Haka Dunia

Well, online blog audience, assuming you're still out there, today is the day to shut your laptops confidently, tie your apron strings and bake your finest rhubarb pies. Today is that fabled day that hung tauntingly, just out of calendar's reach for so many, many milky and rusty moons. Today is the day all you sailor's wives can put away your salty handkerchiefs and opera binoculars and abandon your post at the seaside window, because guess what, I'm comin' home!

Tonight at six o'clock a bus comes to take about two thirds of the Oburonis and three times our weight in luggage to the Kotoko airport for a 9:30 flight to Amsterdam. Unless there is an all-too-convenient-and-magical layover problem in Europe, I should be back into Los Angeles' arms (which are actually very loving, although they'll feign indifference at first) by Wednesday. I am so excited I could explode into a confetti egg! But first...

A few weeks ago, my glorious friend Chelsea and I went to Tafi Atome, a monkey sanctuary in the Volta region. We arrived by mototaxis and stayed the night in little clay-colored cottages. First thing in the morning, a woman took us deep into the jungle and began to make loud kissy noises, and that's when all the branches began to rustle at once, and the adorable little staccato howls echoed through the sun-dappled morning haze. We took little bunches of bananas with us and held them out. The trick is to hold most of the banana in your hand so just the top sticks out, because that way they're forced to hold it with you and peel it before they can take their potassium riches and scamper off, swinging from vine to branch to vine again. They're called Mona monkeys and they're so adorable it makes you want to give them all the bananas in the world. If only...

Well, then we had to monkey forth, sadly, so we hopped on a tro-tro that took us all the way down to the coast again, to Ada Foah, where we took a canoe to an estuary where the River Volta meets the ocean. We stayed in grass huts! Actual grass huts, not "We're going for the rustic vibe, is it working?" grass huts. There wasn't a nail or a screw in sight, all natural materials with a white sand floor and hammocks scattered all around the island. That night we relaxed on the beach and saw more stars than we could count on all the fingers and toes of all the Mona monkeys in all the jungles on the continent. Very peaceful journey.

Then, we hustled back for our last few finals, and once those were out of the way, it was time to get serious. I headed out with my broken compass and my friend Anita, who is lovely beyond my capacity to say so, last Wednesday afternoon to travel north. I've visited almost every other region of this country, but I had always heard that the north was in a league of its own. We took a twelve hour bus to Tamale and by the time we arrived, at four a.m., I could already feel the dry, dusty winds swirling all around us.

Here is the incredible thing about Ghana. You'll be sitting with your friend at a bus stop, wondering what the hell is going on, when a young man or woman with a brilliant smile will walk up to you and ask how you're doing and where you're going. They see the puzzled look on your poor western face and they not only tell you what to do, they show you, and often times they do it themselves! All they ask for in return is that you tell everybody at home how much you love Ghana, how much you love Africa. That is how Mohammed, seventeen years old and never asking for a pesewa (penny, farthing, etc), came to arrange for two tickets to Mole national park on a bus that was already officially sold out. He made sure we were safe, he called the hotel and reserved a room for us, and then he waved us off merrily as we watched the sunrise from the window of a 1970s bus that said "Haka Dunia" in lights at the top. When we asked what Haka Dunia means, a man told us that it's in the Hausa language, and it means "lovely world." Couldn't have said it better myself.

Well, we arrived at Mole to find a warthog on its knees nibbling the grass just outside the registration office, which I'm pretty sure is universally a good omen. We spent the afternoon wandering around with a group of boys who ranged anywhere from four years old to fourteen, who showed us the best places to find the "bamboons" (and find them we did) as well as their collection of cars and trucks made from old soda cans. We eventually settled into bed at a great-grandfatherly hour so we could watch the sunrise over the watering hole the next morning.

Then, at seven a.m., we had our safari. Our shoes were deemed inappropriate because our ankles were exposed, so we had to wear some pretty comical rubber boots, but those only made us walk more like arrogant explorers than we had already intended. We saw warthogs, gazelles, all kinds of birds, baboons with babies on their beautiful backs, but no elephants... We had heard that they had been hiding recently, mating in private because elephants are classy like that, and we weren't guaranteed anything. We saw elephant footprints first. What a tease! And then a large pile of dried elephant poop, stop toying with us! Then, finally, from a wooden balcony behind a watering hole, we saw him. Rubbing up against some branches and shaking his ridiculous, lovely ears around. We watched him for about fifteen minutes, in awe and feeling so lucky, and then we finally headed back.

Anita met two young men, Moses and Michael, who told us about an ecotourism village called Mognori. Realizing that we had already seen everything we wanted to see, we agreed to take the motorcycle rides through the jungle and into the village. Just before we left, though, an old toothless man told us to check out the watering hole, "elllllllliiiiphants! yes!" and sure enough there they were! Two of them, one in each body of water, bathing themselves with their trunks and generally putting on quite a show. We watched from a tree and a large rock for about twenty minutes, soaking in the sunlight and resting in the shade, and finally hopped on the bikes and headed west.

Mognori was only about fifteen minutes away, but the entire climate was different. The surrounding forests had been subjected to slash and burn farming, so there was a thick grey ash coating the soil and the trees were scorched and beautiful. There was also enough dust to make the eyelashes of everyone we met a rusty orange. We stopped at the village entrance and time turned to molasses as soon as the engines turned off. We were given a tour of the mud huts, the tobacco gardens, the riverside and the forest.

