a week of funerals

despite the depressing name of this blog entry this week has been very cool. on wednesday, Nana took us to one of her distant aunts' funeral. funerals in ghana are a really really really big deal. they are usually open to the public and take place over a course of three days. i dont know exactly what theprocedure is but there seems to be a day of church service, the burial day and then a massive party with an open bar and tons of food where everybody gets just wasted. i couldve gotten the order of these days wrong or i might be leaving outa day but thats the jist of it.

so we got to the funeral a few hours late and missed the walk past the casket which nana said was the only reason she came. we followed nana into the back of the church hall which was quite large and quite full and i expected that she was going to lead us to an empty pew. instead she kept right on walking down the middle aisle right to the front of the church as the entire church was singing a hymn. everyone turned around and looked at Nana with a "what is this crazy lady with the troupe of obrunis doing walking up the middle aisle in the middle of this hymn" look on their faces. we had to walk past a few hundred people and up to the front of the church where her aunt was lying in an open casket. i havent seen an open casket for a looong time and so it was a bit disturbing especially as hundreds of people were watching me. i think i might have grimaced a little bit. just terrible.

then i guess nana didnt get her funeral fix because thursday we went to another funeral. this one however was quite different. it was a state funeral for a prominent ghanaian historian and politician. it was held on the lawn of the parliament and there were at least a few thousand people attending, including the president of Ghana. this funeral was so big that it was actually sponsored by Pepsi. crazy! it was so big that the guy had died in early may but they only had the funeral yesterday because the arrangements took three months! everyone who went got this little book on the guys life with tributes from dozens of different people. funeral organisers in Ghana must be rich.

this time we made it for the walk past the casket so we didnt have to awkwardly do it in front of the whole crowd. to make things equally awkward however there were five TV cameras trained on the faces of everyone who walked by the open casket. as we were approaching i could feel a bubble of very innapropriate laughter in my chest and was worried that i would be standing in front of the dead guy and just burst out in nervous laughter. i managed to contain my self however and filed past the casket with a poker face. it turns out we were actaully on live tv (one of nana's friends saw us) and so if i had laughed the whole country wouldve seen it. anyway, disaster avoided.

im heading out of town for a little while so i wont be posting for a week and a bit.

just over a month left in africa. crazy

FGM and me

there are some definite perks to having links to other people's blogs on this page. it makes it a lot easier to be lazy and not write down everything that happened to me when two or three people have all ready written about everything i did on the weekend. timo and jess spent pretty much most of the weekend with me so whatever they did, i did too. it was a really great weekend and the two of them cover most of it, so read their blogs if you want to know what kind of stuff we did. there were however a few notable differences which i should most definitely mention.

on friday i wasnt feeling so good and had to wake up early saturday to visit some prisons so friday night i went to bed kind of early before the festivities began. early saturday morning i woke up early and met chelsea and edudzi (ottawa u law students) at the legal aid board at 9am. we got picked up 45 minutes latr by a lawyer from the legal aid board named ellis and drove across town to the jamesfort prison. the idea was that we were supposed to look at the prison conditions and interview prisioners to see if their human rights were being violated. i was pretty psyched to see some crazy stuff.

jamesfort was actually a dutch slavefort, claimed by the british and turned over to Ghana at independence or something. now its being used as a prison. its kind of like upper canada village or louisbourg in cape breton except that it was packed with 700 prisoners and not actors dressed in period clothing from the 1700s. the prison was in the accra central and so it was a pretty big shock going in. there was just one guard with an Ak standing outside the gate and when we got in we were all of a sudden right in the middle of all the prisoners. it wasnt like there was any separation. we got escorted up to the wardens office where he spent a long time lecturing us about how we needed to get proper approval before entering. finally he let us take a walk around. we entered a small courtyard full of hundreds of prisoners and every single one looked at us. pretty crazy considering there were only a few guards present the whole time. we got to interview a few prisoners but we didnt get to ask any good questions about how they were bein treated because the deputy warden was there the whole time. i shoud mention that this wasnt a real prison . it was a prison for remand prisoners (people waiting for their trial) and not convicts. one guy had been there for 13 years tho.

