Travel in Ghana

Welcome Message

2006-05-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Travel in Ghana blog!

This is the travel journal of Jefferson Shirley and Lauren Hall-Lew for the Summer of 2005. It chronicles our 9 weeks traveling through Ghana. We returned to the U.S. in September 2005, and we are no longer updating this blog. But please feel free to read our posts, and to leave us comments, or to send us email (kodwos@gmail.com). We'd appreciate getting in touch with you.

M'daase!

Leaving Accra, Stumbling through Ireland, & Going Home

2005-09-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

Our last two days in Accra were spent with family. The images in my head are of packing and unpacking and packing again, of sitting in Jefferson’s uncle’s living room watching TV and listening to his sister and their younger female cousins laughing about everything, and of driving around town on various errands with Jefferson’s cousin, K, at the wheel. I took note of one particularly clever sign that we passed by at some point; it was a mobile phone store by the name of “Frank-‘O’-Phone.” Cute.

The 8 days that followed were like one long journey home, decorated strangely with a colorful youth hostel in Dublin and a double-decker bus tour in Belfast, among other Irish things. Mostly, I remember being tired, being at lots of airports and lots of planes, and wanting to go home. It’s confusing to re-enter Western culture in a country where everyone drives on the wrong side of the road. But at least Irish folks have really cool accents.

My coming home welcome was a head-cold. This was not surprising, but it undermined all my “as-soon-as-I-get-home-I’ll…” plans. The good news was that Geordi remembered us, and has even matured over the summer, now (almost) letting us sleep through the night (jet-lag is a different story). And I see my town, my apartment, and my life with new eyes. Which, I suppose, is the point of travel.

The streets seem unnecessarily wide. The sidewalks seem empty. Everyone’s clothing seems flat and inexpressive. I don’t know how to describe it, but people’s eyes seem to look inward, like their vision stops about two feet in front of their noses (e.g., at their laptops). I’m not saying that Ghanaians are always staring off into the distance, but that there’s a sense that their regular field of vision covers a wider space. A space beyond themselves; a more communal space. Or, maybe I’m just surprised that people don’t stare at me all the time anymore.

As I type this I’m at the local café that we always go to, drinking the coffee I always get, sitting at the table we always sit at. Doing the things I missed about home. At the same time, I already miss Ghana, and I’m looking forward to going back. Travel reminds us of life’s balance, enjoying where you’re at, dreaming of where you could be.

Twins, Ofori, and Pictures

2005-09-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

We are back home in Mountain View, California; jet-lagged, but preparing to get back into the swing of life here.

I want to touch on some wrapping up issues, that resulted from comments made on the blog and email i received over the past couple of months.

The Twins Post

First, the twins post. For those of you who asked, I am both people in the picture (if you notice, both of me is wearing the same pair of shorts). It came about on an evening when Lauren was doing work, and out of boredom, I started playing with my camera. We thought it was so cool, that a few days later this picture was taken:

Ofori Amponsah

A couple people asked me what this song was that was so popular in Ghana over the summer. In our last few days in Accra, I spoke to a few CD vendors and learned that the singer was Ofori Amponsah and the song was Otoolege. No one seemed to have the CD for sale, so I ended up getting it online.

If you want to see the music video, go here. (The connection may not be the best).

Finally, our pictures

We spent much of this past weekend posting pictures from our trip (we have about 150 of our over 400 Ghana photos posted). Here are the Ghana pictures and here are the Ireland pictures. If you have any problems viewing these, email me at kodwos@gmail.com.

Leaving Ghana

2005-08-31T15:30:00.000-07:00

I would like to begin by thanking all of you for reading what we have had to say. It means a lot to me to know that people out there have taken time of their day to read our (sometimes rambling) thoughts on Ghana.

I want my last post to be about my Africaness, and not necessarily about anything from this trip. My blood, my face, and my name are part African, and I've always (even when I've heard degrading comments about the continent) been very proud of that.

My Blood

I have more family in Ghana than anywhere in the world. I probably have more family in Koforidua than anywhere in the world. I met relatives on this trip who I didn't know I had, and whose names I won't remember. In Ghana, every relative becomes your brother, or sister. It's kind of cool (except when they remember me, but I have no idea who they are).

I also recently learned that I probably have "brothers" and "sisters" in Winneba and Anomabu (although I didn't meet any of them). Having blood-roots is a cool thing; having blood roots all over southern Ghana is even cooler.

My Face

I've always thought I looked more like my mother than my father, so it surprised me the number of times people said I looked like my father (someone even mentioned how my toes look like my father's, because they point up). I found myself looking at a picture of myself and saying "I kind of look like my dad in this picture".

It has been hard to convince people here that I am African. I've had people tell me I was lying, after I told them I was born in Nigeria (why would anyone lie about being born in Nigeria - some Nigerians don't admit to being Nigerian).

I still think I look more like my mother than my father, and I know I have Africa in my face.

My Name

"Kodwo-Kodwo". This is a common greeting from my older sister. Growing up in Nigeria, everyone called me by my middle name, Kodwo (pronounced sort of like kuudjo). On my very first day of school, we were asked to write our names, and I wrote "Kodwo". The teacher got mad at me for not writing Jefferson (which I don't think I even knew how to spell at the time).

I still feel more like a Kodwo than a Jefferson (or a Jeff). Jefferson has always felt like a title to me, more than a name. I use Kodwo in everything (several email addresses and my license plate come to mind). I would go by Kodwo more, but I find that almost no one I've met in the U.S. can pronounce it to my satisfaction.

I've enjoyed going through this trip, responding to the question "what is your name?" with the answer "Kodwo".

Final Thoughts

I realize this is the 11th time I have "left" Africa. We came to the U.S. every other year in my childhood, and I've been back to Africa several times since moving out of Nigeria.

Leaving Africa is difficult, because on one hand I feel like this is home, but on the other, I feel like this is not where I belong anymore. Even though I leave Africa, I never really leave Africa.

I would like to end my post with a quote by Ken Wiwa. The quote is from a wonderful book, In the Shadow of a Saint (it's on our bookshelf, if anyone wants to read it) about his father, Ken-Saro Wiwa, who was a Nigerian political dissident, executed in 1995. I think this quote helps describes how I feel about leaving, and how I feel about my Africaness.

"I can never leave Africa. It is in my blood, in my face, in my name."

Accra, Take II

2005-08-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning we're meeting Affie and going to Mr. Ayisi (Jefferson's uncle)'s house, to get our things together and get ready for the trip to Ireland (and home). So, although we don't leave until Wednesday evening, today was effectively our last day on our own in Ghana.

We've had a busy time since arriving in Accra, which you might have guessed from the lack of blogposts (despite the extraordinarily good internet access). On Wednesday we arrived in the afternoon and checked into what our guidebook said was a "clean, little guesthouse" but what turned out to be a dark, dingy, sketchy place with a toilet tank that leaked and flooded the floor (what little floor there was). There were also more mosquitoes than we've yet encountered in Ghana. Wednesday was therefore spent trying to find another hotel, which we went to first thing Thursday morning. This one cost us more than twice as much as the first, but was only marginally better (the toilet didn't leak). We stayed there until Sunday, when we moved to our present location - a wonderful, spacious hotel room (clean!) with A/C and a TV, costing less than the previous place! This one's not in the guidebook, so we're going to write the author. And that's been the tiresome adventure of hunting for affordable hotels in Accra.

Accra is not pretty. The buildings, the streets, the trees and plants... they all seem to be hiding behind a layer of smog and dirt and blinding sun (the air turned a subtle grey/beige). It was a rude awakening from our quaint and quiet Winneba. But Accra has some charm, and I'm starting to see it and even enjoy it. One thing is taking the public transportation. I remember thinking when I first arrived that Accra should have a subway system, but that was because we were only taking expensive taxis and we hadn't really learned the tro-tro system. I actually think it's fun to go to the tro-tro stops (and to know where they are!) and to listen to the tro-tro's destinations as they're yelled out by the 'conductor' (and to recognize what they're saying!) and to squeeze in with all the other people and to arrive at our destination having paid only 1,000 cedis each (11.5 US cents). It's fun in that satisfying way that solving a tricky math puzzle is fun, except you end up breathing a little more engine exhaust.

Some other things we've done this week: gone back to Legon and done more research, had lunch with the well-known Professor Kwesi Yankah (top specialist in Fante ethnography), and gone shopping and shopping and shopping (and walking and walking to get there). The highlight - who'd have guessed?? - was getting a full-body massage at the local "Beijing Clinic" (just me, not Jefferson). The masseuse wasn't Chinese but a hefty Ghanaian woman. It was by far a better massage than the one I got in Lijiang, China (my friends who were there remember my tears from that one)! And the masseuse did most of the massage with only one hand, sometimes while the other hand held her active cell phone. I swear the massage wasn't compromised one bit.

Finally, The Story of the T-shirt (it's kinda long and self-indulgent, really).

I have this plain-looking T-shirt that I bought a couple of years ago in San Francisco Chinatown. I had two of these shirts (they were pretty cheap, so I bought one as a future gift for someone). I never knew who to give it to, so I brought both of them to Ghana, planning to give both. I gave one to this guy who's staying at Affie's house in Koforidua, to thank him for fixing the zipper on Jefferson's old backpack and for fixing the zipper on my pair of jeans. So then I was left with the second, identical, shirt. I kept thinking that I'd meet someone along the way who I'd end up being friends with or who I'd end up working on my linguistics project with, and that I'd give them the shirt. But it never really happened, for one reason or another (I brought lots of other gifts, which I think are nicer or smaller, and so I gave all of those away first). So we came to Accra and I thought I'd just give the shirt to someone who looked like they really needed it. But there's something odd about just walking up to someone you don't know at all and giving them a shirt, right?

So. Today being our last day in Accra I took the shirt in my backpack when we went out. We'd been out most of the day and it was about 4:30pm and we were heading back to the hotel. We were walking through a busy intersection where yesterday two young 'white' boys (Iranian? Iraqi?) had followed us, begging and taking me by the elbow in such a way that they felt more like little nephews than kids who were begging. We didn't give them anything, though. Today as we were approaching the intersection I saw a taller, skinny girl, older than the boys (probably their sister), standing and begging. She didn't speak any English or Twi (and my Arabic is limited to three or four phrases), so I took out the shirt and pointed and it and pointed at her and gestured in a "What-do-you-think?" kind of way. Now you may have your own judgments about what and how to give and not to give to people who beg on street corners, but I have to tell you that this girl's smile completely lit up my little part of Accra and utterly made my day.

Time to leave on Ghana. Jefferson's blog does a much better job of wrapping up our trip than I could. It's been fun, yet frustrating; an escape, yet a constant challenge; and lengthy, yet over too soon. I think I'm a bit too absorbed in packing, etc., to really reflect. You can also expect at least one post after we get back to the US, as well as an announcement of our online Ghana photos page. So, stay tuned!

Bolgatanga

2005-08-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

So the trip is coming to an end (at least the Ghana portion of the trip).

