Hi Ruth!
I'm still in Ghana, but today I'm coming home!
I'll probably write some more here about Ghana, both for you and for the other people like Grammy and Grampy who read it. I want to finish the Bolgatanga story (I haven't even told you about the bees yet!) and talk a little about how I feel about the whole thing, and tell everyone about all the help Grammy and Grampy gave.
But I probably won't finish that today, because I'm busy packing up to see you!
I hope my bags aren't too heavy...
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Ghana, Day 131 - Last Sunday Song
Hi Ruth!
I'm still in Ghana, but this is the last lonely Sunday I'll spend here instead of hanging out with you and Mommy, so I wanted to make sure I put up a song for you! Since it will be Christmas soon, I thought I'd put up a Christmas song. It's one of my favorites, and maybe one you and me and Mommy can sing together!
I'm still in Ghana, but this is the last lonely Sunday I'll spend here instead of hanging out with you and Mommy, so I wanted to make sure I put up a song for you! Since it will be Christmas soon, I thought I'd put up a Christmas song. It's one of my favorites, and maybe one you and me and Mommy can sing together!
Ghana, Days 123-124 (Last Sat-Sun), Part 2: Sirigu
Hi Ruth!
I'm still in Ghana, and trying to finish my story about the weekend before I come home!
One of the places I really wanted to go was a small town called Sirigu, even closer up to the border with Burkina Faso. In Sirigu, they have a special style of painting their houses to make them beautiful (in Sirigu, the women do the painting).
For a while, people were stopping painting them because the paints are made from natural things like special rocks, and they don't last very long. I was told that they need to be repainted every three years, and that's a lot of work - especially since things up near the desert (remember I said that up there is getting close to the Sahara) things are getting drier and it's more and more work just to grow food to eat. So, a little while ago a woman from Sirigu - who I am told was the first one from the village to go to college, and who went on to be a teacher - decided to put together an organization called SWOPA. SWOPA helps people keep doing the traditional house painting (and other crafts of the village, like making pottery) by teaching them how to do it, helping them get a good price for crafts, and then paying some people to maintain the traditional house painting by running tours and sharing the money they get from the tours with them.
So, I went. I had a very nice guide named Albert, who talked a lot with me about the village, and how the paints are made, and the traditional religion there. For instance, he told me that when people die in Sirigu, they have a special way of making a place to bury them. First, they dig a round hole only big enough for your shoulders (well, not your shoulders, your shoulders are tiny). Then someone goes underground and hollows out a bigger room for the person who died, but still with only the little hole to get in, and when they have buried the person, they cover the hole with a clay disk so they know where it is.
But you probably want to see pictures of the painting! First, Mr. Albert took me around the SWOPA building.
Kofi Annan, who's one of my heroes, and is famous in Ghana (and around the world! He was in charge of the United Nations for a while), came to visit, and they made a statue of him!
Inside the workshop, they have some things made by people in the village. You can buy them (don't worry, I got something for you and Mommy), but it was also interesting to get a tour and some explanations of the kinds of things they make and how they make them. For instance, he showed me the special rocks and dirt and sticks that the women use to make the red, white, and black paint they use on the houses (they don't just buy it in a store!):
Then he showed me a traditional pot set. Women in Sirigu each have one of these sets of pots (except for the fancy top one, apparently you only get one of those when you are an elder woman, because in Africa people are very respectful of older people, since they have lived long and know a lot of things, like Great Grammy and Great Mem, and also like Grammy and Grampy).
People use them to keep dried food in, because in Sirigu (like lots of places in Africa), it's very important to always be hospitable, which means ready to welcome guests. So, just in case someone comes and you don't have enough fresh food to serve them a nice meal, you will always have dried fruit and vegetables, and some millet (people were surprised to learn that I knew what millet was, and that you liked to eat it for breakfast!) to serve them.
Then we went out to see the model homes that people keep nice so people like me can come and look at them.
The houses in Sirigu aren't quite like our houses. They're made of dried mud, and they only have one floor, and they're mostly outside! Each person has his or her own small circular room, and then there's a courtyard (sort of like the ama in Ebele's Favorite Game) where people get together, sort of like a living room, but outdoors. And then there's a section for the animals and storing grain, and everything's connected with outside walls. Here, let me show you:
This is what one of the houses (actually the third one I went to) looks like from a little ways away. The building on the left is one built out of concrete in a more modern style that was added to it later. Albert told me that people like building out of concrete sometimes because it lasts longer than the mud, but the mud makes homes cool when it's hot and warm when it's cold, in a way that concrete doesn't (if our house was made of mud, we probably wouldn't need the air conditioners in the summer!). So he said that they are experimenting with making blocks out of a combination of mud and concrete to see if they can make something that is strong like concrete but cool like mud. But you want to see more of the houses!
This is the oldest house in the village that's still standing, what it looks like as you just come through its outer wall.
Also, remember there aren't a lot of grocery stores where people can just go buy food. Most of the farmers have to live pretty much on what they can grow. So, what do they eat in the dry season when the millet can't grow? Most farmers in Sirigu have granaries as part of their house, in the animal part. These are big hollow towers made of mud and sticks that they fill up with dry millet that they can eat during the dry season.
Then we went through into the part where the people live (the blocks you can see are some of the mud/concrete blocks).
The part with the little round door at the bottom and the stairs going up is the main room of the house. It's where the Mommy usually lives, and also the kitchen [Adults: Yeah, Sirigu isn't quite a stronghold of feminism.]
Albert explained that the triangle pattern on the main building represents a net that holds calabash pots, and the straight lines represent a broken calabash, because both are so useful - even broken calabashes are used as tools to help make pottery, kind of like how you used part of the coconut shell as a scoop when we were at Madina Market.
