Of Weddings and Funerals

Both are major cultural celebrations in Ghana and I have been lucky to get the possibility to attend both.

Last weekend I went to my first Ghanaian wedding. Or it was rather the blessing at church that we were invited to. Blessings take place on Saturdays. This seems to be the rule. The big cathedral was full of people. Everything had to follow an order. After the priest gave an introduction and read from the bible, the crowd was singing and dancing and screaming to give their blessings and best wishes to the couple. Afterwards the priest gave a speech about marriage, more singing and dancing and three hours later the crowd moved to another location where we were provided with drinks and food. At 6 o’clock in the evening we went home and the celebration was over. The next day was Sunday and regular church day. The newlyweds were now introduced to the whole parish and are officially married.

FUNERAL: 24 hours of goosebumps

Let me tell you about my 12 hours of goosebumps! This is a story I always wanted to share but just never found the time to do so. 

A couple of weeks back Evelyn and I were invited by a friend to the funeral of his father -  to one of the biggest funerals of the year. It was announced on the radio and even television. Sir Patrick Dery an important figure for the Upper West, died a few months ago and was now to be buried. 

Thousands of people came to Nandom, the village where he resided. People did not come to mourn his death. Not at all! They came to celebrate his life! This man died old. In Ghana this is a privilege and there are no words that describe this festival. The family did a great job. 

As the tradition asks, the body was preserved and put 2 meters high on a kind of throne in his most beautiful traditional wear. The whole day and the whole night groups of traditional dancers came from all the villages to pay their tribute to this man by dancing in front of his body. The show was unbelievable. From far one would hear the deep roaring sound of drums coming closer. It was a group of dancers making their way to the "throne". When the drums of one group were softening, the next group could already be heard, approaching from far away. Those traditional groups were all people that were friends of Patrick Dery and for this special day made a performance. Usually they are probably farmers, today they were war dancers!   Also single people would dance in front of the body, scream out in joy and celebrate. So much joy and emotion as I have never ever experienced before. 

Another part of the tradition is that the family designs a funeral cloth that carries the face and age of the decedent. This way everybody will know who belongs to the family and who is friends and visitor. 

The next day the Bishop came for the official ceremony. The body has been put into the coffin and placed in the middle of the enormous field where people had been celebrating the last 24 hours. Around the coffin table and chairs were arranged for the priests and the Bishop. Everybody was seated properly underneath "tents" in a square surrounding the central scene with the Bishop. Some dancers were still around. Before the Bishop started the crowd was startled by a shocking traditional ceremony. One of the group of war dancers was making a last round and was holding an alive dog. They cut the throat and drank the blood. Even the people sitting next to me were shocked and doubted that deceased would have appreciated this gesture very much. 
Then the ceremony started and we rushed away to get home early and not get stuck in the dust from all the other cars making their way home. We stopped at the family house to say goodbye and I am deeply thankful that I was allowed to be part of this celebration.

Road to Nandom

Family wearing the funeral cloth, with the print of the decedent

Funeral Cloth

War dancers performing....special performance of people who have regular lives on other days =)

war dancers dancing as a last honor to the deceased

A woman dancing to the drums to pay her last respects to Sir Patrick Dery

another group of war dancers

Ghanaian xylophone - traditional church and funeral instrument! awesome sound

Travelling to Volta Region

More Travelling

It has been busy busy busy around here. No time to update this Blog. Sorry! But I have a lot of new stories to tell you. I don’t even know where to start.

First of all, I managed to defend my Master’s Thesis with my school in Berlin from Ghana. Thanks to Skype I can call myself Master of Arts! The same day I had the exam I went on the evening bus to Accra and started a great trip. 7 days I travelled Ghana with two friends and got to see some great areas of the country.

First, we spent some days at Coco Beach close to Accra. The beach was beautiful but as many beaches here, quite polluted. You jump into the water and easily have a plastic bag sticking to your body. On one of our visits to Accra we had the chance to watch part of the show of Reinhard Bonnke’s evangelist crusade (please google this guy!). Many many people gathered on Accra’s independence square to sing, dance and celebrate with this man. Religion again proved to be the central part of life of people in Ghana. It never stops to impress me how people believe and trust in God. It creates an amazing energy!

At Coco Beach we also had our first encounter with the local police, which was not our last. Randomly, a group of policemen jumped off the back of a pickup truck. All of them had big guns and two walked right towards us, quite aggressively. They accused us of having smoked weed on the beach and they were sure that they saw us throw away a joint. This happened when we actually only had entered the beach for 10 seconds and turned around because we wanted to offload some things at the hotel first. Suddenly, those men stand in front of us, grabbing and smelling our hands and treating us in the most unfriendly way. We decided to just start walking and surprisingly they did not follow us. 

