malaria

So malaria sucks... On Thursday I woke up with a high fever and terrible aches and chills.  I ended up having to stay in the village while the rest of my group travelled to the city of Cape Coast for the weekend.  A very nice Canadian couple staying in Dagbamete, our village, took time away from their busy weekends to help me out and take me to the hospital.  They are doing some really cool development work here in Dagbamete and in a nearby village called Dzogodze.  Both are working to bring clean water to the area and are working to build up the village's ailing schools and libraries.  The government of Ghana doesn't really do much here.  It is mostly up to nice couples like Lilian and Peter and small NGOs to get any work done.  Even then work is slow.

Anyways, I am much better now.  The clinic/hospital was quite the experience.  We had to wait for an hour for the only doctor to get off of his epic lunch break.  The building was under construction and dust covered many of the surfaces.  (Hmm... maybe I shouldnt be sharing this with my family... all well).  Anyways, I had to go in for an iv drip that day and the next morning... don't worry Mom the needles were clean.   Within a couple of days I was feeling much better.  It was actually nice being in the village and having a quiet weekend away from the rest of the group.  People in the village were able to provide for all of my needs.  All is well now.

Dagbamete, the village we are staying in, is quite the experience.  Many of the buildings are still built with mud and sticks.  However, at the same time there is a relatively strong wireless signal and phone connections are good.... thanks to Lilian and Peter.  Everybody is incredibly welcoming here and there is a definite willingness to share and explain culture.  Immediately upon our arrival we began to participate in the funeral ceremonies of two women who lived well over 100 years of age.  Funerals here last for days.  In fact more than a week.  Every night last weekend there was drumming and dancing with various community drumming groups.  Music is a community event that everybody participates in.  Hundreds of people from around the region crowded under two large trees in the center of the village to participate in traditional dancing and drumming.  This would sometimes continue until dawn.  This is the way it was done generations ago and the way it will be for generations to come.  Funerals are celebrations and there is very little actual mourning.  People believe that their ancestors are present in their daily lives and that the spiritual world is active in the lives of the living.  All of this was quite overwhelming as the entire village was swamped with dancing and singing people for a number of days.  The village prides itself as being a stronghold of tradition where Christianity has not had its Westernizing influence.

On Sunday we also had the opportunity to participate in the local shrine ceremonies.  People came from as far as Accra to take part during the day.  Hundreds of chickens and goats were brought to sacrifice to the gods.  People drummed, people sang and people danced... the trinity of all communal events here.  After people confessed their sins (there are officially 400 of them in the traditional religion) in front of the entire community and asked for guidance in their lives the animals were sacrificed and their blood was spilt on the stones representing the gods.  While all of this may seem incredibly foreign and exotic, it is actually quite similar in many ways to the religion often practiced in the West.  Quite the moving experience.

During the days here we drum and dance for anywhere from 4-6 hours.  Sometimes we perform for the villagers who crowd around in masses.  Sometimes we go to nearby villages for people to perform for us.  There is much ceremony at all of these events.  Time is not defined as much by the clock but by the presence of all that must be at a certain event.  Therefore there we end up waiting a lot.  It is also very hard getting work done here.  Whenever you sit outside kids swarm around.  We usually end up playing games with them and talking with the villagers late into the night.  I am learning to focus amidst while 4 or 5 kids play around me.  It is so nice to be away from the cities.  We are right on the edge of the bush and there is very little traffic in the area.  The dirt roads are bumpy and small.  

Much work to do over the next couple of days.  2 essays, a fieldnotes journal and our musical change research project.  It is all fascinating but overwhelming being surrounded by all of this.  I can't keep up with the new info and all of the conversations and things that I experience on a daily basis.  All well... that's life i guess.  On Sunday the program in over and we will all head back to Accra.  After that a couple of us are going to spend a night at the beach in Kokrobite, drop some bags off at the university and head up north to Tamale and Mole National Park.  Shall be a good time.  Anyways, sorry for the randomness of this post... my brain is fried.  Ciao.

Patrick

Ghana time

So... we have been waiting for the past 4 hours to go to the village. Apparently our van broke down. Things here happen slowly. There is no rush to get places and to accomplish the daily tasks. It is amazing how easy it is to get in this mindset. Hopefull over the next couple of hours we will take off... nobody seems to be worried about it. Things always work out in the end. We're on Ghana time... you just need to sit back and take a deep breath, we will get there tonight somehow I guess.

Last night was great. Our farewell dinner took place outdoors with amazing food, good music and lots of dancing. Later in the evening we went to a high-life bar that has live music on Thursdays. High-life band music is my new favorite genre. Nothing like dancing the night away with a bunch of Canadians and random Ghanaians.

Anyways... off to check on the van... probably not there, no worries though. Later.

Kumasi

This past weekend was different from anything I have experienced thus far. We took a trip to Kumasi in the central region of Ghana. The drive took us through Ghana's incredible country side. The forests are dense and the trees are huge. Driving here is a painful and uncomfortable experience. The roads are not in good shape and are covered with potholes and ruts. Imagine 6 hours of that each way.

Kumasi is insane! Urban chaos is something to experience in West Africa. We were able to spend a couple of hours in the largest outdoor market in West Africa. Picture a sea of people rushing about between vendors selling various foods and clothes and women balancing baskets of water and other goods on their heads. The most overwhelming part was the meat section which in itself was the size of any normal market in the states. Every kind of meat you could imagine (and many that i had no clue about) in various states of freshness and decay was piled on tables and on the ground on mats. The smell was intense to say the least. The market probably covers 4 or 5 football fields! All of this happens amidst choking fumes from thousands of tro-tros battling the traffic on the streets. People walk amidst the tro-tros next to the market and knock on your window to try to sell you various things. It was really interesting seeing people go about their daily lives, not the "lives" that people see on the typical tourist tracks. There were very few westerners in Kumasi so we definitely got our fair share of attention. I am still getting used to being the minority. One can never really get used to being stared at constantly and being called out because of the color of your skin. It still is a great way to meet people though... many jump at the opportunity to talk with a white person or to help us out when we are lost.