The stairs go up to the flat roof. This is what the area around the house looks like from the roof:
And this is what the whole house looks like from up there. The big stick is so you can climb up to the top of the granary and take the top off to get the millet.
There are two reasons why there are stairs up to the roof. First, when it's really hot, sometimes people go up there and sleep instead of inside the house (most people in Sirigu don't have any electricity in their houses, so not only no air conditioning, not even any fans, and most of the buildings don't have windows you can open).
The other reason is that there used to be a lot of fighting in Sirigu [Adults: especially slave raids for sale in the south], a long time ago when this kind of house was first made. So someone could go up on the roof and see really far (like in the picture above) and see if anyone was coming to do fighting. Then he could yell to warn other people in the village.
When we came down off the roof, we went into the main room through its special door.
On the left you can see the special pots for dried food (but no elder woman lives in this house, so they don't have the special top pot!). I also got to see the special spot where they grind millet and things to cook with.
The bird in the middle of the design is supposed to be a guinea fowl, which are delicious and give eggs so are a sign of being rich. And then the crescent above it is for the moon. The people who live in this house believe that the moon is a spirit, sort of like a person, who is very powerful and you can ask to help you.
On top of their house, along with the places to sleep, they have a special place to go to make wishes to the moon:
And then I just thought this quote that someone painted on the house was pretty funny.
Here you can see his special helmet.
I couldn't get enough of the huge baobab trees! I've never seen a tree that big before! And you can eat the seeds - but they weren't quite ready yet. Albert and the man with the war dance clothes picked a pod and let me try one of the seeds, but it didn't taste like much. As they dry during the dry season, they say they get sweet and delicious.
Yup, that little thing in the corner is a house.
On the way back to Sirigu town, I saw some guinea fowl pecking, which reminded me they are delicious and I wanted to try some of the spicy stew they make near Bolga.
I'm still in Ghana, and trying to finish my story about the weekend before I come home!
One of the places I really wanted to go was a small town called Sirigu, even closer up to the border with Burkina Faso. In Sirigu, they have a special style of painting their houses to make them beautiful (in Sirigu, the women do the painting).
For a while, people were stopping painting them because the paints are made from natural things like special rocks, and they don't last very long. I was told that they need to be repainted every three years, and that's a lot of work - especially since things up near the desert (remember I said that up there is getting close to the Sahara) things are getting drier and it's more and more work just to grow food to eat. So, a little while ago a woman from Sirigu - who I am told was the first one from the village to go to college, and who went on to be a teacher - decided to put together an organization called SWOPA. SWOPA helps people keep doing the traditional house painting (and other crafts of the village, like making pottery) by teaching them how to do it, helping them get a good price for crafts, and then paying some people to maintain the traditional house painting by running tours and sharing the money they get from the tours with them.
So, I went. I had a very nice guide named Albert, who talked a lot with me about the village, and how the paints are made, and the traditional religion there. For instance, he told me that when people die in Sirigu, they have a special way of making a place to bury them. First, they dig a round hole only big enough for your shoulders (well, not your shoulders, your shoulders are tiny). Then someone goes underground and hollows out a bigger room for the person who died, but still with only the little hole to get in, and when they have buried the person, they cover the hole with a clay disk so they know where it is.
But you probably want to see pictures of the painting! First, Mr. Albert took me around the SWOPA building.
Kofi Annan, who's one of my heroes, and is famous in Ghana (and around the world! He was in charge of the United Nations for a while), came to visit, and they made a statue of him!
Inside the workshop, they have some things made by people in the village. You can buy them (don't worry, I got something for you and Mommy), but it was also interesting to get a tour and some explanations of the kinds of things they make and how they make them. For instance, he showed me the special rocks and dirt and sticks that the women use to make the red, white, and black paint they use on the houses (they don't just buy it in a store!):
People use them to keep dried food in, because in Sirigu (like lots of places in Africa), it's very important to always be hospitable, which means ready to welcome guests. So, just in case someone comes and you don't have enough fresh food to serve them a nice meal, you will always have dried fruit and vegetables, and some millet (people were surprised to learn that I knew what millet was, and that you liked to eat it for breakfast!) to serve them.
Then we went out to see the model homes that people keep nice so people like me can come and look at them.
The houses in Sirigu aren't quite like our houses. They're made of dried mud, and they only have one floor, and they're mostly outside! Each person has his or her own small circular room, and then there's a courtyard (sort of like the ama in Ebele's Favorite Game) where people get together, sort of like a living room, but outdoors. And then there's a section for the animals and storing grain, and everything's connected with outside walls. Here, let me show you:
This is what one of the houses (actually the third one I went to) looks like from a little ways away. The building on the left is one built out of concrete in a more modern style that was added to it later. Albert told me that people like building out of concrete sometimes because it lasts longer than the mud, but the mud makes homes cool when it's hot and warm when it's cold, in a way that concrete doesn't (if our house was made of mud, we probably wouldn't need the air conditioners in the summer!). So he said that they are experimenting with making blocks out of a combination of mud and concrete to see if they can make something that is strong like concrete but cool like mud. But you want to see more of the houses!
This is the oldest house in the village that's still standing, what it looks like as you just come through its outer wall.
Outside the house, there's a little shrine, dedicated to the first man who was the father of the man who lives in the house now. His father is buried somewhere else, but this is a place where they come to ask him to help them out. People in Sirigu, like lots of people in Ghana (and Africa, and lots of places in the world) believe that after you die, you go to another world with other people who died (sort of like a ghost) but you can still help out people in your family who are still alive, and they can still talk to you using magic. [Adults: I don't know how to explain religion in a way that will make a lot of sense to Ruth and be respectful and make clear that Melissa and I don't believe the same things. So feel free to skip most of this. Also, maybe skip the fact that you have to kill a chicken on that stone in order to talk to the ancestors. Animal sacrifice is, unfortunately, going to be kind of a theme.]
