Getting psyched for Ghana

23 days until I leave for Ghana! I am way psyched. I’ve started obsessively reading travel blogs (http://www.travelblog.org and http://www.travelpod.com, among others), doing web searches on Kente cloth, adinkra, and other textile arts, and generally researching anything and everything I can get my fingers into. I’m SO excited! I can’t wait to leave.

I had thought adinkra, the cloth stamped with carved pieces of gourd, would be relatively simple. It’s not. Check out Adire African Textiles for a brief history of adinkra and click on the link at the bottom of the page to see their adinkra cloths. In fact, check out the rest of their website!

The kente (narrow strip-woven) cloths that I’m going to be learning about are shown on the same site – the Ewe and the Ashanti styles. (Click on the link at the bottom of the page to see their cloths.) They’re gorgeous! Although, how I’m going to display a cloth that’s double-bedspread size is beyond me. I may see if I can find some smaller ones to take home. (I plan to hang one on the side of my cubicle just to make all my coworkers jealous.)

Anyway, the more I read about it, the more excited I am at the prospect of going to Ghana. Of course, it’s 16 hours of flying plus four hours of layover to get there (I’m flying first to Heathrow Airport in London and from there to Accra, Ghana), so I’d better bring some books, knitting, etc. to keep myself busy. I think I’ll bring some lace knitting and enough yarn for a pair of socks. More than that would be hard to fit into my pack, I think.
23 days and counting. Can’t wait.