Accra Independence Square (1957 Ghana achieved independence from England)

Coco Beach near Accra

Coco Beach near Accra

The next day we rented a car and started our trip to the Volta Region. Our next stop was Akosombo. We got there alright but if anyone ever decides to take the road through Tema, be aware of the roundabout! We seriously spent about 2 hours taking wrong exits, trying to get back to the roundabout, taking another wrong exit. This roundabout is huge and busy and does not have signboards that are understandable in any way. Two hours, seriously!!! In the evening we arrived at the wonderfully situated Lodge in Akosombo. The place was water front to Lake Volta, with a pool and just very well maintained. Unfortunately, there were also monkeys and other animals suffering in tiny cages.

Because the place has Indian management I especially enjoyed Indian food – a nice change of diet! 

View form Akosombo Continental

View from Akosombo Continental

Bored resident at Akosombo Continental 

The next day we went to see the Akosombo dam. You have to go to the tourist office and are only allowed to go with a guide. If you paid attention during physics classes in 7^th grade, don’t expect to learn much but the view up there is amazing. I think this was the most beautiful sight I have experienced in Ghana, so far. Afterwards, we decided to cruise the area for a bit and again I was impressed by Nature. Since the Upper West, where I live, is just dry and dusty I was so happy about all the rich and green nature. Also this part of the country is very well developed due to Lake Volta, being the biggest artificial lake of the world, and a great producer of electricity that is even exported to the neighboring countries. This produces jobs and infrastructure, which leads to wealth for this region. I highly enjoyed this stretch of the country, the small, clean and green villages with very friendly people. 

Akosombo Dam

View on top of Akosombo Dam

The next day we started another exciting part of the trip. It was exciting in many ways as we had incredible ups and downs. Everything started out so good and then became a living hell. We wanted to go deeper into the region and visit a waterfall and afterwards drive all the way down to the coast. So we made our way to Amedzofe. The road led us into the Eastern Highlands. As we were gaining height the view became more beautiful with every minute. Once we got to Amedzofe it was just amazing. I never expected to see a mountain like scenery mixed with tropical vegetation. Amedzofe lays at some 600 meters altitude. We went to see the waterfalls, which were only a 45 minutes easy hike. The waterfall was nice but unfortunately a heavy rain caught us by surprise and we had to hurry back.

Road to Amedzofe

Road to Amedzofe

Hike to Amedzofe

Amedzofe Falls

So our journey to the coast began. We stopped in Ho for supper, got a good stock of chocolates at the gas station and off we went in high spirits. There was only one thing that we didn’t consider. As soon as it gets dark the police barriers are up and every 10 minutes we got stopped by policemen. They are supposed to be looking for armed robbers and check on the trucks at night. However, we were easy meat. While the trucks were allowed to pass we were chopped into pieces. Every single barrier wanted something else. I had to show all of my papers, the car was checked in detail and every time another lie plopped up. Suddenly, the international driver’s license is not valid in Ghana. In Ghana you need a local one and what not. It was quite clear that the policemen were hoping to get some money from us because we wouldn't want to put up with the show. However, we were patient, played the game, talked and talked and did not pay a single bribe. The barriers took in total something like 2 hours. This was a horrible experience and for the first time I was deeply frustrated by a serious drawback of Ghana. I have heard many of the locals complain about how the policemen are after bribes. Now I got to experience it myself . The highlight of the trip though was a truck passing another truck on the opposing lane in the middle of the night, not paying attention to us and not slowing down when it saw us coming. We had to slam on the brakes and leave the road. Otherwise, the truck would have run us over. Thanks to the best driver in the world we survived safely. Close to a mental breakdown we got to Cape Coast early in the morning without having slept at all. The next two days we spent at Oasis Beach Resort, recovering from the stress – the place where I had also ended my last travels. Thanks to Alex & Christian this adventure has been made possible. 

Some Travel Stories

The last two weeks have been quite exciting. I have met some volunteers from the American Peace Corps who live in villages outside of Wa. Even though the amount of work does not allow me to socialize very much, it is nice to know that there are people around. One Sunday afternoon we met and went for some drinks in Wa and it was great to just hang out and hear other stories from Ghana. Since the Peace Corps volunteers stay for 2 years most of them have been here for a while and it was good to see how well they cope since I have to admit that I am still struggling with adapting to my new life.