Had my first scary moment of the trip in Kumasi. We were filling up our van tires at a gas station right next to a really busy road. All of the sudden a car catches on fire a couple of meters away. As smoke and flames were pouring from the engine a bunch of men ran over to push it away and begin to douse the flames. Luckily no explosions occurred... otherwise we would have had serious problems. Our driver took us out of there quite quickly. Different standards of safety here haha.

Over the weekend we visited various sites in Kumasi dealing with the famous Ashanti empire. People are so proud of their heritage and ethnic ties here. Also had the privilege of having a private performance by Koo Nimo, a pioneer and famous composer of palm wine music in ghana. his music is mainly guitar based with more traditional rhythms in the background. Heard some incredible music and did our best to learn dances to the songs that he played for us. Thus far we have been able to meet and experience the music of the pioneers of nearly all of ghana's musical traditions.

Tomorrow is our final performance and farewell dinner here at the University of Ghana. We will be putting on a performance of 3 or 4 traditional pieces. I am dancing in one of them and drumming in the rest. We are going to do our best to make it through the performance without messing up too much haha. It can be quite humbling trying to learn such rhythmically complex music that most Africans began learning at birth. Later in the evening we will gather with all of our professors and lecturers for a farewell dinner and lecture by Nketia, one of the founders of African ethnomusicology. I can not believe that tomorrow is our last day. My roommate and I were recently talking about how comfortable we have become here. Now it's time to try something new I guess.

On Friday morning we leave for the village of Dagbamete. I have no idea what to expect there. There will be much drumming and research and I have a feeling that we will get to know a lot of the locals very well. On Friday and Saturday we will be taking part in funeral celebrations and on Sunday we will have an opportunity to observe the traditional religious rituals (including animal sacrifice.... hmm) at the local shrine. This is going to be interesting.

I am not sure what internet is going to look like for the rest of the trip. I am guessing that there will not be internet in the village... but who knows, Ghana keeps on surprising me. So my apologies in advance if there are no updates for a while. After the 2 weeks in the village I will be hanging around in Ghana for a little more than two weeks. I will definitely head up to Mole national park to check out the elephants and other big critters. Other than that I am hoping to spend some time in the Muslim north of the country and hopefully get a little off of the beaten tourist track. Who knows what the next month is going to look like. I hope that I will get a chance to make some updates on the blog. Anyways, I am off to write a paper and start doing some packing. ciao.

off the beaten path

so this is the part in the trip where i start worrying about the trip ending too soon. i am still going to be here for over a month, but it doesnt seem like enough time. it is my goal over the next 5 weeks to get as much as i can out of Ghana and to get to know as many people as possible.

this past weekend was incredible. there werent any planned events through the program so we had a free weekend. on friday a couple of us went a couple of hours north of Accra to Koforidua and Boti Falls. it was my first time riding tro-tros, the main form of public transportation around here. basically a tro-tro is a converted van that holds about 10 sweaty passengers all packed in together. it is a great way to get to know some Ghanaians up close and personal. the tros take preset routes but will drop you off anywhere along the way and are incredibly cheap... 2 dollars for a 2 hour ride. Koforidua was beautiful... much different from accra. lots of rolling hills with palm trees and rainforests. women sell pineapple, coconut and mangoes at all tro stations and villages. it was nice to get away from the campus for a while and to be more in the daily lives of Ghanaians.

We took an incredible hike at boti falls... steep paths of jagged rocks and red dirt with giant trees and shrubbery all around. the path took us through a cave and up to a lookout over the rainforest and nearby villages. the falls were muddy because it had rained earlier in the day but were still beautiful. can't wait to show the pictures.

on saturday 4 of us were invited to the wedding of a music student here on campus. it took place in a shanty-town on the edge of accra. this was my first taste of poverty here in ghana. the living conditions are crowded and dirty but i definitely get the impression that people still manage to make a reasonable living and are relatively comfortable. people get by with so little.

the wedding was different from anything i have ever seen before. it was really cool being in a family environment and watching people interact with the local chief. we started off with the grooms family and walked in a procession through the streets to the bride's gathering. weddings here are marriages between families as much as they are marriages between individuals... kind of an interesting perspective. there was much singing and dancing along with some Western Christian traditions. like i have said before, this country is an amazing combination of West and African, old and new.

On sunday i was invited to teach English in an orphanage about 45 min from campus. a man i have gotten to know who works in the outdoor market next to my hostel just got it started up in his village about a month ago. a lot of the kids do not have opportunities to learn in the community as the government often times does not help to set up decent school programs. the kids here are incredible. i was the first white teacher that they had had so it was an amazing experience for all of us. we went over basic english grammar skills. we had a great time together. their favorite part was definitely my camera haha. they love having photos taken of themselves. i am hoping to go back over the next week.

school is winding up. on friday of next week we head to the village of Dagbamete in the eastern region to do field work. we will be compiling an oral history of the village and doing drumming and dancing for 4-5 hours a day... man that's a lot. i can't wait to see the village. we will be there for two weeks! anyways, tomorrow we are taking off for Kumasi in central ghana for a weekend field trip. internet time running out....ahhh! ciao.