There are about five hundred residents of Mognori, not counting the endless parade of goats and chickens. These families all live in a collection of mud huts, and they are the same families that have been there for over five hundred years. Each mud hut is covered with endless thumbprints and patterns, which used to serve as calendars in the Days of Yore, but are now used to help with rainwater erosion. Each little section of the village specializes in something different, and they all know each other very well. There is a section for mat weaving, a woman who makes shea butter, tobacco sorting, cooking, instrument making, and it goes on and on.

We met the medicine man. He is the only one in the village, we are told, who knows every plant, flower, bark, root and mineral in the forest by heart. His son is the only one who will receive this information, to help future generations of Mognori deal with illnesses and bad spirits. Oo Ee Oo Aah Aah, et cetera. He had a smile that knocked us off our feet and gave us each a blessing for safe traveling before returning to sorting roots.

Then, we were shown the pigeons. Oh my god, the pigeons. They look just like your average, get-outta-here-scram!, rainbow-necked, New York City pigeons. They were kept in a large room with a little door. We were told that every day, the door is left open so the pigeons may come and go as they please, but they always return at night and the door is shut for warmth. Pigeons, in Mognori, are incredibly sacred. Fancy that. When a prominent visitor arrives, a pigeon is presented to him, or perhaps he is fed a stew made of a sacrificed pigeon, as the highest form of respect. Okay, that was easy enough to believe. But then Moses decided to really blow our minds. Every so often, all the pigeons will leave at once. Every time this happens, within three days, a community member dies. One day following the burial, the pigeons return. ::silence::

Well, I was spooked, but in the best way. By now it was getting dark, the children had stopped drumming and the moon was the most orange I had ever seen it, hanging low and heavy on the horizon. Anita and I stayed with different host families in different mud huts, and each of our host mothers had lovingly cooked us tomato stew and rice, accommodating our oddball vegetarian requests without any arched eyebrows or grumbling. The food was so simple and so delicious. I had never tasted rice so fresh in my life, but that's because it was grown right around the corner. After dinner, Anita and I arranged to sleep on the same rooftop, where my host mother had arranged fresh blankets and pillows, and we stared at the stars for a while and marveled aloud to each other about the thoughts that came from every which way, shimmering through our minds like falling stars. Anita fell asleep, but I kept hearing this clattering behind me. I would turn around to find nothing, and conclude that I was perhaps truly going crazy this time. Then, once, I saw a little flash of something. Was someone spying on us? A little boy, maybe? Such tiny footsteps...

I began to doze, only to be woken up by a GOAT who had climbed the ladder and was staring me straight in the eyes. I let out a little squeal, which sent the goat clattering back down the latter, which it did with incredible grace. I was convinced he wanted to chew my hair, steal my wallet, or worse, but the next day the villagers only laughed and told us they like to sleep up there where it's warm, and they probably only wanted to cuddle... Aww...

Well, I woke up at 4am to starlight and the hollow sound of a man's voice singing the Qu'ran, which echoed off the walls of the mosque and rang through the night. I listened to that for a while and watched the stars, then fell back asleep until it was time to leave. We took the motorcycles back down into Larabanga to look at the country's oldest mosque, which sits very eccentrically in the middle of a circle of houses next to a very old Baobab tree, which happens to be one of the coolest trees I've ever seen. It's also called the upside-down tree, because according to ancient lore, each of the animals was given a tree to plant after creation, and the hyena planted the Baobab upside down for a good laugh.

Then we headed back to Tamale, and after a sixteen hour bus ride through the night, we arrived back home yesterday with dusty knees and circles under our eyes, and I started the tedious process of packing. And now it's all finished. And here I am, writing my last blog entry, wrapping it all up in a pretty ribbon just in time for Christmas, which will bombard me with its advertising in less than 24 hours.

I will miss Ghana so much. I remember reading that the human race itself arose somewhere near modern-day Ethiopia, and I believe that primal vibration is still very much alive. This continent has been through hell and back without disintegrating. It is home to so many of the strongest, wisest, most beautiful souls I have ever encountered, and the infinite mixture of patience and joy will be her saving grace. I wonder how many fragments of travellers' hearts are buried here beneath the red dirt, still pulsing with the radiance of the place. Upon coming here, anyone with an open soul will feel an ancient heartbeat that still rattles with electricity from every calloused palm to the stretched skin of a drum, a light that bounces from one face to the next, echoing the unity of a soul that was whole long before we began writing books on the concept of globalization. This country gives more than it could ever possibly hope to receive in return, and that energy alters the fabric of every traveller permanently. If I could make it sound less sappy, I would, but frankly, this Los Angeleno is too touched to swallow her adjectives.

I know as soon as I step off the plane, I'll miss all the colors, the wild fabrics, the trees and bright flowers, the strong women in the marketplaces, the constant music and dancing. I'll miss the beautiful little babies that bounce on their mothers' backs, the creaky birds that sing at night, the goat that always finds its way beneath my seat on the bumpiest tro-tro rides, the bats at dusk, the breeze that almost literally saves your life, the giant sunset in my giant backyard. I can't keep writing about this because the time to get sentimental hasn't arrived yet, I still have one more day in my pocket and I'll be damned if I spend it typing and sniffling in this fluorescent-lit room when there are juicy papayas to be eaten, but I couldn't be happier about my time here. My cup overfloweth, and so does my heart.

I'll see all of you in a few days!

