lost in africa and other adventures by leah moriarty

I will not say that I have had to use my brain power much regarding my courses here at University of Ghana. Professors are on Africa Time, they sometimes do not show up at all, they don’t really mind if we do not do the little work they assign us.

My English class has been my favorite, we do read a novel per week, and unlike most courses here with over 100-1,000 students in the courses, there are only 10 of us. He told us in the beginning of the course that he does not want his students licking his mucus, i.e. he doesn’t want us to just write down word for word what he says and regurgitate it on our final exam. The class is discussion based and interesting at times.

But, unfortunately there are some writing issues with many of the Ghanaian students in the course. He began the last class by saying “you guys are bad writers!” He proceeded to discuss subject verb agreement and the correct use of pronouns, all things I learned about in 6^th grade. And what made it more awkward, he kept telling Amanda, the other American in the class and I that this discussion did not apply to us because we learned these things in our American schools, and English is our first language. He read examples of this bad writing out loud in class. Then expressed his concern about the fact that students at the University of Ghana do not have a mandatory writing class. After class, two of the Ghanaian students in our class asked us to photocopy our papers so they could learn from them. We reluctantly gave it to them, happy to help, but felt uncomfortable at the fact that our class now thinks that we are expert writers.

So this class is an example of the lack of basic writing skills that students do not learn in junior high school. It has nothing to do with anybody’s intelligence, but it is just something that is going to serve as an automatic set back if Ghanaian students look for job opportunities in the States or Europe, which most of them seem to want to do. I have an automatic in not only because English is my first language, but because they beat the rules of grammar in us starting from the moment we learned the alphabet…

The full moon in front on the blue, smogless sky in Cape Coast told me that it was time for Passover, one of my favourite Jewish holidays that I was upset I was going to be missing.  But, Sarah Frank to the rescue because as part of her program, she met Rabbi Kohain (I know, a rabbi in Ghana, crazy) who is from the States but moved to Ghana years ago to be in the land of his ancestors.  We went to his sedar at his restaurant called Mabel’s Table, sitting on the beach the sound of the waves served as the background music to our sedar.

The sedar began late because the men were busy slaughtering the lamb, because you have to wait until sundown to do so, there was an entire lamb that everyone had to participate in eating before sunrise.

The rabbi sat with 5 men at the front of the room, in front of a painting of the last supper with black rastamen as Jesus in co. one of my favourite parts of the entire room.

I felt the importance of Passover at this sedar.  Celebrating with people who came back to the continent of Africa, where their family was taken generations ago, who had so much faith and so much thanks to god because they were able to come home.  Usually with my family, we read from the children’s hagaddah quickly so we can get to the matzah kuggle before it gets cold.

The importance of the exodus from slavery, the importance of time, the importance of the new year of spring, of relaxing for seven days was emphasized at the Passover table.  The rabbi told us that we are all April Fools because we believe that the new year is now and not in January, when everything is dead and cold.  We must always know the time and be aware of it, after all, we would not do the same thing at 3am as we would do at 3pm right? I have not learned so many lessons at a sedar before.

After we ate the lamb among other Ghanaian foods and wine (not Manischevitz, sorry folks), everyone at the sedar was asked to share something.  Deep, jubilant, soulful voices filled the room accompanied by an African drum.  Some told stories, some spoke of the difficulties of moving to Ghana.  And one of my personal favourites, a 6 year old sharing her song “this is the way I brush my teeth.” Everyone at the table had something to share, everyone had a role to play in the family.

So no four questions, no charoset and no singing of dianu, but the experience was close to indescribable, being with these people with such strong faiths and joy to make it home, and to celebrate the Passover story.

So coincidence, my good friend Sarah Frank from Newton, MA is studying in Ghana at the same time on a different program! This weekend, I went to Cape Coast, where she is doing an independent study project about Dance Dramas and studying with the only female drum master in Ghana.  I could not pass up the chance to hang out with my friend and have a chance to jam with a drum master.

We went to Antoinette, the drum masters apartment where she lives with her daughter Sena, both were so welcoming.  We helped Sena cook a classic Ghanaian meal of rice and stew, then attempted to make chocolate chip cookies.  Now I would say that we succeeded, Sarah might disagree but although we had no vanilla extract, brown sugar, and the chocolate melted the second we stirred it into the batter, the chocolate peanut butter cookies that ended up out of the mess were delicious.