Then we went inside. The first part of the house is where they keep small animals, like chickens and goats and sometimes pigs. People in Sirigu mostly grow millet for food. I was there in the dry season, when there's no rain, so the millet had all died, and most of what you see in my pictures are the old dried out millet stalks that people can't eat.
But chickens can!
They have a pretty neat system. After they harvest the millet, they bring the dried stalks into the animal part of the house, where chickens and goats and pigs eat it. Then they poop! And the people collect the poop and make it into compost that helps grow more millet.
Also, remember there aren't a lot of grocery stores where people can just go buy food. Most of the farmers have to live pretty much on what they can grow. So, what do they eat in the dry season when the millet can't grow? Most farmers in Sirigu have granaries as part of their house, in the animal part. These are big hollow towers made of mud and sticks that they fill up with dry millet that they can eat during the dry season.
Then we went through into the part where the people live (the blocks you can see are some of the mud/concrete blocks).
The part with the little round door at the bottom and the stairs going up is the main room of the house. It's where the Mommy usually lives, and also the kitchen [Adults: Yeah, Sirigu isn't quite a stronghold of feminism.]
Albert explained that the triangle pattern on the main building represents a net that holds calabash pots, and the straight lines represent a broken calabash, because both are so useful - even broken calabashes are used as tools to help make pottery, kind of like how you used part of the coconut shell as a scoop when we were at Madina Market.
The stairs go up to the flat roof. This is what the area around the house looks like from the roof:
And this is what the whole house looks like from up there. The big stick is so you can climb up to the top of the granary and take the top off to get the millet.
There are two reasons why there are stairs up to the roof. First, when it's really hot, sometimes people go up there and sleep instead of inside the house (most people in Sirigu don't have any electricity in their houses, so not only no air conditioning, not even any fans, and most of the buildings don't have windows you can open).
The other reason is that there used to be a lot of fighting in Sirigu [Adults: especially slave raids for sale in the south], a long time ago when this kind of house was first made. So someone could go up on the roof and see really far (like in the picture above) and see if anyone was coming to do fighting. Then he could yell to warn other people in the village.
When we came down off the roof, we went into the main room through its special door.
If it looks hard to get into, it is! The opening is so low I had to crawl! And then there's a low wall right inside, that you have to climb over.
They made the opening this way on purpose. Not only was there once a lot of fighting near Sirigu, people used to have to worry about wild animals (like lions!) that would sometimes attack people. They built their doors this way so that, if someone on the roof warned them that people were coming to fight, or there were dangerous wild animals, everyone could go hide in the main room. Then, if someone tried to come in, they would have to crawl, and while they were crawling someone inside could push them back out with a spear or hit them on the head with a club, and the people inside would be safe.
Inside, we looked around. There was a big oven to cook in, and they kept their pots on top.
On the left you can see the special pots for dried food (but no elder woman lives in this house, so they don't have the special top pot!). I also got to see the special spot where they grind millet and things to cook with.
Then we went to see another one of the houses. It was pretty similar, but had some neat differences.
Albert told me a story about the pattern way at the top, that looks like diamonds. It symbolizes "leadership," and he said it's always the first pattern you paint on a house.
The story he told me was: A long time ago, one of the farmers in the village was having trouble with his cows getting away, and getting eaten by wild animals. So he trained one cow to be as smart as a person, and he fed her until she was huge and had gigantic horns. That cow would then take care of the other cows. When wild animals came, she would fight them with her giant horns. And when it was time for the herd to move, the super cow would just moo once and all the other cows would follow her. So, he said, the big red diamond in the middle represents the leader cow, and the lines all the other animals following her around.
The bird in the middle of the design is supposed to be a guinea fowl, which are delicious and give eggs so are a sign of being rich. And then the crescent above it is for the moon. The people who live in this house believe that the moon is a spirit, sort of like a person, who is very powerful and you can ask to help you.
On top of their house, along with the places to sleep, they have a special place to go to make wishes to the moon:
And then I just thought this quote that someone painted on the house was pretty funny.
While we were talking about what people in the village believe about how when you die you can stay as a sort of ghost to help your family out, Albert also told me about how they do funerals there. If you are older, when you die there is a big celebration, and the older you are, the bigger it is! There's usually dancing and drumming and people tell stories about your life.
One neat thing they do is that during the celebration a few people, at night, will go way out into the fields and hide. Then people will stand by the door of your house and shout out, "if when you were alive, you were a bad person, come back!" And the people will stay hidden. Then people will shout again, "if when you were alive, you were very evil, and fought, and hurt people, and didn't take care of your family, come back now!" and the people will stay hidden. Then they will shout a third time, but this time say, "if you when you were alive you were a very good person, and nice, and did good things, and everyone liked you, come back!" and then the people hiding in the field will pretend to be the spirit of the person who died and come running back and everyone will celebrate the good things you did in your life.
If you are very old, people will do a war dance for you. There's not much fighting in Sirigu now, but people still keep special clothes like the ones they used to wear for war, including a special helmet made out of a calabash and covered in cowrie shells, and the men do a big dance to show you were a great elder and leader in the village. I asked Albert if there were any examples of the special clothes I could see, and he brought me to see a man in the village who agreed to put on all his special war dance clothes for me. His children laughed and laughed - I think they thought he looked silly, but I thought it was neat.
Here you can see his special helmet.
Cowrie shells are considered very valuable in northern Ghana - they used to use them as money. So it's like having a helmet covered in jewels or gold coins would be for us. Some of the hunters in Sirigu, they believe, have magic that lets them sit on their helmets and make them fly, so they can be high above the animals when they're hunting.
And here you can see him without his quiver of arrows, but with his special animal skin.
People in Sirigu believe that some of the hunters and warriors can also do magic with these skins to make themselves invisible so they can sneak up on animals or people they are fighting.
