Les fêtes en Côte d'Ivoire

The end of October brought us two holidays: Tabaski and Toussaint, which gave us two days off work and a chance to get some real cultural experiences while here.

Tabaski: October 26

Tabaski, the name of Eid al Adha in Francophone African countries, is one of the most important Muslim celebrations. Muslims are estimated to make up at least 40% of the population in Côte d'Ivoire, so the day is off from work. And a good thing too! Tabaski celebrates the sacrifice that Abraham made, when God asked him to sacrifice his only son. Since Abraham was willing to do it, God spared him and allowed him to sacrifice a sheep instead. Hence, Tabaski is the "sheep ceremony." Sheep were in high demand this year, and because many of the sheep come from the Sahelian countries (such as Mali, currently plagued by a rebellion and political crisis) the costs were exorbitant as the fête approached (upwards of 700,000 franc CFA = $1,400!!) You are supposed to slaughter the sheep after morning prayers, and then eat it all that day. That means inviting people over to help you finish it and sharing it with those who cannot afford to buy their own.

We were invited to a Tabaski celebration at a colleague of mine (see post about my arrival here, I mentioned her invitation). She was very welcoming, and served up heaping plates of fonio, a grain from the north, and sheep stew. It was delicious.

After eating, my colleague and her friend who had stopped by showed us how to do a dance that was associated with a song released shortly after Ouattara's win. It was the Ouattara Cucu dance!

Abissa – October 28-November 4

The following week, we had the day off to celebrate Toussaint, or All Saints Day, A Catholic celebration. Instead of heading to the église, we went to the beach! Direction: Grand Bassam to see part of the Abissa celebration.

Abissa is a yearly festival by the N’Zima people that lasts the entire last week of October. The N’Zima are part of the Ashanti ethnic group (yes, from Ghana, consider that it was at one time a huge empire that stretched across West Africa!) and living in the coastal areas near Grand Bassam, the old colonial administrative capital of Côte d’Ivoire. The city itself is quite beautiful; run down colonial mansions and buildings, remnants of the French colonial order. Grand Bassam is about an hour from Abidjan, so we headed that way with some Save the Children friends, ate lunch on the beach, and then headed to the Abissa festival around 3.

According to this site, “During this festival, social barriers are lifted and ‘anything goes.’” This was so very true; there were tons of men dressed up like women! (the whole get-up: big butts, boobs, wigs and dresses!) Women wore jewelry fashioned out of household items: match boxes, condoms, kola nuts, cigarette boxes…

Abissa is also the moment to publically denounce any transgressions one has committed, to confess to any wrongdoing (even the chiefs participate) and to bring about social harmony. 

Check out some of the videos and pictures I took here: Abissa .

Abissa

We didn’t stay long for the ceremony, but the music was enthralling, the dancing was impressive, and the cross-dressing men were just hilarious. 

