A NORMAL WEEK IN GHANA

This week has been a pretty normal one, so I'm going to post some fotos that

give you an idea of how our week normally goes.

Tomorrow (Friday) we start on our ten day trip to the northern region of Ghana.

If all goes well, I'll have plenty of cool fotos to share when we get back.

For now, however, take a look at some of what we do and see in a normal week.

(note: two of these have been posted before.

If you've seen earlier posts, can you tell which ones?)

Let's start off the week in church.  This is a congregation on campus.
It is one of the churches we attend with frequency, but we check out
many other churches in the city as well.  A short church service in Ghana
is 2 1/2 hours.  It's not unusual for them to go between 3 and 4 hours.
Everyone, even the children, just see this as normal.

  

Much of the week is spent in the dorm, or what in the British
tradition are called halls.  This is our hall, home to
18 obrunis (that's us - white foreigners) and hundreds of Africans.

A shop under the stairs.  Our students have made good friends
with the women and girls who sell here.

  

Now you are starting to see why I said hundreds of Africans live here.
this is the front of a huge square, four story hall.  BTW, I'm sure you
notice that it looks quite nice.  It is.  But it's not perfect.  Students
rarely have running water in their rooms.  They have to walk down
the hall to the common room and fill buckets to take back to their rooms.
Sometimes that have haul water up 3 flights of stairs.

  

Here's the inner courtyard, taken from a student's room.
Yes, it's pretty nice, but again, not perfect. There are no nets for tennis
and no rims on the backboards.  Notice the little kiosk in the
far right corner. That's "Tickles," a little restaurant that
our students patronize with some regularity.

Monday thru Wednesday we spend a lot of time in in this
classroom.  Students take African Literature, People and
Culture of Ghana, African Politics, Culture and Ethnography, and
a class in Twi, one of the local languages.

On Tuesday nights we have a group supper in my flat.  Rotating groups
of three make the supper every week.  To make the food we're used to,
and that we know how to cook,we often have to be creative,
because many of the standard ingredients are either not available
or way too expensive.  I did OK flour taco shells
for one dinner.  They were $10 for a pack of 8.  We each got one tortilla.

And this is where students buy much of their weekly supply of food.
It's called the night market, I suppose because they are open and most
active once the sun goes down.  You can get pretty much anything
here, except those ingredients for our own homestyle cooking.

Inside the night market, the evening line is beginning to form for supper.
Rice, a piece of chicken and a little salad costs around $2.

On Wednesday late afternoon and early evening, it's time for
drumming and dancing.  We have learned that African music is often
poly-rhythmic, which means there are multiple rhythms going on
in the same song.  For example, one person plays in a four beat,
another plays in a three beat, but you never hit a note at the
same moment.  For us it's very hard. Africans, on the other hand,
grow up with it, so it's quite natural for them.

After an hour of drumming, it's two hours of dancing.  Again,
different movements and different rhythms.  When we get it, it's
a lot of fun. It's also some pretty major exercise in a hot room.
The skin is glistening in short order.

On Thursday and Friday, students leave the campus to engage in
service learning activities at some Ghanaian
NGOs (service organizations).  Three of our women work at ABAN,
which is dedicated to helping at-risk teenage girls develop
skills (social, emotional, spiritual, and vocational) that will give them
a better chance at a decent life.  Many of the girls already have
children, some of whom you can see here.

Here's Anna talking with one of the girls. Anna is learning
about the girl's story, what she's like as a person
 and what her hopes and dreams are.

This is Lea.  She works at Challenging Heights, an organization
that rescues child slaves and helps them toward a better start in life.
With children, much of the work is about education, and Lea is helping
the children with their schoolwork.

 Finally, we get to Saturday, which is unscheduled, unless of course

we have an excursion planned, which we do about half the time.

Come back and visit the blog around November 10.

I bet you'll find some great images and stories from our trip up north.

SLAVES AND MONKEYS DAM BATS FALLS

So the title may be a bit cryptic, but I trust it will make sense
as you scroll through the images.  Another option would have been to
change the order of the words and put in some commas.

Too easy!

It all has to do with the excursion we took this weekend to the Volta Region, 

several hours northeast of Accra.

We started by visiting the big Akosombo dam.  See the other things we did
and the places we visited in the pictures below.