Love,

Libby

The Stilted Chameleon

We’d Benin the country too long. It was time Togo. Unable to speak French, these are the kinds of terrible puns that two thirds of us have been amusing ourselves with for the past five days. We left on Wednesday morning and took a tro-tro to Madina market. On the way there, as a man in a suit got up to leave, we noticed that he had left a plastic bag on his seat. No big deal, until we noticed that it was filled with several stacks of cash. Oh, dear. We watched the top of his head disappear deeper and deeper into the writhing crowd and because our driver refused to stop or turn around, we all just sat there for a while, in a small moral panic, wondering what the best way to get it back to him would be. Suddenly, about ten minutes later, in the middle of an entirely different throng of people, a Ghanaian woman in what I might add was a stunningly beautiful dress hops out of the car, tells the driver to wait, and within thirty seconds she's back with the same guy from before, who is now grinning sheepishly and thanking everyone. And all is well. And I guess that's just how Ghana works sometimes.

Well, then we take another tro-tro to Togo (the tongue twisters are endless) for about five or six dollars, and by the time we arrive at the beachside border, the sun is setting, everyone is speaking French very quickly, and there are motorcycles everywhere. We stayed in a hotel in Lomé called Le Galleon and ate real baguettes for the first time in months, along with delicious desserts and a drink called "Pamplemousse", which means 'grapefruit' in French. Pamplemousse is just about the greatest word I've ever heard, at once charming and totally unnecessary, and it inspired yet another long chain of tongue twisters and terrible puns.

The next morning, we went to see the marketplace and the Catholic church, and finally ended up at some kind of resort on a gorgeous lake, where we drank more Pamplemousse and witnessed two crocodiles having a very private moment. Wink wink, say no more. From there, we took a pirogue (gondola…canoe?) across the lake to Togoville, a very quiet, lantern-lit town where you can just barely see the Milky Way. The town looked different in the morning, but just as beautiful with strange Voodoo shrines and goats perched on tombstones. We spent a little while roaming around and then took a taxi into a village called Vogan, which boasts one of the largest Voodoo markets in West Africa.

It took us quite a while to get deep enough into the market, past the regular assortment of pineapples (or could these be… Voodoo pineapples?) and pottery (Juju pottery?) but sure enough, once we found it, we knew we weren't in Kansas anymore. There were rows upon rows of beaks, claws, monkey heads, cheetah heads, skins of all kinds, dried chameleon corpses, porcupine quills, skulls and wooden dolls, all spread out casually on blankets. It obviously wasn't for the tourists, either. Someone simply goes to the market, buys some palm oil, a few tomatoes, a dried snake, maybe, and a new sponge.

After standing there slack-jawed and eventually agreeing to let a live chameleon crawl across my knuckles for a few minutes, I tried to have a few things explained to me. My French is pretty watery, though, and I had to rely mostly on nonverbal communication, which can be pretty ambiguous when you're talking about fetish ceremonies and someone's fortune. Eventually I gave up and settled for embracing the mystery of it all, and we went on our merry way.

The Merry Way ended up leading to Benin, which was another bureaucratic shuffle over a new border, and with that came another avalanche of taxi drivers trying in vain to convince me of something I couldn't quite understand. Je ne parle Francaise. Desolée. But with the help of Miriam and Rebecca, our two Francophiles, we made it to a beautiful hotel on the beach with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, four-post beds in the bungalows, and, yes, naturally, more Pamplemousse.

The luxurious and rewarding destination was preceded, though, by a pretty unsavory journey that included a forty-five minute argument with a taxi driver who tried to rip us off, throwing a tantrum when we refused to pay above the agreed price. He literally stomped his feet on the floor and ended up grabbing Rebecca’s luggage and locking it in his car, in some kind of second grade attempt to establish his dominance. Neener neener neener. We conceded, sadly, and paid him the extra money to just leave us alone. But the rest of the night was wonderful, and we made full use of the pool and its three diving boards under the stars.

The next morning, we headed into Ouidah, which we were told was the birthplace of Voodoo. After breakfast we walked into the allegedly sacred but wonderfully kitschy Temple des Serpents, where we were led through a small structure into a room with about fifty pythons writhing around on the floor. Those of us who were interested got to wrap them around our necks, which was incredible, while a man told us (in English... phew) about the history of deep reverence for the python in their culture. The snake is powerful because he preceded man, and because his entire body touches the earth at all times. When asked what they feed the pythons, the man casually replied that they are let out into the village every night to feed themselves, and men are paid to capture them and bring them back. Bizarre! I tried to imagine what we would have done if we’d seen one slithering around the corner the night before.

From there, we took motorcycle taxis across the country toward Ganvie, a stilt village near the Nigerian border that has been called the Venice of Benin. Don't worry, Mom, we were all wearing helmets and knee pads and elbow guards and life jackets and plenty of sunscreen and fanny packs with first aid kits and flares in them. Say no more. Once we reached the shoreline, we climbed into another pirogue, except this one had a sail, and adorably enough that sail was a 1970s snoopy sheet. The sun was setting by the time we made it across the lake into the village itself, and the entire sky was pink and orange, reflecting on the water. I had imagined a stilt village as a very tall one, where we would find houses towering above us as we creaked and twisted through the wooden beams. Instead, the stilts were underwater, which makes far more sense. We all climbed from the boat into a red hotel called Chez Raphael that felt very much like an incredibly still ship, which in retrospect I guess it was. The entire place was all creaky wood and strange colors, paintings and cluttered cabinets and lace-topped tables, as if an eccentric family had lived there for years and just decided hey, why not let people stay here with us if they're so damn interested in our lives and our stilts.

So we did stay there, and ate dinner of cous-cous et Pamplemousse, for the culinarily curious among you. From the window (which was actually just a door) you could sit and look out at the shimmering water all around and beneath you, something I spent most of the night doing, since it was a furnace under the mosquito net next to two other people. Every so often, around 3am, a confused rooster would crow, or a boat with a tiny lantern would appear from the dark and glide by silently, pushing slow ripples through the star-dappled lake.

