Well, it has been a little bit since I have updated this. Partly because we were gone for most of the week last week at Odwira, and partly because the internet is not always a friend.

Last week we had classes on Monday, and then on Tuesday we went up to Akropong for the Odwira festival. Odwira is very important to the people in that area. It is a traditional festival, so there is some tension between Christians and the traditional religion. Traditionally, the festival is a purification festival. It is also apart of bringing in the new year on the traditional calendar. The first day of the festival, the people of the town alert the ancestors {the spirits of those who have died} that the festival is going to take place, and they invite them to participate with them. For 6 weeks previous to the festival, if someone dies, they are not allowed to have a funeral. The reason for this is because funerals are a really big deal here, and the noise from the funeral would upset the ancestors {during these 6 weeks there is a noise ban as well as some other things, because the ancestors are away resting}. On Wednesday, everyone wears black and mourns those who have died over the past year- and especially those who have in the past 6 weeks. Thursday is a day of celebration. Everyone wears white and it is technically New Years Day. They also feed the ancestors at a shrine in the town. There is a big parade type thing, and several girls from different important families in the town carry the food to the shrine. They become ‘possessed’ by the ancestors and libation is performed at several stops on the way to the shrine in order to strengthen the girls. On this day there is a curfew {we had to have lights out by 10}, and technically if you are out, they will shoot you.. but the people at ACI told us that they don’t really shoot people anymore. Then on Friday, there is a big parade. All the local chiefs come in with their griots {kind of like jesters.. they are storytellers/drummers}, it is a pretty big deal. One of the chiefs from the area actually ran for president last year, but he lost. So he is extremely popular there and when he arrived people got pretty excited. It was cool to see that and all the traditional kente outfits. We also went to a special sacrifice before the parade. There is this huge tree in the center of town, and it is one of the traditional shrines. Every year the family in charge of taking care of it sacrifices a goat and pours libation at the tree. They also wrap it with a white cloth, which is supposed to keep the spirit in the tree and stop it from leaving. That was quite an experience. I think it was the first time I’ve seen an animal killed right in front of me.

On Saturday we stopped at a place called Cedi’s Beads. It was a bead factory that recycled old beads, as well as glass bottles, in order to make new beads. It was really cool to see the whole process. First they would smash the bottles into super fine powder, then they would put them in molds and throw ‘em in a kiln. After that they would polish them and string them/other things depending on what they were for.

After the bead factory, we went on a hike at Shai Hills. It was a really cool place. It was kind of a savannah grassland with lots of monkeys running around, and then in random spots there would be these huge hills. Back in the day, tribes would store their war drums in caves a the top of the hills. We hiked up to the top of one- it took about an hour, but the view was incredible. The cave really wasn’t as big as I thought it would be, it was more of like.. maybe a 10’ A-Frame type thing between two big rocks that were leaning on each other. But it was definitely worth the hike.

Saturday night I crashed early after we got back to ISH.. it was a long week. At the festival we definitely experienced Ghana Maybe Time {A pun on GMT, which is the time zone we are in}. We would go to things for the festival and sometimes sit for a few hours before things actually happened. Technically, there is a starting time for a lot of the festivities, but some of them are dependent on ancestors/spirits, and on a whole, things just happen when they want.. there is not an emphasis on strictly following a schedule. So a lot of times we would just be sitting around in the palace waiting for stuff to start, all in all, it was a fun, but long week.

Sunday, Ben and I went to a sports bar called Champs. It is in a hotel about 25 minutes from campus. It definitely reminded me of places like Buffalo Wild Wings back home. They had a projector and several flat screen TVs around the walls. We went because we heard that they show American Football games on Sundays, and we were hoping to catch one. However, ESPN decided to show NASCAR and Fox wasn’t working for some reason. So we watched a Real Madrid game in La Liga, which was still cool- but not what we were hoping for. Also, they have really good Mexican food, we each got burritos. It was the second time I’ve been in a place here and could have easily forgotten I was in Africa.

Then on Monday Ben, Rachel, Chelsea, and I decided to go to the beach. We had the day off because it was Kwame Nkruma’s birthday. He was the first president of Ghana and it was just declared a national holiday a few weeks ago. We wanted to go to the beach because we live right by the ocean, and have only seen it a few times. The problem was, not only was it a national holiday, but it was also the end of Ramadan. So when we got downtown to transfer tro-tros, there were a bunch of people everywhere. We actually couldn’t find the tro-tro stop because it was one we hadn’t been to before, so we wound up taking a taxi the rest of the way to the beach. Apparently Ghanaians love going to the beach on holidays, so it was absolutely packed. At first we got harassed a little bit. Nothing scary or anything, just a few guys that really wanted to talk to us {especially the girls} and wouldn’t leave for a while. But we were kind of asking for it because we sat off to the side on towels, instead of going to chairs like everyone else did. The beach is set up with a bunch of different restaurants, and each restaurant has its own set of chairs that people want you to sit on. And if you don’t buy food or drink from the place, you have to pay to use them. Its not much, but we still decided to try towels instead. Which was a mistake, but lesson learned. After a little bit we moved to a restaurant that had chairs under a straw/hay umbrella and it was soo much nicer. No one really came over to us and we all had a coke.

Thats pretty much been the last few eventful things... I’m still slowly trying to get pictures up when I get the chance. I might try and go to the coffee shop in the mall on Friday because there internet is faster and get some more uploaded. We’ll see (all of the ones I have currently uploaded are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tdsherwood/collections/72157622264666192/ ). So we have normal classes this week and next week, and then we are going up north for a week. I’m really looking forward to this trip, because it is development focused- so we are going to several different NGO’s camps, including a World Vision camp. It should be fun!