A trip to Agona-Swedru

Well, the downside to having the head of the Phonetics Lab double as the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the entire University is that sometimes things come up which are more important than the Phonetics Lab; especially on the first day of school! Alas, I didn't get my tour of the lab (nor did I get to meet any grad students) because of some problems organizing their freshman orientation (Fun Fact: here, "Freshmen" are called "Freshers"). But on the upside, I had a long meeting this afternoon with the Fante phonologist Dr. Emmanuel Abakah, who if I haven't mentioned before has been a great help even before we came to Ghana. He even gave me a copy of his dissertation! Another loosely related fun fact is that a lot of men here seem to have the Christian names "Emmanuel" or "Ebenezer."

Yesterday we went to Agona-Swedru, for something new to see. There weren't any tourists there, and it seems that there wouldn't be anything to attract them; we walked around awhile and bought some food but there wasn't a whole lot that made Swedru stand out as a unique Ghanaian city. To me, it seemed like a cross between Koforidua (in size and bustle) and Winneba (it's only about half an hour inland from Winneba). I'd thought about collecting data there since the Agona area is known for its interesting dialect features, but a professor here at Winneba told me that Swedru is so cosmopolitan that everyone speaks Fante, and to my novice ear, that did seem true. More than that, though, is that I find it much harder to approach people in towns where I haven't spent any time (like Anomabo) than towns where I see the same people day after day (like Winneba). Winneba is nice that way, but it's a pretty small place. We're definitely ready to get to Accra!