we talked to one guy who had actaully been granted bail but didnt know that all he had to do to get out was have someone from his family sign a form at the courthouse. hed been sitting there for nine months for no reason at all. we couldnt believe that someone would care so little about being in jail that they wouldnt even ask how to get out. nine months! ellis said he would take care of him.

so after that we were slated to visit a second prison. we drove an hour outside of town to Nsawam Medium Security Prison where they hold real criminals, but were denied entry because we didnt have prior, satisfactory approval. that sucked but it meant i got to go home and relax all afternoon which was nice.

this weekend was really fun. it was augustin's last weekend so a group of us just hung out on my porch all night saturday and sunday morning. very relaxed and just a good time in general. it was my first weekend of not travleing since i got here which was suprising to me considering ive been here coming on two months. jess and timo really describe the weekend well so ill leave it at that. i'll agree with both of them and say that dropping people off at the airport isnt very fun. especially when a man with a spiky stick tries to burst your taxis tires while the taxi is squealing away and you have one leg inside and one leg outside of it. that was nuts. read jess' blog.

last night was mathias' going away party at this really cool bar on the beach, only a few minutes drive from my house. they brought a table out to the sand and we all sat there for hours drinking gin and tonics. it was a beautiful night.

getting up however was not so fun. especially when i was saddled with a new task yesterday morning. nana called me into her office and told me she was speaking at a conference and needed me to do some research and make her a powerpoint presentation. the purpose of the speech was to educate some people about female genital mutilation. interesting choice considering im the only male intern at our office. to make matters worse she said i didnt have to spend too much time looking for text, and that i should focus on getting pictures. pictures dammit! so i got to work this morning after only a few hours of sleep and spent my day looking at pictures of female genital mutilation. not only that but i was supposed to compare FGM to vaginal cosmetic surgery practiced in the US and the differences between the two. so i had to find before and after pictures of women who got vaginal cosmetic surgery and compile the most nauseating powerpoint ever created.

interesting day.

weekend in senya beraku

this weekend was pretty tame but worth writing about i guess. no spitting snakes, crocodiles or river safaris but a good time nonetheless. originally we were supposed to go hiking up near the togo border this weekend but that fell through because some got sick. so on saturday morning we caught a trotro an hour west to a town on the coast called senya beraku. we arrive at the tro tro station and walk fifteen minutes through the town to get to the hotel advertised in the guide. on the way we passed through two funerals. funerals in Ghana last three days and involve more partying than mourning. each of the funerals had some massive speakers blasting music so loud that you couldnt talk with 20 metres of them. and there werent people dancing or anything. they were just sitting there in a large group listening to this music and staring off into the distance. very strange.

we got to the hotel to find that it was actually a small dutch slave trading fort that had been very well preserved and converted into a small hotel with five rooms. there were 8 of us so we took up the whole thing pretty much which was kind of cool. the fort was on the edge of a cliff overlooking the beach below which was full of fishing boats and tons of people. we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and took a cab to the next town to a beach hotel where we had lunch and spent the day on the beach. there was a massive group of americans from pennsylvania staying at the hotel. im tempted to say they were amish but i dont think amish can fly or be in boats with motors so i dont know how they wouldve gotten to africa. its a long paddle.

they were missionaries from some organisation and they were building schools. the women were all wearing bonnets and dresses and a lot of the men were in farming clothes. and this was on the beach. it was really something to see. we were the only people in bathing suits for most of the day.

later in the afternoon we played some beach volleyball against a Ghanaian church group that showed up mid-afternoon. they were all dressed identically in dress shoes, pants and traditional african shirts. we beat them 2 games to 1 which was pretty cool but i think the fact that they were wearing such nice clothes and we were wearing beach stuff might have had something to do with our victory.

we made it back to our hotel after dinner and kept the manager up late ordering drinks. the urinal downstairs was right next to this really dark and scary room which we later found out was the room of no return for the slaves being held in the fort. from that room there was a long tunnel down to the water where they would be taken to ships. augustin was using the urinal and i was waiting so i decided to check the room out. it was dark and really smelled bad so i didnt stay long but just as i was leaving a bat flew right over my shoulder screeching. i dont like bats so i ran away and left augustin at the urinal. we never saw him again. ok thats a lie but the story needed a good ending.

