Kumasi and Kente

I'm overdue for an update here. I finally managed to get photos online (Facebook) after a complicated process of trial and error that involved borrowing one friend's Mac (thank God she disobeyed CIEE's advice and brought her laptop) and another friend's tiny flash drive. All this means that I am far less depressed concerning computer matters and ready to write a decent update.

Last weekend was our third CIEE-sponsored weekend adventure. I neglected to describe the first one (which was four weeks ago) sufficiently, mostly because I was not able to post my pictures. We traveled to Cape Coast, the original colonial capitol of the Gold Coast. The faded city is home to a beautiful old fort with a dark historical role: it was a major port in the West African slave trade, where various kingdoms sold untold numbers of captives to the European traders. (As an important historical aside: chiefs did NOT sell their own people into slavery as some uninformed romantics like to spout off as one of the horrors of the slave trade. It was members of rival clans or ethnicities that were captured and sold, etc. People originally from all over West Africa passed through the slave dungeons of Cape Coast. Most were probably not from Ghana itself.) All of this is difficult to imagine in the bleached-out beauty of the castle today. We also went to Kakum National Park, a rainforest reserve, and traversed the famous canopy walk - giant rope bridges strung through the biggest trees of the forest canopy.


Now that we are caught up on the Cape Coast trip... this past weekend we made the much longer and more difficult journey to Kumasi, the city at the heart of the Ashanti Region. The journey itself is a story: we became stuck in an enormous traffic jam in which our bus and every other vehicle remained stopped for more than an hour. Turns out, a large truck had either overturned or broken down in the road (depending on the rumor you chose to believe) and THEN the fork-lift sent to clear the road also broke down. Only in Africa...

When we finally reached the city, we rushed to the military museum in which we received a very animated and fast-paced tour of Italian guns, a box full of human remains, and lots of very old photographs from a guide who must have been on caffiene at the very least. He really dramatized the story of the Asante's last battle against the British, even if his historical facts were a little fuzzy.


The next morning was a blur of artist communities. We started with kente, the traditional woven cloth of the Asantes in which different weaving patterns have different meanings. Next was adinkra printing, in which different symbols are printed onto woven cloth. A wood-carving village rounded out the day. Each stop was meant to be an educational presentation and investigation of a certain type of Ghanaian art, but in the end each place became a sort of shopping mall. I came away from the day with some beautiful kente I probably paid too much for, and a wooden statue that (I think) I got a really good deal on. Was it worth the hassle and the half-dozen "salesmen" literally grabbing me? I'm not sure. But apparently there is no other way to make a purchase in this country.


Another thing that struck me about Kumasi that we didn't really experience in Cape Coast was the children. Every place we visited outside of the museum, there was a crowd of children and young teenagers waiting, holding their hands out for gifts that we hadn't thought to bring. (It's amazing, but colorful pens and small candies go a long way.) Each time our bus pulled away, leaving the crowd of reaching hands behind, I had a sick, guilty feeling in my stomach. I know there is no real change to be brought by change and gell pens, but I wonder if that bus takes us through this country with a bit too much glass between us and, well, the country.



PHOTOS: Canopy walk in Kakum, kente looms and cloth for sale, Natalie making an adinkra print, the view on the way home from Kumasi