skeptical of the impotency cure since it involves drinking akpeteshie, which is an extremely hard alcohol made from distilled palm wine, but they say it works for sure. The Ghanaians also seem to really believe in enemas. About half the plants we found could be used for an enema, on top of whatever else they cured. Oh, I also know which trees are good for furniture, which sap can be used to make a ball, which leaves can be used for sandpaper/silver polish, and a ton of different and exciting fruits and other edible things (including the Asua berry, after which our village is named [plural of Asua is Asaam, I think], which makes sour things like lemons and sour oranges taste sweet after you eat it).

Here's a brief look at what the last 14 days were like, but first, the characters.

Auntie Afresh: Our SIT Queen Mother (has an adorable baby, Percy, and takes care of us)
Simón: Our SIT "buddy-buddy" (he translates for us and helps us with lots of other things. He's our age)
Auntie Cynthia: Our cook
Papa Attah: SIT staffmember (occasionally visited us in the village)
Jessie, Ismatu, Claire, Grace, and me: SIT students in our village

Day 1
We arrive at village. Village meeting is called. Villagers are asked to share fruits and vegetables with us (which they did!), not to propose marriage to us, and to call us by name rather than obruni. We meet everyone and say our names over and over. "Lydia' and "Jessie" stick. The meeting ends and all the village children follow us home shouting, "Lydia! Jessie!" and occasionally the others' names, and grab onto our hands.

Day 2
We visit a waterfall near Naama. It's beautiful. I spot a salamander.

I ask to try fufu. Am told, "Oh my sweet daughter. You shall try it tomorrow."

We are told that our resource persons for our mini-ISPs are all out to farm. Tomorrow we will meet them.
We go to the farm with a man named Addyboateng, or Addyboat (edge-a-boat) for short. I get to chop down a plantain tree with a machete to harvest the plantains (new ones will grow back in six months), help pull crabs out of a woven/basket-like crab trap, pull palm nuts from a palm tree, pull cassava out of the ground, and carry palm fronds back home to make baskets and a broom. Ismatu and I spend the rest of the afternoon preparing the leaves for the broom. Our three armfuls of fronds turn into a pitiful broom 1/4 the size of a normal broom. We are proud of it anyway.


Day 3
I ask to try fufu. Am told, "Yes. Tomorrow you shall try."
Three of us trek off with our SIT staffmembers to "tre-tre" (three-three), who is an expert on plant uses.We meet him and he is boozed and ornery. Tomorrow we will find someone sober. Instead of working with him, we trek off into the bush to find cocoa to try. We harvest four and return to Assemblyman's house.
Afternoon: I ask to try fufu. Am told, "Tomorrow."


Day 4
I ask to try fufu. Am told, "This afternoon you shall try."
They have found us someone new to be our resource person! However, he is busy today. We will meet him tomorrow. We return to the farm with Addyeboat to get basket-making materials for Claire. Simón comes along to translate, and I record more information about plants from Addyeboat. Simón tells us, "A day without Addyeboat is like a day without sunshine." And then, "A day when Addyeboat does not take a drink is like Africa without Madagascar." Later we learn the truth of this.
We ask when we can eat the cocoa we got. "Oh, you will eat it. Maybe tomorrow."

Day 5
We trek off to the bush to visit the akpeteshie distillery with one of our Aunties from the village, several SIT staff members, and Papa Attah, who has come to visit. We go the wrong way at first and decide to pick some fresh oranges instead. Simón climbs the tree and uses a palm frond split at one end with a twig stuck between the two splits to hold it open to twist the oranges from the branch. We enjoy fresh oranges as we continue our journey to the real location of the distillery.
We make it to the distillery, which is a group of drunk men who are happy to see us and demonstrate how palm wine is harvested by felling a palm tree. I ask if I can help, and they (being drunk and thinking anything is a good idea) let me try my hand at it. They seem to approve, and let me help chop off the branches, too. The oldest man begins referring to me affectionately as his wife. After he makes a comment about ants in his pants (literally, there were ants crawling everywhere because we accidentally stepped on their trail and they got angry) and how he is protecting "my property" I get a little annoyed and tell him (in line with Ghanaian humr) that he can only call me his wife if he's okay with being my third husband. I tell him that my first husband works hard and brings me money, my third husband is a hunter and brings me antelope, he can bring me palm wine (which should really just be called palm juice when it first comes out of the tree). He laughs and agrees. He later decides that Claire is also his wife (not sure if he just mistook her for me, since we both have shaved heads). He gives us some supua bark, which cures malaria/fever supposedly, and we return home.
Papa Attah stays with us for a while at the house. We ask again when we can try the cocoa. He grabs one, asks for my machete, splits it open, and gives it to us. Thank you, Papa Attah!
Cocoa pods are full of many little cocoa beans which are covered in slimy white fluff that is sweet/sour. The beans themselves are purple, bitter and taste nothing like chocolate. We wonder where chocolate really comes from...
I ask once more to try fufu. Simón is eating fufu and offers some to me, but it has two big pieces of meat floating in it. I gracefully decline.

Day 6
We finally meet Akwasi Antwi, our new resource person! He shows us a chameleon, then takes us to his house, where he has a chameleon he has already prepared for us by tying it to a stick and burning it into a powder. This mixed with shea butter can be rubbed on a baby who has a big head and miniature limbs to remove the evil spirits that have cursed her/him. We then go off into the bush to look at plants.
When we return, Addyeboat is at the house, drunk, asking for Claire (whose name he can't say), because he is teaching her basketmaking. He is a funny drunk, at least, but kind of annoying. Our Aunties chase him out with a boot.
In the evening, we have "drumming and dancing night." This turns out to be "drumming and large-crowd-of-Ghanaians (mostly children)-standing-around-watching-the-obrunis-dance night." At least the old women playing drums let me play for a little while. They even have a large metal pan filled with water, in which they put a half a calabash (large gourd-like thing that grows on a tree) and turn it while beating it to change the tone. So cool. They don't let me play that one.
I ask to try fufu again. Am told, "I will tell Auntie Cynthia (our cook). She will prepare you some, with no meat."

