Yo Na Farry Chickeeeee! (Today I'm Excited or "My Ticket to the Gun Show")

February has been a lot quieter on the travel front and I’ve been spending a lot of time at home, hanging out with my family. A couple of weeks ago some cousins on my mother’s side of the family took it upon ourselves to come together and meet up (the family count is back on for a grand total of 40). Some of us had never met, while others had literally grown up together. Some had stayed in the area their whole lives while others had come back home after years away. In most Ghanaian languages there aren’t really words for extended family. Uncles, aunts and cousins may as well be fathers, mothers and siblings respectively, as that’s how close the bonds are. It’s always nice to know that there are people in your corner and we wanted to make sure that we could all have a relationship independent of our parents.



Me & my cousins :)



Apart from the intense heat, water shortages and rolling blackouts I’ve been managing to keep myself somewhat busy. Since I actually live in Tamale, it seemed about time that I actually slow down and learn more about the town where my ‘rents decided to settle and set up shop.

People dancing in the streets

One weekend my older cousin Rukaya & I ventured downtown, via motorbike (awesomeee!) to check out the Damba (Fire) festival . It’s a festival that is normally celebrated in conjunction with the Muslim celebration of the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed. I had no sweet clue what to expect as we rode into town or at least attempted to! The streets had been informally shut down. I say this because in North America if an event of this magnitude were ‘going down’ as it were, the city would be involved and would have police available to signal detours in traffic and whatnot to make sure that the festivities occurred in safe manner – not so much in Ghana.



Chief riding on horseback



People flooded the streets and were parading in celebration with the local chiefs down to the festival grounds. One of the chiefs was on horseback, decked out in the local garb. It was also strangely common to see young men shooting rifles into the air to commemorate the day (“Fire” festival, right?).

Young men toting rifles! (with no bullets)

We followed the crowd into town and came to a clearing where female members of the chiefs family were dancing to a circle of drummers.

Domba drummers

At this point the streets were saturated with people; young boys, small children, mothers with sleeping infants tied to their backs. In the firestorm chaos of gunshots, the festival procession and cars that insisted on moving down the street, people began pushing and shoving in all directions. Bodies twisting to sneak past crevices in the crowd. It was like being in a mosh pit at a rock concert. Needless to say, I think I witnessed enough of the Damba festival for a lifetime ... or at least until next year :)