But some new impressions also helped to get some energy. Evelyn and I went to Accra to apply for my working permit, which I need in order to get a resident permit. I was impressed because the Immigration Service was run by military staff that looked quite scary and I felt slightly intimidated. That night I checked in at a hostel because I was gonna meet a friend from Germany who was by coincidence passing by. 4 days with a friend was just what I needed. The night Lena came we heard about a Reggae party at the Accra beach and got a little taste of the Rastafarian culture of Ghana, which I have not gotten in touch with so far. After only seeing Wa, where life is not easy for most of the people it came like a shock to me to see everyone smoking cigarettes, drinking too much and not worrying about anything.

The next day we explored the capital of Ghana together. Puhhh compared to my town Wa the capital is a little shock. Soooo many people, everyone is trying to talk to you and wants to sell you something. We were brave enough to throw ourselves into the Makola market. That was the craziest market ever. Cars, motorbikes, people trying to push through 500 little booths. The smell of fish, urine, food mixing and the eye constantly busy with things like huge snails being sold, crabs, colorful cloths …

Afterwards we rewarded ourselves with a drink in a beach bar as Accra has a sea front. In the afternoon we went to see the national museum. How do I describe it carefully? A lot of dust and many different stories about the Ghanaian culture and history being told at the same time mainly through reading boards rather than objects. However, I was able to learn quite a bit about the slave trade, a topic that I haven’t really studied so far.

The next day we went to Cape Coast, without knowing what bus to take when, and where to stay. That is the best way to travel! Everything worked out perfectly fine. We got on a Tro-tro, which took us to Cape Coast within less than 3 hours. We went for the Oasis Beach Resort, which is a nice hostel with a beach front. The room was awesome, the place was awesome and I got two days without any worries. Especially the beach pigs enlighted my days.

After arriving we went to see Cape Coast Castle and learned even more about the Slave 
Trade. The Castle was a place where the British would bring the slaves before they were shipped to the Americas or the Carabbean. The Castel is just on the Beach of Cape Coast and the village is on both sides of it. In front of the Castle many fishermen have their boats laying nowadays.

Even though Cape Coast was without electricity the first night we had a good time. We met Henrietta, a powerful local lady running Chics Hebs, a restaurant I can only recommend because this woman is the best. Without electricity she cooked great food and she was just pure positive vibes. A group of European students joint us, who are currently studying for a semester in Cape Coast. Back at our Hostel a Reggae party was waiting for us. Cape Coast seems to be the volunteers’ retreat as the hostel was crowded with volunteers. 

The next day Lena and I went to Kakum Nationalpark for a canopy walk. It was extremely overprized and the park was crowded. At the entrance we were told that we shouldn’t expect to see anything, which seemed blank but honest. But as it was raining like hell it added some fun to it. On our way back we stopped at Hans Cottage Botel - another crazy place. It is a hotel, combined with a restaurant AND a pond with many many crocodiles inside, which were moving around quite freely. We had a coffee, watching the crocodiles and after went back to the Oasis Beach resort.

The next day we went back to Accra where I probably committed a sin. Lena and I went to the Koala supermarket in the part of town where all the expatriates live. An incredibly overprized supermarket which offers imported food. I bought dark bread, cheese and chocolate….you don’t want to know how much I paid…but it was worth it. There was not a single local inside but only expats and tourists. Feels wrong but still I am sure I will be back. In Osu,the expat part of Accra, life is different. Nice houses, expensive restaurants with international food. The expats have created a little paradise for themselves, away from real life in Ghana. 

In the evening Lena got on a Taxi to the airport and I got on a Taxi to O&A station where I met my boss Evelyn and we got on the bus back to Wa.

The next week Evelyn went to a trade fair in Burkina Faso and I was alone with the workers at the office. I had to take care of daily business and the first time I really experienced what work is like in Ghana. Things tend to be more chaotic than I am used to from Germany. Polychronic work (doing multiple things at the same time) kind of overwhelmed me. The moment you do something, you are asked to do 5 other things, your name is called every minute and I didn’t know what to do first. I have noticed that work attitude before, but now I was living it. I dropped dead at night and I am amazed by how Evelyn manages this every day.

Now, this week also a life changing event took place: I bought a bicycle! Her name is Carry and we will be best friends!