Electric Sliding, What is Literacy?, Sine Saloum, Marabout fun

A lot has gone on since I last wrote. Pictures are to the right and I also posted the link to Lizzie’s Spring Break pictures, because she took better ones than me.
The Saturday after spring break was International Student Day at Suffolk. All of the students at the University prepared food from their native countries, displayed traditional clothing and dances, and also participated in a talent show. Lizzie, Andrew and I made chocolate chunk cookies, which tasted kind of funny, but they were still good. Another professor brought cheeseburgers (Senegalese style though…which means they had a huge egg on top). Countries on display included Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Mauritania, Benin, Ethiopia, and the Gambia. Our “American” dance was the electric slide, haha. In the middle of the talent show, a pretty famous singer came to perform his extremely popular song “Blocaz.” He invited a bunch of people on the stage to do the blocaz dance with him; it was a lot of fun. Much later in the evening we went with him to this very nice discotheque.
The following week my Education and Culture in Senegal class went to an adult literacy class on a field trip. The class consisted of maybe fifteen women over the age of forty and who almost all held jobs as a vendeuse (seller). They did not speak French and their first language was Pulaar (Fulani in English), but they could also speak Wolof. What I found most incredible was the fact that their literacy class was not in the National language (and therefore most written and utilized language in the country) of French. Instead the women were learning to write Fulani, a language that has only been written down for 60 years and in which nothing is written in this country. Our class was faced with this conundrum: what is the point of learning to write in your native language if it isn’t the language that signs, newspapers, etc. are written in? One classmate of mine said it was difficult to learn an alphabet, so it was better for them to learn the alphabet of their own language before moving on to French, which is foreign to them. Yes, this would make sense if there were adult literacy classes in French, but there are not. Most of those women will live their entire lives without ever learning French. Another classmate said, well at least they will be able to recognize letters and numbers on street signs. But does that really help? At the beginning of the literacy class, the women repeated the saying that those who are illiterate are lost and do not know themselves. Perhaps the literacy course is only to empower these women, whose children probably speak French that they learned in school. The women will be able to better handle their commerce through having the ability to keep documents of sales and balance the numbers, as well as help their children with their homework to some extent. I also think it is a pride thing; the Fulani are a large group in Senegal, but Wolof is the most wide spoken language. Through teaching literacy classes in their native tongue, they are protecting their culture and language.
Last weekend we went to the Sine Saloum delta. That is where the Saloum River meets the ocean. It was a most relaxing trip; we took a pirogue down the river, a horse cart tour of the local village, and got to chill on the beach. Saturday night we went to a traditional wrestling match. The pictures aren’t very good (there wasn’t much light), so you are going to have to use your imagination. Think Sumo wrestling, but with thin, muscular black men (in other words, the only thing the two have in common is the little thong/underwear thing they wear). There were many participants in this particular match, so the ones not wrestling walked around the circle and danced to the drumming and singing. It was quite a spectacle; especially when our lovely “toubabs” joined in the extravaganza. Three boys and two girls from the USA wrestled Senegalese people in the middle of the match. All of the boys won and one of the girls defeated her opponent quickly.
Finally, on Wednesday of this week we went to visit a Marabout in Madina. Marabouts are religious leaders in the community and the one we visited, Thierno Madu Tall, was one of the top Marabouts who oversees many Marabouts below him. We were entertained in his enormous sitting room, the same sitting room, he proudly told us, where he had just meet with the Israeli ambassador. We discussed almost everything under the sun: how many wives he had (two, but always was considering a third), his role in the community (he blesses all weddings and funerals and people come to him for financial advice or even to ask him if the mate they have chosen is right for them), his opinion on beating children (he believes that adult criminals were not beaten in their childhood, so the students under his care are beaten), and of course, his thoughts on talibes begging for their Marabouts (he said it was practical because the parents abandon the children in the Marabout’s care and the Marabout cannot take care of all of those children by himself, so they beg to re-pay their teachers; however, Thierno said he does not have talibes begging for him). It was a rare experience because he was not surrounded by his “posse” and was able to answer all questions honestly, even though he did have a very round-about way of avoiding the questions at times.
My birthday is next week, and happens to coincide with Senegal’s Independence Day celebrations. This Saturday we are going to a water management plant for environment class. The following week we will be going on our rural visits to stay with either NGOs or Peace Corps Volunteers out in the bush. In other words, my time is flying by really quickly! There are only three weeks or so left of class, five weeks until I go to Cape Verde, and two months until I come back to the U.S.