The next day, I participated in Sarah’s dance class by playing the bell to keep the beat during her dance about selling fish.  I watched her and Sena shake their hips to my sweet beat on the bell.  Then we walked around town with Ernest, Antoinette’s nephew, with whom we had lengthy discussions about religion, not a foreign discussion in Ghana.  It was interesting to hear his views on Jews, he believes that Judaism is a race, and Christians believe that all Jews will be saved in the second coming of Christ.  He thought these were my beliefs as well.  I had to correct him on my opinions while being sensitive to his, it is always a sensitive choice in words when discussing these things in Ghana.

After a lovely walk in town, we went to Antoinette’s African Creations to have our drum lessons, and to look around her store full of fabrics, instruments, jewelry and other African creations.  I am taking a drumming course at University of Ghana, but Antoinette taught me some things that I am not learning in class, some beats with my hands.  She taught me some simple beats, then she along with Sena, Dixon and Sarah all jammed on the drums and the bell.  Drumming with a drum master definitely made me look like I was better at drumming than I am.  She kept saying “o its cool, you are great”  She made me feel like quite a drumming star.

So drumming, dancing, discussing, Passover celebrating and beaching.  Newton did Ghana pretty well.  I am pulling for us to send our photo to the Newton Tab.

One of the best activities in Ghana so far has been the canopy walk in Kakum National park, outside Cape Coast. After a small hike in the thick African rainforest, we ended up at a platform leading to about six bridges, the highest point being about 200 ft in the air. These were not your average bridges. They were about one plank of wood wide, not held up from the ground with netting on the side. As you walked over them you swung from side to side. Some of the split wood was a little bit disconcerting, but the view was lovely and walking above a rainforest was quite the experience. And we all know I love my heights and dangerous activities.

An obligatory trip when one comes to Ghana is to Cape Coast. This is where the first European building outside of Europe lies; this is also the largest slave castle in Africa, El Mina Castle. My program set us up a tour of the castle, I was ready for an emotional hour, waiting for the atrocities that I have read about for so many years to come true before my very eyes. But this did not happen. I think there are many reasons why this experience was not as emotional as expected. For one, it is a huge tourist destination and there were just people everywhere, and not everyone was walking around with solemn faces. This was somewhat distracting to the experience. Another reason is that this castle is a beautiful building, and there are almost no artifacts, photos, artistic works in it to remind everyone walking through that this was once a slave castle. At other memorials, former places of torture etc such as Robben Island or the Holocaust museum in Israel, there are photos and artistic ways that made the situation come alive before you. At the castle, I was more impressed by the architecture.

Something that did spark emotion was the dungeon where the female slaves were kept. There is a balcony over it that the tour guide took us up to. He said this is where the colonels would come and pick his female slaves to rape, and this is how a new race was born in Ghana. He was very matter-a-fact about the situation, did not sugar coat it at all which is something I appreciated.

One experience that we had before the slave castle was quite intense. About an hour before Cape Coast, we visited the river where the slaves were brought to have their last bath before they were brought to the castle. It also served as sort of a holding place for slaves before there was demand for more. Outside of the river, there are very graphic paintings of different aspects of slavery that made the place real. Paintings of slaves being whipped, having their last baths, chained to each other etc. Seeing the brown river with only the people in our group around it created an image of my mind about everything I have learned about the Trans Atlantic slave trade my entire life.

Just past dixcove, in a taxi ride down a long dirt road in many deep puddle, lies a backpacker’s paradise.  Green Turtle Lodge is an ecolodge about 4 hours from Accra.  It is right on one of the cleanest beaches I have seen since I’ve been here.  There are hammocks and umbrellas, board games and pina coladas.  What else could a girl want, really?

