I enjoyed Songee Festival last year and looked forward to it very much this year. It was a little difficult to pin down the date; like Easter, it moves from year to year, in this case based on the Nafana calendar which uses a six-day week. I also found that festival activities starts a before the main event.
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Category Archives: Ghana
War
I got the deck for playing solitaire during steamy afternoons when it’s too hot or I’m feeling too restless for reading. I knew that the kids would want to play with the cards if they saw them, so I kept them in my room. It was probably out of boredom when I brought the deck out and decided to try to teach the kids the simple card game of my own childhood.
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The Terrifying Teens
Not everything goes well, of course. I guess it’s part of my personal mythology: I believe that if I understand (or think I understand) the basic principles behind a task, then I can be successful at doing it. I never factor in things like aptitude or talent or practice. This shows up in my life in a number of ways, but always with a familiar initial shock (“I can’t get back in the kayak from here!”) and an equally familiar recognition that I am completely and unhappily out of my element (“Perl programming? What the hell was I thinking?”).
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Visitors
“Is he a man or a woman?” Matthew asks. English speakers here often don’t understand the gender pronouns; many times I’ve been confused when “he” turns out to be “she” and vice versa. We’ve been talking about “his” arrival, but then I realize that I’m not sure myself.
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5 August
We’re sitting on my porch, and the subject of robbers comes up. Matthew says something about “the time robbers attacked me.” What?
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There Be No More Sorrow
I’m thinking it will be like any other Sunday, but Stephen comes to my porch with news. “We have another funeral today,” he tells me, “It was at the house of your friend, the Muslim woman,” he tells me and I catch my breath. “It is her mother. Oh, she was very old. She was blind, you never see her because she is all the time in the room there.”
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Closer to Normal
When we arrived in Ghana, we were each handed a bottle of Voltic (a common high-end bottled water) and told that we should hang onto the bottle if we wanted a water bottle, as it would be the last one we would get. Once we arrived at home stay, we could begin using our water filters to refill the bottles. But while traveling, we’d start using what everyone else in Ghana uses: pure-water sachets. Pure-water is 500ml plastic pillow-shaped bags of water sold for ten peswa each. I soon learned to rip off the corner with my teeth and drink it down fast, like everyone else.
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Some Bits of Good News
While I wrestle with something I want to write but am having trouble with (let’s get serious and take all the fun out of it, shall we? Naw, not really. Well maybe just a little.), I thought I would just pop in to share some of our recent bits of good news.
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One of Our Own
Stephen and I are on our way to Tamale, in the Northern Region, for beekeeping training. The call comes just as we’re pulling into Wenchi station. I almost don’t pick it up because I don’t recognize the number.
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Animals Among Us
I’m luckier than most, I suspect. I’ve loved animals my whole life, but I grew up understanding that to take them in as pets, to take delight in delighting them, is a privilege. So when I came to Ghana, I was not shocked or even surprised to see how animals are often treated here.
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