My sister joined us for the 6 AM morning walk. Yesterday, she was late and never caught up with us. Although we retraced our route from the day before, we experienced less traffic, no walk-of-shame club goers and fewer tour group members. We walked past the doughnut vendor and across the bridge.
I pointed out Black Mickey Mouse. Most had walked right past him yesterday without noticing. Honestly, it was challenging to see everything on such a busy urban walk.
This time around, we finished the last leg of our walk, sipping fresh coconut water.
After breakfast, professor and writer, Kwesi Yankah, AKA Kwatriot, shared more Ghanaian background with us:
- Queen mother may be a mom or sister to the chief.
- Akan is the largest group, consisting of several other groups.
- Matrilineal inheritance; therefore, trust sister more than wife.
- Naming ceremony is important because slaves lost their names.
- People who commit suicide aren’t admitted to join ancestors in the afterlife.
- Naming ceremony is the 8th day of newborn’s life. Life remains on stool; child’s firmly seated.
- “Visitor has very big eyes, but sees nothing.”
- Put emphasis on the right hand, not the left.
- Kumasi is conservative.
- Gap between teeth is African spirit.
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After ordering my shirt to be made, I had no more interest in looking at fabric, especially since I’d bought fabric from other places where I’d lived and travelled, which was packed away and hadn’t seen the light of day in years. So, the only reason I got off the tour bus when we visited a fabric store was to stretch my legs. Others in the group were on a far more serious mission.
We ate lunch at the AMAZING Abajo restaurant which had live drumming and dancing. Par for the course, the food for our large group took a long time to hit the table, but I was so entertained by the music and dance performance, I didn’t care.
At one point, a band member who was also a contortionist, selected people to dance. He chose my sister. Vengeance was mine. She’d made me line-dance in June during our family reunion despite that being one genre of dances I dislike. She tried her best to get him to recruit me, but I remained seated.
The contortionist also taught four men some dance moves.
I thoroughly enjoyed red red (spicy beans) with kelewele (seasoned fried plantains). Although I’m not a beer-drinker, I sampled Origin, which tasted like cider with an anise after-taste. However, most of the beer-drinkers prefered Club.
Since our tour group had over 20 people, once again, we experienced another production with food coming out and then collecting the tabs. I got lucky when I quickly received the change from paying my drink tab in order to give exact change for the meal tab.
With the post meal production over, the tour group divided into several smaller groups to go shopping. Each small group had at least one support staff escort. Just as my small group entered the market, I witnessed a very frazzled-looking family of nine exiting. They looked as if the market had chewed them up and spat them out.
Thankfully, we had a genius way of shopping. We told our escorts what we wanted to buy and they led us to the appropriate shops. The escorts placed everything we were interested in buying into a basket. At the end of our shopping, the escorts laid out everything in our basket and negotiated the final price. Then, the escort took a picture of everything and then distributed the money to the vendors.
As little as I cared for most shopping, the highlight of my market experience was when four of us ladies sat down in one shop and vendors paraded in and out with things that we wanted. For me: black leather fanny pack, his/her copper bracelets, T-shirts. Others wanted fans, bracelets, dolls, masks, and other things. Best way to shop. Only thing missing was a cup of tea.
After haggling, but before handing the escort the money, I told him that he had to hug me first. He hugged me and gifted me a decorative African continent magnet as well. Once I escaped from the market, I told Dr. Kofi that I was ready for a drink.
For dinner, I ordered a local Ghanaian honey-based whiskey called Black Rock. The buffet offered delicious, traditional food, which most tour members found too spicy except for me.
In the bathroom, I found this common sense, straightforward COVID poster. I’d heard that the pandemic hadn’t devastated Ghana as much as in the States. Then again, at one point, the Insane Clown Posse had more stringent COVID restrictions to attend their concerts than the US federal government.