This is the longest amount of time that I have spent in Ghana, as far as I can remember, and I think I have learned a lot. I also have things to look forward to in future trips.

What have I learned? I've learned the touristy things, like taking pictures without looking in the direction of the subject of the photo. I've learned that if people act like they are an authority figure (by saying things like pictures are not allowed in very public places), they probably have no authority whatsoever.

I've also learned some things about myself. My ability to understand Twi (and to an extent Fante) is greater than I thought. I found myself overhearing conversations in taxis and tro-tros all the time. My ability to speak the language is also greater than I thought (although I still find myself not speaking as much as I could). I was proud of myself for going through two sales transactions, in Winneba, without using any English, except the word "juice". That was pretty cool.

I could also say I've learned that people everywhere are similar, and all that cheesy stuff, but no one cares about that.

Being that I have more family in Ghana than any other place in the world, I will be back again (I'm hoping for a summer 2007 trip). When I do come back I want to do things slightly differently.

I don't want to spend much time in Accra in the future. Accra is a good tourist's city, not because there is a lot to see, but because most people speak English, and you see non-Ghanaians everywhere. Accra is "safe". By "safe", I mean that you can get by being just a regular American. I don't like that; there is something to be said about being the only foreigner around, and having to struggle through language barriers to do something as simple as buy juice.

Another thing I want to do is go North. On this trip, we spent all of our time in the southern third of Ghana. As someone who spent his first 12 years of life in Northern Nigeria, I would like to see what Northern Ghana is like. Bolgatanga is a city so far North, it's almost in Burkina Faso. I like to call Bolgatanga, Ghanatopia, my mythical fantasy that will bring me back to Ghana (that, and of course, my family). I have no idea what's in Bolgatanga (if anything), but I just like saying it; Bolgatanga, Bolgatanga, Bolgatanga!!!

Accra and the Handsnapshake

2005-08-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

Accra doesn't seem so great this second time around. It just seems like a big city with not a lot of character. I don't feel like it's defined the way Winneba (the fishing city), or Cape Coast (the fishing and slave castle city), or even Kumasi (the cosmopolitan city) are. It's just this big, exhaust filled, city. It's funny, because I didn't feel that way when we were here 7-8 weeks ago. After seeing the other cities of Southern Ghana, Accra is somewhat of a letdown.

So we were walking tonight, and there was a guy dancing in the street. Really dancing. His whole body was moving, and everyone was watching him. He wasn't crazy (he looked like a clean cut guy, in a shirt and tie, on his way home from work). He was dancing to a song that I think I've heard at least once a day on this trip (some days, it's 3-4 times). I really want to find the CD this song is on, because this song, to me, is Ghana in the summer of 2005. Not because the lyrics are meaningful (they probably have about as much meaning as I Want it That Way by the Backstreet Boys - if anyone can explain to me what that song is about, I'd love to know), but it's just everywhere. It's Ghana in the summer of 2005.

I remember being in Ghana in 1997. There was this handshake that I got for the first time, in Ghana, and I thought it was odd. At the very end of the handshake, as your palms are sliding apart, you squeeze each other's middle finger with your thumb, and the handshake ends with a snap of your (and their) fingers.

Until this trip, I thought people were shaking hands that way to be cool. That's not the case (or maybe everyone in Ghana is trying to be cool). Today, I met a professor at The University of Ghana, Legon, and he did the shake. It struck me as odd that a distinguished professor would do a "cool hipster" kind of handshake. It's interesting that something I find odd is so commonplace in all of Ghana. That's what's so great about culture.

Our Posts from Winneba

2005-08-24T14:27:00.000-07:00

What follows are a series of blogs that we wrote while in Winneba. Our email service was, as predicted, pretty atrocious, and so we blogged on Jefferson's computer and are posting these blogs now, in Accra, back-dated and time stamped to when we wrote them. Nerdy, yes, but it's better than one big blog post! Now we're in Accra, and once you get through reading a week's worth of two people's blogposts, stay tuned for more exciting adventures!

G'bye, Winneba!

2005-08-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

Our last day in Winneba was a pretty productive one! Among other things I decided to visit the Phonetics Lab anyway, without the Professor, and I ended up meeting three phonetics graduate students who were all working on vowel analyses of their own languages (Ewe and two others I'm not familiar with). There's something very cool about being able to meet people and instantly 'talk shop' with them. It seems that no matter where I go, phonetics grad students will always be my kin! When I left we all exchanged email addresses. By far, the biggest perk about studying Akan in Ghana rather than in the U.S. is my happily expanding number of personal/professional connections.

So today I said goodbye to the few 'friends' I've made here, or at least the people that we see regularly and exchange greetings with. We took a long walk around town and I took a bunch of new pictures of quiet fishing boats and boys playing soccer at the beach. Today's Tuesday, so (as you know if you've been reading this blog) the boats were quietly anchored today, giving the town a different feel seaside.

Tomorrow we go to Accra, which will be a really short trip, if all goes well. I'm hoping to even visit the University at Legon tomorrow, if we have time, to try to get in contact with another two phonology professors before we leave Ghana (in one week)! I'm also seriously looking forward to going to the used bookstore where I know they sell The Cider House Rules, so I can finally finish the last 100+ pages of that novel (it's such an awesome book, the one month hiatus is driving me crazy... see my earlier Koforidua blogs if you don't know what I'm talking about). And finally, it's time to do some serious gift shopping! I've been waiting until Accra to buy most things, unless they were at a great price or seemed unique to the area, just to keep our luggage light. But the coming week is going to be all about Kaneshie Market. This is your last chance to put in gift requests. :-)

By the way, if you've just read Jefferson's post from today, he makes reference to liking Ghanaian TV commercials. My favorite so far is the one for "Angel's Herbal Mixture" which in the Ghanaian accent sounds to my American ear like "Angel's Hairball Mixture". Yum!

The Gecko, the Spartan, and the TV watchman

2005-08-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

We have had a gecko in our shower for the past few days (and no, it does not work for Geico). We think it's stuck, and can't figure out how to get out. I gave it some bread today (I don't want it to die of starvation), but a crumb hit it, and it scampered off into another corner of the shower.

I ran into a guy wearing a Michigan State T-shirt yesterday (for those of you who don't know, I went to MSU). I had mentioned earlier in the trip that if I saw someone wearing a MSU shirt, I would take a picture with them. I was so thrown by seeing the shirt that I forgot about the picture. I don't think he really got that I went to Michigan State (I don't even know if he figured out that Michigan State is a university), because he just seemed so happy to interact with the foreigner with the "rasta" hair. We ran into him again today and he said "Rasta, I love you". I don't really know what to say to that - "thanks?"

I got caught up in a Ghanaian TV movie (Divine Love) the other night. Ghanaian TV production has a long way to go. The sound was awful (you could hear almost nothing that was said when people were outside), and the acting was not definitely not Oscar-worthy. The story was nothing spectacular either, as things happened way too quickly, and what we thought was a big turning point in the movie was never even seen by the audience. There were two characters that were supposed to be American. Both of them were about my skin tone, and neither had an American sounding accent, but some kind of mixture of West African English and some non-West African kind of English. I told Lauren that I should get a job as an actor on Ghanaian productions, and could be trotted out anytime they want an American. Even though I bashed the movie, I was still suckered into watching it for 2 hours on a Sunday evening. I also have grown to like some of the commercials, singing the jingles as we walk around town. Yes, that is what I have come to - watching Ghanaian TV, and loving it!

A trip to Agona-Swedru

2005-08-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

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!

Friends

2005-08-20T17:20:00.000-07:00

Most mornings in Winneba we wake to the distant sounds of the local police academy having their target practice. It seems that they start around 7am and go a couple hours. The first time we heard them we thought that we were hearing firecrackers, but today we took a walk along a dirt road that follows the coastline, and it brought us to the "Police Clinic" and the target practice in action. Luckily, the gunshots aren't so loud as to wake us up in the morning.

So today I collected speech data from my 23rd informant, a 14-year-old girl who first talked to me by asking: "Please, I want to be your friend." This seems to be a common phrase that people in Winneba use with Obronis, although we hadn't gotten much of it in other parts of Ghana. Interestingly, this was the most common phrase that students at Yunnan Normal University (in Kunming, China, where I spent a semester) would use with foreigners. Unfortunately, actually becoming friends with the person is a different matter. I think this same girl thought that I was a new student at the university here, and seemed disappointed to hear that I was leaving on Wednesday. On the other hand, we sat with her at a Spot for about half an hour, and conversation wasn't exactly easy. I guess I'm just not 14 anymore!

Celine Dion and Bread

2005-08-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

What's the deal with Celine Dion?

I have heard more Celine Dion than any person needs to listen to in one lifetime, on this trip. I'm not just talking about Titanic "near far, wherever you are" stuff. I'm talking about the entire Celine Dion catalogue. She is played on ads on TV, and at the bar that is attached to our hotel. The other day she was being played at a "spot" (a place that serves drinks and small food), and the kid working there was singing along (he was an adolescent boy), to every song. We also ran into a guy who said he was a boxer, who wanted to box in Miami, Michigan, or Arizona (don't ask me why he chose those locations). After telling me this, he asked me if I knew who Celine Dion was. I said I did, and he seemed pleased to hear that.

Ghanaian Bread is the Bestest

The white bread in Ghana is far superior to any white bread I've had in the United States. It's almost always locally produced (my aunt runs a bakery out of my mom's house in Koforidua), and tastes awesome. The only bread I can think of that even comes remotely close to Ghanaian bread is Shepard's Bread, from Trader Joe's (yes, I'm plugging Trader Joe's on this blog).

Ghanaian white bread comes in two varieties: sweet bread and tea bread (not-so-sweet bread). I've always been a sweet bread man, myself. Anyone who knows of my baking, knows I have a sweet tooth (if you don't know this, you have never tasted my banana, pumpkin, strawberry, or banana chocolate breads). Today, however, I tasted the best tea bread I've ever tasted (sorry, Aunt Esther, but this stuff is better than yours). It might be the best thing about Winneba!

Am I a tourist or not?

2005-08-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

I don't feel like a tourist, but I also don't feel like I live here. We're in that in between.

If we had stayed 9 weeks in one place, I would feel like I was a part of the community, but with a week here, a couple of weeks there, I don't feel that. I also don't feel like a tourist, and get tired of people telling me how to get a taxi, that Ghana has mosquitoes, and have I tried fufu (the next time someone younger than me asks if I've tried fufu, I'm going to ask them how old they are and respond by saying I've been eating fufu longer than they have been alive). I realize that people who tell us these things are just trying to be nice, but it does get tiring. The longer the trip goes, the more I wish I looked more Ghanaian, because then I might not get as much of this sort of thing.

There are things in Ghana I like doing, that I don't like doing at home. I've grown to really like taking bucket baths. We have a working shower in this hotel, but I find myself not using it. Bucket baths remind me of my childhood in Nigeria. I don't remember taking showers in Nigeria.