Our tour of the village and ride back to shore occurred the next morning at dawn, when we all yawned and "unnnnghhh"-ed our way out of bed after an hour or so of sleep and crawled into our third and final pirogue. We were led through water lilies and crooked sticks into each area of the village, and it was really surreal and beautiful to see so many people gliding softly through their neighborhood in boats, conducting business in boats, with children learning to use the paddles and the occasional old man with a toothless grin yelling "bonjour!"

Back on land meant more baguettes and more moto-taxis through the markets, over the hills and across the fields. We took a taxi (six of us, plus the driver, crammed into an old stationwagon for over five hours) all the way across the border again into Togo, where we made one last stop at Le Galleon for one last round of Pamplemousse et chocolate mousse, and walked across the beach to the Togo-Ghana border. It was then and only then that we realized the two boys had bought single-entry visas to Ghana. Double Merde. So it went a little something like this: we argued and pleaded for about thirty minutes, the girls batting eyelashes and the boys pulling every card from the deck ranging from accusations of sexism to not-so-subtle bribery. They were officially denied entry and told they had to sleep in not-quite-Togo not-quite-Ghana limbo for the night and buy new visas in the morning. Deciding it was worth a shot to at least try to make a run for it, we tiptoed to the road around the back of the office that led straight to the border itself, where, to our surprise and delight, the guard just waved us all across merrily, saying "Americanos! Keep your passports! Go go go go go!" and grinning, not at all realizing that he had just made our day and paved the way for two pseudo-fugitives.

There was no time to purchase fake mustaches or uncork a bottle of champagne, so we settled for grabbing the first tro-tro we could find and heading home, exhausted and giddy and oui, very much on the lam. And Jacques had Jill and naught went ill and the man had his mare again and all was well. And I guess that's just how Ghana works sometimes. Le fin.

The acrobat and the soya bean

Hello my sweet little set of American eyeballs. That's right, I'm talkin' to you. It's been a while since I've written, sure, but everything here remains in an upward arc of deliciousness. The evidence, if I may:

Exhibit A: Asasse Pa - the name of the vegan truck (go on, rub your eyes like Sylvester the Cat, you read right) that opened last week right next to the night market. Since July, we've all grown very attached to the night market, that colorful, claustrophobic row of wooden and sheet metal local food stalls (boasting names like "Blessed Bless Fast Food" and "The Lord is My Shepherd Amenities") that keep their lanterns lit well past midnight, selling everything from papaya to toothpaste to lemon chocolate to fish and okra stew. It's only about a thirty second walk from our front door, and last week, out of the arid landscape just behind it, a vegan truck sprouted up overnight. I thought it was some sort of crazy mirage at first, maybe triggered by my malaria medication. But no! It's run by Amitsah and Ranite, two incredibly sweet Ghanaian ladies who make wheat-meat sandwiches on whole grain rolls for under a dollar (!), tofu stews, soy ice cream, coconut rolls, plantains with spicy vegetable sauce, peanut butter soup with squash and brown rice, and so on and so forth. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I implore you. Close your eyes and imagine the soft pitter-patter of the gentle stampede of herbivores that rushed the stand on its first day. Imagine our gratitude, after months of mushy egg sandwiches and stew-less rice, cream crackers and peanuts. Imagine our toothpaste-commercial grins. It's a ridiculous dream.

And so, inspired by our sudden feelings of healthy nourishment, Nathalie and I have taken up early-morning yoga and running through the botanical gardens. I've never been an early bird in my life, I don't think, but it feels really good. We're working toward the point of waking up for the notoriously gigantic sunrise at least once or twice.

I've also been to the Alliance Francaise three times since my last post. It's a really cute little outdoorsy venue that hosts cultural events and attracts a king's ransom of Europeans, all wearing khaki shorts and zany-weeeee-I'm-traveling shirts. In the past month, I've seen a flamenco quartet with a Brazilian singer, a Portuguese acrobat and, my personal favorite, a traditional drumming, dancing, and Kora show featuring my Kora teacher's band.

Speaking of the Kora, I just learned a really wonderful jazz piece, but watching Arouna's fingers fly around like angry bees, I can see that I've still got a long way to go. Speaking of to go, hey! I'm going to go to Togo next week! We leave on Tuesday for Togo and Benin, the two eastern neighbors of Ghana that are famous for their butterfly-infested forests and Voodoo, respectively. There are six of us making the trip, and I just picked up our visas from the embassy yesterday, which is very exciting. We come back the following Monday, and I expect there will be plenty to write about.

As for everything else, it's pretty much the same. I've had a few midterms lately, which went well, including a Twi exam. I didn't realize how much of this wonderful and impractical language I knew until that afternoon. In other news, I've received my fair share of marriage proposals. One man even said, as if to bolster his case, "a lot of my Ghanaian friends have American wives, and they are veeeery, very happy!" Oh! In that case, let's dance our way to the steps of city hall!

The weather is getting hotter, the dragonflies are multiplying, and whoever is reading this, I miss you very much.

Qur'an, Kora, Cucumber

Yesterday was the last day of Ramadan, so a group of us took a sky blue tro-tro across town into Nima for a festival. I can barely scrape at the surface of the infinitely bizarre parade of sensory data that devours anyone willing to walk down a crowded street. A man balances a giant, turquoise bag of "Heinz Baked Beanz" on his head as he walks past a barrage of people throwing candy in the air, men on horses, torsos swerving left and right. A bathtub full of tires. A rusty, dead car that has been painted over so many times that you can see overlapping layers of rust, pale yellow, bright green, aquamarine, maroon. And so many people, scraping the bottom of large, greasy pots, steam flying toward their faces. So many people dancing, grinning, pastel head scarves pinned around their beautiful, dark cheeks.