Seeing all the houses and getting all the stories took a long time but was very interesting! I thanked Albert, and he showed me the way to take a path from SWOPA into the main part of Sirigu so that I could get a tro-tro back to Bolga.
I couldn't get enough of the huge baobab trees! I've never seen a tree that big before! And you can eat the seeds - but they weren't quite ready yet. Albert and the man with the war dance clothes picked a pod and let me try one of the seeds, but it didn't taste like much. As they dry during the dry season, they say they get sweet and delicious.
Yup, that little thing in the corner is a house.
On the way back to Sirigu town, I saw some guinea fowl pecking, which reminded me they are delicious and I wanted to try some of the spicy stew they make near Bolga.
I had to wait a long time for the tro-tro, but it was OK, I just sort of watched Sirigu go by. It's small - about the size of the little town I grew up in! But much more isolated, which makes it feel smaller.
Then I went back to Bolga, and had some delicious and super super super spicy guinea fowl stew at a restaurant called Mama Rakiya's, and then went to sleep.
I better hurry up and finish this story! As I write this, it's only two days until I leave to come back to see you and stay with you and Mommy for good!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Ghana, Days 123-124 (Sat-Sun), Part 1: North, North, North
Hi Ruth!
I'm still in Ghana. I wanted to tell you about my weekend, when I went waaaaaay up north to a place called Bolgatanga (or, most people just call it "Bolga."). Bolga is a little over 800 kilometers north of Accra, where you came to visit me. I took a bus there, and it took a long time. I left early in the morning and I didn't get there until the middle of the night! The bus trip wasn't so interesting, so let's just skip it. Mostly I read a couple of books.
[Pictured: what I saw of Kumasi, mighty capital of Ashanti.]
When I got there, pretty sleepy, I checked into the Nsamini Guest House, which was small (and cheap!) but pretty nice.
Even if they did feel that they had to put this sign up on the wall in my room!
But mostly, I wanted to fall asleep, so I did.
In the morning, I decided that I would go up to a town called Navrongo, where there's a very old church that was supposed to have some nice painting inside.
First, though, I was hungry. So I stopped and got some breakfast at one of my new favorite breakfast places - I think I even like it better than Pete's (but Pete's is closer)! It was called the International Traveler's Inn, and they only had fake coffee (not like the good stuff Mommy brought me) but they make really good egg sandwiches. Bolgatanga is up near Burkina Faso, which used to be a French colony, which means they have good food (and speak French there). And so, Bolga is the first place in Ghana I went that had good bread (for egg sandwiches) that I didn't make with you!
Anyway, the man who worked there was named Cabral, and it turns out he was named after a philosopher named Amilcar Cabral, who I think was really smart. Amilcar Cabral was very important in helping two different African countries, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, become their own countries. Unfortunately, they were controlled by Portugal (where some of Mommy's family is from) and Portugal had a really bad guy in charge then, and so there was a lot of fighting about it, and Amilcar Cabral died [adults: Actually, was assassinated]. But pretty soon after, the people he was trying to help got to have their own countries. And he wrote a lot of interesting things about freedom and right and wrong and Africa. One thing he thought was very important was that everyone's culture should change, but that it should get to change in its own way. Some of what he wrote is about fighting, though, so maybe we can read it when you're a little bit bigger (also, no pictures). Unfortunately, it turns out that Cabral's (who worked at the restaurant) Daddy was the one who liked Amilcar Cabral, and this Cabral didn't know much about him.
After the restaurant, I squeeeezed into a taxi with some other people going to Navrongo. Then I had them drop me on the road near the Cathedral.
Right now in Ghana it's the harmattan season. Bolga is so far north it's almost to the Sahara desert, in a dry, grassy part of Africa called the Sahel. The harmattan is a wind that blows down from the desert with strong gusts and lots of dust. Fortunately, it was still just starting when I got there, but it still made for a dusty Sunday morning!
I only had to walk a little way to the cathedral. But along the way, I noticed that the annoying people who were singing very loud outside the flat the first weekend you were here were also going to come to Navrongo! Oh no! Thank goodness, they're coming this weekend, when I'll be packing to come home and see you and Mommy instead.
But, a little ways past their sign, was the cathedral!
The cathedral is about 100 years old, and is made out of mud! Inside, they were having school, and I didn't want to disturb them. But I wanted to see some of the wall decorations, and I did by poking my head in. Some of them are friezes - which are sort of like pictures that are built up out of the wall, to make them a little bit like statues - made out of dried mud!
And then further inside the columns are painted with pictures using a way of painting that started in Sirigu, which is a town not too far from Navrongo.
After I looked at the pictures in the church for a little while, I walked to the town center. A girl named Sanata showed me how to get there (lots of people wanted to know where I was going when I was up there - not a lot of visitors go all the way to Bolga and Navrongo!), and told me about how she used to live in Burkina Faso before moving to Navrongo with her family, and how some of the kids used to make fun of her because she didn't know English then (remember, they speak French in Burkina Faso). But her English was very good now!
I thought about going to Paga to see crocodiles, but it's more fun seeing animals with you. So instead I splurged on a taxi to take me right to Sirigu, so I didn't have to go back to Bolga first.
But it's late, and I want to go to sleep so it'll be closer to when I get to see you. Only six more days!
I'm still in Ghana. I wanted to tell you about my weekend, when I went waaaaaay up north to a place called Bolgatanga (or, most people just call it "Bolga."). Bolga is a little over 800 kilometers north of Accra, where you came to visit me. I took a bus there, and it took a long time. I left early in the morning and I didn't get there until the middle of the night! The bus trip wasn't so interesting, so let's just skip it. Mostly I read a couple of books.
[Pictured: what I saw of Kumasi, mighty capital of Ashanti.]