We start with a tour of Akosombo Dam.  We learned such memorable
facts as that the dam was finished in 1962, that the human-made Volta
Lake is the largest such lake in the world, that the dam produces 1020
megawatts of power, which is 60% of Ghana's need, and that the depth
right below where we are standing is 140 meters.

The part of the dam where the work is done!

A lone fisherman below the dam.

Dam building in developing countries brings the benefits of flood control
and electricity, which are definitely good for some.  But as is so often true,
poor people usually bear the brunt of the downsides.  Below the dam there
used to be a community of people who lived off the fish and clams in the river.
But the dam destroyed both those means of livelihood.  The people had little
political power, so no compensation was made.  After some years,
they migrated up top, on the shore of the new lake.
 But the fishing there is not as good, and competition was stiffer,
so life is hard.  We toured the new town, called Djemeni (Gemenee).
The fellow in front (Peter) did his PhD Thesis on this town.
He had a lot to teach us.

My right hand man, Charles walking with Peter.  Charles is wearing the shirt
made with the batik cloth I printed in blog post #1.

Part of what happens when communities are ripped apart and impoverished is
that social systems and norms are undermined and destroyed.
It is a common saying in Ghana that here there are no orphans.  Why?
Because the extended families have been so strong that the kids are
always surrounded by family and by people who love them.
Sadly, that is changing.  Down by the water's edge we found these
youngsters mending nets.  They do not go to school.  In fact,
they are slaves -- modern day slaves.  Oftentimes they are
sold to boat owners by desperate parents.  The kids can't
leave; they'd have no place to go anyway.  So they work, mending nets,
diving to the bottom of the lake to free snags, and otherwise working
morning to night.  It is dangerous and death is not uncommon.
The children are given enough to eat, but little else.  The girls slaves generally
make the food for the boys on the boats.
Some of our students work with organizations that are trying to
rescue the child slaves and end this practice in Ghana.

The next day we head to the highest waterfall in West Africa, Wli Falls

Here it is.  I could not fit it all into a camera frame.  There's a lot of water
crashing down there, creating clouds of cool mist,

which apparently creates a perfect environment for a certain type of fruit bat.
There were thousands of them.

Here are some of them, clinging to the walls.

AND NOW FOR THE MONKEES, THEY'RE JUST FOOLIN AROUND... 

We found them at what is called a monkey sanctuary.  The name of the place is 

Tafi Atome.  Villagers used to kill and eat these Mona Monkeys, 

but then realized they could do better by protecting the monkeys and 

letting tourists like us come and see them....and also feed them.

We didn't have any bananas yet, but this one thought he'd give Josh
a little unsolicited backscratching.  

Get hold of a banana in this area and it won't last long.  You'll have a "friend"
in short order, but the friendship will last only about as long as the banana.

This guy's enjoying one he got away with.

Shannon has a friend.

And so does Josh.  These little monkey hands were highly experienced
at peeling these bananas.  

 So there you have it...  

A DAM, CHILD SLAVES, WLI FALLS, FRUIT BATS,

AND SOME RAVENOUS MONKEYS, reordered and with commas.

All in all, some good learning and some good times!

A VISIT FROM THE CHIEF

Grand Rapids is a sister city of Ga District, and the town of Adenkrebi is in Ga District.

Through this connection, the Calvin program developed a relationship with Adenkrebi, which

is why our students spend one week there (see the last post).

When Don De Graaf, Calvin's Off-Campus Programs director, visited a couple week ago,

we were expected to pay a call on the chief of Adenkrebi, which of course we did.

About a week later, on the day Don was to return to the US, chief Nana Nkama III 

paid us a return visit in my flat.

Here are a few pictures

Chief Nana Nkama II made a gift to me of this kente stole.
Gift giving in any culture is a fine art, and not easily learned or practiced.
I'm sure we are not very gifted ourselves in the art of giving and receiving in Ghana,
but we did as well as we could.
Notice the gold necklace and bracelet.  Yes, the gold is real!

The chief and his wife also presented Don (and Calvin College) with
a stool, which  in Ghana is the equivalent of a throne.  It is the symbol of authority.
Interestingly, the chief's wife is not the queen.  The woman with the title of
queen mother is selected independently.  The chief's wife is still
important, but she is not considered royalty.
The fellow with the staff is the chief's linguist.  Protocol does not
allow one to talk directly to the chief.  Instead, you talk to the linguist,
who then transmits your message to the chief.  When the chief responds,
the linguist conveys the message to you, and so it continues.

