Na Ka Kay? (Where Are You? or Holy Molé!)

"Forgive me, it’s been two months +/nine weeks/63 days since my last blog post."

I apologize for my slack attitude towards writing on this blog - there’s no excuse , but I’ll try and come up with a few ;)

Seeing as I never really planned on staying in Ghana past the end of April, I’ve been taking the last couple of months to settle more into day-to-day life. Less of the travelling, mass family functions and drum circles. More like sparingly tending to the huge garden, helping younger cousins with homework and hand washing my laundry (boo!).

I’ve been brushing up on my Hausa skills (not to pay the bills, unfortunately) and can genuinely carry on conversations with people. I can talk about things I like, places I've been, ask questions, give opinions … "Inna da chaw" (It's good!) 
Not too shabby; I deserve a Gold Star).

I’ve been a bit more focused on professional pursuits like locking down a job in Canada (for when this daydream ends), writing content for Youth Alive’s blog and documenting regional projects around the country. We've been busy organizing graduation ceremonies for our apprentices, helping set up their shops and providing financial literacy training. Peace marches and media conferences have also been held across our three operational regions as part of the Youth in Governance project to encourage and support peace during the 2012 election season.

Baboon

I pretty much wrapped up spring by keeping my nose to the grindstone but my fingers have been itching to share some of the super interesting stuff that’s been going on lately. A wise man once said that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. That must have been what motivated our little detour on our last work-trip to Molé National Park. Molé is a wildlife reserve in Northern Ghana where the animals are free to roam and live protected, with few restrictions. We woke up at the crack of dawn to get there right after sunrise for a safari. I know that plays into the "My Trip to Africa” cliché, but it was still so amazing to see. 

Well-endowed elephant ;)

We saw families of antelopes, baboons and warthogs acting like they owned the place (technically, they kind of do). The highlight was definitely the elephants. They are massive! Although this was my second trip ever to Molé, it was still breathtaking. They appear to be so large, gentle and docile, but apparently our tour-guide Chris told us that they are the second fastest land mammal (for real) after the cheetah. Another fun-fact:  elephants (in Africa anyways) actually have black skin and only look grey because of the mud/muddy water that they bathe in. Really educational J According to him the last lion was seen in 2008, so we didn't see anything else too crazy. Now I have crocodiles, camels & elephants added to my list of animals I've come face-to-face with since I've been home.

The rainy season is also in full swing now and my ‘rents and bro have all come back to Ghana to join me for the summer! Needless to say I’m super excited and it’s been good catching up and falling into back into our  family dynamic. From watching old movies, to saving our house from flooding during the rains (only in Ghana) and cooking together; we've been doing your run-of-the-mill family stuff. After so much time apart I’m really grateful for the chance to hang out with them again. We've also got a few family weddings on the go in the next couple of months which should be quite the cultural experience – we’ll see how they compare to the funerals (I have a feeling there’ll be more similarities than differences).

'Til the next randomly exciting moment!

Shee-day anzuma (Later!)

Mma (Mother or Part 1 in a Series of Firsts)

How is it mid-April already?

So far this month has been filled with a few interesting firsts.

I spent April Fool’s Day attending an event 33 years in the making …

My grandmother’s funeral!

Yeahhh.

No joke (there’s no punchline)

In Ghana it’s not unheard of for families to put off a funeral and then have a big, en mass one to acknowledge the death of a group of people. My maternal grandmother (mom’s mom) passed away about 33 years ago, and now her side of the family (based in the Upper East Region/Bolga area) was ready to have a ceremony to commemorate her and her only brother (my great grand-uncle?!). Although at the time, a funeral was held in the house where my grandmother was married, her side of the family wouldn’t have had much of an opportunity to be part of the process  given the state of communication and transportation in rural Ghana 30+ years ago.

Unfortunately for the short timing, not all of the children were able to attend. I went, repping my mom, along with six of my aunts and uncles. In true Ghanaian fashion we roadtripped it up North to Bolga in a tro-tro that stalled and started rolling backwards on more than one occasion. Thankfully we made it in one piece. For me it was a chance to see my mom’s oldest brother, my uncle Dan (55) and so now I can say I’ve officially seen all 14 of my aunts and uncles since arriving in January (I should get a prize).

The delegation - mom's six siblings & their aunt

Main compound

We did the traditional jaunt of meandering between huts and greeting relatives that I can barely trace. The most memorable part of the trip was actually seeing my great-grandfather’s house where my grandmother was raised. Despite all the development in the area the house was still as traditional as ever – thatched roofs, no electricity or running water – old school . We even slept in the main compound that night, underneath the stars (which sounds like the biggest cliché ever).