I also (unbelievably) like washing my clothes by hand. I wash every other evening (Lauren washes her stuff on my off days). I wouldn't want to wash a week's worth of laundry every seven days, but washing two days worth of stuff is (almost) a relaxing end-of-the-day activity. I had to break out my "third shirt" today. For the past several weeks, I've been able to get by with just two shirts. Due to my every-other-evening washings, and because things dried so fast in Cape Coast, I was able to wash two shirts in the evening, and wear one of them the next morning. Alas, that is not the case in Winneba, and today I had to wear something different (I should mention that I do have more than three shirts on this trip), but these three were pegged as shirts I didn't want anymore (although I've grown to really like one of them) and could give away to someone needy, when we left Ghana.

Linguistic things and Boat-watching

2005-08-17T21:25:00.000-07:00

(Linguists: read Jefferson's blog first.) So how do these kids get "kaawuu" from "How are you?" That's a fun one for y'all linguisticky types. In addition to the /ka:wu:/ or /ka:lu:/ pronunciation, keep in mind that the final /u:/ is nasalized. (This could be a fun job, finding the explanation for certain English L2 pronunciations by young Fante L1 speakers whose only overt competence in English consists of the sentences (1) How are you, (2) I'm fine, (3) What is your name, and (4) My name is so-and-so.) In any case, the amplitude of the children's vocalizations is so extremely loud and overlapping that collecting good acoustic data is out of the question!

There's another little linguistic thing that I've been meaning to write about: in Ghanaian English, the verb "to back" comes from the noun that refers to that part of the human body... and the only object that this verb takes is "a baby." So the sentence "Ama is backing Kofi" means that Kofi is a baby or toddler and Ama is a person old enough to carry him on her back, which she's doing. It seems that anyone can back a baby as long as they themselves are proficient at walking; we've seen kids as young as 6 or 7 backing their little siblings. The cutest thing EVER is to see a little toddler backing his or her teddy bear.

Today was a neat day! Despite the craziness of the fishing/market area, we were able to step a little bit off the road and hang out near the beach, watching the boats coming in and going out to sea. We haven't before seen so many of them in action at one time, up close. I didn't realize until today that these magnificently rustic wooden boats, which are carved mainly out of one huge tree trunk, are powered by your everyday boat motor. This makes a lot of sense; those Gulf of Guinea waves are something else! We also saw sailboats in the distance, but we haven't yet seen any up close. They look really small, so if they're for fishing then they're probably independent ventures, whereas these big tree trunk boats hold 5 or 6 fishermen comfortably. Apparently watching the fishermen do there thing is a tourist activity that's not limited to foreigners; the whole time we were there we were near a small group of Ghanaian men wearing dress shirts and slacks and carrying plastic expandable folders, pointing at the various boats doing various things and having an animated conversation. Inlanders, I suppose!

In Winneba

2005-08-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

We are in Winneba. This is our 2nd to last stop in Ghana (we have to go back to Accra to fly out of the country). Apparently, my grandfather was from Winneba - I found that out on Sunday, from my mother. I feel like I know very little about my Ghanaian roots.

We went to the fishing harbor today. There were pigs on the beach (but they were not in blankets - bad joke, I know, but my dad will appreciate it, if no one else does). Seeing pigs on a beach is just odd. The harbor area was so packed. People everywhere, and kids screaming "obroni, kaawuu?" This is some mangled version of "Obroni, how are you?" It just goes to show how few tourists come here - the kids don't even know the right way to harass us!

We have not been harassed by adults much, since we got to Winneba. I don't know if this means they don't know what to say to tourists (because they never see them), or they just don't care. I hope they just don't care. This is very different from Cape Coast, where I could not get through a meal at a particular restaurant without someone coming up and wanting to give me a "brother"-ly hand shake. Mind you, these same people did not bother any other people, no matter their race, just the guy with the dreadlocks.

When we were in Akropong, a woman thought we were brother and sister. Today, a woman saw us and said "Twins?" Twins?!?!?! Twins?!?!?! Now I know that there are people out there who say that anybody who is of a different ethnicity looks alike, but twins? Give me a break. I've already covered the subject of twins on this blog - it's here.

We're in Winneba

2005-08-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

We got to Winneba a couple of days ago. We are here until the 24th of August.

It's a little rough to get to, as the town is off of the main road between Cape Coast and Accra. We had to tell the driver to drop us off a particular junction, and then take a taxi into town.

Winneba seems more "real". There are less tourists here, and not as many people seem to speak English. There are good and bad points about that, as you can probably imagine.

Lauren has had more success here in meeting with Professors than she did at Legon and Cape Coast. Yay!!!

We may not blog too much while we are here. The internet connection is not always reliable, and we haven't figured out if we can use our flash drive (which is where we write most of our blogs and save our pictures) in the lab here. We plan on saving our thoughts, and posting a number of blogs when we get to Accra.

Welcome to Winneba

2005-08-16T19:37:00.000-07:00

Here we are at Winneba! We're staying at a lovely hotel at the quiet south-end of the campus of the University of Education. Actually almost all of town is quiet, so that's not saying much. But compared to every other place we've stayed in Ghana, it's extremely quiet -- only the ridiculously loud frogs croak about at night, and there are some roosters too, but it's not loud enough to keep us awake.

I like Winneba a lot, probably because it's a smaller town than Cape Coast (the smallest town we've stayed in, so far). The traffic isn't bad at all, the weather is cooler and breezier, and food is much less expensive than anywhere else we've stayed. For some reason I've found it easier to talk to (some of the) people here, partially because the town seems less tourist-weary than Cape Coast, and partially because I'm getting more comfortable at it, myself.

So who would've guessed that the Pro Vice-Cancellor here is a phonetician?! A phonetician who got his Ph.D from UCLA?! I would have never discovered this, except by accident this morning. I'd gone to see a professor in the Ghanaian Languages department, but he wasn't in. I was just going to leave him a note, but his secretary offered to show me to his office just so I'd know where to meet him, later. We were walking to his office and passed by a door that said "Phonetics Lab." I was surprised, because Winneba doesn't have a department of linguistics, and because the phonologist I've been in contact with never mentioned a phonetics lab (although all your linguists may chuckle at that -- no real surprise there!). So I asked the secretary who was in charge of the lab, and she mentioned a man's name and asked if I'd like to meet him, so I said yes. A minute later we were climbing 4 flights of stairs to the top floor of the administration building, and a few more minutes later I was meeting Professor Jonas N. Akpanglo-Nartey, who studied under Peter Ladefoged a couple of decades ago and who jointly opened the Winneba lab with him in 1986 (I think). He seemed just as excited to meet me as I was to meet him, and promised to show me the lab and introduce me to the graduate students who use it, including three who just finished their theses! Our appointment is for Monday, and I'm really excited for it.

The Little Stuff

2005-08-14T11:15:00.000-07:00

Correspondence with my dear friend Sarah, who has just returned from a summer of language study in Cairo, has reminded me what it's like to hear about a far-away place second-hand, and it's prompted me to blog. The little things of daily life so quickly become commonplace that you forget that someone, back home, might find them interesting! In addition, this might be our last chance for a couple of weeks to post, since we don't know what the internet situation is like in Winneba (the phonology professor there, who I've been in contact with, says "the email facility here is unreliable beyond belief").

For one, there's the street food. Food is perhaps my favorite part of international travel, and street food always tops it. Here in Cape Coast we have our usual things; boiled & salted peanuts (which Jefferson is eating right at this moment, incidentally), thin & salted plantain chips, or roasted plantain with dried peanuts. The first two items are always bought from a woman with a huge metal mixing bowl on her head, carrying the items as she walks down the street (sometimes it's a child with a smaller bowl, and sometimes the seller will be sitting by the side of the road). Roasted plantain is bought off the grill (it's so hot!). In addition, I've basically given up vegetarianism for the trip (someone who adores trying new international food has to do this, I think!) and I often get a "meat pie" while we're out, which is something shaped like an apple turnover with a thick buttery crust and some ground meat (I have no idea what animal!) inside. Along with meat pies are "rock buns," which are oddly named because they're basically soft, sweet muffins. I often get apples, too, small sweet green ones, and Jefferson often gets oranges. Oranges in Ghana are mostly green on the outside, orange or yellow on the inside. They're purchased skinned so that just the white part contains the flesh, and the default way you'll be given it is with the top quarter cut off, so you sit right there and suck all the juice out the top. Finally, everywhere you can find young men ready to open a fresh coconut for you to drink the milk and eat the flesh, although I've learning that I (sadly!) prefer processed coconut milk and flesh to the real thing!

Second, there's the taxi system. You can either catch a taxi for "dropping," where the taxi takes you exactly where you want to go and you pay a ridiculous amount, or you can catch a shared taxi, where you just hop in if there's room and get off somewhere along the driver's route. The latter costs about 1/10 of what "dropping" costs. We've been taking shared taxis almost exclusively in Cape Coast since we've arrived; learning the routes and prices is one big advantage to staying in one place for awhile. And it's perfectly comfortable, most of the time. Usually there's three people in the backseat and one person in the bucket seat, but occasionally the driver will try to squeeze out an extra 1,000 cedis (about 11 cents) and put two people in the front bucket seat! Usually you're only going a kilometer or two so it's not too bad, but I did it once and (after basically squishing the little old woman I was next to) don't ever want to do that again.

If you go longer distances than taxi routes, or when a certain route is really popular, the best mode of transport is a tro-tro, or mini-bus (we've mentioned these earlier without description, I think). When we go to the University of Cape Coast campus we take one of these to get from the administration building (nearish to our guesthouse) to the Colleges of Arts and Sciences (a few kilometers away). It's basically a boxy bus that holds 11 passengers: 2 in the front seat, 2 in each of the two middle seats, and 3 in the back, plus one each on the fold-out seats at the end of the two middle seats. The guy who collects the money either sits in the fold-out chair next to the first middle row, or he half-stands with his bad to the front seat. (It can get over-crowded sometimes, so that the money-collector is just squished in a standing/crouching position.) The main thing about a tro-tro is that it never leaves until it is completely filled. At UCC this isn't a problem, we always leave right away, but when we were going to Kakum National Park we had to wait about 45 minutes before enough people wanted to go in the direction of our route. Once you get going, there's a nice breeze through the windows and it's a pretty pleasant trip, although the seats are sometimes pretty thin and you have a metal bar as your cushion the whole way. The main plus of tro-tros is that the fare is comparable and usually cheaper than a shared taxi.

This is getting lengthy, so I'll stop for now. Today's an interesting day because it just so happens that we're in town when the President is here, today, visiting and making a speech in a public venue! (A little comment on it is here: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=87681) We also might go to a live football game, if we're not too tired by the late afternoon. Anyway, the trip is going well, although we're both ready to leave Cape Coast and see what Winneba is all about!

Leaving Cape Coast and Health

2005-08-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

Last few days in Cape Coast

We are wrapping up our last few days in Cape Coast. As much as I like the city, it's time to go. As a visitor here, there is only so much you can do here before you feel the need to leave.

We are going to be heading to Winneba on Monday. It's a small city (I hope they have at least one decent internet connection) on the coast between Cape Coast and Accra. I have boxed it in on the map below.

