A wierd and wonderful weekend

What a weekend!

First thing on Saturday, Kasia and I had the classic Ghanaian 'egg sandwich' for breakfast - basically an omelette with peppers and onions in bread. On our way home we popped into the local nail salon shed, where I had a manicure for 2GHC (66 pence!) from a lovely lady named Maud.

The last few days have been the Ga tribe’s festival of ‘Homowo’ which is their biggest festival and is the Ga New Year.  It’s a festival of thanksgiving and celebrating forefathers, and welcoming in a new year.  The main event, on Saturday, involved all of the local clan chiefs and the overall king of Jamestown (part of Accra where the festival is held) sprinkling food on the ground in memory of previous famines and to give thanks for food.  There was a big procession with the King of Jamestown and his entourage:

The team of project volunteers was taken around the whole town by the Director of the Street Academy (the school where our project is based) who seems to know everyone in town!  I think we got introduced to 3 different chiefs and each time were plied with food and drink.  We also saw a couple of the rituals where the chiefs give thanks by pouring libations on the ground:

 I have to confess for most of the time I had no clue what was going on - shaking hundreds of elders' hands and eating kpokpoi – the traditional festival dish of dried fish with palm oil and pounded maize.

As a group of white people obviously not having a clue what was going on, we were quite an attraction and I don’t remember how many hands I shook and asked ‘Ofane te oyoo teng’ (How are you), and replied ‘miye ojogbang’ (I’m fine).  In true Ghana style there was music, dancing and many exotic smells everywhere.  With us were some of the Ghanaian volunteers who are working on the project with us, who live in Jamestown.  At one point we ended up in a tiny alleyway reverberating with incredibly loud music and an impromptu rave ensued when suddenly a massive group of children appeared, many of whom we’re working with on the project, and proceeded to dance with us with the most amazing energy.  It was dark and intense and sweaty with the children’s smiles and white teeth glowing through the darkness, and over almost as soon as it had begun.  Then suddenly we were back in the dark streets amongst shops and banks, out of Jamestown and flagging down a taxi home.

After that, we visited the Accra Mall – an experience almost diametrically opposed to what we had just experienced in Jamestown.  The Accra Mall is a massive, modern shopping centre with strangely few shops.  By the time we got there most were closed and it felt slightly eerie wandering around amongst clothes and shoes the people we had been partying with earlier would never be able to afford.

All in all a completely surreal, mad and wonderful day.