So, this is it.  I’m going home tonight.

What have I learned from my trip?  Quite a lot about fiber arts, for one, but also a bit about Ghanaians.  My experience has been that Ghanaians are quite friendly and welcoming ““ even someone passing by is likely to call out “You’re welcome!” (meaning, you are welcome) or “Good morning!” in a way you totally would not expect in the Western world.  They also seemed genuinely interested in helping me get where I wanted to go, and making sure the obruni didn’t get lost.  I really enjoyed my trip, although I’m glad to be going home.

I learned that Ghanaian infrastructure is sometimes lacking ““ the scheduled blackouts every five days were irritating, as were the unscheduled ones at all hours of the day.  I saw thatched mud huts, tame crocodiles, gorgeous weaving, brass-casting, and all kinds of textile crafts.  I rode in cramped, hot, airless tro-tros and air-conditioned long-haul buses. I ate nutria rat (tastes like goat) and smoked rat (tastes like ham).  I even learned that you can fit two people into the front (bucket) seat of a taxi!

Most of all, I’m reminded that Third World travel is enjoyable in a totally different way than Western travel ““ a bit rougher traveling, but more than made up for by the friendly people and the diversity of experience ““ everything from mud huts to sophisticated city life, and all sorts of handicrafts long dead in Western areas.  I love it, and I can’t wait for my next trip.

Yesterday was a tough travel day from Bolgatanga back to Kumasi ““ we got to the bus station around 8am, and didn’t get in to Kumasi until around 9pm, for a total of 13 miserable hours on the road.  I staggered into the guesthouse and slept for 10 hours, punctuated by coughing fits from this nasty cold I seem to have picked up in Tamale.  I’ve been going through the cold medicine I brought with me at an alarmingly rapid pace.  I wish I’d brought more than just 15 doses.

Anyway, today our only real plans were to go see the fetish priest, which wasn’t going to happen until late afternoon, so we dawdled in the morning: went to see the Royal Palace Museum, and went to Kejetia Market, reputedly the largest open-air market in West Africa.  It was much like the big market in Accra: a warren of small stalls selling a bewildering array of stuff.  I won’t repeat the description, just that while they were selling kente, they didn’t have anything nearly as nice as what I bought at Bobo’s place, so I didn’t buy anything.  Still, it was fun to walk around and take in the sights, such as they were.  I felt a little dumb (as always) walking around with my daypack strapped to my front (instead of on the back), but with it in front I could keep an eye out for pickpockets and bag-cutters, both of which are bound to be active in such a busy market.

I should perhaps mention that the reason I was carting the daypack around everywhere was a very simple and practical reason: if you’re going to buy something expensive in Ghana, you need a sack full of money.  Literally.  The largest-denomination bill they have is 20,000 cedis, which is worth a bit over $2.  So when you go to change money, you need to bring a bag to accommodate the two-inch-thick stack of cedis you get in return for your three crisp hundred-dollar-bills.  Similarly, if you want to carry around enough to buy expensive stuff (like, say, kente), you need to bring a bag.  So I had a daypack, empty except for a bottle of water and a big wad of cedis.

We returned from Kejetia Market, took a shower and a nap, and headed back out to see the fetish priest, in Kurofofrom (the brass-casting village).

The fetish priest turned out to be a fetish priestess, one who was reputedly the head of the local natural-healers’ (fetish-priest) association.  She had agreed to show me what they did, although I couldn’t take photos.  So I made a 150,000-cedi ($15) offering, and they ushered me in.

The first thing we all did was offer libations: a little schnapps poured into a glass, a tiny bit poured onto the ground, a small sip taken, the remainder poured onto the ground, presumably for the spirits of the shrine.  After that, the spirit came into possession of Nana, the fetish-priestess, and the audience began.

She was wearing a blue-and-white gown, which I don’t think was ritual, as I’d seen many other people wearing it before.  She was sitting on a chair set on a pad of animal skins, with a rack to her left on which were hanging various blackened bags, gourds, etc. that represented specific spirits.  Flies buzzed around the floor.

Things were a bit awkward at first, since I didn’t have a question or problem to lay before the priestess, so I got things off to a start by asking whether Mike and I were going to get married.  She stirred around a collection of cowrie shells and coins, peered intently at the result, and told me that we would get married and that it would be for life.  She stirred the coins again and said we would have three children ““ the first a single birth and the second, twins.  Then she told me I lived near a river and the river goddess was looking out for me, and I should make an offering of a bottle of whisky when I returned.  (I suppose you could call the San Francisco Bay a river, but that would be kind of stretching it.)  She said there was a king in my family ““ somebody famous ““ which happens to be true (my grandfather was a major player in the Taiwan legislature) ““ and that because of that my fortune would be good, I would be promoted at work, et cetera.  (Lots of cetera.)  I wasn’t too impressed by any of this, it being more or less stock-in-trade for a fortuneteller.