And then, after all the exhaustion, all the sweat and heavy decibels, it's so nice to come home to our little room with the colorful fabric and the open windows. It's especially wonderful to see my kora sitting on the chair, waiting for me to pick her up and jingle my fingers along the ten green strings.

A kora is an instrument made from a calabash gourd, kind of like a crossbreed between a guitar and a harp. A very patient, very shy-smiled man named Aruna makes them and gives lessons, which I have indulged in with an enthusiasm only rivaled by my desire to play with words, and it's so great for hands as fidgety as mine. I even devised a sort of makeshift notation, so the songs I'm learning won't get lost the shuffle. Most exciting and serendipitous of all, though, is the fact that Aruna's brother lives in San Francisco, so I can continue having lessons when I get back. What are the odds?

Well, right now I'm off to have lunch at Sunshine Salad Bowl in Osu, where I'll savor a plate of masala fries and real live salads (with dark green lettuce! cucumber! and balsamic vinaigrette! imagine! most of the salad here consists of shredded cabbage with mayonnaise and ketchup. you do the math.) Alsoooo, I should be going on a boat trip to a few villages this weekends, so there ought to be much more to write about in a week or so.

Champagne for breakfast

How on earth did I manage to get so lucky? How is it that no matter how far your feet wander away from what's familiar, it's always possible to find incredible people and have fantastic experiences with them? Pardon my sentiment, but I just had one of the happiest birthdays of my life. My roommate Annemieke, my friends Miriam and Forest, and dozens of other people helped to plan a party for me. The surprise theme was 1920s Speakeasy, and I never could have asked for a classier, jazzier, better night if you handed me a bouquet of a hundred question marks and told me to have at it. Two of the boys, Phil and Brian, played bartender, handing out glasses of gin and tropical juice. Jazz music echoed around the room, which had been emptied of furniture and lit up with candles. There were printed out prohibition-era posters on the wall. All of my favorite people came and everyone had a blast. I will never forget that night, and especially all the people who made it so incredibly awesome. I feel better than ever to be here and to be alive and to be legally allowed to order a glass of your second least expensive merlot with dinner, thank you much.

And now my dear tender papaya of a friend Nathalie is taking me out to lunch at a vegan restaurant in Osu. I am so incredibly happy.

Yefre wo sen? Yefre me Adwoa.

Cape Coast is four hours away. The road is sometimes paved, and people weave through traffic throwing bags of plantain chips or bags of frozen yogurt into an upward arc through our bus window as eager hands catch them and release coins into their baskets. Every few miles or so, you'll pass a huge, decaying piece of machinery. Bulldozer carcasses and rusty car graveyards. Groups of children wave emphatically at the bus of foreign faces. You pass by wooden shacks with rusty sheet metal roofs with names like "When God Say Yes Cell Phones" or "Jesus is Lord Enterprises" or "God Is Good Fast Food". Goats meander through trash piles, chewing lazily on plantain peels, and roosters peck and strut through the long, winding gutters of sewage. Then the cityscape will dissipate and there will be nothing but grassland and tall bonsai-looking trees for miles until the odd coconut cart or field of unvarnished bed frames crops up. After more than a month of being here, it still feels surreal just to have my eyes open, to see the billboards for tomato paste lit up above a blanket in the street where five children are sleeping in a row. It's still amazing to see so many shades of peeling paint, so many presidential election posters that say "we are moving forward" with the Adinkra symbol of a peacock picking an egg from its back, symbolizing a return to your roots, painted below. It's still astonishing to see how far our of their way a stranger will travel to help you figure out where you're going.

We went for a traditional harvest festival. There were masses of people in the streets, dancing and yelling and beating on drums. There were carriages on the shoulders of men carrying members of royal society, who waved and smiled with gold-drenched wrists and necks. A bull was led through the streets on a rope, bucking and followed by an undulating, fiery mob, and then sacrificed to the gods. I missed the slaughter, thankfully, but saw the body being carted through the streets from the second floor window of a street-facing house that several of us simply wandered into, past the hallways of children playing with pots and pans, of women washing clothing, up to the faded green window where we also watched a man in a grass skirt dancing with a giant flag. Rifles were fired, along with a human-sized slingshot.

There was a gorgeous beach near the Cape Coast slave castle, which we had visited before, and we walked onto the cliffs and felt the mist spray our faces. Enoch and I found several strange shells and were in the process of looking for more when a gigantic wave came up from behind us and quite literally swept me off my feet, that ol' romantic Atlantic. I was fully-clothed and laughing uncontrollably, because what else can you do. A chorus of children joined in the laughter, running up to me and tugging at my dripping shirt, asking me if I'd like to buy peanuts or fried corn balls or sachets of water. Then they proceeded to help us find more funny shells, and I drip dried within a couple of hours. We went back to the beach that night and found tiny glowbugs in the sand that would shimmer and then vanish if you swept your hand over the shore. It's probably the most like an alchemist I've ever felt.

The next day, four of us went on the canopy walk at Kakum National Park. We wobbled across six rope bridges high above the rainforest canopy with the echoes of birds all around us. It was so gorgeous, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to take any pictures. From there, we went to a restaurant on a lake called Hans Cottage Botel where patient crocodile noses protruded from the water, slowly weaving their way through the schools of fish. We managed to fit six passengers into a taxi, two of us sitting on laps (I wish I could see my mom's face as she reads this. It's okay, I promise) and drove home to the hostel all while dancing up a storm. In front of us, we saw ten boys crammed into a station wagon, the hatchback open and their feet dangling down. Well, they saw us dancing, so I guess they found it all a bit irresistible, one in particular. As far as I knew, they were all just dancing in their car, until I turned away for a moment and heard a rapping on the window and the door opening. At first I was terrified, but the guy, who must have been in his twenties, just climbed right in the backseat, sitting on the laps of two guys, and began dancing up a storm himself (!) and singing a song that wasn't on the radio. Most of us laughed until we wept. He got out several blocks later, wishing us all a wonderful visit, disappearing into the wild crowd.

