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Greetings from Ghana! We have just arrived back in Kumasi, Ghana after a weekend excursion to Mole National Park. We traveled by bus from Accra to Kumasi on March 30th and have been here since. Next to Accra, Kumasi is Ghana's second largest city and is characterized by forests rather than coastline. We are staying at Kumasi Tech University, which is around a 15 minute drive from the heart of Kumasi. The campus is very spread out and the environment here is very relaxed compared to Accra.
Upon our arrival, we ventured out for a brief introduction to Kumasi at a couple of the only tourist-type places in Kumasi—The Asante Cultural Centre and the Manhyia Palace. The Asante are the largest and most influential tribe in Ghana, and the Asante Cultural Center highlighted some historical aspects of their culture. Following this, we toured the Manhyia Palace, which is essentially the Asante White House, the exception being the peculiar wax statues. In addition to the wax people, the palace contained some antique furniture, chinaware, and a Japanese fridge from the 50s, which must have been a big deal in Africa during that time. I also discovered that the bird, Kevin, from the movie 'Up' sounds exactly like a male peacock. I am learning so much. Following the palace, a group of us stayed in town to watch football at a local bar. For dinner we grabbed some pig ears to eat on the street, and I now understand why they are only used in the states as dog treats.
The rest of our first week included an art trip to a small village that specializes in doing a form of art called Adinkra. Adinkra involves carving stamps out of a gourd called calabash and then stamping colored fabric with a dark dye. On that Friday we visited a local musician named Koo Nimo and listened to him perform music that fuses traditional West African music with western musical influences. I was also able to find a gym on campus that allows me to feel a bit like Rocky when I work out. The weights consist mostly of old car parts and the bars are poorly welded together. The music was mostly American hip-hop but there was quite a bit of skits that were entirely dialogue being played as well. The skits were about a Ghanaian gangster that became educated enough to pull off credit card fraud and make lots of American dollars. I can only imply that Ghanaian gangsters must be a bit more sophisticated than American gangsters.
Last Tuesday we had an opportunity to visit the Obuasi gold mine just outside of Kumasi. This gold mine is currently the 3rd largest gold mine in the world and has shafts that go as deep as 8000 ft. We were supposed to go this deep but we were late arriving so we were forced to go down a much smaller one. We walked down a ramp underground that took us down around 800ft underground and toured a training center for new employees. The mine was very much how I imagined it would be, which was great because my expectations were formed from movies (such as The Descent) and video games (Donkey Kong). There were carts on railways, giant hydrolic drills, bottomless pits, skulls and crossbones painted on signs, and blastings happening all around us. We also were wearing standard mining gear—coat, boots, helmet with light attached, and an oxygen tank. As far as we could tell, 800 feet below was the same as 8000. The mining accidents in China and West Virginia also added to the excitement.
Three days after the gold mine we spent an afternoon at an orphanage. The orphanage is privately owned (as opposed the very nice government sponsored ones) and it houses and educates around 170 children. Here I befriended a young boy named Joseph who showed me around the place. He slept on the top of a bunk bed in a room with around 25 children. His bed was a piece of two inch thick foam that was no larger than a small bathtub. Another boy grabbed my hand and told me this was his bed also, which I wrongly assumed meant that he slept on the bottom bunk and not in that same bed. Following my tour we played some soccer out back and I experienced the perils of playing soccer in sandals. The orphanage was a tough experience me to wrap my mind around. I felt good that our group was able to make a donation and spend an afternoon with these kids, but I left feeling selfish about the way I live (and rightfully so). Questions such as, "where do my obligations start and how far do they reach?" have been running through my head often since then. A small group of us are heading back to the orphanage this week.
That night after returning from the orphanage, Brandon and I happened to be outside when an armed robbery took place less than a block away down the dimly lit road where we were being hawked more African art. We decided to take part in the neighborhood manhunt that ensued but were unable to find the thief (it would be quite easy to disappear into the thick bush). We are setting up a sting for later this week. More to come on this.
This past weekend featured safaris at Mole National Park and an 8 hour bus ride to and from. We arrived at about 3 pm on Friday afternoon after a rather bumpy ride and had a group dinner, swam, drank beer, and played cards that night. The next morning we woke up early for the 7am walking safari. There are no lions, hippos or rhinos like one would see on a safari in east Africa, but there were elephants, baboons, monkeys, warthogs, various types of antelope, and crocodiles. We were told that elephants were tough to find recently because it had rained recently and they could find water anywhere. However, about ten minutes into our safari we came upon an elephant in a clearing eating some bamboo. All forty of us were split into groups of 10 and we were on all sides surrounding the elephant. When we arrived we were instructed to stay 50 meters away but our guide was feeling brave and he let us get 20-30 meters from it. The elephant became agitated with 40 people inching closer and charged our particular group of ten. Our guide instructed us to run around a nearby building but the elephant stopped before we were forced to do so.
Later on in the morning safari we saw baboons near a small village. We got to watch while a baboon entered a home and came running out with a pot full of food. The warthogs were everywhere near the lodge during our whole stay and got to be a bit annoying by the last day. They would knock over trash cans and charge people without warning. Near the pool there was a viewing area where we could look down on one of the main watering holes in the area. This provided a great view of crocodiles and the landscape, although other animals were scarce due to the recent rains (they didn't need to come to this watering hole). Sunday morning I walked out of my room at about 6am to find an elephant about 10 feet away enjoying some breakfast. The monkeys hung around a lot too and one hopped on the table while I was eating breakfast. Overall it was an awesome weekend, I felt like a kid again.
This morningwe listened to a talk from one of the princes of the Asante tribe. He was old and eccentric. While describing their Juju religion to us he said, "It's everywhere—in the kitchen, in the car, in the toilet, and in the intercourse you have at midnight." He also claimed to have his own dwarf, which would fetch money and other essential items he needed. He explained, "Some people have snakes, some people have witches, but I have dwarfs in my residence. If I want three million dollars, my dwarf will get it for me." I'm thinking about converting.
That is all for now, thanks for reading. We begin our homestays on Thursday and head back down to the ocean next Monday when we leave for Cape Coast, Ghana. I am sorry I haven't been able to upload pictures yet, the internet is just too slow. Hope everyone had a great Easter!
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