this is a strong man. does he scare you?

This past weekend was our program's trip to Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana. It's about five hours away, so this glorious adventure was to start with a 5 am departure time on Saturday. Being the smart people that we are, Maggie and I decided that the best plan was to stay up all night. So while many NYU in Ghana people got a good night's sleep, our night consisted of a trip to Lizzy's (a nearby bar/block party), veggie burgers and pizza at three in the morning, and a very incoherent pair of girls on the bus two hours later. Good life decisions.

When we entered into the city after a few hours of sleep I got why they would want us to see other cities in Ghana - Kumasi is completely different than Accra in the way it looks and the way it's set up. There are lots of rolling hills in Kumasi and the buildings are a lot more European-like, meaning that aesthetics wise it is a lot nicer to look at than Accra - there were some churches and buildings that looked like they were taken out of Italy. There are a lot more paved roads as well and actual street signs - it was quite strange after being used to lots of dirt roads and nonexistent street markers.

After we checked into our hotel we went to the Ghana National Cultural Center, which was almost like a residential neighborhood. There were lots of roads and paths to walk on and the groups of shops were very spread out. In each of the shops would be different paintings or instruments or crafts - it was much more relaxing than the hounding that we get when we go shopping in Accra. After we ate lunch we moved on to the SOMETHING palace, which was the residence of the king...until he moved next door into another palace. The house was heavily decorated in the 70's style...although we were told that the refrigerator in the dining room was from the 50s and still working - as demonstrated by the presence of Voltic water bottles and lunch bags inside of it. We were led around on a tour by this hilarious guide who after every speech would say, "If you have any questions, you have everrrry right to ask them." There were also all these wax figures of old kings and their queen mothers, and he would point to one of us and ask, "You! Are you afraid of this man?" It was a ball, but it was also blazing hot in there and I was ready to go home and sleep. Until I was told that we were going to a stool village.

So the Asante people have a huge presence in Ghana and these stools have a ton of symbolic meaning - they're like a traditional representation of the chief's leadership and are supposed to be the 'seat' of the owner's soul. So when I heard 'stool village' I thought it would actually be a village. It was not. It was a street lined with craft shops that included stools and jewelry and bags and masks and fertility dolls. There actually was an area where a group of about thirty guys were sitting carving the stools that was really interesting to watch, and Holley ended up getting a GINORMOUS stool that I have no clue how she will take home but I'm sure it will look mighty fine in our apartment. But remember the calm and relaxing atmosphere of the Cultural Center? Not so in the stool village - it was like being back in Accra with every guy trying to get you in his shop to look at things. I've never heard the phrase "There's no charge to look!!" as much as I have here. I was able to buy somethings but the amount that we have to barter is just ridiculous - people were getting necklaces for three cedis when the original price was eighteen. I don't really blame them though - if I saw a tour bus full of young white people I would try to get as much money as possible out of them too. Even when we had gotten back on the bus and were waiting the men selling necklaces were coming into the bus to show things off and ask what we wanted. It was madness.

After the stool market and some relaxing a big group of us went for dinner at Vic Babboo's, a restaurant with a nearly twenty page menu that serves Indian, Italian, Chinese, Vegetarian, and burgers (not to mention a very, very strong margarita). Another difference between Kumasi and Accra - the streets of Kumasi are pretty much deserted at night, in a creepy way. In Accra you know that there's going to be three of four people to bother you where ever you go, but when we walked out of dinner it was like a ghost town. Spookyyy. Two of our CRAs had gone to Kumasi for school and one of them lived in Kumasi before he came to Accra so he had given us some ideas of where we could go out after dinner - he had told us about this big live music thing that was supposed to be great. We should've known it was going to be awful when we heard the name - Light FM. Turns out 'light' music is the same in Ghana as it is in America. Bad. It was like a family barbecue. So the nightlife in experience in Kumasi was not so fantastic but I'm going to stay on the positive side and say that we just had a bad suggestion (GEEZ DOUGLAS!)

So after ANOTHER wild night we had a relaxed Sunday - we went and toured KNUST, or Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, where our CRAs went to school. It was really pretty even though the dorms are like these super tall and narrow buildings that are crazy but it was like a more spread out version of University of Ghana. After the tour we went to this shoemaker to see how shoes are made - they use a plaster model for each size and made a shoe in front of us, one of those gross man leather shoes that have pointy toes that I do not prefer but the process was pretty interesting. All of their shoes say "Made in Italy" or "Made in China" because they told us that if they say "Made in Ghana" no one will buy it - except for the tourist obrunis who want to show off their Ghana souvenirs!

After the shoe village we went to the Kejetia market - it's the second largest market in Africa and it was like twenty times bigger than Makola and I was positive we were going to get lost. Our CRA told us that we were supposed to leave the market at 12:30 but they've never left on time because someone always gets lost and they have to go try and find them. So with that in mind we set out to find kente cloth, which is a fabric that is made on a loom and is native to Ghana, and more fabric in general because we have been to Makola market so many times that we can recognize the patterns. After navigating through a very large and grabby crowd we moved into the more narrow paths and were able to find some very beautiful kente cloth. Alex had found regular fabric so we asked her to bring us there, and to get there we had to cross through the largest fish market I have ever seen in my entire life. Buckets and floors just of fried blackened fish. It was disgusting. There'd be spurts of other foods, like peppers or peanut butter, but then there'd always be the fish. And the paths were so small you would get run over and I was holding on for dear life to Alex to not get pushed back on top of all of this fish. MEH so gross. So we found fabric, which was also surrounded by fish, and it was all well and good and we were on time and then we had to figure out how to get back. Which turned out to be really easy, except the way people showed us involved walking through another meat market. Raw meat on platters and entire animals getting ready to be cut. It was awful. And disgusting. And just awful. I thought I was going to be sick. Not a great end to the market, but I still have lots of love for Kejetia Market.

After our fun day spending money it was finally time to go home, and the five hours actually turned out to be like seven, but the rides back was almost as good as the entire weekend. It was such a pretty ride and a great chance to see the countryside of Ghana. We were driving along dirt roads and then through cleared areas that were going to be made into roads and we would drive right through the middle of these villages. It even rained for a bit so we got to see a rainbow...so precious. When it became dark there was a huge orange moon leading us home and we would pass through these little towns were people were sitting outside talking, and even though I had a nine am midterm the next day, I was so relaxed and happy by the time we got home. Photos here. Lovely lovely lovely time. Other than that it's now midterms.