Well, now we're back home, exhausted muscles and sun-kissed cheeks (telegram to mom: all is well on the spf front. stop. don't worry your lovely head about it. stop. please send fruit leather. stop.) and enough imagery to sustain us through the tap-dance routine that is Ghanaian Academia.

Mamma Academia

Hello hello,

I didn't realize how long it's been since I last posted! Three weeks have passed, but there isn't too much to report. I've mainly been wrestling my schedule into the ground. There was a day where all the bureaucratic confusion had me tied to the train tracks begging for mercy, but I ended up sorting it all out and somehow, magically, a five-day weekend emerged from the dust of the tumbleweed struggle. That's right, folks. I only have classes Tuesday and Wednesday, which means traveling is a piece of peach pie.

Speaking of pie, I haven't had any in far too long. I've heard rumors that the little restaurant in our international hostel boasts apple pie with rum sauce, which I'm saving for a particularly rainy day. It's been drizzling a lot, but it's humid, almost warm rain, and can be pleasant to walk around in if you let go of the idea that you're going to look dry as a summer daisy in class. And the classes? So far they've been interesting, but I think I'm more interested in how different it all is than what they're actually saying. I'm taking Twi, which reigns supreme so far as my favorite class, taught by a very funny little man with gigantic hornrimmed glasses and a love of hand gestures rivaled only by sign language interpreters and drunken orchestra conductors. The language is very different from anything I've ever attempted, which makes it ridiculously fun and the best candidate for a secret language when the other two Berkeley girls and I run into each other back in the states.

The other classes I'm taking are: Colonialism and African Response (most engaging teacher of this list by far), History of Science and Technology (just added that yesterday, so I'm still in the dark with my primitive handtools), Foreign Policy Analysis (oh dear), Educational Psychology (not bad so far, and where I met my first three friends outside the program, a Ghanaian named Joanna and two Nigerians named Des and Amaka. They're hilarious and wonderful to talk to, especially when they all start talking at the same time, quickly, because they're so excited about something. They promised to make sure I have the best birthday of my life), and Creative Writing. The last class has been kind of slow, but it's so interesting to hear local fiction, which can be so much more revealing of culture than any of our clumsy, academic stabs at it. So far we've had to write a memoir, which I may post here in the future.

I've been fumbling with spices a bit, too. Last week we went to the mall, which, although I had heard all about it long before I went, was still an eyeful. It's like walking right back into the Western world, window after window of haute couture hanging off lanky mannequins with posture that conveys what can only be described as elegant boredom. The supermarket has lots of familiar stuff to buy, although most of it is priced to the stars. For instance, a package of six strawberries was fourteen dollars. I can only imagine the demographic for that product. Diplomat's daughter wants a sundae? Anyway, most of the food is affordable and I managed to rustle up some veggie burgers and lavash bread, which I used to make wraps with grilled vegetables from the night market across the street. They were delicious!

Also, a handful of ladies have designated Sunday as community dinner night, kind of like a pot luck. Last Sunday we ate an El Salvadorian stew made with pineapple and beer, made by our friend Miriam, which was amazing. This Sunday, however, we'll be in Cape Coast. We're leaving in about four hours, actually, and clambering onto that giant bus for the first time since we were left to roam solo three weeks ago. We're heading over that way for a festival, which will be a first for many of us. I'm so excited! We're also going to Kakum National Park, where I'll finally get to wobble across that long, narrow rope bridge that would send Hitchcock's Scottie Ferguson into a dizzy spell.

On that note, I have to scamper off and pack, but maybe by the time I get back the internet will be back to a speed that will allow me to post pictures. The caterpillar's gettin' awful lonely up there.

From priestess miracles to chicken tragedies II

(To be read after part one below. Cheating will result in revocation of plantain privileges.)

Monday through Wednesday was devoted to registration for classes, a process that basically means walking from department to department, standing in line all day and signing little pieces of paper. I signed up for Educational Psychology, Social Psychology, Historiography, Introduction to Development Studies, History of Ghana Until 1800, Introduction to Twi and a Creative Writing class. Classes begin Monday, and I'll be so curious to see how they are. More on that later.

Then, Wednesday afternoon, a group of six other girls and I went on a trip to HoHoe, about four hours away, to do some ecotouristy things. The first hotel we stayed in seemed like a Byzantine labyrinth, despite the fact that it only had twenty rooms or so. This was probably the grossest place I have ever spent the night, all neon green flickering bulbs, smudged walls and left turns, but none of us really cared because a) we were exhausted, b) we were a teensy bit drunk and c) we were so very exhausted. I especially didn't care because that night in the garden I saw my very first swarm of fireflies, which had me thrilled for a good hour. I even managed to catch one and bring it in a loose fist to my roommate, whose cynically arched eyebrow dropped as she watched it fly just beneath her nose. I think they're my new favorite insect.