Autumn in Ghana: Tales from the North

Saturday the 18th of November: We arrive at the STC bus station a little before 8 for the bus to Tamale that is supposed to depart at 9. Of course, we don’t leave until 1pm. It was the “ordinary” bus, which means no A/C, no loud Nigerian movies (more on this later), and the dreaded middle seats. These are seats rigged in the aisle that have backs that are permanently reclining and are mighty uncomfortable for a 12 hour bus ride. And lucky us, two of our four seats were middle seats. We tried to rotate, but someone always got screwed with the middle seats. I was really uncomfortable because I was having some sort of allergy/sinus attack and was sneezing/blowing my nose the entire trip. We stopped four times: once about 2 hours outside of Kumasi at a very nice rest stop with a restaurant and nice clean toilets, once in Kumasi with okay toilets, once in Sunyani (I didn’t get off the bus, but it looked nice), and one last stop in Techiman. The toilets in Tamale were the worst I have yet to see in Ghana, and that’s saying a lot, I think.
First and foremost, it was Freezing on the bus once the sun went down. I tried my best to bundle up, but its hard to do when all you have is t-shirts and a skirt. We arrived in Tamale at 2am. It was too late to get a hotel room, since the bus to Mole left at 4, but too early for the bus. So, we found some nice benches and slept until the bus arrived.
Sunday the 19th of November: It was a bumpy ride to Mole, but we were so exhausted we didn’t care. It was a long dirt road that ran through the savannah. Actually, I felt like I was in East Africa or some other country other than Ghana, haha. It just felt so different! We stopped in Larabanga, which is where the oldest Mosque in Ghana is located. Twin brothers run this hotel in town and they gave us a tour of the village and mosque and took us to a place where we could eat some rice and eggs. We also met the chief of the village which was cool. From here we took a taxi (which was a big hassle; the brothers wanted us to take bicycles or motobikes with them, but there was discrepancies about prices and whether or not we were getting ripped off or not) to the actual park. We sat out on the look out which is right above the two main watering holes in the park and saw elephants bathing and a ton of deer like animals as well. It was really relaxing. The hotel was nice, 70,000 per person per night, which is the most I have paid for a hotel here, but it was nice with our own bathroom and a fan and a pool. Unfortunately, I learned that the age old rhyme “sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite” was something you should actually wish for. Our beds for filled with bed bugs so we were all covered with tiny red bumps that itched like no other for a few days after the stay. At least the beds were comfortable, right? What was weird was the temperature change. It was extremely hot during the day, yes, but at night it got really cold. There were a ton of warthogs that wondered around over the park and many times they would appear out of nowhere in front of our room in the dark and scare the crap out of me.
Monday the 20th of November: We got up at 6:00am for the guided tour of the park. We hiked down the hill to the water hole, didn’t see any elephants, hiked some more, saw some monkeys and antelope type animals, no elephants, saw a ton of army ants making a highway of sorts, but still no elephants. We hiked for two hours and the guide was disappointed about elephants. As we started to climb back up, we saw two elephants in the bush. We rushed down to take pictures of them, so we were really close, which was cool (of course, my batteries picked this time to die, and I stupidly didn’t bring any extras). We went back to the room and slept, during the hot middle of the day hours, then chilled that evening.
Tuesday the 21st of November: Woke up at 3:30am to catch the 4am bus out of Mole back to Tamale. Tamale was a very dusty town, but it wasn’t too bad. I did notice a lot of beggars, but that is probably just a trait of big cities anyway. From Tamale we took a metro bus to Bolgatanga (four hours) which is in the Upper East Region. Bolga, as it is fondly called, was different from Tamale. It was drier, number one, and I could feel my skin dry up and my throat and nose become parched. That is a big change from the extreme humidity that plagues us here in Accra. Second, it wasn’t as hot and it actually felt a little bit like fall. Leaves were even falling from the trees, so it felt only appropriate we were celebrating Thanksgiving up north.
From Bolga we took a metro bus to Zebilla (one hour, stood up the entire time). When we got to Zebilla it was market day, so we went in search of fresh bread, vegetables, and other necessities for the next three days (market is every three days up there). Unfortunately, we couldn’t get any eggs (apparently in the dry season guinea fowl and chickens don’t lay eggs…what kind of crap is that??) They speak Kusal in Zebilla, so we picked up a couple of words, such as hello (tima tima). Maura, who is the reason we went to Zebilla, is doing research on well water and ground water and soil (she is doing geology research on a Fulbright). We stayed in the former MPs house with his neice, Emilia who is a seamstress, and another graduate who is working on a clinic in Zebilla, Katie. The former MP wasn’t there, of course. It was a really nice house with running water, electricity, an oven, and a t.v.