I've been to Winneba two times before (I think). I have two memories of the town. We were there because my father was doing some work with the University in the town. The first is the goat they prepared for us (I think this was in 1997 - before I was a vegetarian). They gave us a big lunch and I refused to eat the meat, because I thought it was goat. Everyone said it wasn't, but I didn't buy it. I had goat as a kid once, and hated it. I haven't eaten goat since that one time.

My other memory was my sister, uncle, and I, going to the ocean. Emily wanted to get in the water, but my uncle (at least I think it was my uncle with us) begged her not to go in the water, because it was a Tuesday. I thought "huh? because it's Tuesday???" Fishermen are superstitious, and for some reason, they do not go into the ocean on Tuesdays. It's bad luck. You will die if you go in on Tuesday, just like you will die if you swim less than an hour after eating (that's not true by the way, I saw a thing of TV - and I believe everything I see on TV). It's also kind of cool, because this past Tuesday we went to Elmina Castle, and you could see all the boats (there must have been at least 100) on the beach, or docked up. You don't see customs/traditions like that in the U.S. anymore. It's too bad.

My body on this trip.

I wonder if this trip is good, or bad, for me, physically.

I've had a problem with my right ear on this trip. I've never had ear problems before, so I'm not sure what is wrong with my ear. I may have damaged the cartilage, by using earplugs. It's odd to think that earplugs would damage cartilage, being that I have been hit in the ears by soccer balls going at high speeds many times, without injury. The problem might not be from earplugs, but something else. I don't know. It's just on the inside of my ear, and feels like a physical injury, more than anything else.

The other day, my left knee was slightly out of line. I don't know how that happened (probably from the bed we have in this hotel - it's one of the hardest beds I've ever slept on, so much so that any time any part of my body is under any other part of my body, I cut off circulation, and end up with numb arms and legs).

Other than that, I've been pretty healthy. I've had only one migraine so far (less often than I get them at home). I'm also probably developing back muscle, by carrying my backpack everywhere we go. I know I'm working my legs, as we must walk a minimum of 2 miles everyday. There were a couple of days, when we first got to Cape Coast, where I think we may have walked 10 miles! (We now take the taxi into Cape Coast, instead of walking the 2-3 mile trip each way.)

Slave Castles & other thoughts

2005-08-10T15:30:00.000-07:00

The more dogs and goats I see, the more I wonder if it's possible for them to crossbreed. Really, the more I see of these creatures the more it seems that the only difference between one and the other is that one has paws and the other has hooves and horns! If anyone knows if crossbreeding is possible, please let me know!

On a more serious topic, we've seen two slave castles this week: Cape Coast Castle on Sunday and Elmina Castle on Tuesday. The tour at the latter was much better, but it's sobering to see either one, and they're different in structure and size and up-keep, so I'm glad we went to both (Jefferson had been to Elmina twice before, but never to the Cape Coast castle). Visiting each was a very emotional experience, one that's hard to really confront as you're quickly being led from one room to another by a chatty tour guide. What got to me the most were the descriptions of the women's dungeons, and the graphic reasons why so many more women than men died before making it onto the transatlantic ships. The tour guide at Elmina was shockingly clear about these details, and I left feeling like there's no amount of modern-day grieving that could possibly match the suffering of those millions of women. Interestingly, the only life that lives in the Elmina castle today is of a very awesome sort: Bats! One of the former female dungeons is now home to a colony of bats. (See photo, below.)

My work progresses slowly and steadily. Learning Fante well is not going to happen on this trip, that's clear. But getting the data for a phonology paper, well, I hope so! For one, I bought a cheap ($3.33!) portable radio to record call-in talk shows, which are fun to listen to and potential data. And for the most part, the people I approach on the street have been very helpful, when I'm brave enough to actually approach them. The professors at the University of Cape Coast, on the other hand, have been sadly absent (I had two appointments this week that were both no-shows). Another problem is that a couple people have gotten a little too excited about teaching me Fante (which is how my questions are always interpreted, regardless of how much detail I go into about my research). By "too" excited I mean that they either want to follow us around for half the day and establish a friendship strong enough to that we'll send money from the U.S., or worse, want to just sit and talk for hours on end and practice using Fante in little elementary "scenarios" that I actually already know well (e.g., at the store, getting a taxi, meeting someone, etc.). I'm getting quite tired of practicing this basic "How are you?" again and again.

Taking the tedious situation further, a man who was engaged in this language-learning role-play with me yesterday somehow brought up the topic of politics, and as soon as I said one critical word about how the U.S. doesn't give enough money to African nations, he shut me up. Like a few other middle-aged Ghanaian men I've met, he apparently adores George W. Bush. Adamantly! Another fellow I met showed me his pirated CD: "The World According to George Bush" which he said he loved to listen to, because he so much enjoyed "listening to that man talk." Okay, so there are a few things about Ghanaian culture that I find hard to swallow.

To end on a positive note, there are many things about Ghana that are absolutely beautiful. Here is one of my favorite pictures so far (besides the one from Akaa river). I took it on Tuesday as we were walking around the Elmina streets. In front of this vibrant pink house you'll see a little bundle on the ground; it's a baby, taking a nap underneath a small kente cloth. To the left is a tiny baby goat (or goat-dog!) which was circling the baby and sniffing it gently as we watched. No shouting children, no hissing salespeople - these street moments are the best.

The "After Hi" and some pictures

2005-08-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

I have not felt much need to blog as of late. I guess I'm just getting used to having internet access on a more regular basis. When I buy an hour of time, I run out of stuff to do after 26-37 minutes (and do things like look at the Michigan State University football schedule). I rarely blog back at home, mainly because I could blog anytime. Also, I want to thank those of you who have commented on our musings of Ghana (both on the blog and via email). It's nice to know that people are reading what we say (an occasionally enjoying it).

I really like Cape Coast. I don't really know why, I just like it. The hissing and callings from people on the street doesn't seem to bother me much anymore (I think it still bugs Lauren sometimes). I just kind of filter it out, and only talk to who I want to talk to. The other night, we were walking through the street, and a kid came up to me, flailing his arms and saying "Obroni". I returned the arm flailing, along with a boogy man sort of face and said "arrrgh" really loudly. It threw him off. He made the noise back to me a few seconds later, and now we both have a story to tell. Everybody's happy.

Speaking of talking to people on the street, Lauren has come up with a name for a phenomenon that has happened a lot to us in Ghana. She calls it the "After Hi". This is when people walking toward you say hi to you after they have walked by you. It happens all the time. It's odd to hear someone say hi to you when they are behind you, or right as they are passing you. There is also the "After Obroni" and the "After How are you?", which you can't even respond to, unless you turn completely around.

Since this post is so random, here are three random pictures, all taken while we were in Koforidua.

The first is kids goofing off. You pull out a camera and this is what you get. We have quite a few pictures that look similar to this one.

The second is of Akaa river. My niece is carrying her younger brother. I love this picture. It looks like something you would see in Lord of the Rings or something.

The third picture is kind of funny. There are two businesses next to each other in Koforidua. One of them is called Koforidua Association for Women Empowerment", and the one right next to it is Play Boy. What is even more funny is, the Women Empowerment business is nothing more than a store that sells wigs and hair extensions. I didn't realize that until I looked at the picture closely. The woman on the left side of the picture is carrying tomatoes on her head. Many women (and a few men) are traveling sales people of sorts. They carry their goods on their heads.

Cape Coast things

2005-08-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

The kids in Cape Coast often sing a song when we walk by that I haven't heard in other parts of Ghana. It's either funny or annoying, depending on my mood. It goes to a chanting rhythm that reminds me of the songs kids sing during hand-clapping games:

"O-bro-ni,
how are you?
I'm fine!
Thank you!
And you?"

There's a woman who owns a grocery kiosk down the street from our guesthouse. I don't know her name, but every time we go there to buy things she says "welcome, my friend!" to me and chats with me a bit. The first time this happened we had a perplexing, unsuccessful conversation all in Fante (this was the day before I blogged about how hard Fante is). The second time was all in English. Yesterday was in both Fante and English, and it was definitely the most successful conversation yet, although it mostly consisted of her explaining things to me. As we walked back to the hotel, two of the many neighborhood kids walked along with us. Like all kids in Cape Coast, one of the boys asked us "How are you?" and I replied "I'm fine. Ete sen?" (which is "How are you" in both Twi and Fante). The boy replied "bawkaaw" (which literally means "soft" and is used kind of like "cool" in English; the spelling is actually off because of the English alphabet). He then whispered to his friend "Aw ka Fante!" which means "She speaks Fante!" That was a great moment!

Today I met with a professor of Fante at the University of Cape Coast. When I first saw him, yesterday, to make the appointment, he was rather frightening -- I was waiting in the hallway, and he was arguing with someone on the phone. The person had never heard of his last name and had asked him to spell it, and he got mad and criticized them for not knowing the famous Ghanaian who shared his name and who had done this and that and the other, saying "Well, you should go back and read your history!" But he turned out to be a very kind, interesting, and helpful man. We met for about 2 hours, and once he understood better what I was interested in (this took about an hour, unfortunately), I learned a lot of interesting things about Fante culture (the details of phonology will have to wait until my meetings at Winneba, in a week and a half).

So, on a different note, I have a new favorite AIDS-awareness slogan, which I've seen on bumperstickers on many taxis in Cape Coast. The slogan is "Drive Protected: If it's not on, it's not in!" with a simple outline of a car inside a condom. The analogy of driving and sex is a bit of a strange stretch, but I like the phrase! There's also a billboard on the outskirts of town, with a painting of a (white!) policeman holding a huge shield in his left hand an a ridiculously large condom in his right hand, with the slogan: "Prevent AIDS: Protect yourself and your community!"

Kakum and Public Transportation

2005-08-03T15:15:00.000-07:00

We went to Kakum National Park yesterday. It is a rain forest that has the only canopy walk in all of Africa. This is a picture of me on the walk. This is the second time I have been to Kakum (I was there in December 2002). It was fun to do it again, and it doesn't take to long, so there is not that feeling of being worn out. We took a mini-bus up there, and were lucky enough to get a ride part way back, from a tour group who were on the walk with us.

I find using public transportation in Ghana frustrating, and it makes me anxious, and puts me in a bad mood. Of all the interactions I've had with people, and the situations we've been in, dealing with public transportation has been the most trying for me.

I think this is due to my lack of experience with public transportation. While we were in Koforidua, my mother mentioned that I only rode in a taxi once, and never rode on any kind of public transportation, in the 12 years I lived in Nigeria as a kid. I had forgotten about this, but I realize that is probably why I have issues with public transportation now. I have no experience. I have dealt with Ghanians my whole life, I can handle most issues that non-Ghanians might have with food, culture, or climate. I know how to bargain, I know how to argue, I even can make fried plantain better than most I've had on this trip. But I can't deal with public transportation.