The next morning, on what felt like about three hours of sleep, we took a tro-tro to Likpe Todome, a small village that boasts six caves deep in the mountains and a small set of waterfalls. The hike took about four hours and was really strenuous, but gorgeous. The weather was gray and cool and the tropical forest was lush. Each cave required vertical rock climbing to reach the center, during which our only safety was a secure rope to hold onto with several knots in it. Ages ago, before foreign sets of heels paid three Cedi to ooh and ahh and sweat, each cave had a different purpose. The first is a small, elongated one where Bakwa elders strategized during times of war. The second was a watch tower for spying enemies. The third was a hideout. The fourth was the chief's palace, and also the coldest. It even had an escape route at the top where he could escape and run to Togo during battle, which seemed strategic enough, albeit cowardly. The fifth was a punishment ground for criminals, and also housed a huge colony of bats, which were amazing to watch as they darted across the beams of our flashlights. The sixth and final cave was a long vertical tunnel which was another watch tower and a resting place. It was beautiful to look across the entire expanse of hills, still for the most part untouched by concrete housing and wide roads, and imagine what life must have been like three hundred years ago, scurrying up through the steep caves. Then we finally reached the waterfalls at the bottom and tried our first coco pods, a wonderful yellow fruit that tastes like a mixture of grapefruit and lychee when you suck on the seed, but make sure not to bite it. Trust me. Bitter is an understatement.

Sweaty and victorious, we headed back to the Waterfall Lodge, which completely made up for the first hotel. Run by a older German hippie couple, it passed the Deutschekeinschmutzdanke cleanliness test, had a beautiful garden with a gigantic gazebo, a parrot who spoke French, enormous beds with clean, fluffy pillows and the tastiest food I've had since I've been here. Spaghetti with savory vegetable sauce, cucumber and tomato salad with vinaigrette, cous-cous with vegetable stew, and even real ice cream. It was such a treat, and who would have thought I'd have a chance to practice my German all the way over here? The next day (yesterday) we went to Wli falls (taking a taxi whose driver casually ran over a chicken as I turned around to see a large flourish of feathers, horrified). Wli (pronounced Vlee, a linguistic gift from the former German colonists of Togo) are the largest falls in the area, and had an even more strenuous three hour hike. Horrible blisters from the previous day eventually convinced me to go barefoot, which was a serious adventure scrambling up and down muddy hillsides. The falls were worth it, though, as they blasted us in the face from about fifty paces away. We even used walking sticks for that hike, which helped tremendously and gave me very sore arms this morning. That evening, feeling even more victorious and even more exhausted than the day before, we relaxed in the garden and fell asleep well before the bedtime of a six-year-old.

Then, this morning, we headed back on a very bumpy tro-tro and got here in record time. Today is actually another girl's birthday, so we're heading into town later to try a sushi restaurant, per her request. I'm so curious to see what it tastes like, although my culinary reporting will be limited to avocado and cucumber. I know, I know. You're all on tenterhooks.

More to come soon!

From priestess miracles to chicken tragedies

I can't believe another week has already gone by. The best place to begin is definitely last Sunday afternoon, when the lovely Nathalie and I took a tro-tro to Nima, a suburb of Accra. We were going to meet our friend Enoch, a fellow study abroad student with a slow voice, sharp wit and the subtle, remarkable talent of spinning himself into some beautifully bizarre situations. He led us from the bus stop through the bustling marketplace and into a tiny town where he had met a friend a few weeks ago. His friend, Emmanuel, is a drum maker and Rastafarian who has traveled all over Europe to make drums for and play with famous musicians. As soon as we arrived, he cut up four giant mangoes and two pineapples for all of us and put on some amazing West African music. There was a wedding ceremony outside, and the bride was dressed to the nines, if not to the elevens. Bright red dress, henna all over her hands and feet, a huge aluminum red hat that looked like a giant wheel of cheese and, by your grandfather's whiskers it's true, bright blue lipstick. I'll try to load a picture later this week.

The wedding, which had been going on for three days by the time we got there, had everyone in a jubilant frenzy, dancing and singing with little children weaving in and out of large pots of boiling stews and rice. After watching the celebration for about half an hour or so (I never can tell how long anything lasts here), Emmanuel got all six of us our own tro-tro to watch another ceremony, this one far more curious than the last. We all sat down to what, at first, appeared to be a drumming and dancing circle. As the moments flew by in rhythm and verse, however, we started to slowly notice more peculiar behavior on the part of a handful of people. Several women were scratching and swatting at the air as they danced with troubled expressions on their faces. When they weren't spinning like fast-forward whirling dervishes, they were falling into the arms of women dancing around them, seemingly unconscious for only a few seconds at a time. One woman, dressed all in white, had a beautiful but peculiar kind of swagger, and was pouring water on the ground, then on the women's heads. We learned from Emmanuel that she was a traditional priestess, and that these women were thought by the community to be possessed by evil spirits. When she spoke (in Ewe, sadly), there was pure silence, without a single toddler's mouth open or a twitching thumb on a drum. Then she would begin chanting, the music would swell again, and the women would resume their flailing and fainting. We were taught to dance during these times and given blocks of wood to beat to the rhythms. We never did witness a climax of any kind, because before too long we were whisked away into a colorful temple to sit with the Priest, also in white linens. He fed us all schnapps and advice, a match made in heaven, and told us each to drink our glass in one go, but not without pouring a few drops on the ground first, for the ancestors. Due to vegetarian small-town predicaments, I had barely eaten all day, so the liturgical gulp sent me (along with two or three others) into a slightly bubbly state of rosy-cheeked reverence for the kind-eyed Priest, which may or may not have been his intention. We listened to him talk about global unity, respect for one another and being truthful to the people you love and to yourself. Then, after returning his favor by buying him an even bigger bottle of schnapps down the road, we were shuffled back into our taxis and sent home to dream.