One way I could tell we were not in a large city was the reaction villagers had towards me. First, they asked me where I was from. When I said the US they asked why I wasn’t white, or how I was black. In fact, they were really confused most of the time (“So…she is African?” “No, American, African American.” “But she’s black?” or “If you are American, why are you black?”). Then they asked me why I was fat. I am not sure how to answer that one. I have started taking it as a compliment…haha.
Of course, because I am a dork, I talked politics with the people in the house. Haruna, who helps Maura out by giving her rides to her wells on the motorbike, believes that NDC will win the presidential election in 2008 and change the constitution so that Rawlings will be president for life. He contends that President Kufour has done nothing for the North; only helping out the rich south. ( I am not going to bore you with my extreme interest in Ghanaian politics, but I just want to note here that the North and the Volta region vote as a block for NDC, Rawlings’ party. It is really interesting, because the parties have no platform difference; they are just divided along ethnic lines. AND if you didn’t know, Rawlings was a military dictator for 18 years who killed a lot of people, but was charismatic, held democratic elections in 1992 and stepped down after serving two terms which is admirable, I guess, and he also did a number of good things for the country…its one of those, which is worse type questions.) Also, to keep along the politics line, I went to Parliament the week that we left to go up north, which was really cool, especially because we got to see the budget for 2007 (as in the budget for the entire country) as proposed by the party in power. NPP, the majority, were all shouting and excited whereas the minority, NDC, was sitting quietly on the other side of the room. The minority leader called the budget a “monotonous soliloquy.”
Back to Zebilla.
Wednesday the 22nd of November: We got up and headed to Tongo, one of the villages where Maura is monitoring wells. It is interesting…there is a reservoir, where a dam stopped a small stream to make a small pond that people use for washing. The reservoir affects the ground water which is used to provide water in wells. During the wet season, the wells are full, but soon the wells will dry up. Maura is trying to look at whether the wells near reservoirs have water longer and also looking at the type of soil that is around the wells. Water access is really politicized; chiefs will request a borehole (a covered well with a pump, which is more hygienic and safer than an open well) in their village, but will want it built right by their house. A mechanic in town has been monopolizing the equipment to fix wells and has charged ridiculous prices to fix it with old equipment. He actually accused Maura of tampering the boreholes and she had to go in front of the district assembly to tell them she is not there to do harm.
The best part of Tongo was the four hour donkey cart ride. All of us, four, couldn’t fit on motorbikes, so we hired a donkey cart, which traveled at the same pace as us walking, but was fun nonetheless. The funniest part was the stares we got from the villagers (imagine, a bunch of obrunis on the back of a donkey cart which is supposed to not have human cargo…).
Thursday the 23rd of November: we bought two guinea fowl…which one of the guys in the house had to kill and pluck (yuck). We roasted them in the oven, mashed potatoes (they were purple and really sweet), roasted some vegetables, and had fanta for Thanksgiving dinner. We had no bake cheesecake for dinner. It was cool. The people in the house called it the “food holiday.”
Friday the 24th of November: Karen and I headed back to Bolga around 12:00pm. We boarded the OA bus, which was much nicer than STC, right on time at 2:00 and left around 3pm. When we got to Tamale, we switched buses, and this is when the Nigerian movies started. The first movie was about a woman who was in a love affair with what appeared to be an 8 year old boy. The Ghanaians loved it; it was a comedy that kind of made fun of African American “thugs”, but really made the little boy the hero. After this came one about a girl who treats her mother and sister as a slave (I fell asleep during this one). Around 2am we started watching Terminator. The bus was, no joke, 30 degrees. The A/C was on full blast. My teeth were chattering. We were wrapped up in sheets, it was so cold. We got to Accra at 6, took a tro-tro to campus, I went to sleep for a few hours, and then started studying for my finals.
Finals: As of now I have completed two out of three “papers.” The first one, conflicts in Africa, wasn’t bad at all, just a lot if writing and a lot of information. I was a little worried about the second one, African Literature, but it wasn’t too bad. Two and a half hours to answer 2 or 3 questions that are extremely broad and I hate to write so it was not fun. I am glad they are over with, though.
Sorry about the length of this blog, I tried to keep it short. I have three weeks left in Ghana…and a ton of stuff to do!