It's so vague how to get places sometimes. Where do you go to get a bus to take you to a certain place? Yesterday, we were told to go to Kakum station to get a mini-bus to Kakum National Park. I remember thinking, "why would there be a whole station for Kakum?"; there isn't. It's just that any mini-bus heading in the direction of Kakum leaves from this station (I think the actual name of the station was Kotoka station). It's like saying you are going to Paris Airport, when you are actually going to an airport that has flights to Paris. I should note that stations are usually just a piece of land about half the size of a football field (if that) with about 30 mini-buses on them. We asked around, until we found a bus that would take us to Kakum (buses leave for a variety of places from this station).

Also, there is the issue of when to pay. Sometimes you pay as you get on the bus, sometimes as you get off, and sometimes at some point along the journey. I never know when.

Taxis are another issue. I find it hard to deal with taxi drivers. I constantly feel like I'm getting ripped off (not just with taxis, but with everything); at times, I start bargaining/arguing with the driver over the price, not having any idea of how much we really should be paying. I don't enjoy this, because I don't know what a reasonable payment is.

The question I find asking myself is why? Why was I not exposed to this one (very important) part of life in West Africa. Everyone took taxis in Nigeria, but I cried like crazy the one time I was in one. Why? Today, on the way to Kakum (on the mini-bus that left from Kakum station), it hit me.

When I was 3 or 4, I was going to a friend's birthday party. My friend's mother was driving, and we got into a car accident. We hit a guy (I think he was on a motorcycle). I can still see him now, his face bloody from a bad cut over his eyes (I thought his eye had come out at the time). From then on, while in Nigeria, I would never want to be in a car with anyone except my father (and the occasional relative). I think this is why I have no experience watching people deal with public transportation, and why I find public transportation frustrating today.

Twins

2005-08-02T12:51:00.000-07:00

Turns out my twin is in Cape Coast. Can you tell which I am??

Understanding Mfantse

2005-08-01T12:14:00.000-07:00

Technically, the only differences between Fante (Mfantse) and Twi are a few regular phonological alternations and a few lexical differences, both of which are theoretically easy to keep in mind (especially since it's sort of my job to do so). In reality, ohmygosh! It's SO hard to understand people's speech here in Cape Coast. Yesterday I was trying to guy some food stuffs from a kiosk near our guesthouse, and I honestly couldn't understand what the woman was saying at all! (It reminds me of the feeling of studying German in Germany and then taking a trip to Holland, although linguistically speaking, I don't think that's a fair comparison.) It seems that some of the more important words are included in that set of "lexical differences," for example, "yes" in Twi is "aane" and in Fante it's "nyew", and "no" in Twi is "daabi" and in Fante is "oho". On the other hand, "please" and "thank you" are basically the same, so at least I know I won't be offending anyone too badly!

More pictures

2005-08-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

I've been playing with the panoramic software that came with my camera, here are a couple of pictures.

The first one is of Kumasi. It's the busy part of the city where there is a big lorry park and market nearby.

The second picture is of the beach in Cape Coast. I've been to Cape Coast three times in the past 8 years and beaches have always been completely deserted. Lauren is alone out there in this shot. It's a little odd to see beaches this empty. Also, the beach is not curving in, it's just what you get when you use a not so awesome camera to take panoramic shot.

Here are some pictures

2005-07-31T11:03:00.000-07:00

I hope this works....

Here are the picutes I've posted:

1. Some cows hanging out on a school's field. Cows, and goats, and chickens do this kind of thing all the time.

2. Lauren, with Koforidua in the background.

3. A guy weaving kente cloth.

4. My mom and Lauren pushing Fi (my nephew) on a swing

5. Lauren pounding fufu with Affie.

6. Uncle and nephew, hanging out.

7. Crossing a bridge into koforidua.

From Kumasi to Cape Coast

2005-07-31T10:34:00.000-07:00

Last day in Kumasi

On Friday, our last day in Kumasi, we went to the Ghanaian National Cultural Center, twice. I got the impression that the name of the place is about as euphemistic as one of those UNESCO "World Heritage Site" places. In other words, it's mainly a big shopping mall where each store sells a different kind of art or craft for sale. But it has its bright side, too: a well-stocked library and what looks like a great outdoor theater for cultural events. It's also quiet, compared to the bustling city just beyond the gates, and the pressure to buy is 100% times less than it is at the Cultural Center in Accra. Also, unlike the one in Accra, it's not just about the sell; you also see the artisans making the things that they're selling (like the wicker furniture maker weaving a couch, or the guys carving wooden stools by hand, or the kente weavers at work). And so why did we go there twice in one day? Well, the first time I went I didn't have enough cash to buy all the things I wanted!

After the first walk-through at the Center we went to the palace of the former and current Ashanti chiefs. We saw a brief video and then joined a large group of young Ghanaians on a tour of the old palace (no one is allowed into the one where the current chief lives). The surprised reactions of the people taking the tour left me really wondering about the state of Ghanaian history classes in secondary school education! But the artifacts were pretty interesting, in particular the remains of a carriage-like thing (shaped like a huge rounded pencil case) for one former chief, in which he was once carried (by six men, on foot) from Kumasi to Cape Coast!

In the end, Kumasi was getting me a little grumpy. It's an exhausting city. Also, our dark and gloomy hotel room lost its running water for most of the time towards the end of our stay, and I think we were both getting pretty tired of listening to the same jokes from Jefferson's well-intentioned relatives (about how funny it is that he understands but doesn't speak much Twi, and how funny it is that I speak it more than him; observations that really aren't worth so much roaring laughter in the first place, much less the third time it's mentioned). So anyway, on to Cape Coast.

Arrival in Cape Coast

The bus ride out of Kumasi showed us a different side of Kumasi; the outskirts of town resemble places like Koforidua and even Akropong, and seem much quieter and more livable. The ride was bumpy but fairly fast, and although we suffered through a bad Hulk Hogan movie, it was at least quite a different experience to be on a bus (what we'd call a bus in the US, too, not a van) that was able to show movies. We boarded Kumasi around 1pm and were in Cape Coast by 5pm.

Our hotel is wonderful! If anyone ever comes to Cape Coast, they must stay at the Sarahlotte Guesthouse. It's less than $14 a night, has carpet (!), running water (so far), and is just across the street from a huge expanse of beach. The beach! It automatically feels more like a vacation than the rest of Ghana has felt, just because there's a beach.

30% and on to Cape Coast

2005-07-31T09:42:00.000-07:00

I'm glad to be out of Kumasi. If the world relied on just my views of Kumasi, the city would be deserted. I found (almost) nothing appealing about it. I should mention thought, that my dislike for Kumasi had more do with my experiences there, and not the city itself.

We stayed in a hotel arranged by my uncle, that was equally close to his home and his job, which meant we could do almost nothing on our own, without being secretive about it. To make things worse, I found a hotel 30% cheaper than the one he set us up with, that was closer to sites we wanted to see. Also, the water in the hotel we stayed in was only on between about 10 pm and 6 am. To get water, we would have to walk down two flights of stairs, down a hallway, to a tank, fill up a (rather small) bucket, and make the walk back. Having lived (and been) in places where there is no running water, I know all about collecting water in buckets and that kind of thing. However, I have never had to pay (30% more than I had to) to stay in a place with no running water. What annoyed me even more was the attitude the workers had. They had this "its not our problem"-attitude about the water, which really irked me, because it was their problem. A bathroom is virtually useless without water, and we paid (30% more than if we stayed at the place I found, that probably would have had running water) for a service we didn't have. I didn't vent this to anyone in Kumasi, because I didn't want my uncle to feel bad.

Our Cape Coast place is pretty posh (and it's directly across from the beach, Emily). This is the first place we have stayed in that's in our guidebook. It even has a refrigerator!

I'm looking forward to spending two weeks in Cape Coast. I went walking around the neighborhood this evening (Lauren stayed in the room), and chatted with a couple of people. One guy even took me to his porch to meet his mother, and gave me a (very brief) lesson in Fante; the language spoken in this region of Ghana.

More about Kumasi

2005-07-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

What a city! Kumasi is a definitive CITY. Crazy traffic, tons of people everywhere, a greater gap between rich and poor, and between modern and traditional. I've seen more women here in pants and tight jeans, and more couples holding hands. I've also seen more men in traditional clothes, and a lot more beggars. The city is much more exciting and vibrant than Accra, but it's also louder and more intense (and the smog is unreal). I'm glad to be in Kumasi, but I'm glad that we'll only be here a few days!

I finally had my first bit of stomach upset; it was bound to happen eventually. The jerking bus ride from Koforidua (3.5 hours in the very back of a 22-passenger van) started it all, and then the scanty carbohydrate-only "lunch" didn't help, topped off with some super spicy soup at dinnertime... Anyway, last night was a bit rough. But the hotel is nice, and it's a little quieter than Koforidua just because there isn't a jarringly loud Islamic call-to-prayer at 4am!

It's fun to be in the "heart of the Ashanti Kingdom," just for the sake of being excited to go a place I've read so much about, and because I'm surrounded by Twi (unlike Accra, which is quite multilingual). It's now that I really see how much I was learning textbook Twi, and how that textbook Twi was really modeled after Kumasi; at least the few people we've talked to (Jefferson's aunt and uncle, say) have been so much easier to understand than the people in Koforidua. I could be exaggerating that, though.

There are a lot more Obroni-folk here, and interestingly a lot more East Asian looking people (I actually haven't seen any in Ghana until Kumasi). In general, the cries of "Hey, Obroni!" are much much much less frequent than anywhere else we've been. In its place are more cries of "Madam!" and the universal "Heeeelllooo!" and the ever present "Hey, Rastafarai!" (because none of the Obronis that are in Kumasi, though numerous, seem to have dreadlocks). Hissing at people to get their attention is just as frequent here as in other places in Ghana. I'm not sure if it's a polite thing to do, exactly, but it certainly doesn't seem to be seen as rude! My favorite attention-getting call came when we were walking to Jefferson's uncle's house in a quieter corner of town and someone called out "You tattoo is very nice!" (first in Twi, then in English) followed by "And your husband's hair is nice, too!" Now that's better than "Obroni, obroni"!

Kumasi

2005-07-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to post picutres today, but this internet cafe, with a fast connection, has an old browser, and I can't figure out how to post pictures using this version of explorer.

We got to Kumasi yesterday. I can't say I love it. I feel like it's too loud for my taste. Loud, like sound loud. I feel like the city is one big stereo.

Also, I have overly helpful family in Kumasi. The kind of help that makes me feel like I'm treated like a 5-year old. I appreciate it, don't get me wrong, but it's a bit much.

In the internet cafe we're in right now, there is a radio playing a preacher saying everyone is going to hell. This is in extreme contrast (at least to me) of the Ashante tribal rituals that involve voodoo-type things. It's odd to me.

In other news, I have a cold. I lived in Michigan for 7 years, hardly ever getting a cold; I come to tropical Ghana (in the July, no less) and I get a cold. Go figure. The cold is minor enough that it's more of an annoyance than anything else.

We leave Kumasi on Saturday - to Cape Coast.

