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.