Observations of some of the Customs

GREETING PEOPLE

While I was in Ghana I felt like I was running for political office because I shook so many hands. It is a common way to greet people. In Bawku I witnessed three different ways to greet. The seemingly most formal way was to bow on one knee and bow your head at the same time as saying a greeting. This was reserved for people that are older and ones that are more respected in the community. There are two forms of handshakes. A shake and a snap which I was surprised when my husband did this. I started to reprimand him about it and he said that the old lady actually did it to him! Then there is a shake and two pats on the chest which I saw the least often.

CHILDREN

I saw a range of children activities from mini adults selling things to mindlessly wandering children just playing all day.


ELDERLY

We did not see a lot of older people out and about. They are mostly cared for by the younger generation so they do not have to leave the house unless necessary. The place we did see them a lot was in the bank!

DINING ETIQUETTE

Most, if not all dishes are eaten by hand. Before eating, a bowl of water and a bottle of soap is placed on the table for washing the right hand. As you probably know the right hand is considered the clean hand and must be used for eating. This custom is fading away as with some of the other customs. I always thought that using the right hand was limited to 'eastern' custom but to my surprise westerners used to buy into this too. 'Gauche' means left in French. In English a gauche person is very clumsy. An adroit person is a skillful person and also means right in French. Concluding from these meanings, a right-handed person would be favored over a left-handed person. But just as this bias faded away in western culture, it is going away in Ghana. I noticed that a couple of my cousins are left-handed but still eat fufu with their right hand.


Rivals, husbands and other semi jokes.

Rivals by definition can be an aunt, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, etc. For example my sister-in-law is my rival. I must pretend to fight her and not like her because I am competing for my husbands attention. This custom was a little more confusing because my daughters collected a lot of 'husbands.' Anytime we met a new cousin or uncle they wanted to become their 'husband'. Which means that that uncle/cousin is in competition with my husband, their dad, the rival. I call these jokes because I wonder how much of this is pretend and how much is based on reality? Maybe I watch too much Law and Order.... Anyone who is named after a grandmother or grandfather is called just that, grandma or grandpa. The child with the namesake hates it but everyone loves to tease him/her about it. My daughter who is named after one of the great aunts told my aunt, 'You are too big to be my granddaughter!'

Transportation

I like Kumasi and Tamale where most people commute on bikes much better than Accra where there are too many cars and too many people.

Termite Mounds

All along the highway as we travelled North we saw termite hills ranging from a few feet high to over 10 feet high.

Bathrooms

Bathrooms on the road are very interesting in Ghana. At a rest stop there were two options for the woman's restroom. One for the equivalent of about 20 cents and the other for 10 cents. The 10 cent bathroom is the one in the picture.

Scenic View to Castle

Cape Coast/Elmina Castle

After a very lovely coastle drive to Cape Coast, we arrived at Elmina Castle. We had a phenomenal tour guide and I will get his name soon because I have to give him props. If you ever go you should ask for him. I have picture of the "door of no return," the last step the slaves took on the continent and many times of their life. The wreaths were placed as memorials to our ancestors who suffered through the Middle Passage. This is when I got choked up. An Islamic school came in and everyone was taking pictures so I did also.

The Chefs

Cooking some of the dishes in Ghana looks like a very tedious process. I saw a lot of pots and pans, coal and fire. One of the many anachronisms is that there are stoves, but when they are making the particular dish called tizet(sp?) they use a coal fire. Some of the ladies are pounding some peppers. And again they do a lot of pounding even though they have blenders.

Crocodile Whisperer

Far, far, far up in Northern Ghana almost in the French-speaking country of Burkina Faso, there is a little town called Paga where men speak to crocodiles. The animals are considered gods and they appease them by feeding them a healthy supply of chickens. They allow you to hold their tail and if you dare sit on them!

Travelling from Accra to Bawku

As you can see from my map of Ghana we took a 16 to 18 hour drive to Bawku, Ghana. It was a very bumpy....there's a lot more to say about that. Anyway, these pictures show the changing landscape from Amazon type forest of the south to the dry savannah of the north.

More Central Accra

Frankey's and Chicken Inn had the best fried chicken! The Chicken Inn here is located in the mall. The gingerbread house is a taste of Christmas in Accra.
Look at the picture with the woman with the basket on her head, I saw one man selling about 5 layers of Pringles, one on top of the other. I am told that women can tote several gallons of water on their head for up to two miles. That is not necessary anymore except in remote villages. People in Ghana sell anywhere and transport it anyhow. I also saw two people on a motorbike transporting metal rods for the building structure of a house on the back of the bike. They were several yards long and dragging on the ground.