More Ghana Comments

2005-07-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

In the U.S. we say "Thank you" and then "You're welcome". In Ghana they say "You are welcome" and we thank them for welcoming us. Really, it makes more sense, don't you think?

I've always been interested in humor from a psychological perspective, particularly the difference between humor and pain, which both seem (to me) to stem from the same kind of cognitive dissonance. (As a college sophomore I told a sociolinguist that I wanted to be a humor scholar. Her reaction was less than encouraging! So this is all just my impression.) In addition, there's the whole factor of "getting" or "not getting" a joke. I bring this up now because if I had to name one thing that's different between Ghana and the US, it's the sense of humor. I don't know if one culture has "more" of a sense of humor than the other; it sure seems like Ghanaians laugh more often, but I'm sure that's just because I'm not getting the jokes. So what's interesting to me is that even when I'm sure I got the joke, I still can't figure out what's funny. But luckily, the few times I've tried to make a joke, it's been appreciated!

A couple of years ago, Naomi got me hooked on John Irving novels. The first one I read, A Prayer for Owen Meany, took me nearly a year to read because I never read novels during the school year. I brought The Cider House Rules to Ghana, thinking that the summer would be a good time to actually finish one of these 600-page things. Well I've been enjoying the book thoroughly, and now at page 448 I've noticed that there are 4 totally blank pages dispersed between pages 506 and 532. So now I'm on a funny little mission to find The Cider House Rules at some used bookstore in Kumasi. It sounds ridiculous, but I actually saw two copies of it at a bookstore in Accra (before I knew of this problem, of course)!

On a different note, AIDS awareness is huge here. I've seen several billboards and signs with the saying: "Stopping AIDS is as easy as ABC: Abstain, Be faithful, and Condomize!". In the most random places (a calling card, say), there'll be this little image of a yellow cartoon hand and the logo "Love life, stop AIDS!". In the Legon University bookshop I flipped through a children's book called "I Have HIV," written in first person about a 10-year old boy who got HIV a very graphic way. The book was so matter of fact that it was shocking, but at least it was accurate and real. It's good that Ghana's general vibe of hyper-Christianity hasn't (apparently) condemned the use of condoms or the ignorance of the facts.

Nick Hornby, Akaa Falls, and Cat Cultural Differences

2005-07-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading my second Nick Hornby book in 2 weeks (High Fidelity and About a Boy). I read a lot more here than I do back Mountain View. I brought 5 books with me. Lauren said there was no way I'd get through all of them; I'm done with 3, and we've not even spent half our stay here.

We went to Akaa Falls yesterday. It's not as well known as Boti Falls (it's not in our guidebook). I enjoyed the outing, mainly because Fi (my 3-year-old nephew) got to see the Falls. He was quite excited, but was far more excited about the swing set and slide that were by the parking lot (he played on those after we saw the falls).

Describing culture is difficult. I don't know how many times I've been asked what it was like to live in Nigeria. How do you answer that? I'm finding the same problem here (as I have every time I've been here, since moving to the US as a twelve year old). People here can't imagine not having goats wandering the streets (occasionally stopping traffic), just like many Americans probably can't imagine what it's like to through a herd of cows, sometimes 2-3 feet from you, as part of your daily routine.

Affie (my older sister) didn't understand why we would let Geordi (our cat) into the house (he is an indoor cat). I was showing her pictures of Geordi watching TV, sitting on a couch with me, sitting on my laptop as I worked. She thought it was crazy to give a cat that kind of access. It's funny, because there are 5 cats in this compound (father, mother, and 3 little kittens), but these cats are never let inside. I spent a good 20-30 minutes the other day chasing one of the kittens around the living room, just to get him outside. The very opposite of what we do with Geordi. We chase him around when he goes outside.

5 Random Things

2005-07-22T16:31:00.000-07:00

The power went out a few nights ago. My mom didn't remember the last time she was in Koforidua when the power went out. To top things off, no one in the compound had a candle. There must be 30 people here (mind you, some of them are kids) and no one had a single candle?? Our flashlight was the only source of light in the house. It just shows how times have changed. I remember living in Nigeria, losing power ALL THE TIME!!! We had candles (and lanterns) everywhere.

We watched an episode of "American Idol" the other day. It was from season 3 (for those of you who are not AI fans, this past season was season 4). It was odd to see that on TV. It seems like on all TV from the US, the sound doesn't line up with the picture. It's like there is a delay so you hear the person talking about 1/2 a second before their mouth moves. It ends up looking like really badly dubbed TV.

We got a piece of fabric yesterday, and we are both going to make a piece of clothing out of it. We'll have matching outfits to go with the matching shoes we have (we make a point never to both wear the shoes on the same day). It sounds cheesy, so let me note that Lauren seemed more interested in getting matching outfits than I did.

I've been amazed at the number of people who have thought we were siblings during our time so far. Even an aunt of mine thought Lauren was Emily (my sister). After one woman said this (and was corrected), she got the impression that we were married and said, "when you are married for a long time, you start to look alike, that's why I thought you were siblings". It thought that was funny.

Over the past few days, I've been thinking about when I would like come back to Koforidua again. Every other year sounds good, but with costs of travel, I don't really know. To travel so far, I would want to stay for a while, to justify the costs. I have to admit I like being this out of touch. It would be nice to get away every year or two; I don't get many phone calls, I can't respond to emails very well, and I don't have to feel guilty about it. What more could an introvert ask for:)

Akropong & Fieldwork Thoughts

2005-07-22T16:27:00.001-07:00

So it's one more weekend in Koforidua and then we're off to Kumasi. Jefferson and I are trying to write our blog posts on his laptop and then transfer them to the cafe computers via USB, so I can afford to be more verbose!

It's been a good week. The main event was on Wednesday, when Jefferson and I went to a nearby town of Akropong to visit an anthropology professor, Cati Coe from Rutgers University. She did her dissertation work during a year in Akropong, studying how culture is taught and performed in schools and the community (her interest stemming from the circumstances of defining "culture" in post-colonial Africa, particularly in contrast to Christianity). She also wrote a great article on fieldwork in Ghana that I'd contacted her about last Spring, and when we were emailing we discovered that we were both going to be in the Akuapem region this July, so we met up!

First of all, Akropong is a really nice town; it's my kind of town! Small, quiet, and navigable, with lush, green, hilly surroundings and a history of an emphasis on education (the Basel missionaries settled there and opened, debateably, the first Western-style primary school in the Gold Coast). Linguistically, it's an interesting piece of history because the first, and really only, grammar of the Akan language was written in Akropong by the missionary Johann Gottlieb Christaller. I had the idea of camping out there for a while sometime and seeing how the Twi has changed since Christaller's documentation (in 1881), but that's just another idea.

Actually, it brings me to the topic of fieldwork, which is what Cati and I were talking about most of the time. Her insight, of both the ups and downs of living and working in Ghana, was really valuable. I'm still mulling much of it over, and I can't say I've come to any new epiphanies, but I can say this: I now believe that I could succeed at a dissertation based on fieldwork in Ghana if I really wanted to and if I was really prepared for the challenges. My first impression upon being here was that the odds against me were just too many. Afterall, how do you conduct sociophonetic fieldwork in a place where you can't really speak or understand the language (after a year of studying it!), you don't really know the culture (outside of what the books tell you), everyone sees you as a perpetual outsider (even if you've lived in a small village for over a year), and everyone switches into the most formal of formal styles as soon as you turn the tape recorder?? That's just the start of it. But with hired translators, research assistants, and neat tricks like sewing the tape recorder and lapel mic into a vest (thanks Heidi Orcutt!), I think that the ability to still conduct good research is possible, it's just a major challenge.

So that's where I'm at: I think I could do this if I really wanted to, but the question is, do I want to? Again, these are premature thoughts: I want to work on the Fante dialect, in the Central Region, and I still won't have even stepped foot in the Central Region until the first of August. So who knows, all of this could change.

Meanwhile, the Twi's coming along. (I do have cassettes, they’re so formal they don’t help as much.) I've given up speaking with the kids very much, which was my first inclination; when I was in Germany, my little cousins were by far the best teachers. But in the compound here there are just too many of them and they're really noisy and rowdy, and when I do try to speak to them with anything more complicated than "How are you" they stare at me blankly. I think I'm still pretty bad about producing the right vowel harmony, vowel length, and other verbal inflections. Learning to speak was much, much easier in Mandarin, even though I studied it for half the time I've studied Twi. I think I hear and learn tonal differences quicker than vowel differences (which is a scary thing to admit, as someone who works on vowels). On top of it all, Fante is pretty different than Twi, so we'll see how that transition goes!

In other news, I'm enjoying buying lots of fabric and having different outfits made. I wore my first "wrapper" outfit to Akropong. It was fun, but I'm still working on keeping the head-wrap on my head without it slipping off (2 yards of cloth is pretty heavy)!

The weather here has been great. Breezy and cool in the evenings, with nice rain showers on some days (yes, it's finally raining, and when it rains, it pours). We're rarely caught in direct hot sunlight for a long period of time (except for that annoying Boti Falls hike). Being uncomfortable is due way more to the humidity than the heat. Also, I'm so ecstatic that I haven't gotten a single mosquito bite since arriving to K'dua; only two or three little bites that might be red ants or something, but I don't have the same allergic reaction to those. I had a bit of a cold when we first got to Legon and it's gone now. And Affie's food is treating me very well!

A note for Naomi Jorgensen: while we agree that your beloved chocolate Fan Milk is not that bad, Jefferson much prefers the vanilla ice cream flavor, whereas I'm partial to the strawberry yoghurt. Fan Milk is funny that way, in that each flavor corresponds to a different milk product in the US, although here they're all just frozen and called Fan Milk (the chocolate one is basically frozen chocolate milk).

And Happy Birthday to Jaime (tomorrow)!

Koforidua

2005-07-17T16:34:00.000-07:00

The email in Koforidua is veeeerrrry slow. For example, it took 26 minutes since log-on to get to this blogging page. Often, my Stanford account never loads. So it's been a quiet week on the blogging front, and it may be another quiet week or so until we get to Kumasi.

Daily life at the house here is nice; we're very much taken care of, on every level. Affie, Jefferson's older sister, doesn't let us do anything, to the point that I feel a bit guilty about it. But I have to admit that I'm not a fan of washing clothes by hand, and she does do a great job! Our room is really posh, with a better bed than the one in Legon, and a bathroom where there's always running water, even if the pressure's not that high (they've installed a private tank which takes up the slack when the water from the pipe gets shut off). I've come to love cold bucket baths! Who knew.

Every morning we're woken up around 4am by the local mosque's call to prayer. Usually, I can fall back asleep, but not always, and Jefferson has less luck. We're usually up by 7am, way after everyone else in the compound. We both do some work first thing in the morning (who knew that 7am was a great time to textgrid some vowels?!) and then have breakfast around 8am. After breakfast we do any number of things, including going into town to try to email, or going to the market to buy fabric (the only thing that I've bought, so far). In the afternoon the kids come home from school and I usually sit outside and play with them or watch them perform some hand-clapping games. Dinner is around 7pm, and then we either sit around and do some reading or watch TV, which consists of Filipino and Latin American telenovelas dubbed bizarrely into American English. Bedtime is around 10pm.