Then they asked me if I had any problems I wanted solved.  I didn’t, but it turned out Chuku did.  Much chattering in Tui followed (I don’t speak a word of Tui, so I have no idea what it was about), and then they wanted 10,000 cedis for a chicken.  She asked him how much he would be willing to pledge if she intervened successfully with the spirits for him, and he said 200,000 cedis (about $20).  The chicken arrived, a small one, and Chuku sat and stroked the chicken through the rest of the discussion.  I had the feeling that this was going to be a short-lived chicken.

And, in fact, this proved the case.  The fetish priest assisting the priestess explained to me that they were now going to do a divination, and slit the chicken’s throat.  He then threw it to the floor, where it flapped and shook as it was dying.  It flopped back and forth, lay still, then jerked in another series of small tremors, finally ending up belly-down on the floor, in a small puddle of blood.  Only the back and wings were visible.

The priest then explained that this meant that the offering was unsuccessful (if it had landed belly-up it would mean that the spirits had accepted the offering), and that if Chuku would make a larger offering they could try it again.  In the interim, the priestess was doing something obscure with kola nuts, to try to shore up the reading.  Chuku and I were each handed kola nuts ““ he ate his and I nibbled on mine, then palmed it.  (I didn’t want to eat an unpeeled kola nut ““ particularly one that had been sitting around in the less-than-cleanly dirt of the shrine ““ for fear of contracting travelers’ diarrhea from the local pathogens.)  Then they asked me how much I would pledge to the spirits if the reading came true, and I said $100 on the birth of the twins.  (Which is true; if my second set of kids actually is twins I’ll be damn impressed.  Especially since I’m not at all sure if I want kids.)

That ended the reading.  They requested another donation of 150,000 cedis ($16), which I gave them, and I walked out into the sunshine $30 poorer and not a whole lot wiser.  While I consider myself relatively open to the prospect of things like psychic phenomena, this didn’t impress me any more than the average Madame Zonga fortuneteller.

Tomorrow we’re getting up early (like, around 4am) and going to Accra, where I will do a couple of prosaic things like buying an additional bag for my stuff, but otherwise expect nothing interesting to happen before I fly back.

http://www.travelingtiger.com/travelingtiger/africa/ghana/ghana.html

Added a section on adinkra, brassmaking, and indigo dyeing and cotton spinning.  I may update the “Around Ghana” section if I have time.

This morning we went to Sirigu, home of SWOPA ““ Sirigu Women’s Organization of Pottery and Art.  This co-op sells, well, pottery and art ““ superb potters’ work and canvas paintings reminiscent of the painted houses here.  I had decided to come here for a potters’ workshop, despite having little to no knowledge of pottery.

The entrance to SWOPA is a gate covered with brightly painted geometric patterns in white, brick red, and black.  This is typical of the painted houses here ““ the white paint is made with limestone, the black from a stone they trade for in the market, and the red is from another stone that is found in gravel in the far north of Ghana.

I went into the gallery, and admired a number of well-formed bowls and jugs.  The woman in charge came up to me and said that the potters were just about ready, and I should follow her.  I went over, expecting to find a potter’s wheel.

Instead, I found a pair of potters sitting on the ground, kneading a mass of clay.  After going through it carefully for lumps and stones, one of them pulled off a chunk and started kneading it into the bottom of a pot.  She then rolled another lump into a long snake, and added it around the bottom, and another”¦she was building a coiled pot!

After some time she stopped and started scraping the crudely-formed sides with a curved piece of calabash gourd, turning the pot as she went, shaping it into a more graceful vessel.  Then she added more clay to make a neck and a mouth, producing a lovely ewer, as even as any pot thrown on the potter’s wheel.  I recalled the pieces in the gallery with newfound respect.  It’s amazing what people can do with just their hands”¦

They indicated that I should try, so I picked up a piece of clay and awkwardly began to imitate them.  They showed me by gestures what I should be doing, and chivalrously tried not to laugh at my awkward, misshapen pot.  Just before lunch, one of them offered to take my lopsided piece and shape it into something a little more graceful.  I gratefully took her up on her offer.

After lunch we went on a tour of the village.  The mud huts turned out to be mud compounds, with multiple families living in the same complex.  One room that struck me was a double room, with design that harkened back to the slave era.  It had a very low lintel and a high ceiling above, enabling defenders to whack invaders over the head as they ducked to enter.