We arrived and took the day to play in some of the most intense waves I have ever experienced and lay in the sand to talk about what would happen if the sky was the ocean.  After waking up in the tent covered with sand, we took a 6 mile hike to 3 points.  Michael somehow managed to get the guide to give him a machete and he had a lot of fun cutting at plants on the way.  At the end of the hike, there was a lighthouse with this great rock formation perfect for climbing and watching the waves crash.  When we were about to take the 6 miles back, it looked like it was going to pour, like the crazy west African rains pour.  We found this generous road safety man with a pick up truck to drive us about 3/4ths of the way home.  Then we walked the rest with the huge raindrops drenching every square inch of our bodies, slid through the mud through a tiny village where the goats hid under trucks and the children played in the rain.  When we made it back to Green Turtle we jumped in the ocean which was so much warmer than the rain and played to our hearts’ content.

Laying on the beach, hiking, sleeping in tents, drinking REAL coffee, I would say my soul was content by Sunday when we traveled back to the real world.

I was in a tro tro last night on my way home from a long journey from the green turtle lodge, and the tro tro stops suddenly and everyone starts shouting and jumping out of the tro tro.  I have never seen anyone move this quickly in Ghana.  I was sitting towards the back, and ran out as fast as I could.  I smelled smoke and thought this was the end of my life, that this tro tro was going to blow up and I would not get out quickly enough.

Well, I obviously made it and the tro tro did not blow up.  Everyone was laughing when everyone finally got out, but the tro tro was still smoking. I was shaking for about an hour after. oooo transportation in ghana.

currently, as part of my internship, I am conducting a research project on domestic violence among market women in Accra.   The other day, we began surveying over 500 women and 100 men in the 3 main markets in the Ga East District about marriage, sex and domestic violence.  Later, we will take the surveys and conduct interviews and focus groups.

At first, I did not think the women would be receptive to our questions.  I would think they would get mad at the silly American girl asking if their husbands beat them and how many times a week they have sex with their husbands, but it has been the opposite experience so far.  The women have been so candid with me.  They never refuse to answer a question, they often do laugh at me because of the sensitive subject matter, but they love speaking with me and are willing to help me.  I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that domestic violence is not a buzz word in this country, and many thing that are taboo in the states that have to do with physical and sexual abuse are not seen as bad things here.

There has only been one other research study on domestic violence in Ghana, so it has also been difficult predicting what the answers to the survey questions would be.  Domestic Violence is not taboo in Ghana.  Many women so far have said that many husbands in Ghana discipline their wives, and that it is not okay to leave your husband if he is abusing you.

So far, I have enjoyed working with these women so much, it is hot and difficult to understand them most of the time, so it takes up a significant amount of energy, and my throat is sore from speaking over the hussle and bussle of the market, but I am learning so much more in the field than I would anywhere else, and I am very excited for this finished product.

This past weekend, the members of the Pentagon hostel and homestay kids went on a CIEE fieldtrip to the Volta Region of Ghana. After a night of being out until an hour before the bus left (a story I shall tell another time), I fell asleep instantly: head bob, drool and all next to Aly.

Four hours later, I wake up to green. Seeing green after being in Accra for so long is always so refreshing. I seem to never think I will see green again. Especially when I go from brown, smoggy Accra to a rainforest I feel like my breath and brain are not stifled by smoke and gas.

Anyways, we get out of the bus and straight to a walk in the rainforest with a guide who showed us pineapples growing, rivers flowing and saved us from fighting snakes. After about 45 minutes, we walk into a clearing, and past that clearing is the tallest waterfall I have ever seen. Photos (which I will put up when I have patience to put them up) could not do the grandiosity of this waterfall justice. The way the light caught the top made it look truly magical. We swam underneath it and the water was freezing, and hurt my head as the water fell on it from hundreds of feet above me. We imagined later that a rock falling down that waterfall would kill us instantly. But that thought might take away from the enchanting experience.

After the rainy walk back through the rainforest, over nine wooden bridges, back on the bus to a monkey sanctuary. Now I thought this monkey sanctuary would be more like a zoo with only primates, but it was nothing of the sort. From what I understood about the story, this sanctuary was started to raise money for the village, and to save the monkeys in it. We walked through the forest for not 10 minutes and we saw a pack of medium sized monkeys swinging on trees and everything. We all fed them bananas. So stereotypical but I obviously enjoyed it, especially after taking an entire class on human evolution last semester and learning everything about primates.

Then back to the hotel for a relaxing rest of the weekend. We had Sunday morning free, so Aly and I laid in the hotel beds with real mattresses and pillows and watched Spanish soap operas dubbed in English all morning. Beautiful