Ah, the food! Whereas in Legon, food consisted of bread & juice for breakfast, fried rice for lunch, and bread & canned food for dinner, here breakfast is always bread (homemade in a huge oven in the back of the house, by Jefferson's Aunt Esther), juice, tea, and often something else like pancakes or eggs. Every night for dinner, Affie has made us some kind of Ghanaian dinner for me to try. Fufu is my favorite! Affie let me help pound the yam for it one day, just for laughs really. We have a photo that will be posted come September!

The kids here are the best, though they can be a bit over attentive. I still maintain that the cutes of them all is Fi. He sits at the table with me, Jeff, and Jeff's mother for every meal -- the kid's got a huge appetite. He talks very little but he'll say "Good morning, Auntie" when told to. Also, if you say "Bye-bye" he'll reply with "BYE?" as he's walking away; it's not a question but it sounds like one. I guess it's something you'd have to see for yourself. There's a little girl in the compound that is about Fi's age who has taken a real liking to me and always askes for me. In addition to those two and a few other little little ones there's a gang of 8ish-year-olds who follow me everywhere like the pied-piper!

Learning Twi has been really frustrating. I've been trying to study every night but progress seems too slow; I think I'm just impatient, although it's also been hard to find patient people to sit and talk with (I've been shy, too). Most of the time it's discouraging because I'll be with a big group of people, and someone will ask me a question in Twi, which takes me a minute to decipher, and then respond, and as soon as respond the group erupts in laughter, and I don't know whether it's because I said something funny or because it's just funny that I said it.

I'm getting a little tired of some other things, too. Ghana has some rather frustrating elements to it. One is the constant "obroni" (whitey) shout. I never thought I'd make a baby cry because my skin was light! There have also been some seriously frustrating moments with pseudo-official people, some of which Jefferson just wrote about in his post. That misunderstanding with the "walk" at Boti Falls was horrid; it was half hiking and half rock climbing, which would have been fine if we'd been expecting it, or even if there'd been a waterfall at the end! The race thing actually came up at then end when we were fighting to get our money back. I was exhausted and furious, and was yelling at the guy, who in return got frustrated and mad and yelled back "Just because your white, you think you can yell at me like that!" Talk about a bizarre comment to my ears; I am definitely not the brown person here that I am in the US!

On a final sad note, the hardest day for me so far was when we were walking in town and say a man beating a woman with a switch. She was crying out chillingly and in utter fear, and seemed to be mentally off -- perhaps she got that way from beeing beaten, although apparently some people here think that abuse is a good way to discipline the insane. To top it all of there were people everywhere, and no one did a thing (the horrors of mob mentality). Needless to say, it was a disturbing moment.

My Ghana Personality and Koforidua

2005-07-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

Most people who read this (people who know Lauren better than they know me) probably see me as a quiet, reserved person who would rather have dental work done without anesthesia than go to some kind of social function.

In Ghana, I'm different. I'm not the boistrous, life of the party guy in Ghana, but I find myself being someone who is quick to argure for what I think is right. I've had incidents with a couple of people here, who have presented themselves as having authority they don't actually have. Both times, I have felt victorious (I'm more competitive than most people know).

In Accra I got into a minor exchange of words with a guy who claimed to be security, and told us we were not allowed to visit possibly the biggest tourist attraction in Accra (Black Star Square).

Yesterday, my whole family (with me starting the whole thing) got into an (at times heated) arguement with a guy at a natural park who gave us VERY misleading information, that resulted in my nephew (who's 3) being expected to walk a 45 minute rocky, rocky trail (all we wanted to see was a water fall that was not more than a 5 minute walk in the opposite direction). I did the walk back in less than 30 minutes, took my nephew with me, and gave the guy a piece of my mind, telling him he was crazy to expect this little kid to make that walk, when all he wanted to do was see a water fall. Soon, everyone got involed in the discussion, the guy said he would not give me my money back, even if I bugged him for the rest of the day. Soon, there was "a scene", lots of people gathered round, and he was forced to cave. He gave us back our money. We left Boti Falls. We Won. We got our money back even though he said he would never do that.

Koforidua has always felt like an odd home. The kind of place where you are welcome like family, but treated like a guest. It has always made me feel slightly uncomfortable, and I'm sooo glad Lauren is here, because it's an escape. Our jaunts into town to get online (slowest connection EVER - if I post this, it'll be a miracle) are a great way to get out of the house, away from the 6-8 kids who are constantly playing, and making noise, and Kwame Wasa (a cousin with no attention span who is almost impposible to talk to) and his rambling about anything.

That being said, Koforidua is great!!! I love the food and it's great to see my mom, sister, and nephew.

Chocolate and the 5000 Cedis

2005-07-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

I should have posted about this a while ago, but I LOVE the chocolate bars produced in Ghana!!! It is so awesome. It tastes far more chocolaty, and a lot less sweet than anything I have had anywhere else. The bars are called Kingsbite. Awesome!!!

On another note, I am tired of being called at. "Rasta, Rasta, Rasta", usually followed by some offer that would involve me giving the person money for doing something for me I don't want, or buying something I don't need. The other day, we went to the Art Centre, filled with vendors pressuring you to buy. One guy came up to me, and started with the Rasta thing, saying he had seen me in Legon. I turned the tables and asked him for money, saying I had no way to eat or get anywhere. He proceeded to give me 5000 Cedis (about 60 cents, but worth more than that here, if that makes sense). He then left us alone. I think he was embarassed. Later in the day, another guy started hounding, and wouldn't let up. I asked him for money. At first he thought I was joking, but when he realized I wasn't, he got mad, said I was a bad person, and left us alone (which is all I really wanted in the first place).

We are off to Koforidua in the next hour or two (hopefully, as things tend to always take longer than expected). It will be good to not have to do as much (with so much family, everyone wants to help), but on the same token, it will be bad to not have to do as much (with family, everyone wants to help).

Last Post from Legon

2005-07-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

Well, so much for this being the "rainy season"! It's day 9 and we've yet to get rained on. Not that I'm complaining, it's just kinda funny. Anyway, today's a quiet Sunday and everything is still on campus. We've spent most of the day inside, working and reading and taking naps. Tomorrow we'll go to Koforidua, where there are apparently two internet cafes in town, but where you might expect our blogging and emailing to decrease a bit. I'm looking forward to being with Jefferson's family, and not having to walk so far and so long just to find a good lunch! Oh, regarding food, one thing I forgot to mention is that the egg yolks here seem to be white. I wonder what you call the white of the egg, then? :-)

My dad called me yesterday, from the China/Myanmar border! He and my immediate family are there for a conference that he organized, in addition to having fun and, apparently, experimenting with the possibilities for international cell phone coverage. You can check out his blog at http://alanalew.blogspot.com.

Another note on taxis. We had a bizarre musical experience in a taxi going into Osu the other day: American Country-Western music! And then on the same radio station, after a few songs, it switched to some classic slow R&B tunes. Quite surprising! We've also tried our first trotro, which anyone who's been to Ghana will appreciate. I, for one, appreciated that it cost us 10 times less for the trotro ride than the taxi. And it wasn't too uncomfortable, really! The problem was that we weren't exactly sure where it was going to drop us off, but it turned out just fine.

It'll be good to leave Legon and Accra and get further away from so much English. I'm sure I could live here for the rest of my life and never have to speak anything but English. That's not a good situation for someone trying to learn Twi or Fante. You know the saying that the more you learn the less you know? That's perfect for learning Twi! I go back and forth from being really excited to really discouraged, which I suppose is normal. The truly daunting pressure is the idea of ever learning Twi or Fante well enough to actually conduct a sociolinguistic study, which has been, of course, my main objective all along. Already I'm beginning to doubt my ability to ever get that fluent, especially in time for the dissertation, but of course it's still early and only time will tell.

Osu and hot feet

2005-07-08T18:48:00.000-07:00

We went into Osu (the so called expatriate part of town) today. I don't remember ever being there before. It's this slightly odd mix of foreign and domestic. It was a little odd to me. It was almost like a small scale of the art center in Accra; vendors shouting "rasta", trying to get my attention and sell me a Kora (Senegalese guitar- I own one), or some other trinket or piece of cloting.
We had some kelewele (spicy fried plantain) while were there. It's not the best I've had, but it was decent.
The second part of my title. Man, my feet get sooooo hot when the day is done. I take a cold shower every evening, but it doesn't seem to cool them very much.
On an unrelated note, I think the Larium is making me remember my dreams more. I never remember my dreams (Lauren seems to remember all of hers), but I've woken up the past few mornings, remembering my dreams.

Some Random Observations

2005-07-07T16:19:00.000-07:00

The taxis in Accra are interesting. A lot of them have the "D" for "Deutschland" bumpersticker on them (presumably, this is not because the drivers are German...). It seems that in cars, in general, the radio is always played so loudly that I'm amazed that the driver seems to have no problem understanding what other people are saying, even if they're outside of the car, on the other side of the road, and behind a stand of oranges. Yesterday in the taxi, we were listening to a loud and repetitive rendition of an old Ace-of-Base song.

On the radio in the local shop yesterday the DJ mentioned that the United Church of Christ has announced its support for gay marraige (internationally, I guess). Then the DJ went: "let's all show our support for gay marriage!" I think it was a Christian radio station. Interesting difference from the Christian radio stations in the U.S....

When I first saw Accra, it seemed much less dominated by major corporate entities than I'm used to seeing in big cities. At first glance, it looks like everything's independently owned. But after awhile, you start to see the same logos over and over; they're just not American ones, which is what I'm used to seeing in other countries (Wal-Mart, KFC, you know, the usual suspects). But some of them are American; there was a truck advertising "Key Soap" and in small letters on one of the doors was the "Lever" brand logo.

The goats I've seen here seem to be about the size of medium-sized dogs, or large dogs. The dogs also look a bit like the goats. In my opinion, the goats are cuter than the dogs. The goats just go around eating everything and ignore you, but the dogs will follow you if you're not paying attention. Seeing chickens all around is also something different for me; not so much at Legon, but in Accra. Roosters, however, are the stupidest and most annoying creatures in all of Ghana. The ones around Legon seem to think that it's time to start crowing at about 2am, and they continue all morning (this fact I discovered about two nights ago when I couldn't fall asleep, even with ear plugs).

The most amazing thing that I've seen so far in Ghana are women with huge plates of neatly-stacked peanuts balanced on their heads. You just have to see it, it's so incredible!

Research & Books

2005-07-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

Well, the academic side of things is going kinda rough. I'd hope that I'd be meeting with professors who work on Akan, and so far I've been introduced to prefessors who work on Ewe, Buli, and Ga. I hadn't even heard of Buli before, and felt pretty dumb. Some of them have been helpful, but I feel like it's only because they've read a bit more than me. And as for secondary sources, there are some great ones here in the linguistics library, but not as many as I'd hoped. I spent all of yesterday sitting in that (fabulously air conditioned) library, copying notes by hand-- there's no photocopier, as least not one that I'm allowed access to. So I took pages and pages of notes until my hand was about to fall off. Even Jefferson wrote down two pages of data from a big table in Kwesi Yankah's BA Thesis Appendix. So it was a satisfying day of work, but that I finished with all of the library's resources in just one day, which was disappointing.