I got to leave Wa again because I visited one of the volunteers I have met. His village Poyentanga is only a 30 minute tro-tro ride away. They had market day and it was nice to escape to village life. We sat in one of the booths on the market and drank Pito, a locally brewed beer, which has a very distinct taste. It is quite strong and sour. You have to try hard to like it but you know, at some point you just do like it! The big steaming pots are Pito being brewed (the pic was actually taken in Wa in the back of a house). The tro-tro back to Wa was great. The people who sold their things on the market went back to Wa and all their goods were tied on the tro-tro. Even a goat was tied on top.

Ha! Today I snapped Fivel or one of his family members. I am sure now, that we have at least three, but probably many more sharing the house with us.

Always new stuff going on

I am still trying to get settled, which is not easy when just everything is different to what one is used to. At the moment every day is still a different day.

On Sunday I went to church with the family. Being an atheist I never go in Germany. But here it is really a special experience. The church is massive and I would say that about 500 people attend. Even though it is quite large not everyone fits inside so chairs are put outside. One week they would make a youthful service with awesome gospel singing. People start dancing and enjoy a lot. The other week they have a more mature service with choir music. This week the new attendees were asked to step up. Evelyn really wanted me to step up so I was handed over a microphone and had to introduce myself on stage in front of 500 people…me the atheist :D

This week I had my first “Nassala experiences”. The kids call me Nassala, which means white woman. Many of them can’t stop staring when they see me. Some would randomly ask me to give them money. A normal girl my age even stopped me and asked me to give her my earrings. If I gave her my earrings we could be friends. It is new to me but I probably have to find my way to deal with it.

The biggest event this week was probably that our family shrank. Alex went to boarding school. He was so full of energy that the house will be just quite.

And I finally got to meet one of the women groups that receive micro credits from HoLIFE. I didn’t understand a word but the energy was amazing. After 2 hours of discussions the women ended with pure happiness, singing, dancing and praying. This brings me finally to the introduction of the organization that I am supporting.

HoLIFE (House of liberation for empowerment)

HoLIFE’s mission is to empower women of the Upper West Region here in Ghana, where compared to the rest of the country poverty is still high, women don’t have many rights even though they usually are the bread winners of the family. HIV is also a big problem in the area. Many women lost their husbands to the disease and families are stigmatized.

Now HoLIFE is involved in many projects that in the end are supporting women of the region. One big project is the micro credits. More than 500 women in 8 different communities receive loans that enable them to open their own small businesses. How does this work? If the women in a community would like to receive loans they have to group up. They pick a group leader. The group leader has a special role. She needs to be able to read and write to document what it going on. As illiteracy in this area is the status quo this is important. Also the group leader is invited to workshops frequently and passes on what she has learned during the workshop to the rest of the group. During workshops they are usually taught about how to save, how to plan well, how to negotiate with potential buyers as most of them are producers of some kind of product.
The group leader is always the one who has the closest contact to our organization. They come with lists of the loans that the women ask for. Once the loans are handed out the group leader comes once a month to bring the repayments of the group. Only when each member of the group has repaid her loan the group can apply for new loans. There are quite high interest rates on the loans to create pressure to pay back in time. And we actually achieve repayment rates of 98%. Actually one of the problems is that because in the groups the HIV rate is sometimes 50% women just die while still repaying the loan leaving the rest of the group responsible to think of a solution for the open depth. But besides getting loans the women also have the possibility to save. As many of them don’t have bank accounts the organization puts away the little money they are able to save.

But this is not the only project HoLIFE is involved in. At the work place here in Wa there are also 6 women that produce different things. One of them is a sewer, the others are flexible in their work. They produce different spice mixes, make bread every day, when we get shea nuts they even make shea butter. Also there is a restaurant next to our office, which we are still trying to push. All the products that are made here are sold wherever possible. We attend trade fairs , try to get them into the stores and do everything possible to sell them locally but also more and more on a national lever.

The next project that is about to be realized is a day care for children between 6 months and 4 years. Here in Wa there is actually no possibility for working mothers to have someone take care of the children. Of course this brings along problems that HoLIFE is trying to fight.
The building has already been put up, there are teachers employed and the day care will open September 16^th. However, we still miss funds to buy materials, there is no electricity and a small school bus is needed to pick up the children.

The last project that has not received funds and is therefore only theory is the one that is the most valuable to me. HoLIFE wants to build a campus for female students that study here in Wa. Why? Well, here in Wa there are not enough accommodations for the girls. This leads to very high prices for rooms. You can easily have 8 students living in a small room. Girls prostitute themselves to be able to pay for their rooms and raping by the landlord is common practice. As a result the girls are psychologically destroyed and the HIV rate high. University started this week and Evelyn told me that raping will increase immensely the moment the female students are back from their villages. 