When I got there, pretty sleepy, I checked into the Nsamini Guest House, which was small (and cheap!) but pretty nice.
Even if they did feel that they had to put this sign up on the wall in my room!
But mostly, I wanted to fall asleep, so I did.
In the morning, I decided that I would go up to a town called Navrongo, where there's a very old church that was supposed to have some nice painting inside.
First, though, I was hungry. So I stopped and got some breakfast at one of my new favorite breakfast places - I think I even like it better than Pete's (but Pete's is closer)! It was called the International Traveler's Inn, and they only had fake coffee (not like the good stuff Mommy brought me) but they make really good egg sandwiches. Bolgatanga is up near Burkina Faso, which used to be a French colony, which means they have good food (and speak French there). And so, Bolga is the first place in Ghana I went that had good bread (for egg sandwiches) that I didn't make with you!
Anyway, the man who worked there was named Cabral, and it turns out he was named after a philosopher named Amilcar Cabral, who I think was really smart. Amilcar Cabral was very important in helping two different African countries, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, become their own countries. Unfortunately, they were controlled by Portugal (where some of Mommy's family is from) and Portugal had a really bad guy in charge then, and so there was a lot of fighting about it, and Amilcar Cabral died [adults: Actually, was assassinated]. But pretty soon after, the people he was trying to help got to have their own countries. And he wrote a lot of interesting things about freedom and right and wrong and Africa. One thing he thought was very important was that everyone's culture should change, but that it should get to change in its own way. Some of what he wrote is about fighting, though, so maybe we can read it when you're a little bit bigger (also, no pictures). Unfortunately, it turns out that Cabral's (who worked at the restaurant) Daddy was the one who liked Amilcar Cabral, and this Cabral didn't know much about him.
After the restaurant, I squeeeezed into a taxi with some other people going to Navrongo. Then I had them drop me on the road near the Cathedral.
Right now in Ghana it's the harmattan season. Bolga is so far north it's almost to the Sahara desert, in a dry, grassy part of Africa called the Sahel. The harmattan is a wind that blows down from the desert with strong gusts and lots of dust. Fortunately, it was still just starting when I got there, but it still made for a dusty Sunday morning!
I only had to walk a little way to the cathedral. But along the way, I noticed that the annoying people who were singing very loud outside the flat the first weekend you were here were also going to come to Navrongo! Oh no! Thank goodness, they're coming this weekend, when I'll be packing to come home and see you and Mommy instead.
But, a little ways past their sign, was the cathedral!
The cathedral is about 100 years old, and is made out of mud! Inside, they were having school, and I didn't want to disturb them. But I wanted to see some of the wall decorations, and I did by poking my head in. Some of them are friezes - which are sort of like pictures that are built up out of the wall, to make them a little bit like statues - made out of dried mud!
And then further inside the columns are painted with pictures using a way of painting that started in Sirigu, which is a town not too far from Navrongo.
After I looked at the pictures in the church for a little while, I walked to the town center. A girl named Sanata showed me how to get there (lots of people wanted to know where I was going when I was up there - not a lot of visitors go all the way to Bolga and Navrongo!), and told me about how she used to live in Burkina Faso before moving to Navrongo with her family, and how some of the kids used to make fun of her because she didn't know English then (remember, they speak French in Burkina Faso). But her English was very good now!
I thought about going to Paga to see crocodiles, but it's more fun seeing animals with you. So instead I splurged on a taxi to take me right to Sirigu, so I didn't have to go back to Bolga first.
But it's late, and I want to go to sleep so it'll be closer to when I get to see you. Only six more days!
Friday, December 9, 2011
Ghana, Day 122: Off to Bolgatanga
Hi Ruth!
I'm still in Ghana.
It's pretty early in the morning here, but I wanted to put a note up for you before I left. I'm going to go up to Bolgatanga for a few days, to see a part of the country I've never seen before. Up there, people paint the walls of their houses, kind of like in Chidi Only Likes Blue! I've packed important things, like my sunblock and a photo of you so I don't get too lonely. It's going to be a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong bus ride - longer than the plane ride to see you! When I get home, maybe we'll have to play Accra-Bolgatanga instead of Maryland-Ghana.
Keep practicing to make pizza snakes - cutting up olives for the eyes is a good idea!
But then, pretty soon, it will be time for my best adventure - coming home to see you and Mommy! I'll be there in 11 days.
I'm still in Ghana.
It's pretty early in the morning here, but I wanted to put a note up for you before I left. I'm going to go up to Bolgatanga for a few days, to see a part of the country I've never seen before. Up there, people paint the walls of their houses, kind of like in Chidi Only Likes Blue! I've packed important things, like my sunblock and a photo of you so I don't get too lonely. It's going to be a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong bus ride - longer than the plane ride to see you! When I get home, maybe we'll have to play Accra-Bolgatanga instead of Maryland-Ghana.
Keep practicing to make pizza snakes - cutting up olives for the eyes is a good idea!
But then, pretty soon, it will be time for my best adventure - coming home to see you and Mommy! I'll be there in 11 days.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Ghana, Day 118 (Yesterday) - Pizza
Hi Ruth!
Yup, still in Ghana.
Yesterday, because Miss Theresa and Mr. Bill are going home for the holidays, and their friends Dr. Dan (same as me!) and Dr. Brenda and their boy and girl are going back to the US for good, Miss Theresa invited everyone to a pizza party!
They invited me so that I could make some of the pizza...
I was really wishing you were with me here to help make the dough.
Yup, still in Ghana.
Yesterday, because Miss Theresa and Mr. Bill are going home for the holidays, and their friends Dr. Dan (same as me!) and Dr. Brenda and their boy and girl are going back to the US for good, Miss Theresa invited everyone to a pizza party!
They invited me so that I could make some of the pizza...
I was really wishing you were with me here to help make the dough.