“An African in Africa,” kissed, luxurious life, and a very happy Halloween

On Friday night I went to this African-American owned restaurant/bar called Jazz Tones with two South African gentleman. One of the South Africans had been living in Ghana for three years, but said that he was initially shocked. He said that he would title his autobiography, an African in Africa. He said he was frustrated with the laxidasical lifestyle of Ghana, the lack of attention to times for meetings, and most interestingly, the way that Ghanaians interacted with people of a different class. For example, he said that the “upper class” Ghanaians would never interact with the lowly street worker. He said that in South Africa, things were totally different, everyone interacted with everyone despite their race, creed, income. Things down there were also a lot more fast paced and timely. He also said it was extremely difficult to date Ghanaian females because they were shy, or never invited you anywhere.
Saturday we took a day trip to Boti Falls, in the Eastern Region. We rode to Koforidua (affectionately, K’Duah) which is the capital of Eastern Region in a tro-tro which took about 3 hours. Then we waited for the metro bus to take us to Agogo, the town right outside the falls. When we arrived at the falls, we paid an entrance fee of 15,000 cedis, then we began our three hour hike. It was a nice hike through the woods to a rock called the umbrella rock. Basically it is two enormous rocks on top of each other. We climbed to the top on a rickety, slighty sketchy bamboo ladder (it wasn’t attached to the rock and it was held together by string). It was nice and relaxing on top. However, our relaxation and attempt to enjoy the climate, clean air and quiet was interrupted by a group of Muslim Drama students (therefore, its not just annoying Christians here…). When we reached the cave, the Muslim boys wanted to take our picture. It was like we were park mascots or something…they all crowded around us in a huge group. Every minute someone new would show up with a camera and get his friends to hug us or put their arms around us to take a picture. One boy even had the audacity to kiss me on the cheek and practically climb on top of me in one of the pictures (actually the picture probably ended up being me pushing the guy away from me with an extreme look of disgust). We avoided them at all costs for the rest of the trip, bypassing the areas they were visiting with our tour guide leading the way. We also saw a cool looking three headed palm tree. Then we headed to the falls, which was down a walkway with 250 steps (we tried to count but it was too much effort). The falls were really nice…there were two, a man and a woman. Legend has it that an Ashanti man came to the river and saw a woman who could braid his hair. While doing so, they fell into the river (Boti means braid in Twi, I think). The male fall was of course larger and more abundant than the woman falls. I watched as my friends frolicked in the water for a bit, then we decided to start heading back to Accra around 4.
We asked someone if the bus would be coming soon, and they said yes, so to be proactive we started walking down the empty road towards K’Duah. We walked, and walked and walked, but still no tro-tro or bus. Then, it starts thundering and the Ghanaians on the road started running down the street, right before it started to pour. We hide under a tree in front of this house, and the people in the house told us to come sit with them under the porch. They were really nice and “invited” us to their yams. They didn’t speak much English, which is a first encounter for me. So we sat and waited for the rain to let up and still no bus/tro-tro. At 5:30 we headed back down the road, and at this point it started getting dark so we found a cab who took us to the tro-tro station where we hopped on a tro-tro to Achimoto, where we had to get a cab because it was too late for tro-tros going to campus. It was a nice trip, but we did almost get stranded, haha.
Sunday was a day of luxury. It was really hot, so we headed to Shangri-La ( a hotel) to lounge by the pool. It cost 45,000 cedis to get into the pool and we stayed there from 12 until 6. We ordered a delicious pizza with mushrooms and ham (85,000 for a medium) and then decided to go to Maxmart for coffee (cappuchino 15,000) and croissants (8,000 chocolate filled). So, despite its expense, it was a good relaxing day.
Monday night we bought a watermelon (40,000 cedis, it was HUGE) and carved it. We had to eat all the watermelon inside, so not to waste, of course, so I don’t think I will want to eat watermelon ever again. Tuesday night we dressed up (I was a gangsta, Maura was a pirate, Laura was a fairy, Karen was a witch/dead/scary person, Siri was little red riding hood, Kayla was a gipsy, Ryan was Indiana Jones/murderer with two machetes, Charles was Arthur, Arthur was Arthur, Weston was a red neck, Joel was a roman/people thought he was jesus ( I am not sure why), Melinda was a bat, Ryan was a Viking woman?) and headed down to night market to liven up the spirits there. We marched around, a bunch of white people, me and a couple of Asians dressed strangely, shouting happy Halloween and passing out candy to the ladies that worked at night market. Mavis, a teenage girl who supplies us with our sweets addiction, thought I was being a “nigga” and marched around with us yelling happy Halloween. We probably freaked out a lot of people, but that was our intention I think. Then we had a bonfire in a field behind ISH and told ghost stories, or something, before heading back. There were two carved watermelon and one cocoa fruit jack-o-lanterns, which looked very nice. Karen and Siri experienced their first Halloween here in Ghana and we Americans upheld our centuries old tradition of trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat. :)
Saturday night is C.J.’s (one of our Nigerian friends) birthday, so we might be doing something fun for that. Tonight we are going to Jazz Tones for cheesecake (hopefully) and then to Aphrodiasiac (a club) for ladies night. I have two more weeks left of class, then I am heading to the North for the week of Thanksgiving, then I have exams, then I head to the Western Region, Ashanti Region and maybe Brong-Ahafo region for what has been deemed the “Whirlwind Tour.” Then it will be time to leave. Essentially, I have three weekends left in Accra, and next Saturday I am going back to Togo. Time is going by TOO quickly!