Weeks 2&3: Three Hos and a Wedding

Take my blog’s extended period of silence as an indication of how thoroughly and exhaustedly happy I am in Ghana.

While I would profess that I just don’t have the time to update my blog – partially because that would refute my parents, who alternate between assuming I’m dead or perpetually lazy – in actuality, I haven’t written because it always seems that there is something more fun to do. There is someone in my compound to talk to, or there is some movie that everybody is watching. Or we’re going to jazz bars, reggae nights, containers, the beach, the gym, travel, etc. (Picture to the left is where I live.)

So here are the highlights – the egregiously-abridged synopsis of the last eighteen days. With many many pictures. (Those are for you, mom and dad!)

Observation #9: Rain doesn’t stop for Weddings, but Weddings do Stop for Rain

On our second weekend in Accra, Tukeni schmoozed the four of us onto the guest list of a genuine Ghanaian wedding. We arrived at eleven thirty to a Pentacostal church in Achimota, Accra, wearing four traditional Ghanaian party dresses tailored from thin dyed cotton.

If you want to know the biggest difference between Ghanaian weddings and Christian/Western weddings, I would argue that it’s audience participation. Christian Weddings are infinitely more static. Ghanaian weddings feature synchronized congo lines composed completely of the audience, an all-female church choir that swings their hips as they belt, and family speeches containing intricate heartfelt parables. Young boys march up and down the aisles with mahogany staffs. The minister lights ashes in a goblet aflame. If our wedding ceremonies were like this, I would get married more often.

 He lit that on fire first. 

 Exchanging of the rings. 

The couple, whom we did not actually know. 

But I would not marry in the rainy season. By the time the reception began at an open-air banquet hall at a beautiful country club in Greater Accra, the rainclouds were already convulsing. To this day, it was the worst rainstorm I have seen in Ghana. It left no survivors. In a matter of minutes, every napkin, every ribbon, every balloon had been torn from the reception. The guests plastered themselves to the slightly roofed walls of the banquet area. The air grew Canadian cold. And the skies drenched Accra for two solid hours.

 Before the Storm. 

 5 minutes later. 

 10 minutes later. 

Observation #10: Accra is Ghana, but Ghana is definitely not Accra

On our third weekend in Ghana, the four of us finally ventured outside Greater Accra and into the neighbouring Volta. There are ten geographic regions in Ghana, of which Volta is this long stretch of farming land in the southern center of Ghana. We went with two of my friends from work – an intern from California and another from Alberta – to stay the weekend in the city of Ho.

 Hiking through the Volta mountains. 

Ho is nothing like Accra. In fact, none of the rest of Ghana as far as we have found is anything like Accra. Accra is a gritty, dirt-brown, roughly-paved, densely populated, rich and vibrant city. And if I could only remember the Volta by colour, it would be nothing but green. We took a trotro through the Volta, pelting down shabby dirt road through blades of grass as tall as my body. We passed under coconut trees laden with fruit the size of basketballs. We got hit by a Ghanaian moonsoon three hours into the journey, and the windshield of the trotro blurred over with the smoke of rainstorm, pelting down this potholed road at easily 80 km/h. Joseph Conrad meets NASCAR in the rainsoaked last leg of the drive.  

 Walking through Ho.

View of Ho from the trotro. 

Valerie had spent the summer two years ago in Ho, and we stayed with Val’s hostmother when we came. She was an amazing cook. Aside from fame and lasting political importance, my new life goal is cooking redred (a bean dish) half as well as Victoria.

On Saturday morning, we visited the school that Val helped build when she was here two years ago. It was a neat experience. Across the door, one of the three classrooms was painted VALERIE WEBER, and when Victoria introduced Val to anyone, they would point at the door and get excited. It was also a particularly interesting venture for me, because I have spent the last three weeks processing education data on primary/public schools for thirty districts in Ghana, one of which was Ho. I know the number of textbooks, the number of desks, of washrooms, of water, of students, of girls, of teachers (trained and untrained) in all those districts. And I got to watch my data come to life in Ho.

Swingset at the school painted in Ghana's colours.

 Where lunch is served (cooking on the small stove to the right). 

 Inside the third grade classroom. 

The Valerie Weber Classroom ft. Val

Mountains Beyond Mountains

After Val’s school, our six-person troop jumped on a tro tro to the city of Ho Hoe, located at the base of the Volta mountains. From there it was a short one hour hike to the Wli falls – the tallest Waterfall in West Africa.

My own writing cannot do these sights justice.

 At Wli Falls. You can actually swim under the waterfall. 

 You can hike to the top of the mountain, but we did not since it was getting late. 

This is the side of the mountain by Wli falls. Those are all bats.  One guy caught a bat when he was under the waterfall, drowned it, and took it to shore. Ghanaians love bat meat. It is apparently very tender.

 Ho Hoe, from the taxicab window. 

It took us three hours to get to Ho Hoe, and a fierce four hours to get back. But the taxi ride back was amazing. The trotros stopped running around five so we grabbed a cab back to Ho. We fit six of us in this tiny taxi – four in the back, two in the front. And we were just pelting down the mountains, between palm trees and green vines. And the sun was setting so the whole sky was gold with dust, and the cab driver was playing this deep afro beat on his radio that fit the speed at which we lurched through the potholes.

Excerpt from next entry on this weekend: Today I ate goat.