You missed me. (Alternative title: Tupac Lives)

Well hello there.

It has been a while, I know. For that, I once again offer you my sincerest apologies. What this means, however, is that I actually have STORIES. Or, at the very least, vague and bland descriptions of things that happened. So, let's start broad, then get more specific, shall we?


What happened in the last week.
By Jacob.
Just after my last post, we performed our white juju for Ghanaians at the Accra Arts Centre as the finale of the study tour. The next day we had a big concluding-the-tour-what-do-we-do-I-don't-know-maybe-we-will-throw-a-big party. On the Sunday, a select few of us were present at a Fetish religious ceremony where goats and chickens were killed and eaten. Then people went home to Australia. On the following Tuesday Kanchana (the Sri Lankan 7/8 drumming master), Phil (the philthy American) and I went on a 4-day trip around parts of Ghana. Yesterday (Saturday), we went to an incredibly-poorly-organised-but-still-fantastic music festival in Accra. Today, we had no electricity all day and I ate some more goat.

And then I wrote this.

SO, yeah.

Let's go through that again.


The performance:

I was wonderful. A DVD was made. Maybe you will be allowed to see some of it. I danced and was funny while still being awesome. I was amazing.


The party:

Nothing to say about this really. All the people on the tour put together a heap of money and then we organised a heap of food and a heap of drinks and then we just had a whole heap o' fun. So, yeah. White people are awesome.


The Fetish ceremony:

This was amazing. I have lots of footage. The basic schedule of events began with some ceremonial business involving singing and small percussion (bells and shakers). Next, we (Ray, Colin, Bryan, Kanchana, Fumina and I) were blessed and presented to the spirits with some libation and drinking of gin. Then, two chickens and a goat were killed and lay around and died for a while. Then the animals were cut up, prepared and cooked. We stayed around and watched the butchering, but went off to a local spot to kill some time while the food was being cooked. After an hour or so, we went back and watched the guys drumming. While drumming our friend and teacher Teofo (a Fetish man and the focus of the ceremony) went into a trance and started spinning. And kept spinning. And spinning. And spinning.

Keep in mind that this isn't something that is easily describable - if you want, when I get back I might show you the video.

Anyway, the day ended with us eating the animals and I got blood on me.

Delicious.


Our trip

Well. We went on a trip

(See the map? See it??).

Our trip began as a trip to Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti region in central Ghana. However, we got to Kumasi at about 10.30 at night and had no idea where we were or where we were going. It was great. We ended up staying in a seedy hotel (which was actually great).

After waking up and not knowing what to do in Kumasi, we spent hours looking for an ancient sword lodged in the ground - removal of the sword means the fall of the Ashanti kingdom (sort of like King Arthur, but different) and all sorts of other bad stuff. Nevertheless, people (including Muhammed Ali, apparently) have been trying to pull it out for years. In the book we read and in our minds, the sword seemed a wonderful tourist attraction. In reality however, the sword is in the courtyard of a hospital, took ages to find and is possibly the worst tourist attraction ever.

But don't worry, I have it all on video.

And, really, the sword was just a means by which to explore and experience Kumasi, not an all-important end. Sometimes life is all about the journey, yeah?

Well, this was how we rationalised wasting a day in the freaking sun in Kumasi looking for a stupid sword.

But it was fun really. No, really, it was fun.

After Kumasi, we travelled to Nkawkaw and then up into the hills to Mpraeso. We stayed the night in Mpraeso and met a taxi driver named Tupac.

Yeah. Tupac.

Mpraeso was beautiful - the 20-minute drive there from Nkawkaw was basically winding up into mountains covered in rainforests. Additionally, the town itself was peaceful and obviously not particularly a tourist location (actually, most of Ghana is like that - not touristy at all. But that's for another post another time). We spent the night in Mpraeso (and had hot showers - the first in 5 weeks).

The next day, we met up with our new friend Tupac and he drove us to Odawso on the edge of lake Volta. We paid a guy in a canoe to ferry us over the lake (there is a ferry on this side, but we had just missed it and the next one didn't leave for hours, apparently) and landed in Ekyie. From there, we took a tro-tro (a small, un-roadworthy bus crammed with Africans) across the Afram plains. Apparently, since the creation of Lake Volta, these plains have become cut off from the world and (more) impoverished - if you look at the map, you can see why - the only way to really access them is to cross over the lake, which is not particularly easy.

After a fairly uneventful and bumpy ride, we came to the other side of the plains, back to the lake. From this point, we caught a larger canoe (the ferry on this side didn't work any more - it was spoilt) and made the trip to Kpando. On the way however, the boat we were in made a detour.

We pulled up to a swampy area with some cattle grazing. After a couple of puzzled looks, the three of us realised that we weren't making some sort of drop off but rather were picking up three cows. That was an interesting revelation. I will provide some pictures one day, but for now, the method of getting cows into this canoe involved four Ghanaians, a plank of wood, a heave and some leverage, and then a cow on its back in the boat. We then had three cows in the boat for the remainder of our hour-long journey across Lake Volta (Lake Volta is massive, by the way. And man-made. Go MAN!).

From there on in, the trip was fairly uneventful (and it's late and I'm very tired right now). We spent our last night in Ho (the capital of the Volta region and a lovely place, despite the name). After waking up and engaging in a bit of hanging around, we headed to the Akosombo dam (at the bottom of Lake Volta) for a look-see, got wet in the rain, then went home.

Then we went to Tip Top Chinese restaurant in Accra for dinner. Rerry Dericious.

I am tired now. Kusun start rehearsing at 9am tomorrow and I will be sitting in with them. As such, I am going to have to be awake to keep up. Thus, I will have to tell you about the festival later.

Isn't reason wonderful?

So, thank you for reading. I will post again soon.
Or will I?
Yeah, I will. So read it. And comment. And ask questions. And look at some more photos.
Sorry for the rambling.

Ok Bye.