It’s hard not to see the mud compounds as an expression of extreme poverty.  Granted that they’re traditional, they’re also not the best of building materials ““ I’m told several buildings collapse each rainy season (they just rebuild them) and people generally prefer to use concrete if it’s available.  Except that most people here can’t afford concrete; the area is that poor.  In the cities, concrete is fairly readily available, but trucking concrete out to the boonies would take far, far more than they can afford.  So they still live in mud-and-thatch houses.  Welcome to the 21^st century, I guess, or maybe the 19^th.

That was it for Sirigu; we returned home in a chartered taxi.

Today we went to the market in Bolga (really Bolgatanga, but everyone calls it Bolga).  Chuku started by taking me to the fugu vendors, just to look around ““ they showed me a couple of fugu, and I was thinking of buying one in my size ““ the one I bought two days ago is way too big for me.  So I eventually found a handspun, indigo-dyed blue-black one and bought it.  Then they brought me handspun, handwoven strip-fabric, a big roll about 3″ wide, and tried to sell it to me.  I said no thanks, but aha, how about some of the handspun cotton yarn used to weave it?

Well, this occasioned considerable muttering and explanation as Chuku and I tried to get across the idea of a handspindle, and spinning on a handspindle, and wanting the yarn that comes from spinning on a handspindle (something only a crazy obruni would want, I’m sure).  A hasty mix of English, Tui, and gestures followed as the fugu vendor, Chuku, and several other shopkeepers tried to figure out what I meant.

Finally, Chuku had an inspiration and asked me to bring up the photo of the handspinner on my digital camera (using the review photos function).  We passed it around, and enlightenment dawned.  The fugu vendor, whose name I never did catch, showed it to his father, who said he knew a village where they still spun yarn, and gave us directions to the village.  More discussion, then the next thing I knew I was being presented with two motorbikes, each with a driver, and Chuku and I were to ride pillion in the back.

So off we went, me trying to look nonchalant.  Or, at any rate, as nonchalant as you can with your hands clenched in a deathgrip on the back of the bike, visualizing just what your brains would look like splattered across the road.  (No helmet, of course; this is Ghana, with Ghanaian traffic: crazy.)  After going for awhile on flat pavement, suddenly the fugu-vendor slowed, went off the road, and started bouncing down a rumpled dirt road (more prayers), ending up at a mud-and-thatch complex.  We went in, and there was the chief of the village.

We spent some time talking to him, and showed him the photo of the handspinner ““ he had thought I was interested in buying reeds for weaving, but as soon as we showed him the photo he said “Oh!  They don’t do that here anymore ““ all the old women who used to do it have died, and none of the young ones wanted to learn from them ““ but I know someone in the next village over who still does it.”

So we agreed that the fugu-vendor would go and buy several bundles of yarn ““ a bundle being a bunch of yarn wrapped around a stick ““ and bring them to the hotel.

Later in the afternoon, the fugu-vendor turned up with two additional handspindles, which was not what I had asked for ““ apparently there had been some confusion ““ and wound up taking me to meet the spinner after all.  She had one bundle on hand, and said she could spin more by tomorrow evening (I leave for Kumasi on Thursday) if I wanted more.  So I said I would buy everything she (and her friends and neighbors) could spin between now and Wednesday evening.

Later, much chaffering between Chuku and the fugu-vendor, who he said was trying to cheat me.  That doesn’t surprise me much ““ obruni here are considered fair game for inflated prices, etc. ““ but it is kind of aggravating.  I generally don’t get too tied up in these things, since the amount you’re being cheated is rarely over $10, but Chuku was quite offended.  He being scrupulously honest in his dealings with foreigners, he gets particularly frustrated with people who try to cheat people under his care.  I like Chuku a lot.  If you’re ever traveling to Ghana and need a guide, let me know ““ I’ll put you in touch with him.

Finally, met with the founder of SWOPA, a women’s craft organization in Sirigu, and agreed that I would spend tomorrow doing a pottery workshop at SWOPA.  Cost is 50,000 cedis for the teaching, and 50,000 cedis for lunch for me and Chuku.  Add another 20,000 for the teacher (tips are expected in Ghana, and the size of the fee doesn’t have anything to do with the size of the tip in my observation), and I get a day of pottery workshop, plus lunch, for about $13.  Can’t beat that.

Tomorrow I will also try to get my blog entries posted ““ I tried to post them today but my Web hosting service’s database service was down.  For over six hours!  It’s a sad day when Ghanaian infrastructure works and American server farms don’t.