kumasi

This past weekend, the entire NYU group traveled to Kumasi, located in the Ashanti region of Ghana, which is about five hours north of Accra. It is the second largest city in Ghana, and houses the largest ethnic group in all of Ghana, the Asante (or Ashanti).

We left, as promised, from our dorm at 5:20 a.m., clearly feeling so tired. We were on the bus for about 6 ½ half hours and arrived in Kumasi around noon. We checked into our hotel and quickly turned around to spend the rest of the day running around Kumasi doing various activities.

The first stop was lunch at the National Cultural Center of Ghana. We ate outside and, as usual, had a lot of heavy, heavy food. All of it was fried and very greasy, and when you’re sitting outside in 95 degree heat, with fans blowing hot air down on you, the food just doesn’t sound that appetizing. I ended up spending 7 Cedi on lunch (which was “optional” but really meant “this is the only place we’re stopping so you can pay the 7 Cedi and eat, or starve”) and all I ate was rice. Amway, after lunch we walked around the Cultural Center a bit. There is a secondary school inside the center, and shops that line walkways. The shops range from selling wood carvings to batik bags and stools. The stool is an important symbol in the Ghanaian, and especially Asante, culture. I’ll elaborate more on this later.

Men sawing and making stools and other things out of wood at the Cultural Center

Some of the things that were in the "trash" pile outside one of the stores. More polished versions of these types of masks were for sale.

After the Cultural Center, we headed to the King’s Palace (which is hardly a “palace” like you’d imagine. More like an old museum). There were peacocks in the front yard just walking around like business as usual. A guide took us around the palace, pointing out all the various honors and wardrobes and jewels the Kings have used in their time as King. The king is called the asantehene, and is in charge of settling familial and tribal disputes. He also has a queen mother, who is not his wife, but perhaps an aunt or mother or sister, who he makes all his decisions with. The Asante are a matrilineal society, which means that men don’t inherit from their own father, but from their mother’s brother (their uncles). So an old King is succeeded by his nephew, essentially. (I think I talked about this in a much earlier post.) Anyway, the king is adorned with all sorts of gold and jewels. In inheriting the new position as king, the nephew cannot ever remove any of the jewels; he can only ever add jewels to his collection. This makes for a LOT of heavy gold chains and rings as time continues. Anyway, the king also sits on a special stool, which is made entirely of gold. The stool is an icon of the Ashanti region and of the chief and his power, so they are pretty ubiquitous around Kumasi.

After the palace, we stopped at the “stool village” where there were stalls lined along a busy street. The stalls sold a lot of the same stuff I’ve found at the cultural center AND at the Art Center in Accra, with the addition of a whole lot of nicely carved wooden stools. I’d love to take one home with me, but they’re very heavy and very big, and I don’t have the slightest idea as to how I’d get it home. But anyway, I bought a few gifts. The men were so aggressive (as they always are when they see a huge white tour bus full of 30 Obrunis pulling up). I am getting to the point where I don’t even try to be nice anymore when the men are sooo pushy to get you to come to their stall. They’ll follow you and say “No, just come for a second, just look, you don’t have to buy, come, just look” and will NOT leave your side, even when you’re shopping in another stall. I’ve gotten really assertive and really don’t take any of their pushing anymore. It’s just frustrating, and it’s hard to distinguish between it being a cultural thing and it being just a practical, economic thing. Either way it’s incredibly frustrating and I’m getting tired of the constant pushiness of all Ghanaians in trying to get you to buy anything and everything.

BUT, after this we called it a day, as we were all INCREDIBLY exhausted. We ate dinner at the hotel and were asleep by 11:00. Sunday morning around 8:00 we went with one of our professors to visit this artist’s workshop. His name is Almighty God, which I at first found offensive, but after hearing his story, understood. He became a Christian about 15 years ago and feels called to preach the gospel, and therefore takes that name to spread the name of God. Anyway, he paints some really cool and some really strange things. I personally didn’t find his work that great, but maybe it was just a personal preference. Anyway, it was cool to meet him, because apparently he’s one of the greatest or most well-known artists in Ghana/West Africa, and even had an exhibit in NY and there was a story about him in the NY Times.

Almighty God and some of his art

After visiting his gallery (which was all outside, with most of the paintings just sitting propped up against a wall on the dusty ground) we headed to the Kumasi Market (I think it has an official name, but I can’t think of it). Anyway, it is the largest market in West Africa, which made me shudder inside, since we know how I am with markets. BUT, because it was Sunday, about 90% of the stalls were closed, so it wasn’t stressful AT ALL. There were about 10 fabric stands open (out of what I imagine on a busy day would be a thousand), and I found two new fabrics to get dresses made out of.

Me at the Kumasi Market. Gotta have a blue door picture.

We headed home shortly thereafter and got back to Accra around 8 pm. One random side note I want to mention just so when I re-read this months/years later I remember, is that on the way home we passed many small villages which were bustling with trade and people selling things on the streets. Many people had booths or stands set up along the road, and oftentimes, their stands would be resting on top of railroad tracks. There is even a railroad track that runs straight through Kumasi Market. At first I didn’t understand why these people would build structures and have their shops and walk back and forth the railroad tracks so casually, but then it hit me that those tracks are physical evidence of the British colonialism in Ghana. The British built these tracks when they established trade to and through Ghana and West Africa, and these tracks served no purpose for the Ghanaians once the British were gone. I think it’s a beautiful example of how Africans got back on their own two feet after Europe came and messed everything up. Now they are doing their OWN trading, and running their own commerce on top of the very tracks that once suppressed them. Anyway, I thought it was really interesting,

Today was a good day. I went into WAAF for about an hour and made some phone calls. Spent the rest of the day napping and reading, and had my class at Legon at night. Tomorrow I only have one class, which will be nice!

Hope everyone had as eventful a weekend as I did! Well, maybe weekends that are uneventful are just as fun and necessary, so either way, I just hope your weekend was what you wanted of it!
Sending my love!!!

love love love