On a nice and sort of funny note, the library is very well stocked with linguistic books, including Penny & Sally's language and gender book, and Eve's language acquisition book! Today in Accra, Jefferson and I went to a used book store and everything was American (unfortunately). It was amusing to see my 9th grade literature textbook on the shelf. On the flip side, the University of Ghana bookstore has some great stuff; I've bought four books that I definitely couldn't have gotten anywhere else!

I like the country better than the city when I'm in foreign countries. Accra is interesting to look at, but I feel like all the car exhaust is giving me early lung cancer. I'm really looking forward to going to Koforidua next week, even though it'll mean more limited internet access!

Thanks to those of you who have emailed, and I'm sorry I haven't replied to all of you. Do stay in touch! (And read Jefferson's post, below...)

Ah, Ghana!!!

2005-07-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

We finally are in Accra, unsupervised. I feel like my family wants to do everything for us, so being on our own (and away from Legon) is a good thing.
Something about Legon seems artificial. You are protected by this wall (figuratively, and literally) from the rest of Accra. Yes, a few people hound you, and call you obruni, or rasta, but it just feels...safe.
Accra feels more raw. More like I am actually in Ghana. The smells (not all pleasant), the sights, the sounds, and the people. I'm sure I stick out far more out here, but I have to say, I like it.
We ate a HUGE meal of plantain and beans (they call it Red Red) for lunch today. I still feel like I'm going to explode. I think it's the food I miss most, when in the US. I've liked everything I've eaten since I got here.
Lauren got her first true taste of Ghana when we didn't have water for 2 days. It came back on last night, but it went off again this morning. Having to fill water bottles and carry them back and forth takes me back to childhood. Lauren said that's the kind of things American kids do at summer camp. That was kind of funny, because who does that for fun?

No water, no wind

2005-07-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

Today has been a bit less lucky than the weekend! I'm definitely still on California time; I've now gotten enough sleep to realize that my sleep patterns are off. I crashed last night at 9pm and woke up around 1am only to stay awake until about 5am, and sleep again until 9am. On top of it all, just when I woke up they turned off all the water in our building. And today is a much less windy, and therefore a much more hot & sticky, day so far. Oh yeah, and my legs are covered in mosquito bites. Just lovely; now I'm getting the real experience, I guess!

In good news we took a walk around campus lately and know our way around much better. We also found the library and the bookstore, which were closed on Sunday but which we can hang out at today. The linguistics department is also easy to get to, just in between this internet place and the library.

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten ahold of any of the linguistics professors yet, so I hope someone will be there when we stop by. The one person I did hear back from is busy until Friday, and maybe even then. She's a sociolinguist I was looking forward to meeting, so I hope I can see her. I need to, in fact, because she's the one who booked our room for us.

Well, happy 4th of July. Like I always say, if it weren't for Independence Day, the U.S. would be just like Canada.

Hello from Legon

2005-07-03T04:28:00.000-07:00

We're in Legon! It's funny to blog when you're paying for your time to be online; I may be a bit more curt than I'd like, but you'll get the gist.

The flight was exhausting, but part of that was my fault; I stayed awake nearly the entire time, and payed the price when I lost my lunch on the second flight (I blame it also on these malaria pills). But all and all everything went fine, and we got to Accra on time and Jefferson's mother, sister, cousins, and adorable nephew were there to pick us up. It's been great meeting his family, especially his sister and her son, Fi (short for Kofi). Fi is three and a half and the cutest kid in all of Ghana. :-)

First impressions are that I've been traveling too much, because nothing was shocking in that culture-shock way but everything reminded me of somewhere else: rural China, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Indonesia, even Sedona. The only things that are different are, obviously, that everyone's African, and then all that stuff that you can read about in the Ghana guidebooks: the Christian store names, for example. The former-British-colony aspect is also pervasive. But again, these are first impressions, and this is the urban capital. I'm hoping that things will be different when we go to Koforidua next week, or Kumase next month.

Good news: I don't have a single mosquito bite. They're just no where to be found! And the weather has been awesome. It's nice and cool outside all the time, with wonderful breezes. I even got downright cold last night. The only major downside to this is that the cold showers are less than refreshing.

Lingustically, Ghana is so so so interesting. What I notice right away are the names of stores and signs; there are occasional signs of Portuguese, such s "La Paz" road and "El Ayudo" store; there's a postal truck with the German name "Schnelle Post." And the night that we arrived, Jefferson's uncle and cousins were glued to a Filipino soap opera, dubbed in stilted American English. And the English that's spoken is British in ways I didn't expect, like using the tag question "isn't it?" at the end of statement about the 2nd person singular. So interesting!

Finishing Touches

2005-06-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

Jefferson's still worried about that package; the mail's late today and we've just been waiting and waiting for it to come. I don't mind so much, because there's some last minute reading I've been wanting to do, and it's nice to just sit at home and do nothing (i.e. eat, sleep, and watch TV). I'm trying to soak up what I love about my life here before we go. Mostly I'm eating a lot of cheese!

I finally got "excited" about our trip when I stopped by the department, yesterday, for the last time before this trip. Just seeing friends and saying goodbye to them made the trip seem much more real. I don't know what it's going to take to be truly "excited"; I guess I just won't be. In past when I've gone abroad it's never been a really big deal, so this time it's still the same, no different just because it's Africa.

There are definitely some things I'm looking forward to. I've been in contact with an assistant professor of anthropology at Rutgers who has done extensive fieldwork in Ghana and who will be there this summer, just an hour's ride away from Koforidua, where Jeff's mom's house is. We've made plans to meet up on the 20th. I'm looking forward to meeting her after reading a great article that she wrote about her fieldwork experience in Ghana, particularly about conducting interviews in a culture where the concept of "knowledge" is different from our own.

I'm also looking forward to what is actually the last leg of the trip, when we'll be spending 12 days in Winneba. The phonologist at the teaching college there has been incredibly nice, and has made arrangements for us to stay both in Winneba and in Cape Coast (where we'll be for 12 days beforehand). I think he's going to be a great contact in particular for my research this summer for my 2nd Qualifying Paper, because he specializes in Fante phonology and dialect variation (and my paper is looking at some of the consonant patterns in less-studied dialects of Fante). I'm hoping that, by then, I'll have gotten used to living in Ghana and that I'll really be able to get the most work done.

So what I'm excited about is easy: the people. In addition to professors, I'm looking forward to meeting Jeff's family members, even those he complains about. :-) I'm also looking forward to trying new foods, as always.

But what I'm least looking forward to is also easy: mosquitoes, hot & humid weather, and the traffic in the urban areas (Accra and Kumase, mostly). I get carsick really easily and I just know that the bumpy roads and stuffy cars are not going to help. On the other hand, I should be used to it by now (I think I've lost my lunch in at least half of the foreign countries I've been to)! On another not-so-pleasant note, mosquitoes LOVE me. In preparation I've sprayed all my clothing with a thin layer of Deet, and I have copious bottles of various kinds of insect repellant.... I'm ready for battle!

Ten minutes later... the mail came, but the package never came. Dangit! But on a good note, we did just get the entire triology of "The Godfather" on Netflix DVDs. So that'll give us something to watch this summer on Jeff's computer.

Well, I should go and see what else has to be done around the house!

Ohmygoodness, we're leaving in 2 days!!!!!

2005-06-28T22:16:00.000-07:00

It's a little bit hard to beleive that we will not be in Mountain View in 48 hours.
What has frustrated me about the past couple of days, is the not getting of a package of stuff that we're supposed to take for my mom. I have a bag put aside for that stuff and any extra stuff that will fit into it, but all it does is sit in the bedroom, waiting for that package. I hope it gets here tomorrow, because we will be gone if it gets here any later.

About Legon

2005-06-19T09:47:00.000-07:00

When we first arrive in Ghana, we'll be staying for about 10 days at the University of Legon. I found this description of Legon from the Indiana University study abroad program guidebook:

"The University of Ghana is located in Legon, nine miles northeast of Accra. Students thus have easy access to the capital city’s resources and entertainment while retaining the tranquility of the suburbs. The campus itself is extensive and has its own botanical gardens. The student population of 12,000 is about 30 percent female and 70 percent male. Only 5 percent of the faculty are female. The University reserves 10 percent of its undergraduate spaces for foreign students. Women students at the University of Ghana are likely to come from upper to middle class Ghanaian society, whereas male students represent a broader economic spectrum. This may be because education for men is clearly valued by all social classes, but middle and upper class families are most likely to recognize the value of higher education for women."

Luckily for me, about half of the Ghanaian linguistic professors are women (the first female professor in Ghana was a phonologist!)

There's also this note about the library. The student quote is particularly amusing and troubling! It reminds me of stories Allegra would tell about the John Hopkins medical library...

"Books and resources are available in both the main library and in the more specialized holdings of the various departmental libraries. Student quote: “It is difficult to find the materials listed in the card catalog since many students need to use the same books. Some books are ‘hidden’ by students for their private use and occasionally pages will be missing.”

Finally, a note about time differences. Ghana is on the Greenwich Mean Time, so it's 7 (seven) hours ahead of Pacific US Time, if you (Mom...) need to call for any reason!

Preparing for our trip

2005-06-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

We leave for Ghana on the 30th of June, and I thought I'd create this blog as, perhaps, a more reliable way (than individual email) to entertain everyone with my travel stories once we get there. We'll be arriving in Accra on the evening of July 1st, and we'll be on the University of Ghana at Legon campus for the first 10 days, before we go to Koforidua, where Jefferson's sister lives. At Legon we'll be staying in a student dorm; a wonderful senior professor in the linguistics department made the arrangements for us. It's $14 a day, and is furnished, but it's more like a dorm than a hotel; no sheets, towels, etc. During the first few days there we'll probably spend time shopping for pots and utensils and things like that (yay! shopping!), and then I'm hoping to spend a week meeting the linguistics faculty and graduate students, and looking through their library, if I can.

But today is the 8th of June, and we still have a lot of preparations to make. I want to get a new pair of glasses, and we both need to pick up our malaria medication. I also want to do a lot of background research on Akan/Twi, and to get back in the habit of practicing speaking Twi. We also have to get the apartment ready for Gaetanelle, a visiting scholar in the Stanford lx department who will live here for the summer and keep an eye on our rascally little kitty.

Once we get to Ghana, we'll be on the go; never in the same place for more than three weeks. So, snail mail will be hard if not impossible, but hopefully email will be available, intermittently. Based on using email in China, my main email account while in Ghana will be:
ya4ping2@yahoo.com (Jefferson can be reached at jefferson_deanza@yahoo.com)

So check back when you can, especially after July 1st!