Day 7
We visit Mampong to get gifts for our homestay families. There are internet places! But the internet is down through the city. "It is really really unfortunate," Simón would say.
At the market, I walk around with Ismatu, whose father is from Sierra Leone, and everyone is surprised that I speak Twi. Ismatu stays quiet and they assume she taught me. I buy a coconut and a "duku" which is a headscarf type thing to protect my head from the scorching sun. It has hedgehogs (maybe?) on it. I approve.
Addyeboat returns. We learn how to say, "You are trouble!" in Twi. We also tell him, "You are an alcoholic." To which he responds, "I do not like alcohol! Will you buy me a drink?" Later he admits that he drinks Guinness, but still claims he doesn't drink alcohol. Jessie informs him that Guinness has alcohol. He's a character.
I temporarily give up on asking to try fufu.

Day 8
We return to the bush to look at some plants that Mr. Antwi had told us about that were too far to get to before. I ask Mr. Antwi to show me the Asua tree. He takes me to the Asua bush (whoops..) and then shows me two completely different trees that are both called "apple." The first has  large fruit that is covered in spikes. The second has a medium-sized fruit that looks like an artichoke. I smile and nod. He then takes me to a baby "moringa" tree. I have no idea what it is. I return home and ask about it (no interpreter was able to come with me on this little excursion, and Mr. Antwi only speaks a little bit of English and I only speak a little bit of Twi). I am told, "Oh! It cures many things. It clears your vision, it heals you. Yes it cures many sicknesses." Auntie Cynthia then brings a small bag of it out to show me. It's a bag of sesame seeds. They cure rheumatism, arthritis, poor vision, weake(?) and several other things. They also increase sperm production, sexual feeling in both sexes, and improve your memory!
In the evening we  have storytelling night and the old ladies of the village come and tell us stories with morals (and about why spiders hang on the wall). When it is our turn, Claire begins to tell her version of the Tortoise and the Hare. In the middle of her story, they start to admire her baskets that she and Addyboat worked on. Claire asks Auntie Afresh (who has been interpreting for us) if they actually want to hear her story. She says, "Yes. They are interested. But they like talking." Claire continues. The old ladies declare in Twi, "It will rain. (Literally: Water will fall)" and get up and walk out, wishing us good night as they leave. Claire tells us the rest of her story.
Day 9
We work on our ISPs. I have over forty plants recorded, so I compare notes with Jessie (who is studying herbs, specifically - my project includes all plant uses, and no chameleons) and we type up our findings.
Early afternoon: I start to feel a bit feverish. I tell Simón, since Auntie Afresh is gone. He suggests I rest. I spend the rest of the afternoon napping and shivering.
Auntie Afresh returns. We go to the clinic. They declare, "You are just tired. Go and sleep." I go and sleep.

Day 10
Still feeling feverish. Claire takes my temperature: 102. I go to the Mampong hospital where they declare, "You have malaria." The doctor says, "You have not been taking preventative malaria medication." I say, "Yes I have. I've been taking doxycycline." The doctor laughs in my face, "Then you have not been taking preventative malaria medication," and goes into a lengthy description of how doxycycline is an antibiotic and you cannot prevent malaria with an antibiotic, but you can treat chlamydia with it, and this and that are exactly what he would prescribe to somebody who came to him with an STI, but malaria... NO. He prescribes me with two different pills to take, some liver extract to drink (Jessie makes me feel better  by saying that it surely comes from the liver tree), and two shots in the glutes (aka my bottom). The first shot makes me stop shivering quite so violently. The second shot makes it difficult for me to walk for the next three days.
I go home and sleep. I have given up on asking for fufu.


Day 11
Fever still there. I'm very weak and can hardly walk, but I manage to get up and eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I spend the day sleeping. Naama students all come to visit me and everyone takes good care of me.
In the evening, my fever finally breaks and I feel much better.

Day 12
No more fever! But I can't get up. Ismatu had invited me to stay with her the night before so I wouldn't be alone and sick. She climbs over me and goes to breakfast. Auntie Afresh comes and says, "My sweet daughter, I am sorry you are not well. Please come eat smallsmall for me." I get up and stumble over to the house for breakfast. Mom texts me and says, "My friend told me that sucking on hard candy helps. Malaria uses up our glucose stores." No wonder I have no energy. Ismatu buys me some cookies that say, "GLUCOSE" on them. They taste stale (like everything in Ghana) but I hope that they will help. I go back to bed until lunch, which I nibble at, then back to bed again. I am bored out of my mind being unable to go out to the bush to work on my project. Lying in bed is dull. Naama students come to visit me again, which cheers me up quite a bit. I rest some more until dinner, which I eat, and then go back to bed until the next day.  

Day 13
I'm a little confused about what happened on what day... to be honest most of this is a little bit fudged, but I probably spent most of this day resting, too, but I at least was able to spend time at the house with people. We say goodbye to the village and Assemblyman sings us a song which almost makes us cry. We give our gift to the village (bags of cement to finish their school building that fell down) and to our homestay families. My headache has returned so I give up on packing.

Day 14       
Ismatu helps me pack. We eat and pack and say our final goodbyes (and have one last entertaining encounter with boozed Addyboat), then hop aboard the bus to Kumasi with all the others from their villages. Now we're here. Tomorrow we leave for Tamale. I never did try fufu.