Central Accra

Here are some scenes I tried to shoot of Central Accra. I wanted to capture some of the landmarks and most important the crazy amount of people in one space. I read in a tourist guide from the 1990's that about 1.7 million people call Accra home! I will never complain about traffic in my city ever again. We learned that hard way that you need to a lot several hours of travel time if you want to get anything done during the day.

Kwame Nkrumah was the first president of Ghana after independence. There are many monuments dedicated to him. He created infrastructure in the 50s and 60s that still sustain Ghana today such as the port city Tema and Akosombo Dam located on the largest man made lake in the world.

The blue van is called a troi troi and is the main mode of transportation. They are also a main cause of traffic congestion because of stopping to pick up and let off people.

Map of Ghana

I created a rough map outlining our journey through Ghana. We will be traveling to my father's hometown which is at the opposite end of Ghana.

This is a great map of tourist sites in Ghana - http://www.touringghana.com/tourist_sites.asp.

Gold Coast

Stay tuned for daily updates from Ghana!

Germs key part of Guns, Germs, and Steel

I may be mistaken but when Jerod Diamond wrote Guns, Germs, and Steel he did not study much about Africa. In the book Diamond takes an in depth look at the land, weather, and environment of each continent. He then draws conclusions about why some civilizations flourished and others were susceptible to attack. In the last volume of the video series Diamond does explore Africa in depth.

The questions he discovered were why were diseases, the germ portion of Guns, Germs, and Steel, affecting the colonizers more than the native inhabitants? The reverse had occurred in the Americas. The theory is that the way Sub-Saharan Africans (SSA) structured their towns prevented the easy spread of disease such as malaria and yellow fever. First of all they did not live close to the water like the Europeans did. Even today some women still carry water for miles in metal pots on their head. Secondly ethnic groups were relatively isolated. If someone get sick in one town it doesn't easily spread to another town. The fractal society is evident in the many different languages and the many different religions that are still alive today.

But modern day SSA is a reflection of European city structure. And disease is a major cause of the developmental problems of these countries. Disease keeps many children and adults in the hospital and not at school and work.

My questions are:
1. Can a mosquito not spread the diseases from village to village?
2. What about other tropical areas of the world? Did they not experience the same phenomenon?

Niagara Fall, not!

I was watching a PBS show on Niagara Falls hoping to be drawn more to visiting the great work of God. But I was disappointed as they chronicled the taming of Niagara Falls by the US and Canada. I think the first, worst thing that was done was to make a spectacle of it in the 1800's. Some profiteers decided to send a burning ship with animals in it over the falls. 20,000 people showed up to watch this barbaric act. If the Falls could cry it would be screaming. Then the horrible buildings that were built around it and ruined the view.

Then the electricity that was supplied by the magnificent force of the water was displayed. As an engineer this part was more fascinating then repulsive to me. Not knowing how to get the power from the Falls to Buffalo there started a fight between one famous and one unknown scientist. Thomas Edison wanted to use direct current to transfer the energy. Tesla(now the name for a unit of measurement) wanted to use alternating current. Sorry Edison, but you lost this one.

The final straw and the worst yet was in the 50s, the US could actually control the flow of the Falls which now constantly flows at 25% of capacity. How sad. I think I would rather enjoy watching the Nature Channel on t.v. than go to the circus.

Drought imperils Iraq's 'Garden of Eden' marshes, an ancient culture

I found this article interesting.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2009/04/16/drought_imperils_iraqs_garden_of_eden_marshes_an_ancient_culture/

My home journey begins.

I was fascinated when I heard about the book Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. The revolutionary explanation for how our world is currently divided up very much interested me. I also thought it was a great place to begin on my journey into anthropology. But I could not get past the first Chapter. One reason was that my schedule was limited and I kept having to return the book back to the library. It was also in high demand at the library. Secondly, as a Christian it was difficult to get through the predicate that we evolved from monkeys.

Sigh....I hope one day to finish the book. Now I'm interested in getting my toddlers interested in world geography. As we watch Amazing Race (love the show) I mark each country the contestants visit in our Atlas (thanks dad).

I also follow a replicated voyage that was made by the Phoenicians in 600BC. The ship will circumnavigating Africa, starting in Syria. I just found out they launched an online website for students!!! http://www.phoenicia.org.uk/education-home.htm