For the sake of tired eyes, I'll post the rest of the week in the next post above.

Akwaaba!

That means "welcome" in Twi, and it has been said to me between grins more times than I can count on fingers and toes. Hi everyone! I'm finally updating this ol' mare of a website after being here for almost two weeks. Where to even begin? I suppose I'll take Lewis Carroll's advice and begin at the beginning and go on until I come to the end- then stop.

The first night we arrived, everyone was really tired and disoriented from our half-conscious hustles through Minneapolis and Amsterdam. We were met with student guides at the airport who were eager to raise our spirits by teaching us a traditional song on the bus ride to the hostel, one whose melody hasn't left my head since. The lyrics are:

Weya weya nu ko ko (x2)

Everybody, everybody

Bring your kalabashi

Mofe amo ke edje ni aba

Weya weya nu ko ko

We've learned other songs since, but that one definitely takes the cake. When we finally arrived at the hostel, a thunderstorm had started outside and all the power was out. We signed in, ate dinner and unpacked, all by candlelight. It was a really calming way to begin our trip, actually, and the first of many situations to teach patience and flexibility.

Since that first night, wondering if the power would ever come on (and this blog, not typed by candlelight, proves it has), we've done so much. Every night for a week we had traditional dance lessons with Professor Oh Nii Sowah, a man whose pearly whites probably rate among the top five greatest smiles I've ever seen. If there ever was a man to shake and jive fifty students out of jet-lag and coy self-consciousness, he fits the bill. The man just radiates energy. The power went out while we were dancing once and he insisted that if we kept dancing and clapping to the rhythm, and if we began to sing, it would be restored. Sure enough, during a particularly dramatic stomp, all of our faces appeared again with a cheer.

We've also had about twelve lectures on everything from history, political economy, gender, language, family roles, religion, development, drumming and Twi lessons. When I bring my notebook, I'll update this with some more of my favorite quotes and tidbits from those lectures. For now, what I remember most is "educate a man, educate an individual. Educate a woman, educate a nation"

Here are some more arbitrary tidbits:
-a festival is the only occasion in which people are allowed to publicly criticize a chief, and it's usually done in the form of a song
-the metaphor for the roles of king and president is that the king is like the eyebrows, which a person (or a nation) has since birth. The president comes much later, sort of like a mustache which can be shaven several times.
-the Asante tribe is matrilineal, so family heritage is always traced through the mother
-the king is considered to be the link between the physical and the spiritual realms. The chiefs are considered links to the spirits of ancestors.
-also, some slang differences:
*portable means cute, as in, "you have a very portable wife"
*several means thousands
*minerals means soda
*outdooring means to introduce a baby to the community for the first time
*to pass out means to graduate
*the equivalent of "dude" is "Charleeeeey"

That's all on that for now. What else, what else...

The food is generally really good. Vegetarianism is difficult because they don't consider fish meat, and they definitely don't consider chicken broth meat. For the most part I've eaten:
-fried plantains, which are delicious
-vegetable fried rice
-I tried banku, which is pounded cassava and corn that has been fermented and you dip it in stew. It tasted like sourdough-flavored toothpaste-dough, but worth the experience.
-their version of peanut butter, which is called ground nut paste spread on sweet bread. Mmm...
-fried egg sandwiches with onion and thinly sliced peppers
-two for one pizza Tuesdays at the gas station
-plantain chips
-fresh and delicious pineapple, mango and oranges


We went on a couple of field trips, too. The first was to Kumasi, another huge, bustling city. The drive itself was beautiful, speckled with plantain trees and vast fields of wild vegetation. Every once in a while a tiny village would pop up with a few grass huts or small steel shacks. On the way, we stopped at several craft villages. The first one specialized in Kente cloth. This cloth is one of Ghana's trademarks and it's made on enormous wooden looms that stretch across the entire room. Each piece of cloth has a meaning or a story, which is decided by the weaver. The next town specialized in woodwork and instruments.

Kumasi itself was beautiful. We visited the site of the former palace of the King, which was turned into a museum. There were peacocks roaming the grounds, and we were told all about the Asante kingdom throughout history, including the story of one woman (a Queen Mother) who led the entire Asante army into battle during a time when they were ready to surrender. Our guide told us that she caused a revolution among women, and that to this day, if the King and his man can't solve a problem (say, for example, putting humpty dumpty together again), they take it to the women's council, which they consider the seat of deepest wisdom. That made me feel amazing after all the talk of women who are completely ostracized for being spinsters who can't cook.

The second field trip was much more harrowing to endure. We took another lovely trip along the coast, but this time the destination was two castles, one Portuguese and one British, which were used for the slave trade. We were shown dungeons where the stench withheld several centuries' worth of fresh air. It was horrifying to see what human beings are capable of in the name of wealth and alleged progress. I'd rather not delve into the details.

Since Kumasi, we've been wrapped in registration red tape, so not much exciting news there. Orientation is officially over, so we're left to our own devices as far as traveling goes. No more giant, air-conditioned bus filled with Obrunis (unoffensive word for white people). Instead we get to take the tro-tros during the day, which can take you anywhere in town for about 50 cents or less. It's an amazing experience, being shoved into a giant jalopy of a minivan with about twenty other people, sometimes including livestock, and trying to figure out where you're supposed to get off. Today, I went to Madina, a nearby marketplace, where I bought nothing, stepped in an orange puddle, saw several goats on leashes and baskets of smoked fish heads, got a slight sunburn and practiced my infant Twi ramblings.

More to come later! Hopefully some pictures soon.

Sound check.

Five days to go before I go to LAX with my life in a suitcase and my mom in a frenzy.