The stool up close.  Don managed to get the stool into his
luggage and brought it back to Calvin.

As the event unfolded, we were pretty glad we had thought to make
a gift to the chief (and thus, to Akenkrebi) too.
 It was just boring money, but we hope it is nevertheless appreciated.
The chief's wife did us the honor of receiving it.

And yes, the stool did make it back to Calvin.  Here is Don De Graaf
along with two former (and future) directors of the Ghana program,
David Hoekema and Stephanie Sandberg (on the ends),
and also Calvin's new president, Michael LeRoy,
who officially received the stool on behalf of Calvin.

When you get into a relationship like this, things can happen

that you're not expecting.  At the close of our  meeting, the chief surprised us

by saying he'd talked it over with the elders of the community and they

have decided to give us an acre of land in the community to do with as we please.

So, what do we please?  We'll have to work on that one.

...

Here's another interesting point.  You may wonder if the chief just sits around

all day on his stool admiring his fine robe and gold chains.  Nope!  In his civilian

life, he owns and operates an electronics store.  He dresses like this only for 

ceremonial functions, like visiting Rolando!!!!

OUR WEEK IN ADENKREBI

For the last few years our students have spent a week in the village/town of Adenkrebi. 

They go in groups of six, switching off with the next group on the weekend.

 The town of Adenkrebi is in Ga District, which is one of Grand Rapids' sister cities.

That connection led the Calvin program into a special relationship
with this one town in Ga District.

Adenkrebi is about an hour outside of Accra, but from the altitude of the town one can

overlook much of the city of Accra, so it's not really that far away.  

Yet there is a faraway feel to life there. 

 It is rural and quiet, except of course for the roosters.

Water comes from a stream about 1/2 mile from the homes.

The people don't have much money, but there is joy in the community.

Students remarked that everything seems to be shared.

They typically love their week in the village.

In the pictures below you can get an idea of why.

Playing with the schoolchildren

Shucking and shelling corn

A little work in the bean and yam patch

Planting cassava

Harvesting cassava

You put da lime in da coconut, you eat it all up...

Tapping a palm tree for palm wine

Carrying water 1/2 mile up hill.  Notice the kid in the back... no hands

Crab hunting

Success

Another successful crab hunter

Then you pound a little fufu,

Add some crab, a little sauce,and yummmm...

Chatting with the kids

Making friends

Cooking in the traditional way

Playing soccer

All in all, a very good week!

WHO CAN RESIST PICTURES LIKE THESE?

Here are a few pictures just because...

There's something pretty interesting over there to the right...
No, look at that over on the left...
I guess it's all good!

Chores before school, what a great idea!  These brooms without handles
are definitely the preferred sweeping tool here.

The driver said this was safe.  I hope he was being honest about it.

More morning chores.  Those buckets are heavy, and they
(the girls and the buckets) make several trips.
Maybe it's all about the attitude.

Sin palabras!

He's witnessed more than a few revolutions around the sun.

MAKING BEADS THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY

AND NOW, FOR A SHORT COURSE IN HOW TO MAKE AFRICAN BEADS

We visited Cedi Beads in the Krobo region.  Beads are made by local crafstmen

and then shipped to the US and Germany, two countries where there is a 

very good market for these beads.  Interestingly, they are not so easy to find

in Ghana.  In the US, most are sold in California.  Go figure...

So here's what we learned about how to make them.  

First, you go through the whole process with Mr. Cedi himself.

Here is how the process starts.  You crush colored glass from discarded
bottles and place the fragments in these clay molds.  Only 7 to a mold;
otherwise they cool off too fast and the worker cannot puncture them
to make the center hole.

Then it's into the oven, which is 700-800 degrees.

A view of the oven/furnace from afar.

Out of the oven and the worker pushes a pin through the center.  He rolls
the soft glass around the mold to form it into a shape he wants.

A close-up view.  The material on the outside washes off later on in the process.
The beads are then cooled and polished, a process I didn't witness...

And Voila, you have some finished, and very colorful beads that can be
turned into bracelets or necklaces or whatever your creative heart desires.
At the work site, these bracelets sell for less than $2 each.
Just a hunch, but I bet the price is just a little higher in Southern California.