At home, we usually use the big yellow mixer to make dough, but there's something kind of nice about kneading it (squishing it around) by hand. It takes a while, but I just put on some music while I was doing it, and it was kind of nice and relaxing. You can feel how the consistency changes, and it's like magic when it goes from a big mess of flour and water, to sticky glop that gets all over your hands, to shaggy, stringy dough, to a nice smooth round ball (like above). Maybe when I get home we can make some dough by hand.
The pizza was good, but I'd rather eat only cheese pizza with you than roasted garlic and pepperoni pizza without you.
Ghana, Day 117 (Monday) - Adventures in Getting Lost
Hi Ruth!
I'm still in Ghana.
Monday, I decided I was going to go back to the pottery place where Mr. Happy showed us how to make things out of clay - I wanted to get a gift for Miss Theresa and Mr. Bill, since Miss Theresa is leaving today and Mr. Bill is leaving next week. I also wanted to pick up a book by a man that Mr. Bill knows, that a store near there was supposed to sell. It's called A Sense of Savannah, and it's about the time the man spent up in the northern part of Ghana, where I'm going to go visit this weekend.
When you and I went, we took a cab, because I know that you don't like to walk very much! But I really like walking - walking is one of my favorite ways to get around places, because you get to see everything, and you can find stuff in the corners and around bends that you wouldn't normally see if you just took a car everywhere. I didn't know how much walking I'd be doing, though!
I started out pretty early, after looking at a map that seemed to show how I could cut through the back of campus to get there without going all the way down to the highway.
First, I crossed the field outside the flat. Lots of people here call it the "field of screams," because that's where the people who were singing and yelling every night when you were here get together. But to me, I always think of it as the place where you and I played Maryland-Ghana and pretended to be on airplanes coming to visit each other. It's my favorite game.
Unfortunately, this road changed direction, too! I walked by some very nice houses (one of which had a tiny, tiny, tiny puppy resting in the road in front of it - smaller than a book! I didn't get a picture since there were some bigger dogs around who didn't look happy to see me), and a goat. But then I ended up back at the main highway, so I walked the rest of the way on the big road.
On the way home, I just went the way I knew!
I'm still in Ghana.
Monday, I decided I was going to go back to the pottery place where Mr. Happy showed us how to make things out of clay - I wanted to get a gift for Miss Theresa and Mr. Bill, since Miss Theresa is leaving today and Mr. Bill is leaving next week. I also wanted to pick up a book by a man that Mr. Bill knows, that a store near there was supposed to sell. It's called A Sense of Savannah, and it's about the time the man spent up in the northern part of Ghana, where I'm going to go visit this weekend.
When you and I went, we took a cab, because I know that you don't like to walk very much! But I really like walking - walking is one of my favorite ways to get around places, because you get to see everything, and you can find stuff in the corners and around bends that you wouldn't normally see if you just took a car everywhere. I didn't know how much walking I'd be doing, though!
I started out pretty early, after looking at a map that seemed to show how I could cut through the back of campus to get there without going all the way down to the highway.
First, I crossed the field outside the flat. Lots of people here call it the "field of screams," because that's where the people who were singing and yelling every night when you were here get together. But to me, I always think of it as the place where you and I played Maryland-Ghana and pretended to be on airplanes coming to visit each other. It's my favorite game.
Then, I thought that I could go past Night Market (in New Orleans, of course) and go around behind the "hostels," where lots of the students live. The hostels are very big, so it took me a while to walk all the way around them.
But, when I finally got all the way up and around them to the other side - there was no road! So I looked around, and I finally found a small path that led through the brush. I didn't know where it was going, but it looked like it was going in the right direction, so I followed it. I ended up on this road, that was now going in the wrong direction.
But I didn't give up! I followed the road, and eventually I ended up at a big building where they were having a conference about how to help people be protected from diseases [Adults: HIV]. But the man at the gate told me there was no way to go through, so I kept going, and eventually, after all this, ended up on the road near the pool.
Instead of following it all the way to the big road, I thought I'd try this side road, that I'd never tried, but looked like it was going more in the direction I wanted to go.
As I walked along, I saw a huge tree with beautiful yellow flowers (and I know that yellow is one of your favorite colors, with pink and purple, too).
And really big termite mounds, which I always think are neat.
Unfortunately, this road changed direction, too! I walked by some very nice houses (one of which had a tiny, tiny, tiny puppy resting in the road in front of it - smaller than a book! I didn't get a picture since there were some bigger dogs around who didn't look happy to see me), and a goat. But then I ended up back at the main highway, so I walked the rest of the way on the big road.
On the way home, I just went the way I knew!
I'll probably walk a lot when I'm near Bolgatanga, and I may try to rent a bicycle to get around a bit. I will tell you what I find!
And, there are only 14 more days - just two weeks! - until I get home and can go for walks with you. I know, I know, you don't like walking very much.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Ghana, Day 116: Thinking about America
Hi Ruth!
I'm still in Ghana. It's Sunday, so I was thinking I'd put a song up for you. When you were super, super-tiny I would dance around with you to this kind of music in your carrier. And when you were smaller, we'd sometimes have dance parties, mostly just you and me, before bedtime. Then, you always really liked this song - now you might think it would be too loud, but maybe Mommy or Grammy can just put the volume on low for me.
I like this song because it's about people not wanting there to be fighting.
A lot of the reason I'm here is because Africa (not so much Ghana!) has had lots of fighting. I try to learn more about it so I can be one of the people who knows something about how to stop fighting, but sometimes I feel like it's hard to do much good just writing and thinking and teaching about it - "doing philosophy," as you put it. Right now, I'm having an argument (a friendly argument, philosophers have lots of those) about why there's a lot of fighting in Africa. Dr. Ani (you met him, he lives over in the Guest Center where Grammy and Grampy were staying) thinks that it's mostly because some of the people from Africa in charge have been bad people. But I have been saying that a lot of the problems have been from outside Africa - we're pretty lucky that there's not a lot of fighting where we live (even though some times you have to be careful in Baltimore). But as you get older, we'll probably talk about this more - sometimes people set up rules that make it easy for it to be nice where we live but make it really hard for people in places like Ghana, or Congo, or Rwanda, or Liberia. It's really important that we all try to at least not make things worse for other people by setting things up in an unfair way.
