Today (Friday) we went to Ga East. It is kind of like a suburb of Accra. Its about 40 minutes from the University. We went on a tro-tro, which was quite a ride. Tro-tros are kind of like a dodge sprinter, just not as tall. And it was a super bumpy ride. In a lot of places, the roads either are not kept up- so there are potholes, or there really isn’t a formal road. So there were times where we were barely moving just to avoid potholes and what not. There was a good segment of the road that was basically like going down a mogul run in a bus.

Grand Rapids has a sister city relationship with the Ga district, so when we got there we went to their municipal offices and met the mayor as well as some other officials. They took us to a small town within the district where we met the chief of the town. When you meet a chief, we were told to grab our right wrists with our left hands, and shake his hand with our right. I guess its just another sign of respect. As part of the formality, we had to ask the chiefs permission to visit a slave plantation that was in the town. The mayor brought two bottles of schnapps and an assistant to the chief (he might have been a priest, I’m not really sure), performed a libation prayer. Libation, as I understand it so far, is like a prayer to the ancestors to ask for blessing on whatever you are about to do. So the priest said the prayer and then poured some of the schnapps on the ground for the ancestors. After that, they passed it around and you could either take a sip or pour a little on the ground. I took a little sip.. it was interesting stuff- I can’t say that I liked it cause it just sort of evaporated before I really could taste anything.

So then we went up to the slave plantation. It was a interesting place. They have it set up kind of like a museum, so there are different stations with plaques explaining different items in the house, etc.

After the slave plantation we went to a local Ga radio station. It is a community radio station that Grand Rapids has actually help them set up. We got to sit in for a little bit of a news broadcast, and they actually recorded Mrs. Hugen and Patrick’s thoughts about their visit for a later show. It was really cool. Definitely not like an American radio station- they just had one (what looked like an SM58, not sure if it actually was or not) mic and then when they were playing clips of politicians, they held a little tape recorder up to the mic and played the clip off of it. We got to talk to the production manager a little bit and he said they have about 55% of the population as listeners- which is really cool. He was telling us that the community was really supportive of the station because its their local station. They do a lot of educational programs, so they will talk about the environment, health issues, parenting, gender issues, etc. They have also had the mayor come on and had people call in questions.

Next we came back to Legon and had lunch with some of the officials at a pretty nice restaurant. They gave us a huge thing of rice, some salad, and a piece of chicken. It was another long, but cool and interesting day. We were supposed to go to Ga West on Saturday (today as of this writing), but it was canceled for some reason. I guess technically it is a separate.. township? (not the right word but I’m not sure what they call them). But it is still apart of the Ga District- which is what Grand Rapids is sister cities with.

We got back to school around 3, but some of us just stayed in the tro-tro we were in because they agreed to take us to Madina. Madina is about 15 minutes from school, its a pretty cool area. They have some cool restaurants (actually the one where we ate lunch is basically there), but they also have a pretty big market. We went there because people wanted to try to find some more fabric for clothes. I was able to find one that I liked, but its hard cause I am really picky. Mostly because I want to try to get things that I might actually wear back home- and its hard to find things at Kohl’s, so its not any easier in Africa.