 |
| 4 Hours later and not yet done |
The Adventure was to be the trip to Cape Coast, the trip
that our Director has been promising to take us on since our arrival. Finally,
after 4 weeks of postponement; we were in the car and ready to leave. I fell
promptly off to sleep (something I was to regret later), and was awoken 2 hours
later as the car came to a stand still. And still in continued to stand… for
another 6 hours. I’ll not bore you with the details of the broken engine cover
incident (2 hours) or the replacing the battery process (2 hours) or the
engine-starter-issue (3 hours, and the problem all along) or the other 5
individuals who came and went to help, and add feedback, and stand around
peering into the bonnet, as men do. I tried this out for a while as well, it
did make me feel like I was significantly contributing to the repair process
until I got sunburned, and returned to my musings in the shade of the vehicle
interior. As you’ve probably already got the point, I needn’t continue to
mention the treacherous towing journey, or how the tow-truck, too, broke down,
or how after arriving in Accra we got lost for a good 50 minutes at the wrong
tro tro station.. Cape Coast will continue to be a myth, and aspiration, a
mirage
 |
| The Obruni's and Ghanains at the wedding |
·
The Matrimony
Vul'indlela wemamgobhozi (Open
the gates, Miss Gossip)
He unyana wam (My baby boy)
Helele uyashada namhlanje (Is getting married today)
He unyana wam (My baby boy)
Helele uyashada namhlanje (Is getting married today)
Vulindlela-
by Brenda Fassie
It reminded me of my Matric Dance and I avoided putting my
dress on until the very last minute. When we were ready, three of us, in
matching fabrics we awkwardly stood around taking pictures to send to family
before walking up our road, ducking and dodging the comments from passerbys.
Although, Obruni’s in matching traditional attire were no more out of place
then those in your average shirts. The
only surprise people expressed was at my bare feet, but this I’m used to. We
arrived and looked for the people with whom we’d find camouflage.
This was a traditional Muslim Wedding. In Ghana how the
party works is that every person who gets to invite guests gets an amount of
fabric, which they offer out, an invitation. Therefore, every group of people
at the wedding is identified. The groom’s mother’s guests were extensive in
number, 30,40 women decorated in greens and blues with competing headdresses,
each ones bigger than the next. The groom’s friends, all young and beautiful
men in flowing jalabiyas with shiny brown head coverings. We, along with my
colleague who invited us, and all his equally extravagant gay friends were
adorned in pinks and greens and sat with the friends of the bride’s mother. The
wedding was massive, it took place in a square in town that I think usually
funtions as a trade and transport centre, and inbetween the wedding happenings,
the usual hawkers with plantain-chips on their heads walked by. The bride sits
at one side and the groom at the other and then they are together to walk from
the one side to the other, whilst all around them their adoring guests gather
with iphones, and cameras and kisses and children to see the beautiful couple.
And they were completely gorgeous. And if I thought the guests looked
extravagant, the couple looked even more so, 10 times. For each of their walks
they change into another amazing outfit, the number depending on their wealth.
I reckon these guys were pretty wealthy because we’d left the wedding before
they’d gotten close to their tenth. On my side however, it was a little
disastrous. I ended up eating a whole load ’a meat hidden in my rice, when I
returned to the table after a pee-break and found my housemates having eaten
the plates with the plain rice… (This isn’t the first time here that I’ve
carnivored it up, and each mishap results in 3 days of sickness). Also, my
dress ripped a little when tripping over an elaborate woman on my way to the
table, but sitting cautiously and draping my scarf casualty over my shoulder
ensured that not too many people saw my ass. That is, until I got into the tro
tro, at which point it proceeded to rip from the slit under the butt, all the
way to the clasp at my back. That’s right, Fully. I covered myself in scarf,
and missi
oned home, but it was the most uncomfortable I’ve been in my life.
Obviously. My roommates didn’t seem to care either, or allow me to stop to buy
cloth of some sort.
Looking good comes at a price, dahlin’.
·
The Power
We got off work nice an early because the power was off for the first few days of
the week. It was great. Finally got a bit of time to sit, and do nothing, and
BE, at home.
 |
| This is Sowah Unity Rasta. On the way home from some Live Regae |
·
The Asylum
On the only day that I did real work in the office, I interviewed
my client, the Liberian Refugee again. On my previous trip on his behalf (to
the Refugee Board) I had learned of the holes in his application, how he had
had not appealed his rejection of Refugee Status application, how he had not
shown up to the interviews, how he had taken years before trying the processes.
I was ready to meet a fellow who didn’t put enough effort into his appeal for
Refugee Status in Ghana; however this was not the case. All the gaps turned out
to be from lack of information, no way of knowing the procedures. It infuriates
me how much people can screw with those without any status.
·
The Education
The last 2 days of the week were spent in the conference
hall of the Coconut Grove Hotel, for a conference on the role of Community
Organisations (NGO’s) in Education. That’s right, two days. It took a lot of
time, me and my South African were by far the youngest people there. I learned
a lot about NGO’s as a whole, but as Education is something I know very little
about, the rest I struggled to remain focused in. However, despite my lack of
knowledge, I noticed that I was no further behind any of the older folks in
Group Discussions or Partner Discussions. I think I was just lucky enough to be
in the weaker groups, but I was a little disappointed by the innovativeness (or
lack thereof) in ideas there. But I was impressed with the power that NGO’s
seem to have as a whole body. The theme of the day was how the government NEEDS
the NGO’s in order to do their work properly, interesting perspective, and
would be very inspirational, if I hadn’t been falling asleep..
·
The Additions
We are one house-mate
down, and 2 new additions. My Canadian homo bilingual law student, who was my
favourite person with whom to have late night conversations and vent-sessions
has departed for his own adventures. But we now have one more girl (I struggle
to remember the time when it was just me and 3 burly men) who is an 18year old
(the youngest in the house) Californian-Canadian, who reminds me of the
Berkeley-ites of my past, with peroxide blond hair, a tattoo on her chest, and
a face piercing. She’s cute and quite but also seems to have a big soul. The
other morning, to my surprise I was awoken by a phone call to ‘Open the Gate!’.
A new gay boy (what is it with Ghana, the homophobic Christian state and all
these Western homo boys??). He’s of Japanese origins, but attends Brown University.
This Sunday was the first day since my arrival where we
breached the conversation topic on Love Life
Bebesithi
angeke ashade vul'indlela -- People said he would never get married but open
the gates
Its crazy
how after spending a month with some of these people we had all avoided the
topic entirely. I enjoyed the one on one
interrogations but when it resulted in the usual debates about open
relationships and human social programing, or long distances and the effectiveness
thereof I floated in and out. We drank a lot of sweet box wine, and ate pasta
which the New Yorkan Social Justice housemate cooked. It was interesting to
learn of the rural Ohio doctor boy’s past loveless relationships, how the first
person who said “I love you” to him was a man we’d met on the side of the road,
who wanted money to buy ice cream. And of Brown, the Japanese kid who spoke for
hours on what love feels like, even though we’d only met him two days ago. But
I suppose, adventures bond people in amazing ways.
 |
| The 6 Headed Palm Tree |
No comments:
Post a Comment