They say it’s your Birthday, well it’s my birthday too!

Written March 14, 2010

There is nothing more satisfying than a successfully relaxing and well deserved break. After actually feeling busy and productive (world map, girls camp planning, pen pal letters, moringa workshops) for a few weeks, celebrating my birthday in Cape Coast felt like the perfect thing to do. Casimir helped me to plan and orchestrate my birthday by suggesting a fellow volunteer’s place to stay and helping to make other arrangements, so a major shout out to him!

But first, before I talk about my time in the coast, I need to describe the events of March 6^th, which is Ghana’s Independence Day. All week leading up to the 6^th, all of the students practiced and practiced their marching under the hot sun. You couldn’t walk down the street or sit in your house without hearing the drums banging in t he distance. In Ghana, students march in honor of those who fought for the independence of the country. Its less like marching band and more like military style marching, one primary school boy’s group had even made fake wooden guns to use to salute. Last year students were selected from each town and marched only in the district capitals, but this year they marched in each town, which was fabulous. I can honestly say that this was the first time in Ghana that I haven’t been completely turned off by the amount of ceremony and pomp and circumstance (and loud speakers) used in mass events. Everything about the day was enjoyable, especially watching the students. I guess it would not have been as entertaining if my town were smaller. As it is larger, we have about 10 schools including the private ones. Every primary and JSS school participated and each marching performance was different. Each group started at their school and marched to the center of town where they would trade off with another group. Eventually they all marched up the hill to the field (directly next to my world map!) where the full ceremony began. Nana even marched with his royal procession and personal umbrella holder.

Boy that sun was hot.

As usual, the ceremony had a late start due to some confusion so it ended up lasting till after 1pm and the students were basically puddles by that point. I was dripping sweat and I was sitting down, under a tent, in the shade. But the kids were still troopers, and you could really see their dedication to something that I could picture American students hating and refusing to do. In one respect it was almost like some sort of twisted form of child torture. Parading them all around, judging them, laughing at their mistakes, applauding their successes. But at the same time when I looked around at the faces of the people in the crowd with me I realized that these people were once children too, and were most likely once made to do this same traditional march (at least the younger generations, Ghana has only been Independent for a little over 50 years). Parents took pride in their children and were probably reminiscent of their own childhood memories of marching on the 6^th. I also really felt like a part of my community to sit there and watch students that I’ve somehow grown close to over the past year march past me. I took lots of photos and videos and for the remainder of the day sought out the students to show them how they looked marching. This of course was very exciting for them. There is a lot of technique involved in the marching which I didn’t really understand and they tried explaining to me. It was also interesting to have to explain (and defend) our own way of celebrating Independence d ay, as we don’t exactly just march. Parade isn’t exactly a new term to Ghanaians but our version of parades is radically more extreme. Not to mention fireworks and picnics and all the other things we may associate with the 4^th of July (by the way, I can’t wait to come home for my visit and eat burgers and hot dogs and watch the fireworks!!!)

So that’s pretty much Ghana’s Independence Day, Ill post lots of pictures up of the students in my next entry so stay tuned for that. Now onto my birthday J

Casimir and I planned to meet and stay the night at a fellow volunteer’s site. Nancy, a deaf art teacher (who pretty much has the coolest job ever) lives right outside of Cape Coast in a really really really (really really) nice 4^th floor penthouse suite (there is no exaggerating after I’ve been living in a closet for almost the past year and a half). Casimir had further to travel so while we were waiting for him to arrive we swapped craft ideas and I taught her how to make magazine beads. I also tried picking up some sign language. For some reason I remember learning a bit of sign language at some point when I was younger and cant remember why or where or even when but I can still do pretty much the whole alphabet. Some older girls came up to do crafts with us and they showed me how I would sign my name (L sign over left arm from wrist to elbow, back and forth). I cannot express how jealous I am of Nancy’s job and kept thinking If only I had known this existed in Peace Corps! Nancy said her recruiter asked her about it (she has a background in teaching graphic design) when she was applying; she is obviously very happy with her placement. After Casimir arrived we all had a good dinner/evening and the next morning we were off to Cape Coast and then Elmina. After we swore in, over a year ago, Casimir and I were the only two from our group to explore Cape Coast and do the castle tour. It was something I had wanted to do immediately upon doing research of Ghana (not to mention the canopy walk, which we swore to return to do in the future). This time we planned to do Elmina to see the (St George’s) castle which was another slave trade area. The castle was packed with school groups because it was a holiday (also my birthday) but the crowd control was very well done and we toured in a small group. In the end, I think I preferred the Cape Coast Castle tour to Elmina’s but preferred Elmina’s castle and the surrounding area. Both castles were very different in their design and also their use during the slave trade. The area around Elmina’s castle was really cool, a massive port with longboats and canoes, kids jumping in and swimming in gross polluted and murky water, a massive fort up a hill directly across from the castle. After our tour, we walked around the town to check out the Fante shrines which all pale in comparison to the one at my friend Kathryn’s site with giant blue figurines that look like the Blue Meanies from Yellow Submarine. Most Fante shrines appear to have bizarre animal statues and bright colors. This was true of the Elmina shrines but they weren’t as crazy as other ones I had seen (I need to do a little research about Fante shrines. Since I don’t live in a Fante area I don’t know much about them other than that they are pretty crazy looking). Also we kept attracting small children asking us for our names and our money. Casimir started telling them his name was Billy Idol and that the kids were fatter than him and therefore didn’t need money/food. After we scared away all the kids I decided next time I should tell them I was Hannah Montana (never got a chance to do that). We wondered if the Daily Graphic, Ghana’s nationwide newspaper, would report Billy Idol’s visit to the Cape Coast area in the next issue ("accompanied by Hannah Montana, Billy Idol insulted all of Elmina’s small children by telling them they were fat").

