The Ghana Rural Library Project

Today was both extremely annoying and amazingly fulfilling. Basically, 70% of the day was spent in travel; we got on an extremely slow trotro and didn’t seem to go more than 50 km/hr for the more than 300 km drive. It took forever, and the weather seems to get hotter and hotter as the days go by (though I do feel that I’m beginning to get used to it).

On the way over to Kumasi we got a chance to shop around and try some of the normal Ghanian street food – I had breadfruit, porridge, some delicious pineapple, and some not-so-delicious coconut. Travel was both terrible and amazing, as I mentioned. The terrible part was the actual travel – 17 people packed into one van no larger than one of those Volkswagen vans. It was extremely hot and extremely uncomfortable. Luckily I got a seat in the front and could stretch out my legs a bit, but it wasn’t great. The amazing part, though, far overshadowed the difficult part – the scenery was amazing and the experience when we got into town was just so crazy.

Mike was telling us about a certain part of the city where women selling bread would run up to the car, yelling, and try to sell some of it. He didn’t know where this part of town was. Five minutes later, twenty women with huge bowls full of bread loaves ran up to our car, yelling. I bought a couple of sweet rolls and they were delicious. Another food item sold to us in our trotro was Fan Ice, which is like an ice cream-like snack, but it’s more like frozen, then melted sweet cream, I guess. Either way, it’s delicous, especially on a hot day.

We continued our trip from Kumasi to Asenamaso, and arrived at the home of the Chief, Nana Opoku. He’s the third most important chief of the Ashanti tribe, and he is a massive human being. He’s almost as tall as me but he’s easily twice as heavy, and not because he’s fat. He’s such an impressive person. He speaks English well, but he is a man of very, very few words and you can tell that whenever he says anything, everything he says is taken seriously and followed.

A chief is like a mayor here; they preside over a certain town (Nana Opoku presides over Asenemaso). But there is also tribal structure, and the Ashanti tribe is prominent over most of Ghana. So chiefs preside over their own certain towns, but they also hold “offices” of importance in the tribe as well. I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that Nana Opoku “adopted” Mike as his son during his trip here last summer. Mike goes by “Nana Poku” in the town. I don’t know how official this adoption was; I don’t think it’s like on legal record or whatever but everyone recognizes it and treats Mike as such (as royalty, I guess you could say) and the name literally means “Prince.”

We also met Nana Poku’s ”entourage” (this is the word they actually use), which included Charles, who is an extremely important and informative helper and cultural guide (the Lawrence of Asenemaso) and Adu, who is Dr. Boateng’s (the creator of the Ghana Rural Library Project’s) half brother and is the strong arm of the group and the guy who gets things done (though he’s far more abrasive and far less likeable than Charles).

After those meetings, we walked with Adu through town and to the school we’ll be teaching and building the library at. We all heard Mike tell us about the way he’s treated in town and the fact that he’s a prince and everything, but we didn’t fully believe him until we saw it with our own eyes. We didn’t walk for five steps into Asenemaso before we heard “Nana Poku!’ on the left and “Nana Po!” (a short version) on the right. Kids would run up to him and attempt to hold and shake his hand. Naturally, because we were with him and we are also obruni* we enjoyed the benefits of his celebrity.

We walked through to the school, flanked by tens of children hanging from our arms… It was madness. I don’t know if I can really describe it. They were so excited to see us, I felt cheap, I felt… just so humbled, I guess, because I really don’t know what I have to offer. I feel like we’re deceiving them, I just feel (and I still feel this way, and I think it’s legitimate, and maybe by the time we actually get started on the library and stuff it’ll change but for now I still feel it) like we don’t deserve this acclaim, that we don’t deserve their love or whatever. They would yell and scream, try to learn our names, grab our arms and never let go; they would dance and sing and turn cartwheels and try to show off their football* skills; they loved us unconditionally from the first second they saw us, basically. It was flattering and maddening and exhilarating and depressing, all at the same time.

After coming home, we had dinner at Nana’s house. The food we’ve been served at Nana’s has been delicious, 95% of the time. Traditional Ghanian foods include jollof rice*, fufuo*, bread, fish (whole ones, of course, including both tail and head), chicken, and my personal favourite, banku*. In fact, one taste of banku makes me sick to my stomach, and I don’t understand it. I literally can’t eat a bite without getting nauseous! Almost everything else is delicious, though. I’ve gotten a lot of questions about eating meat over here, and I have to tell you I love the chicken. I haven’t seen much beef, and I really don’t like fish (just the smell sends me overboard as though I’d eaten some banku). I’ll say this – my vegetarianism is an affront to the American meat industry, and thus eating chickens that these people bought locally and were farmed free range (I’ve seen them running around) is not a problem for me.

Almost everyone has gotten at least a little sick, though. It’s just like, a one-day ordeal, usually; your stomach hurts, you go have a little diarrhea action, maybe throw up some of the water you drank earlier, and then you’re fine an hour later. I’m sure this is going to happen a few times while we’re getting used to everything. I hope nothing more drastic happens; I need to keep reminding myself to take my malaria pill because I almost forgot yesterday.

So we ate our dinner and then just hung out and sat out in the extremely hot but altogether enjoyable Ghanian evening. So far the sky has been overcast and we haven’t seen many stars, but the sky here is HUGE. I’ve heard it’s like this in the south, that you can just see for miles and miles… but I’m not used to it and it’s just magnificent here. We all talked for a bit, shared our experiences, and then knocked out again. Jet lag’s a killer.

Grace & Peace,
Elliott