So we left at 5:30 AM Monday morning to head to up north. We thought the bus ride would take around 12 hours, but we weren’t exactly sure. It really depends on how many times you stop {obviously} and how the roads are. Some of the roads can barely be called roads, just just sort of like a bulldozer went over some dirt several years ago and now it has turned into a how many potholes can a bus hit before its suspension breaks. This was the trip that the group last year said was pretty grueling because of the roads and just being in the van for so long, so I think most people in the group were pretty apprehensive as to how it would go. In the end, it wasn’t that bad of a trip. None of the roads were THAT bad.. we’ve been on worse I think. We wound up pulling into Yendi extactly 12 hours after we left.

Yendi is in the Northern Region, about 2 hours NE of Tamale, which is the Northern Region’s capital. However, Yendi is the traditional capital of northern Ghana. Yendi is a pretty small town though, at least from what we experienced. And it is definitely rural. In Ghana, the south is rich and developed, because that is where colonization mainly happened. The British didn’t go very far north, or do anything with it other than use it as a human farm for slaves. So many of the places do not have running water or electricity {the towns do, but it doesn’t take long to get into traditional villages that do not}. The north really is the Africa that people think about when they hear Africa.. traditional mudish houses with thatch roofs, all in circle compounds. There were two guest houses in Yendi.. and the one we stayed at was pretty nice. The room was super basic, it had a bed that was not quite a queen size, so I think it was a double? Ben and I had to share it, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be though. Also, the toilet didn’t work and the shower barely worked. But we only stayed there for two nights, so it was fine.

The first night we were there, we went to meet with the chief Imam of the town. He is the leading Islamic scholar in the area, and we had about an hour long conversation with him. It was hard though because we were all super tired from the bus ride and it was pretty dark out/late. Sometimes its frustrating because the learning style here is to ask a bunch of questions rather than have some one just lecture and assume everyone understand everything if there are not any questions. So the Imam thought we would have more questions, but we really did not have the time to ask more.. its kind of frustrating because I just do not understand what people want sometimes. This also happened at ACI when we were there for the Odwira festival. The prof that we had said to our program direct that it seemed like we weren’t interested because we didn’t really ask a lot of questions.. when in our opinion, we asked a ton {in fact we went way over time and barely made it to see a thing that was happening with the chief because we went so far over when we were supposed to get out of the lecture}. Anyways.. that was an interesting conversation, I haven’t really interacted with muslims before, let alone talked to an Imam. For the most part it was just about the basic believes of muslims, so a lot of it was things I had learned at some point in my educational career.. however there were a few things here and there that I had not heard before.

The next day we went out with a guy from a non-governmental organization {NGO} called BIRDS. They are a grassroots NGO that primarily works in Yendi, in 25 different communities, with women’s empowerment. They help families send their daughters to school, food security programs, and microloans. We visited a shea butter business and saw how they processes the shea nuts into the butter/lotion stuff people use for dry skin. Unfortunately, most of it stays in Ghana and around the area. Due to a lack of infrastructure {mainly roads and international business interest}, they do not export much of it.. the farthest it would make it is maybe to some markets in Accra. We also went to a rice processing company. They face many of the same problems that the shea butter faces. However, they also have to compete with foreign rice. Rice used to be huge in Ghana, but no most of it is imported. The problem with local rice is that it usually has rocks in it, so before you cook it, you have to sift the rocks out. This does not work on a mass scale like for restaurants. So they need to find ways of better and more efficient production to really compete with foreign rice, which hasn’t happened yet. But both business employee several women and even though it does not seem like much money to us, it really does help them out and significantly change their lives. That night the guy took us back to his house and performed a traditional Dagbani dance. They specialize in one string fiddles and these shaker things. So they performed for us and then had us each dance with them one at a time. Apparently I went really fast when I danced, the bus driver called me a jet fighter.. I guess I didn't really realize I was dancing so fast, but I just wanted to get it over with.. hah. But it was a cool experience, not everyone can say they've danced with the Dagbani.

We also went to a witches camp with the people from BIRDS. It is a camp just outside of Yendi made up of older women who have been accused of being witches. Traditionally, if someone is accused of being a witch, they are to be killed. But if they are in an area around this camp, they can be sent there instead of being killed. There is one male in the community, and he is the fetish priest. When a ‘witch’ comes into the community he performs several rites, and if she really is a witch then she would be killed by the rites. So everyone living there has been falsely accused, but they have to live there because they have no where else to go. The interesting thing is that they said they are all not witches, and they have never seen witchcraft, but they still believe in it. This camp was probably one of my favorite experiences so far. It was really cool to talk with them and hear their stories. It also really made me said because there were very obvious needs that the community had. For example, they even straight up said we need food and better roofs, because during the rainy season it isn’t even worth sleeping inside- you get drenched anyway. They don’t have people {or money} to repair the roofs they have. I asked how the government or NGOs interact with them, and they said that for the most part, both have ignored them. Every now and then an NGO would come in and give them some food, but that was about it. I asked the man from BIRDS if people from Yendi, because it is so close, do anything with them. He said every now and then some people would come help out, but it was nothing regular. I was really curious about this because one of the five pillars of Islam is almsgiving.. and this community is a perfect spot to participate in almsgiving- and they are so close. But he again said that they do sometimes, but nothing regular. It just doesn’t make sense to me that this obvious need is right there, and people just ignore them. I’m sure some of it is for cultural reasons, but there are plenty of people that do not believe in witchcraft that could do things to help out. But I guess that happens in the states too, people ignore the needs right around them and write a check or something else to people on the other side of the world. I think it is just easier to do something like that and get it out of your head rather than have a real relationship with someone and have the issues be in your face. Anyways.. the camp really touched me {partly because there were a ton of kids running around that were fun to play with}.