After we toured a bit more of Elmina, we caught a tro back to Cape Coast so we could eat lunch on the beach next to Cape coast Castle in the really nice restaurant we ate in over a year ago. We both had a really nice meal (fried shrimp and French fries for me!) and Casimir tried to get me free food for my birthday but no one was nice enough to even bring me a cupcake with a candle. Oh well.

After eating we were off to Hans Botel, a hotel (boat-el) on the water, or so it claims, with a stilted restaurant, crocodiles, and swimming pool… I thought it was awesome! It was a little crowded at first because of the holiday but once people left it quieted down except for a private party at the pool. Casimir and I went swimming almost immediately and while staying as far away from the extreme booty shaking Ghanaians I still got hit on several times by men who looked ridiculous in their giant lifesavers (fun fact: most Ghanaians cannot swim). One of them asked if Casimir was my father and if he had his permission to talk to me (head slap). We walked around the botel (they had lots of little paths and walkways) and there were tons of weaver birds making nests and sleeping crocodiles. I ate a great burger for dinner and we went to bed planning to do Kakum early the next morning followed by the Rock shrine and canoe tour we read about in the Bradt guide.

The day started off well with a begged ride into Kakum with a park worker. Since we arrived earlier than the park opened we ended up taking an early tour with Senior high school girls from Kumasi. There was no one else there but the guide informed us if we didn’t take the early tour we would have to wait another hour or so. Apparently the day before there were hundreds and hundreds of visitors and this group of girls was meant to do the canopy walk but were rescheduled to the following morning. When we drove into the park I had wrongly assumed all the heaps of trash in the picnic area was normally there (Ghana has a ton of pollution) but it was actually from the overflow of guests (when we left after our tour it was spotless). The tour was nice and the actual canopy walk was awesome! It would have probably been awful with tons and tons of people but just with the one school group it was quiet and calm. Although the girls did freak out the whole time (another fun fact: most Ghanaians are afraid of heights/everything) while climbing above the forest, they were far ahead of us so it was still pretty quiet. It was incredible to look at the tree tops and imagine all of the life hundreds of feet below us on the ground (which I couldn’t even see!) Casimir and I took several pictures and both agreed it was truly a unique experience.

Our next experience was also unique, but in a completely different way. Although there were signs on the road and an actual visitor’s center, the Rock shrine/canoe tour was definitely not up to the same standards as Kakum, AT ALL. I didn’t expect it to be, but I also didn’t expect it to be this poorly run. There were no guides to the shrine, the people expected us to pay over 20cedis for a taxi (because we are white and have money, of course!) and laughed when we said we would walk. In hindsight if I had known it was going to be such a rough experience I would have said to just forget about it. After taking a picture of the map and being given a small girl to lead us to the shrine we were brushed off by the welcoming crew who obviously had no expectation for us to survive the walk. In the end, we did walk the 7+ km to the rock shrine, find the canoe boys, ride the river, and find our way back. We also got lost (mostly because of the stupid girl who responded to every question with yes even though she didn’t understand what we were saying), eaten by mosquitoes (my feet and legs were swollen for days), and somewhat dehydrated. I don’t want to dwell on this story for long because it was obviously stressful and not to mention completely underwhelming at the same time. The rock shrine was cool enough, a natural rock cavern made by giant boulders, though the trail was seriously unkempt and difficult to maneuver. The canoe tour was less of a tour and more of just a 20 minute ride down the river. Like I said, underwhelming. Although it felt nice to sit after walking so long (I think we walked about 5 hours in total that day). After returning to the town the visitor’s center woman demanded we pay for our visit which was ridiculous. We had snagged another bummed ride (with a chief! we seriously had the best free rides that day!) back to the hotel so we just kind of threw money at the lady and split. The whole experience was pretty bad but I was just glad to have a swimming pool to return to. After a little nightswimming (cue the R.E.M. song) we ate dinner and passed out. I have never slept so well.

The next day I went into Accra to get packages and endure a pretty painful boil removal. One of my mosquito bites became infected and swollen (and painful!) so I had the Peace Corps doctor look at it. She decided it needed to be cut out with a knife which was absolutely awful. But at least it’s gone and can’t get any worse. Volunteers suffer through boils more often than you would think- mostly because of our poor water and sanitation situations. Can’t keep things clean in this country! Luckily we got it before it could grow any larger. After my surgery, I decided I needed to treat myself.

I went off to a silversmith with a married couple, Chris and Tammi (who coincidentally also have close birthdays to mine) and bought a really nice silver ring with traditional Adinkra symbols on it. I then marched myself over to the new real Italian gelato store and had pineapple and coconut…mmmm… and then met up with more volunteers at Epos rooftop spot for noodles.

Now I am back at site with a million bug bites and sore feet. Stephen came to visit yesterday/today to help with my world map. Progress, slow and steady progress. I hope to have it complete and beautiful by Earth Day (April 22) and host an unveiling and some kind of educational party thing. Today I was really annoyed because it looked like some kids took sticks and scraped some of my paint off. Seriously, really frustrating!!! Sometimes this country! Ugh! We fixed it but still, if this happens again I don’t know what to do. I also don’t know why I’m bothering to do something nice for people who obviously have no respect for it or for me. Okay, I’m done ranting.

Looks like it’s about to storm, so probably should shut my laptop down.

Till next time!

A Later Note: Water is back in my town! Sort of. They fixed the borehole nearest to my house so the water has been a lot clearer lately. Also, its been raining a lot more and that's great because I don't even have to go fetch water when it rains heavily. Although, when it rains heavily apparently my roof now leaks... but that's a whole other story.