My new home and the town of Wa

It has been a week already and my head is full of impressions. Everything, I mean it, everything is different.

I flew in with two other guys from the same program who will also stay in Ghana, but in different projects. We flew through Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) where I got my first impressions. I had to laugh because the airport had smoking cabins that were about 4 m² and separated through 2 meter high glass walls. However, the cabins had no top and no door so the smoke was all over the airport. Striking was also how the simple little airport shops had empty shelves. Interesting was the high number of Chinese on the airport which I also found at the airport in Ghana. I was told that China has contracts with some African countries to dig up their resources and in return they build for them. This opens up the African countries for Chinese tourism.

At the airport in Ghana I was picked up by my new boss and host mom Evelyn. We stayed a couple of hours at her sister’s place in Accra (the capital of Ghana) and at 8 o’clock at night took the bus to Wa, my new home town. The bus was more modern than any bus that I have taken before. The 11 hour journey was accompanied by very loud choirs praising the lord and later on reggae tunes with the same mission. Also it was probably the coolest 11 hours I will ever have in this country. Evelyn warned me to put on more cloths. I should have listened! The air conditioning was killing me.

In the morning we got to my new home. We are Evelyn, her 6 year old son Alex (who will go to boarding school soon), Alice a girl in her early 20ies and me. At the moment another Alex who is 9 years old and from Burkina Faso also stays with us during his vacation. We actually share borders with Burkina Faso and the people along the border speak the same local language. They have the same roots from the tribe of the Dagaraa and at some point someone simply decided to put the border in between. The national language of Ghana is English and of Burkina Faso it is French.

Wa is an amazing town. It is very rural and simple and just a special blend of many things. Muslims live together with Catholics. It is no problem for a Muslim to be married to a Catholic. At three in the morning you can hear the deep voices of the men singing from the various mosques…..impressive but luckily I brought earplugs. Sometimes they even preach through speakers. At the same time you have many churches all over the place. 

The special blend also concerns the Western style cloths and the typical colorful dresses, new pickup trucks, old motorbikes.

In Wa you buy everything you need on the local market where people sit on the ground and offer the foods they harvest. Evelyn taught me from the very beginning that you have to be careful with the food you buy on the market and in the streets in general.

All over the place you see women carrying in an amazing way heavy things on their heads. From things that look as if they weigh 20 kilos to a plate with 50 eggs. They walk, sit, turn, and grab things from it with ease. Pictures will hopefully follow soon. But it is not okay to just take pictures of people why I have to wait for a good moment and ask for permission. The town is also characterized by the goats and chickens that you see everywhere.

A day in Jenny’s life

I get up every day between 5:30 and 7. I already joined Evelyn to the church service at 6:30 once and I will try to do so some times. Evelyn goes every day. When she comes back we have breakfast and at 8:30 we go to the office. From 12 to 2 we have lunch break but hang around there. At 5 we leave the office. I drop dead at 10:30. New to me is that the TV is always on. But the program is mainly in English so I can follow. 

Eating is still a little tricky but I will find my way. All the local food contains dried and pounded fish. With raw food one has to be careful because of worms, typhus etc. Now, what does a strict vegetarian do in Ghana? I will see. 

We don’t have running water in the house and the girls fetch water from a well each morning, carry it on their heads to the house and we store it in the house in a barrel. We wash our bodies with water from buckets and also use buckets of water to flush the toilet. Every weekend we wash our cloths with a soap bar, buckets and hands.

The drinking water is packed in little sachets that can be easily carried around. Electricity works with a prepaid card where you use up the units. The internet connection in this area is UMTS, meaning it is very slow and hard to find.  

At the moment we are in rainy season. Some days it does not stop raining heavily, other days it only drizzles for a few minutes and we have sun for the rest of the day.

This week many exciting things happened. We went and visited the local radio station because Evelyn wanted to make an announcement. It was guarded by the police because that same day the verdict concerning the recent elections came out. After the last elections the loser went to court and claimed that the outcome was not right.  However, the winner was announced to stay in place and in Wa the people were apparently relieved. Another exciting encounter was a rat that spent the night with me and in the morning when it noticed that it was not alone squeezed out under my door.

By the way, I am sure I will be able to tell you about what it is like to have Malaria. I mess up with taking the freaking Malerone daily and get bitten by mosquitoes all the time. Around here everyone has Malaria frequently and they just know the symptoms and what to take before it becomes uncomfortable.

Next time I will tell you about HoLIFE, the organization I work for. I already learnt about some of their projects and the shocking injustices they are fighting against.