We experienced a slight drizzle during this morning’s walk. I used my umbrella for the first time, which I referred to as my “anti-rain stick” since I had carried it before and it had not rained. Had the rain made it easier for the chickens to find food? Maybe just a coincidence we saw them out and about on a rainy day.
During our walk, I confirmed that no one had danced at the disco last night, but everyone ate at the restaurant, especially the pescatarians, vegans and anyone who generally found the traditional food too spicy.
The disco was over much earlier than the one in Accra; so, no walk of shame.
Flipping through the TV channels, I enjoyed the gospel performances. Then, I landed on a Charlie Chaplin movie. Of all things.
For the first time since vacationing in Ghana, the breakfast had no fruit, but there was bacon. Service started off slower than usual because there were no place settings. Once the tea bags and hot water were brought out, some of us started to enjoy breakfast. Others who had requested butter for their bread were baffled at the bowl of frozen butter the server brought.
At least the hotel provided my top three creature comforts: hot water, a movie channel with sound and soft mattress.
Our first stop of the day was the Methodist Basic School in Agona Duakwa, which consisted of a primary and junior high schools. The school started in 1987 with kindergarten, which grew to include older students as well in 2010. Overall, the school staff numbered at 20 with 690 students.
Dr. Kofi’s food taster, who started when she was six, met us at the school.
Dr. Kofi had visited the school since 1992. The restroom facility was one of the many gifts that he, donors and other tour members had given the school.
In the middle of the school courtyard, they had lined up five teachers’ desks, which members of my tour group covered with soccer balls, backpacks, folders, 3-ring binders, candy, hand sanitizer, glue sticks, glue, highlighters, pencils, pens, loose-leaf paper, notebooks, reading books, scissors, clips, crayons, colored pencils and black socks.
In addition to the donated items, we gifted a cash donation, which the head teacher accepted.
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Student drummers and a dancer from naming the ceremony performed, followed by an opening prayer.
During the primary girls’ dance, I recognized the familiar drum breaks, signaling to change repeated dance moves. Some of the dance moves we had learned days ago. We lost it when the girls put their hands on their hips and started shaking their hips in such a grown up way.
The head teacher welcomed us.
Kindergarteners performed a Fanti dance while older girls sang. Someone captured the beauty and innocence of two of the little girls after their performance in the picture below.
Of course, the school invited us to join them dancing. We did our best to follow along.
I loved the juxtaposition traditional with contemporary. After all, why not chill out in between dance performances?
The students performed a skit about the naming ceremony. The real ceremony uses water and alcohol in the Fanti naming ceremony. The person for whom the child was named after gifted two thousand cedis wrapped in blue cloth. The rest gave money to the baby.
A multi-age battle dance ensued where the rhythm kept speeding up.
I joined the naming ceremony dancer from yesterday. I barely kept up with what she was doing. At one point, she left the courtyard to encourage other tour members to dance and I broke into a samba, which was a big hit while attempting to mimic her arm movements. When in doubt, samba it out!
The drummer, who used the fat red drum, had recently graduated and awaited test scores. The naming ceremony dancer had also recently graduated.
We shook hands with the staff, along with the head teacher, and took a picture with her. A student took the initiative to shake hands with me as I was leaving.
One of my nieces learned the hard way about how to use a squatter stall: first raise your pant legs closer to your knees, then lower your pants to squat. Initially, she was preoccupied with not urinating on herself rather than getting another’s pee on her pant legs. Fortunately, our luggage was on the bus. She placed her soiled pants into plastic bag and put on clean pants.
En route from the school to a restaurant, I snapped a picture of an interesting work of art, which was under an overpass. In the States, a sizeable area like that would have been used as a makeshift camp for an unhoused population.
We ate a delicious lunch in a private dining room on the second floor of a building. Of course many of us got ice cream afterwards since we had to enter through an ice cream parlor on the first floor. Very good marketing ploy.
I made the astute observation that strawberry ice cream was widely available, but I’d never seen fresh strawberries anywhere on the street or offered as part of a fresh fruit plate.
Another thing I FINALLY paid attention to was that The Big Six were on the money. During one of the lectures, where I was sleep-notetaking, I missed the Ghanaian founding fathers’ names. I later corrected my notes when I happened to look at a cedi note while waiting to pay for lunch. I took a picture, enlarged it and jotted down their names.
Now, could I have looked up the six leaders from the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) whose combined actions helped the country achieve independence from British colonizers in 1957? Of course, since Ghana had wi-fi and I had a smartphone. Yet I liked the moment when I discovered the answer on the money.
Upon arriving at the Labadi beach hotel, I needed my passport. I irritated one of the bellhops who wanted to gather all of the luggage and get it sorted out as efficiently as possible. I, of all people, appreciated his effort, but I had not caught on by then that posh places required a passport.
I dug through my luggage, which I partially opened because I knew that the passport was inside the zipper compartment. One hotel desk employee photocopied my passport. Then, I should’ve signed the registration form underneath RC’s signature, but another hotel clerk snatched the paper away from me and confused things by having another tour member sign. All of this was such a blur of confusion at what turned out to be the nicest hotel we stayed at.
For dinner, we enjoyed a beautiful buffet spread by a swimming pool at another place. Some of us shared a bottle of merlot with Dr. Kofi.
Back at the hotel, I apparently bought the last bottle of malbec, which we split among six of us. We sat under a covered area near the pool due to the rain.
While sipping wine, I spied across the way, my sister who had said that she was too tired to hang out with us for a small happy hour. Obviously, not too tired for some nighttime shopping. Looking obvious in a bright yellow shirt.
I took a glorious hot shower with added bonus of a washcloth. As much as I enjoyed the experience, one would’ve thought that I hadn’t done that in a long time. I had only been out of the States nine days.