After Yendi, we backtracked to Tamale. We stayed at the Tamale Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies. It is an institute set up by the Catholic Church for research and teaching cross-cultural missions skills. Jon Kirby was the direct for like 20 years.. he is a social anthropologist whose name sounds really familiar to me, but I don’t remember from where. I might have read an article by him in one of my classes or something.. Anyways, they have block courses where students come and learn a local language and culture. It is a very hands on approach though, they spend a significant amount of time actually living in a traditional compound learning from the people there. It sounds like it would be a really intense program, I’m not sure if I could do it. While we were staying at TICCS, we visited several different NGOs over the course of 3 days. We visited Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy, and Bible Translation, World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, and Christian Children’s Fund of Canada. GILLBT focused on literacy and Bible translation, which was cool to talk to. I was able to talk to the literacy coordinator for a little bit and learn about some of their literacy programs, which was really cool- they sound pretty similar to programs back home. The rest of the NGOs pretty much all addressed similar problems in similar ways. They all work with education, health services, water and sanitation, and microloans. Some of them have a little different approaches and what not, but for the most part it seemed like they were doing the same things. The development work that they are doing is good.. but there are a lot of issues with it and debates about what is really the best thing to do. From my understanding people fight about all sorts of different development theories and what will really be sustainable and work well long term. I don’t really know a whole lot about all that stuff, but it was cool to actually see the field offices and what they were doing- rather than just reading about it in newsletters. We also went up to a town called Paga, which is on the Burkina Faso boarder. We stepped over the boarder, which was cool. The big thing at Paga is crocodile ponds. The locals believe that the amount of crocodiles equals the amount of people in the community, when a person is born, a crocodile is born with them, and when a person dies, their corresponding crocodile dies. There is some more spiritual stuff with it, but maybe I’ll write about it later. So they called a crocodile out of the pond and we all took turns getting our picture taken with it/holding its tail.. then we fed it a chicken, and its wife a chicken.. it was an interesting experience.

From Tamale, we went to Mole National Park {it is pronounced Mo-lay}. We went on a Safari walk pretty soon after we got there, and were really hoping to see an elephant. However, I guess there are a lot more animals around in the dry season- so you really have to be lucky to see stuff. On the walking tour, there are 8 different animals you can see. There are a lot more in the park, but to see them you have to go on jeep tours, and we didn’t do those. So there are three different types of monkeys, three different types of antelope, warthogs, and elephants, that you can see on the walking tours. The one we went on we saw everything but one type of antelope and elephants. We spent the night there, which was cool. The room was really nice, three beds to a room a great bathroom.. they also had a fantastic restaurant and a pool. The whole lodge was situated on top of a hill overlooking a valley with a pond. It was absolutely beautiful. One weird thing is that there were warthogs everywhere.. in the morning when I opened my door there were two sleeping right out side it.. kinda caught me off guard, but. I had mac and cheese for dinner- which was soo good. Great comfort food since we mostly eat rice {especially on excursions}. Oh, breakfast is usually omelets, toast, and coffee.. then lunch and dinner is usually rice and some sort of meat. But back on campus it is a lot easier to change it up with peanut butter sandwiches and a few other things we’ve found to get away from all the rice.. but that doesn’t happen on the excursions. Anyways.. so that night was really great, and then we had the option of doing another walking tour at 7 AM the next morning. I really didn’t want to get up for it because I was so tired.. but I did. And I am really glad I did, because we saw the other type of antelope that we didn’t see the day before.. and an elephant. We followed the elephant around for about a half hour, just sort of watching it and taking pictures- it was really cool. The rest of the day I just kind of hung out at the pool, relaxed, and got some reading done. It was a great way to end a busy week.. and as much as I loved the north {I really did, its really cool up there}, I was ready to get back to Accra. Unfortunately I am leaving again tonight to do a homestay for a week. The place that Ben and I are staying at is actually on campus {according to the sheet we got}, which will be kind of nice I think. I’ll be able to come back to my dorm if I need something and I won’t have to lug a suitcase full of stuff on a taxi or tro-tro to an off-campus house. I think it will also make it a little easier to go to class everyday and what not. So hopefully that goes well. We have classes all this week, next week, and then half of the week after that. Then we go to the Volta region to look at some of the environmental issues facing Ghana.

Sorry for such a long post, but a lot happens in a week long excursion. I guess technically there are more things/stories.. but I’m sure this is long enough. Props if you actually read the whole thing, hah.. I hope everyone back home is doing well, I really miss all of you. We are just over half way though the semester, and I think the rest of it is going to go by pretty fast.

I’ll try to get some pictures from our trip up when I get the chance, but it might take a little bit. I actually think I got some pretty cool ones, so I want to share those with you all.

Grace and Peace.