Shared wall

Retatching the roof

They say the course of true love never did run smooth, it apparently had a lot to do with proximity because we also got the privilege of walking over a mile (fun right?) to the house where my great-grandmother lived in (my great-great grandfather’s house) before she got married and had my g-ma (long family line, I know!).

View of g-ma's ma's house

Sacrificial altar near the exit

Old school kitchen

 

My grandmother’s cousins (58) still lived in the house and were able to tell us stories about her and how clearly they remember the day they heard the news about her passing.

Two generations of uncles (Left, my uncle. Right, his uncle)

Another of grandma's cousins

Funerals in Africa are never a bleak affair and thus we began at the crack of dawn with the 3Ds – drinking, drumming and dancing. Young and old, the entire community came out to pay their respects. The “funeral house” was packed with people as the drumming processions came in waves and the local brew of pito was fresh and flowing a-plenty.

Pito being brewed the good ol' way with millet

Drumming procession 1

Drumming procession 2

Older relatives dancing for offerings

Even though I’ve never met my grandmother I felt extremely honored to be able to participate in and be a witness to the celebration of her life. I feel like we have a special bond because I was the first grandchild to be named after her; Hawa. For this reason my aunts and uncles all call me “Mma” which means “Mother” in Hausa. I'm so proud that I get to rep my grandmother’s memory and the name we share (which is really my middle name, p.s.) forms such a part of my identity; the person I am and who I hope to become.

I write this for my mother, to her mother; where words fail us, rituals & timeless traditions will bring us back together.

Inna Keewa Key (I Miss You or Discomfort is Just a Symptom of an Unfamiliar State of Being, so Familiarize Yourself)

I’ve been doing so much travelling lately and despite the long hours and unpaved roads I seem to have a taste for it now! I absolutely love Tamale but any chance to get out and see more of Ghana is an opportunity I simply have to jump on J.

Needless to say I took full advantage of various family members’ travel plans and decided to just casually tag along and see how far across the country that would take me! Little did I know I’d get to cross six of Ghana’s 10 regions!

Luckily one of my cousins was getting ready to head back to college in the Brong-Ahafo region after a mid-semester break, there we’d meet our aunt Amina who had some errands to run in the capital Accra … so my route was pretty much set! My plan was to attempt a trip all the way down South to Accra and then back up North to Tamale, by road, within a week…

My route across the country!

Our journey begins on a cool Monday morning at precisely 4AM. My cousin Zalia and I had to go to the bus station and buy our tickets, which of course could only be bought on the day of travel! By the time we arrived at the station the line was so long that there was a good chance that we wouldn’t even get standing room. In our dire desperation we had to bribe a transport worker who was a friend of a friend of someone important, to get us tickets (when in Rome right?) Thankfully it worked and by 6AM we were off on a 4 hour journey to Techiman.

I’ll interrupt the flow of this post/the  journey to note a few key travel survival tips that I’ve picked up. For ease of comfort during long road trips such as this it is key to: drink as few fluids as possible and eat a lot of bread and bananas; it’ll keep you from squirming in your seat every time you hit a pothole or from needing to use questionable bathroom facilities or popping a squat in the bush.

After an relatively calm trip to Techiman, we still had to get to Attebubu, the town where my cousin attends college and where my aunt was meeting us. This meant chartering a taxi to drive us the 2.5 hours. I’m sure this leg of the trip should have taken longer, but our driver was flying around corners and speeding to beat no discernable traffic but rather his own personal record. As exhausted as I was by this point, it was the scenery that kept me alert. Ghana is absolutely stunning and in a few (relatively) short hours we’d moved from the dry savannah of the North to the forest belt in the middle of the country. It was so green with an abundance of banana and plantain trees all over the place.  

Once in Attebubu I received the grand tour of the small town from its bustling marketplace to the Teacher’s Training College Campus. In a country like Ghana, I always make the assumption that the further North you go, the harder the living conditions and vice versa. That little illusion was shattered in Attebubu; here we were, a good almost 7 hours South of where Tamale (where I normally live) and I found myself in a town with a water shortage and questionable electricity distribution. Long story short, I took a bath in the pitch black darkness with half a bucket of water … that was an experience, definitely made me feel like more of a local though.

Day #2 and my aunt and I are getting ready to continue on South. This started with getting a seat on a Tro-tro from Attebubu to Kumasi, one of Ghana’s most populated cities in the Ashanti Region. Tro-tros are like big vans from the 1970s that can carry about 15 people (legally), if not more – they’re very Scooby-Doo Van-esque and notorious for less than stellar driving records.

 

Scooby Doo Van - The Mystery Machine





Tro-tro ... see the resemblance?









I was a little apprehensive to have to be in one for 2 hours, but at least I wasn’t alone. Again, the scenery was enough to keep me distracted; especially this really amazing gorge we passed that just gave an amazing view of the mountainous areas of Ghana. 

