lost in africa and other adventures by leah moriarty

While waiting in line at the U.S. embassy, a preacher named Johnson starts up a conversation with me, like most Ghanaians would, being the friendly people they are. He asks the regular questions, what are you doing in Ghana, do you like Obama, what church do you go to? I told him I didn’t go to church and he asked me what religion I am. Now, I have learned from experiences here, that being any religion is better than being nothing here, so I told him I am Jewish. He got so excited, I was the first Jew he has ever met! He told me he is going to talk about me in church on Sunday. Great.

Then he went on to ask me all about what Jews think about Jesus Christ, I told him we think he was a cool Jewish man. Johnson also thanked me for giving him Jesus Christ, I said you’re welcome. Then he asked me if any Jews think he’s the savior, and I explained that some do, and some don’t think there is a savior, and some think that the savior is coming. He asked me what I thought. Well this conversation was becoming too deep for 8am. I told him I didn’t know, then he went on to explain to me that Jesus is coming back and that all the Jews will regret rejecting this whole time because he will save all of us. Then I laughed awkwardly and my name was called and I could not be happier.

Today, I had to trek to the U.S. embassy, which is of course out of reach by tro tro, to get new pages sewn into my passport (yeah, I do feel pretty cool that I have to get more pages). The embassy is a large edifice lined with armed guards of course.

I walk in, hand all my electronics to the guards, go through the metal detector and pass through these doors to a gorgeous oasis of green, freshly cut grass and flowers. I walk into the main building, where the air conditioning is blasting. This is probably why the power goes out in my dorm every other day.

In this large room, there are about 200 Ghanaian men and women of all ages, many about my age, in their nicest clothes (and when Ghanaians dress up, they dress up I’ll tell you…), looking really nervous. This blonde American guy in a tie comes out to everyone and just says “Hey, welcome to the visa interview process! You guys nervous?” Obviously, he got no reply. Of course these people are nervous, you are only giving two out of 200 of them visas today, even if they are accepted into the best schools in the States or just want to visit their family. I wanted to punch him and give a Ghanaian my passport, but I don’t think that would work out nicely for anybody.

The first rainy season, not even the “real” rainy season has begun in Ghana.  This means that ever couple of days it rains.  Sometimes it is just 10 min of regular rain; sometimes it rains so hard I feel like I am standing under a waterfall; sometimes it drizzles for long periods of time, and sometimes it feels like the apocalypse is coming with the amount and distance of the rain, thunder and lightening to my head.

The other night, I experienced one of these apocalypses when I was alone in my room, sleeping.  I was awoken by a huge thunder strike that shook my bed.  Sometimes lightening strikes right next to my building, or it strikes the electricity box.  The lights flickered and my fan started spinning out of control.  I was sure it would spin off the ceiling and chop off my head.  This apocalyptic thunderstorm mixed with the lucid dreams I have with my malaria medication did not mix well.  That same night as the lightening was flashing out my window, I had a dream that someone was under my roomate’s bed, waiting for me to fall asleep so they could kill me.  It was not a pleasant night.

The rainy season also creates lots, and lots of mud.  At the market every day while doing my research, I must hop around rocks, on boards of wood, an obstacle course to avoid stepping and sinking into 6 ft of mud.  The other day, a green substance in the mud was all over my feet.  I did not wish to guess what it came from.

Slippery mud and gutters also do not mix.  The other day, while walking to class, I slipped in some mud next to a gutter that came out of nowhere, and I fell into it.  I have a gash on my leg that my roomate told me draws attention, as if my skin color and gender do not attract enough attention in this country already.

So that is the rainy season.  There is also a lot more stagnant water around, breeding grounds for malarial mosquitoes.  So we’ll see what happens there.

Our last CIEE trip was a big one to Kumasi- in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The Ashanti people are the most powerful people in Ghana, it is where they speak Twi, has a King that is in charge and is also where the largest open air market in West Africa is. We went in this market, and it was like Madina Market on crack. Ladies with bowls of live chickens on their heads, everything from machetes to fabric to who knows what. The aisles were so thin you had to walk sideways to go through them. I even lifted my arm once and hit a policewoman in the head by accident, oops.

Then we went to the palace, or the part of the palace that is a museum. Our tour guide was the most emphatic man I have ever encountered in my life. He said everything like he had never said it before, and like it was the craziest thing anyone will ever here. I kind of loved him. The king also has many chairs that only he can sit in and nobody else. Wow.

We went to a lake that was created by a meteorite that was so peaceful and scenic, palm trees all around and a lack of trash in and around the water. But going in the water was not so refreshing- the water felt like bathwater it unless you find the sporadic spots of cool, and the bottom was quite mushy. We took a boat ride around the water, the motor almost died in the middle, which would have been cute because not everyone in our group knows how to swim. But alas, we made it home safe and dry.

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.