the next morning we went into town to eat and sat on the porch of this old colonial era building for quite a while. a huge group of kids camped out behind us and just watched us. we got some pictures that i will share when i get them. after that we took a walk down to the fishing beach we could see from the hotel. two boats were just getting back when we got there and there were dozens, maybe hundreds of people, milling around who definitely werent fishermen. there was a group of men who were paid 3 little fish by the fishermen for every big crate of fish they brought from the boat to beach on their head. then there was a huge group of little kids who were standing around the crates stealing fish as they were brought in. a really angry fishermen started yelling at them to get away and apparently he was going to beat any kid who he caught with his fish. some kid said that he beats a lot of kids. there was also a group of old ladies who were yelling at everyone around them and especially at each other. and then there was us standing right in the middle of it all. it was cool to be there and no kids got beaten so it was a good day.

i feel like my blog material is getting a bit thin. things are less crazy to me now than they were a month and a half ago so im having trouble figuring out what people at home would enjoy read ing about. if anyone wants me to write about something specific let me know.

daily routine

only in recent day or so ive seen a pattern start to emerge in my daily routine that could have some serious staying power. its very new but we'll see if it holds up. i get off work at four and take a taxi home with anne to our compound. at that point she goes to the seamstress in our driveway to have clothing made most days and i go home, get changed and sit on our sunny porch with a book and a beer. then people in the compound start coming home and everyone walks by our house and sometimes they sit and talk for awhile. at around 530 or so the people from Centre for democratic development get to the compound. only kristin lives with me but the rest of them come to hang out and augustin comes to play soccer.

we have a rocky driveway outside our compound where the tailor is which has a streetlight above it. we go out around six and kick around the ball with a three guys from the compound until the neighborhood kids catch on and start to show up for a game. word gets around quick that the obrunis with a ball want to play. there are five of us who play. augustin from argentina, chris and dirk from holland and timo, who's lived everywhere. it might sound weird at home but both the obrunis and the ghanaians have an understanding that the teams must be divided along racial lines. race is not a tense issue here. so its the obrunis (whiteys) against the obibinees (blackeys) and thats fine. it makes the game more fun and competitve. the five of us play against a different group of 15,16,17 yearold ghanaian kids each time. they're really good, better than us, but we have the size advantage more or less and that makes it pretty even. we've only played twice and theyve beaten us both times, but thats mostly becuase these kids are in better shape than any of us could ever hope to be and we wear down towards the end of the game and let in bad goals. yesterday we were leading at halftime 2-0 and lost 3-2 in the end. so anyway that is great fun and i think we're improving. when we play on wednesday we might have a good chance.

anyway after soccer at around 830 or so we go back inside the compound, shower quickly and go with the girls who have been patiently waiting, to eat at masters foods which is the chop bar (roadside restaurant) clsoest to our house. they have a menu with two items basically. you can get four different sized portions of fried chicken and rice. they;re called the kiddie pack, exu pack, bach & spin pack, and mega pack, ranging from one piece to four pieces of chicken and in price from 10000 to 25000 cedis. the other item is called beef sauce which is to good to explain. for 20000 (2$) you get a massive plate of fried rice and this beef sauce which is...well inexplicable like i said.

after that, depending on the night we may go out for a beer. and then people will go home. its a good routine and i hope it continues. i'll write about my weekend a bit later.

long weekend

i really feel like ive been in africa awhile now. for my first three weeks or month i felt like i was a visitor, which i definitely am, but now i feel like a more permanent visitor. things dont shock me anymore and i feel comfortable walking around pretty much anywhere. i know how to deal with the crazy people who aproach me on the street and im gettin really good at bargaining with cab drivers. this trip is starting less to feel like a trip i guess and more like this is where i live.

one bad thing tho about being here a long time is that people start to leave. ive met some really nice people but everyone is only here for a few months and so there are a lot of going away parties. i went to one on thursday for three people, and another one on friday at our house for four people. people are dropping like flies.