Cliffside beauty

  

Once reaching a severely over-populated Kumasi (takes forever to get anywhere). We got seats on a coach to take us from Kumasi to Accra; a straight 6 hour shot. Now I have to mention how nice this coach was; it had full air conditioning, two flat screen televisions and lots of leg room (essential when you’re tall!) … faaancy J Road trippin’ in style, as it were. The most memorable part of this bit of the trip was that as we were leaving, a man got up and started a 30 minute preaching spiel in Twi (Chwee, the local language) where he blessed the bus, the journey, warded off  highway robbers (yeah, that actually happens here!). He did all this before introducing his friend who was selling Anti-Hemorrhoid tea?! And it was a hardcore sell too, like a live infomercial! And people were actually buying it! That kind of commercialism would never fly in Canada, let alone with hemorrhoid tea. Only in Africa.



That 6 hour bus ride took us through the Ashanti, Eastern and Greater Accra regions – phew! Little did I know my aunt was about to spring a surprise on me … we weren’t going straight to Accra – no, no. We were actually going to continue on further West into the Central Region to see my mom’s eldest sister (my aunt Zet) whom I hadn’t seen since I was 8! This meant getting picked up by relatives (42 - my family count!) and driving an hour from Accra to Kasoa (Ka-soo-wa), spending the night then waking up at the crack of dawn on Wednesday (Day #3) to take another Tro-tro into Winneba on a 1 hour journey.



Cocoa beans :)

16.5 hours and 6 vehicles later and we had finally arrived! I was so excited to be in Winneba, visiting my aunt and her husband (44). Since she was busy during the day with her job teaching, I spent a lot of time with her husband who showed me all around their property and around their small coastal town.

They had actual COCOA BEANS growing in their backyard! Ghana is famous for them but I’d never actually since or touched one!  



Traditional fishing on Winneba beaches





Winneba seaside fish market



We then went on a driven tour of Winneba from the beautiful beaches full of towering coconut trees, to the seaside market full of fresh catch-of-the-day and finally to the university campuses spread out across the town. 

 

Winneba University campus

 After a couple of chill days in Winneba I went down to Accra to spend some time with my dad’s side of the family whom I hadn’t really seen since my grandma’s funeral 2 months ago (52). They did a really great job of taking me across the entire city and pointing out big landmarks like the University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah circle (a major round-about) 



Chowing down with my cousin Keilan :)

Sunday was time for some reverse culture shock when I spent the day with my cousin Keilan, and his friends and we were reminiscing about the first time I had come to Ghana in 1995. My brother and I had insisted on eating pizza and it had been an absolute disappointment for those of us who knew what it should have tasted like and for Keilan who had never tasted it before. Accra has become much Westernized and now pizza is apparently quite common, you can even order it to your house. So we went out for pizza and I will say, it was pretty legit, I was surprised at how good it tasted … oh globalization! 

  



The evidence ...

On my very last day in the city I made my final stop at Teshie, one of the main army barracks in Accra, to visit my mom’s younger brother, whom again, I had not seen since 1998! He barely recognized me and we had so much catching up to do J Luckily, during that visit too, his son, my cousin Taufiq came home from work and we got a chance to hang out as well (54). It was nice to reconnect with people I’d been inseparable with on my trips to Ghana as a child, I was very thankful for that opportunity!



I woke up on Tuesday faced with a solo journey back home. I had opted for the road; it would be long and tiring but it would be a heck of a lot more interesting than just taking the plane, and at least this time it would be a straight 12hr (or so) shot across the country!



We left Accra at 9AM and pulled into the Tamale transport yard by about 10PM that evening. Surprisingly, I was awake the entire trip that took us through five regions and all manners of traffic; city, highway and highway construction. We passed toll booths, bodies of water, villages, towns, fringe towns and hubs that had transformed into mini-villages due to their proximity to the major highway routes. I literally watched the scenery modify from dense tropical forest to flat and sparse grassland and felt the moisture evaporate each mile we moved further North.



I pretty much took all of this past week to recover from the journey(s) but I got to see, live and breathe 6 more regions of my beautiful home, bringing my total to 8 - only 2 more to go! (Western and Volta Regions).

Sun-da-zoo-ah! (Welcome [Home])

I’ve barely been in Ghana for a week but it’s already been such a full and busy time!

My journey really started in Kuwait on Jan 4, it took me about 12 hours to get to Accra (capital of Ghana) via Addis Ababa (Ethiopia).

All in all it was a very smooth trip and fate/the universe led me toward some interesting people. On the longest leg of my trip (Ethiopia-Ghana) I had the luck of sitting next to a young Korean student, Jiye who just happened to be an International Development/Environmental Science Masters Graduate (go figure). Needless to say we definitely found things to talk about! She is very well-travelled, having worked in Kenya and has been working with a development organization in Ghana for over a year. She was the super adventurous type who had gone to explore Ethiopia by herself  and I couldn’t help but admire the confidence and ability to completely immerse herself in another culture.