I know that's a bit heavy - you may understand better if you go back and read this when you're a little bigger! Really, it's just that fighting is bad, but people mostly fight when they get angry, and they get angry because of stuff that happens. Just like if you're being grumpy, I try to find out what's wrong, and sometimes it's something Mommy or I did, and we try to change - well, when people are fighting it's important to find out what's wrong, and sometimes it means we need to change instead of just telling them to stop fighting and then yelling at them if they don't.
I miss having dance parties with you (even if we did them to quieter music). I'll be home in 17 days.
I'm still in Ghana. It's Sunday, so I was thinking I'd put a song up for you. When you were super, super-tiny I would dance around with you to this kind of music in your carrier. And when you were smaller, we'd sometimes have dance parties, mostly just you and me, before bedtime. Then, you always really liked this song - now you might think it would be too loud, but maybe Mommy or Grammy can just put the volume on low for me.
I like this song because it's about people not wanting there to be fighting.
A lot of the reason I'm here is because Africa (not so much Ghana!) has had lots of fighting. I try to learn more about it so I can be one of the people who knows something about how to stop fighting, but sometimes I feel like it's hard to do much good just writing and thinking and teaching about it - "doing philosophy," as you put it. Right now, I'm having an argument (a friendly argument, philosophers have lots of those) about why there's a lot of fighting in Africa. Dr. Ani (you met him, he lives over in the Guest Center where Grammy and Grampy were staying) thinks that it's mostly because some of the people from Africa in charge have been bad people. But I have been saying that a lot of the problems have been from outside Africa - we're pretty lucky that there's not a lot of fighting where we live (even though some times you have to be careful in Baltimore). But as you get older, we'll probably talk about this more - sometimes people set up rules that make it easy for it to be nice where we live but make it really hard for people in places like Ghana, or Congo, or Rwanda, or Liberia. It's really important that we all try to at least not make things worse for other people by setting things up in an unfair way.
I know that's a bit heavy - you may understand better if you go back and read this when you're a little bigger! Really, it's just that fighting is bad, but people mostly fight when they get angry, and they get angry because of stuff that happens. Just like if you're being grumpy, I try to find out what's wrong, and sometimes it's something Mommy or I did, and we try to change - well, when people are fighting it's important to find out what's wrong, and sometimes it means we need to change instead of just telling them to stop fighting and then yelling at them if they don't.
I miss having dance parties with you (even if we did them to quieter music). I'll be home in 17 days.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Ghana, Day 115 - Back to Madina
Hi Ruth!
I'm still in Ghana... these last few weeks sure are going by slowly!
I was up pretty late last night because the people outside were singing loud. You're lucky you're back home where it's quiet! [Adults: Seriously, I just want them to give it a rest for one night. I really feel like they're hogging Jesus.]
This morning, I got up early because Grammy and Mommy came up with a plan to make the basement look pretty again. So I went to Madina Market again on the tro-tro - it wasn't as much fun without you! But I got some nice fabric that I think goes pretty well with the blue cloth that Grampy bought here but didn't use.
(Sorry my picture is a little blurry.)
I also got some linen cloth in solid colors (purple and dark red and chocolate colored) so that Miss Gloria could make me some "regular" shirts that I can wear with ties. But, actually, you should tell Grammy that the man who was the son(?) of the woman who ran the Nigerian restaurant (that closed...) is the tailor for boy clothes there, after all. I think I may have accidentally bought very very light weight linen for the shirts, but we'll see how they come out - it would be nice to be able to wear some of my Ghana shirts to work!
I also got some shoes, since my black shoes are falling apart and probably not worth taking home. But then a man grabbed them from me and started putting little rivets in them - he said, to help hold the straps on, but I finally had to yell at him to stop, and then we were in an argument about how much I owed him for the ones he already did - without me asking! This is the sort of thing that sometimes happens at markets that I really don't like.
Tonight, I'd thought about going to Miss Ofie's jazz club to see some singing, but I'm too tired and missing you and Mommy a bit too much. So, instead, I worked. I'm almost done editing (which is sort of like re-writing and fixing parts) of one big paper, and when I'm done with that I can start on the other one I started writing while I was here... and then I can start the third and fourth ones I have in mind!
My job is a lot of writing, when I'm not teaching.
I'd talk more about them, but they're sort of boring and they talk about fighting a lot. The one I'm working on now is about how peacekeepers - remember, I said those are soldiers who come to stop fighting - can work with people who live near the fighting. And the other one I'm working on is about how soldiers have to be careful that they only fight when it's the right thing to do. And then I've started making notes for one about different ways you can talk to people who are fighting, and about how the soldiers in Ghana feel about all the times they've gone to other countries to try to stop fighting there. Especially now that I got to talk to a helicopter pilot!
I miss you, and I'll be home in only 18 days!
I'm still in Ghana... these last few weeks sure are going by slowly!
I was up pretty late last night because the people outside were singing loud. You're lucky you're back home where it's quiet! [Adults: Seriously, I just want them to give it a rest for one night. I really feel like they're hogging Jesus.]
This morning, I got up early because Grammy and Mommy came up with a plan to make the basement look pretty again. So I went to Madina Market again on the tro-tro - it wasn't as much fun without you! But I got some nice fabric that I think goes pretty well with the blue cloth that Grampy bought here but didn't use.
(Sorry my picture is a little blurry.)