before the friday goodbye party i went to the Canadian High Commission Canada Day Party. when i think of canada day i tend to think of people dressed in red and white, having barbecues and drinking beer. this was very different. it was basically a really classy cocktail party being held at the high commissioners house, which was huuuge. there were a few hundred people, many canadians but mostly ghanaians who were invited by the high commissioner. there was lots of free wine and hors d'oeuvres and weird cocktail party music. it was very un-canada day like but still kind of enjoyable.

on saturday morning i went with some people from toronto and ottawa, indira, ekua, chelsea and niiapa to cape coast which was a four hour bus ride west of accra. cape coast was the centre of the atlantic slave trade so we were supposed to visit this major fort but by the time we got to cape coast the fort was gonna be closed. so we went to our hotel on the outskirts of cape coast. on the way there we had to pay off some policemen who were patrolling a checkpoint. common practice here but id never seen it with my own eyes before. the taxi driver only had to give them 5000cedis but it was still messed up. they had ak-47s.

the hotel we staryed at was pretty cool. it was called hans cottage botel and had a pond surrounding it and under it (it was mostly on stilts) that was filled with a few dozen crocodiles. very cool. the guy i was with, Niiapa, took a great picture of me pulling a crocodiles tail. i'll post it when he sends his pictures to me. we encountered some other dangerous wildlife at the "botel". when the hotel lady checked niiapa and i into our room there was a small snakecurled up just inside the doorway. it was about the size of a garter (?) snake and looked pretty harmless but the hotel lady told us to wait outside. i asked her if it was dangerous and she said not to worry. then i attempted to get closer and she yelled at me to keep away. she said that 'if you come close the snake will chase you and spit in your eye and then your eye will close'. so it turned out that i should have worried very much indeed. she grabbed a massive stick that was more like a tree trunk, lifted it with miraculous strength over her head (she was about sixty i think), and smashed the snake. nobody's eyes ended up closing so it was a good day.

sunday morning i left the people i was with and met some other people (augustin from argentina, candace from otatwa, jessica from texas and carolyn from australia), in cape coast to take trotros west another two hours through takoradi, on the way to butre which is a tiny isolated fishing village on the ocean. the only way to get there is down some dirt roads for twenty minutes. the village was beautiful. we took a canoe across a little river to an isolated beach hotel that was written up in a travel guide. the place was very nice and very cheap (2$ a night per person). augustin had a soccer ball and invited some kids in the villlage to play with us on the beach. two hours later the "kids" arrived. there were about 15 of them and they werent little kids like i thought. they were man-children, or at least as big and bigger than me. and african pickup soccer is not friendly, its like contact soccer. they went easy on us tho and i didnt get pushed aorund too much. they used sticks in the ground as goal posts and would keep on playing even if the ball went in the water, which it did every minute because the beach was on such a slant. whenever anyone scored, the team that got scored on would start yelling accusations at each other about whose fault it was. they took it pretty seriously. i played for almost an hour and then lunch came so i stopped, because i was exhausted and hungry. these guys were in really really good shape and running around on the beach wasnt easy.

anyway so that was a good time. we sat around the beach all night and played cards and had drinks and so it was really relaxed and nice. we woke up early on monday morning (some Ghanaian holiday gave us a long weekend) and got a guy from the hotel to take us in his canoe up the butre river for a few hours. his name was tony and i think he was a little messed up in the head. every once in a while he would yell out really loud "FIIIIIIIRE" but he would pronounce it FIE-YAAAA. very strange man, but very very nice and happy and helpful. we were supposed to see monkeys but all we saw were crabs and birds, and a few small crocodiles. on the way back tony took us to a place in the middle of the forest where they make palm wine with some pretty basic tools. buckets and hoses and barrels and some palm trees i guess.

ive got some pictures that ill put up eventually of the whole weekend. the crocodile ones are pretty decent. and there is a video that ill try and link to from this page in the next few days of my walk through the village in butre. its shaky because its taken from a camera around my neck but it should give people an idea of what kind of place i was in.