I arrived in Accra around noon on Wednesday Jan 4, where my Uncle KK (1, this is the relative count), my dad’s younger brother met me at the airport. It was so good to see him after so many years and I had the pleasure of staying with him and his family (6) for 2 days.

The first thing that hit me in Ghana was the HEAT. Snap! I had left Canada in November when it had JUST started snowing, I had been in Kuwait while it had been a mild 20 degrees (beautiful weather in the desert btw) and for some reason I hadn’t counted on tropical, 30+ degree weather in Ghana! There are basically two seasons in here; dry and rainy. When visiting Ghana in the summer as a child it had always been the rainy season (running from March-July and September-October). This is the first time I’ve ever been during the dry season (November-March and August) which is known for its warm Harmattan (not Hammer Time, like I first thought!) winds kick up dust everywhere.

Accra is an extremely busy city with nearly 3 million people. It’s the industrial heart of Ghana where people goes realize dreams of success and wealth. The reality however is very different as the city represents both the minority of great wealth and majority of staggering poverty of its inhabitants. Beautiful, statuesque government buildings lay on winding roads that lead towards ram-shackled shanty towns.

By Friday morning I was ready to leave the overwhelming, organized chaos of the big city. Instead of making a 12 hour journey by bus (brutal) from Accra to Tamale (location of parent’s house), I flew on a 45 minute flight (that’s progress for ya). My mom (7, yes I’m counting my parents as relatives) met me at the airport with two of my aunts (9).

On the drive to the house it was clear to see that despite the seemingly short distance I had travelled, I was in the more rural area of Ghana. Tamale is a smaller, bustling city but as a focal farming area it’s not uncommon to find enclaves of mudhuts that normally splay remote villages.

For those of you who know my unfortunate monkey strangling story (accidental suicide), this is the house where it took place. The last time I was here the house was just a framework of bricks and the courtyard was full of the copper-red sand. Now, here stood “the dream house” that my parents had been working on ever since I could remember. The simple garden my mom tended to was now bearing mango and banana trees with chili peppers, tomatoes, pineapple and watermelon slated to be grow as well. WHOA, it was more like a farm than a garden. Pure beauty. I don’t have a green thumb whatsoever so it takes me about an hour and a half to water the entire property and I’m pretty sure I’ve already killed a few plants by stepping carelessly around the land :O

It wouldn’t be Africa if we didn’t have random animals running around the house…We have a few chickens, some goats and guinea fowl (unattractive chicken-esque birds). There are also a couple of dogs that my mom’s been raising as puppies named – wait for it – Buddy Boy and Buddy Girl … super original eh? No matter, they’re extremely sweet dogs.

Right off the bat, three of my cousins live in the house with us (12). Three of my mom’s sisters live within walking distance too. My aunt Fatima lives with two of her children, daughter-in-law and four grandchildren (20), aunt Aisha came and visited with her one year old baby Shamsee (22) and my aunt Agnes lives with her two children (25). During my first couple of days, many people stopped by the house to visit including my mom’s brother and my dad’s two cousins and niece (29). WHOA FAMILY …

The things I take for granted are carefully appreciated and utilized here – clean drinking water, running hot water, the convenience of electrical appliances, namely washing machines, or the lack thereof. I had to (re)learn how to hand wash my clothes,  which is a production in itself. There’s no such thing as a shower anymore, here we heat water on the stove, pour it in a bucket and bathe. Ghana is still towing that bizarre line where development blurs – while it seems that media and communication have exploded there are still some serious gaps in areas that would raise the standard of living for people such as health care and education.

On Tuesday I began my work with Youth Alive Ghana. The organization began in 1996 as an Action Aid initiative in the Northern area of Ghana. My aunt Agnes (mentioned above) is the Director of the organization which uses a three tier approach to target the cycle of street youth in the region.

1. Primary – educating street children, bridging them into formal education, providing apprenticeships and funding for higher education, aiding in the provision of health care support and services.

2. Secondary – enabling parents and guardians (specifically females) to provide for street youth through education and opportunities to improve employability skills.

3. Tertiary – advocating on behalf of street youth by communicating with interest groups (community, schools, other NGOs, levels of government) as to the needs, potential and progress of this disenfranchised demographic.

The organization’s work contributes to ending the cycle of poverty in the region and I’m pumped that I’ll have the chance to help kids turn their lives around. In the coming weeks I’ll be working alongside a couple of other volunteers who are also interested in becoming agents of change!

PS, I apologize for the lack of photos atm, I pulled a rookie mistake and don't have the software for editing them...I'll start taking decent ones with my phone!