I also got some linen cloth in solid colors (purple and dark red and chocolate colored) so that Miss Gloria could make me some "regular" shirts that I can wear with ties. But, actually, you should tell Grammy that the man who was the son(?) of the woman who ran the Nigerian restaurant (that closed...) is the tailor for boy clothes there, after all. I think I may have accidentally bought very very light weight linen for the shirts, but we'll see how they come out - it would be nice to be able to wear some of my Ghana shirts to work!
I also got some shoes, since my black shoes are falling apart and probably not worth taking home. But then a man grabbed them from me and started putting little rivets in them - he said, to help hold the straps on, but I finally had to yell at him to stop, and then we were in an argument about how much I owed him for the ones he already did - without me asking! This is the sort of thing that sometimes happens at markets that I really don't like.
Tonight, I'd thought about going to Miss Ofie's jazz club to see some singing, but I'm too tired and missing you and Mommy a bit too much. So, instead, I worked. I'm almost done editing (which is sort of like re-writing and fixing parts) of one big paper, and when I'm done with that I can start on the other one I started writing while I was here... and then I can start the third and fourth ones I have in mind!
My job is a lot of writing, when I'm not teaching.
I'd talk more about them, but they're sort of boring and they talk about fighting a lot. The one I'm working on now is about how peacekeepers - remember, I said those are soldiers who come to stop fighting - can work with people who live near the fighting. And the other one I'm working on is about how soldiers have to be careful that they only fight when it's the right thing to do. And then I've started making notes for one about different ways you can talk to people who are fighting, and about how the soldiers in Ghana feel about all the times they've gone to other countries to try to stop fighting there. Especially now that I got to talk to a helicopter pilot!
I miss you, and I'll be home in only 18 days!
Friday, December 2, 2011
Ghana, Day 114 - Writing, Malls, and Burma Camp
Hi Ruth!
I'm still in Ghana. Man!
The week since Thanksgiving hasn't been that interesting for me - but I hear it's been exciting for you and Grammy and Grampy! I can't wait to talk to you tonight and hear about Cinderella and the Christmas stuff at the Walters.
For me, I've mostly been working. Sunday I finished the first draft of a thing I've been writing about soldiers. When you get bigger, you'll learn that when you write things sometimes you have to go over them again and again (and again) to make them good. I think what I wrote has a good idea, but I still need to make it sound good.
Also, Sunday, we ran out of water. It's not back yet! I hope I have enough in my bucket.
Monday, I just read and graded papers and stuff. Just like I have to write things over and over to get them right, my students do, too. But sometimes they need help (sometimes they need a lot of help). So I spent time on Monday going over their rough drafts and trying to give them some advice on how to make them better.
Monday, I also heard that Edinburgh University Press is interested in my book! Now I just have to write it!
Tuesday, I finally managed - after trying for a while - to get an interview at the Institute for Democratic Governance. It's over in East Legon, so I had to go with Mr. Lartey - every time I go to a Ghanaian NGO it's around all the big, expensive houses... (it's also near a very, very expensive mall). I had a nice chat with a man there, but he didn't really specialize in the things that I needed to learn about. Then I came back to campus and spent some time looking at books that they have in the library here but we don't have in the library back at the University of Maryland.
Wednesday and Thursday I was down at Burma Camp some more. On Thursday, I got to talk to some women who are officers in the Army and Air Force [adults: Even though, you know, even the officers were in the education corps, mostly.]. I even got to talk to a woman who flies helicopters! She told me about being in Cote d'Ivoire [I have no idea how to do an accent circumflex on Blogger.] and flying helicopters that helped people who were hurt in the fighting there get to a doctor so they could get better.
And now it's today! I'm just starting my day. I tried to go to the pool, but they were closed again! We got water back for about half an hour so I filled up my bucket and took a shower - I'll be glad not to have to do that at home!
I'm still in Ghana. Man!
The week since Thanksgiving hasn't been that interesting for me - but I hear it's been exciting for you and Grammy and Grampy! I can't wait to talk to you tonight and hear about Cinderella and the Christmas stuff at the Walters.
For me, I've mostly been working. Sunday I finished the first draft of a thing I've been writing about soldiers. When you get bigger, you'll learn that when you write things sometimes you have to go over them again and again (and again) to make them good. I think what I wrote has a good idea, but I still need to make it sound good.
Also, Sunday, we ran out of water. It's not back yet! I hope I have enough in my bucket.
Monday, I just read and graded papers and stuff. Just like I have to write things over and over to get them right, my students do, too. But sometimes they need help (sometimes they need a lot of help). So I spent time on Monday going over their rough drafts and trying to give them some advice on how to make them better.
Monday, I also heard that Edinburgh University Press is interested in my book! Now I just have to write it!
Tuesday, I finally managed - after trying for a while - to get an interview at the Institute for Democratic Governance. It's over in East Legon, so I had to go with Mr. Lartey - every time I go to a Ghanaian NGO it's around all the big, expensive houses... (it's also near a very, very expensive mall). I had a nice chat with a man there, but he didn't really specialize in the things that I needed to learn about. Then I came back to campus and spent some time looking at books that they have in the library here but we don't have in the library back at the University of Maryland.
Wednesday and Thursday I was down at Burma Camp some more. On Thursday, I got to talk to some women who are officers in the Army and Air Force [adults: Even though, you know, even the officers were in the education corps, mostly.]. I even got to talk to a woman who flies helicopters! She told me about being in Cote d'Ivoire [I have no idea how to do an accent circumflex on Blogger.] and flying helicopters that helped people who were hurt in the fighting there get to a doctor so they could get better.
And now it's today! I'm just starting my day. I tried to go to the pool, but they were closed again! We got water back for about half an hour so I filled up my bucket and took a shower - I'll be glad not to have to do that at home!
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