Today at the farm we went on an adventure through the woods. We found a little wooden gate attached to a tree in order to swing open and shut. Behind the door was a very secluded little pathway, all covered in trees with big leaves and overgrowth of plants everywhere. It was almost like I discovered "The Secret Garden" in real life. We continued on the path and suddenly found ourselves up on the top of a hill. Suddenly, the whole world opened up in front of us. There were hills and valleys and mountains surrounding us, yet from a distance. It was breathtaking. I’m in love with nature, and Africa is a whole new world full of it!
After this, we went back to the farm and picked up sticks from out of the garden for a while. Then we dug up about seven beds for plants to grow in. This work was getting frustrating because often things on the farm are done the quick way and not the long term most efficient way. And the people who own the farm won't let us fix that. They tell us to stop and just do it quickly and messily. But we can’t change the world in 4 weeks so we just do what we are told.
At the farm, Drew is the favorite. There is a dance here called the Azonto dance. It is very popular right now and he can do this dance. One day he did it for them and they all clapped and laughed and now call him Azonto man every day. I feel kind of left out because they never really talk to me specifically. Then today I realized that they don’t know my name. So I told them my name but they couldn’t really say it (many people have not heard the name Rachel and think that you are saying Richard) so they asked me my Fante name. Fante names are determined by what day of the week you were born on. I was born on a Sunday, making my Fante name Esi. I told them this and Aya got so excited because she was named after a woman who’s name was Esi. So her name is also Esi even though it is also Aya and her real name is Comfort. So now we have a special bond and the rest of the day she kept shouting at me “Sister Esi!” and laughing and smiling. It was so nice to feel like I was a part of the family.
After a few hours of working we took a break to eat lunch. While we were eating, Cynthia began to prepare a common dish here known as Red Red. To start off you have black eyed peas. Then you separate the good ones from the bad. You boil those in a pot for one hour. Then you fry plantains. Fried plantains are always eaten with Red Red. When the black eyed peas are done you mix them with a tomato paste and onion tomato sauce. You stir that all together with coconut oil and let it simmer for a while. They use coconut oil to cook everything, even frying the plantains which is cool because we got to make coconut oil with a processor the first week that we were here. I loved watching this whole Red Red process because there was a little fire place that Cynthia was cooking over as I was watching and asking questions, Aya was nursing Monica and they were both chatting in Fante. It just felt really wonderful and normal to be sitting around in Africa making Red Red with the women. I love learning from the women here. They make up such a huge portion of life here in so many ways. Often households here don’t even have a father because he has gone away to live somewhere else for example to make money in the city. So every day I have the opportunity to watch and learn about how wonderful these women are and see what they do each day.
Later in the evening when I got home, I spent the night in Kates room just talking about everything in the world. She has malaria so I was keeping her company because it can be really terrible to be sick and have absolutely nothing to take your mind off of it. It was really nice to spend time together. I hope that when I get home we will stay in touch because she is such a good friend and is so similar to me.
Something tragic has happened here in the past couple of days. The president of Ghana has died. He died suddenly after having a strong headache. He was only 68 years old. In the cab ride home today we saw many people running and dancing and walking down the road in a big parade. They were wearing red cloth around their heads and wearing red and black clothing. There was a brass band and people waving flags. My sister Francesca told me that this was them mourning his loss and putting their sadness out there. This is their way of dealing with his death. Later that night there was a party in the square outside of my house, for the same reason. There were so many people wearing red and there was very loud music playing.
So here is the inside story on the presidents death, according to Francesca. The president was a member of the NDC, the National Democratic Congress. The other political party is the NPP, the New Patriotic Party. Apparently some weeks ago, a large sum of money had gone missing from the government. The president was angry and wanted it to be that whoever stole the money could not spend it. So he was going to do an entire process of changing the serial numbers on the money in order to make the stolen money have no value. Now, just a few weeks later, he is dead. Therefore the members of the NDC believe that the members of the NPP killed the president. The NPP must have stolen the money and now were mad that the president would do something to stop them from being able to spend it, so they killed him. However, they did not kill him physically. They killed him by calling on evil spirits to harm him; they killed him using voodoo. This is the generally held belief of the NDC members along with my sister Francesca.
She said that voodoo exists in the world but it is most strong and dangerous in Africa. The only way to stop voodoo is through a lot of prayer because through prayer God will protect you from the evil spirits. In order to do voodoo you can use any object such as a piece of paper or even a doll and call that persons name, bringing bad spirits into the object in order to harm them. There is no real way to judge this belief. Of course it was shocking to me at first to hear that this was the real belief of many well educated political activists as well as maybe half of the nation. However, this is what you have to expect when you go to other places and want to study their culture. Regardless, I love studying things like this. And even if no one killed the president, the people of Ghana are mourning the loss of a wonderful leader who had a great and caring personality. Many people I have talked to said that they did not eat after hearing of his death. It is all anyone is talking about right now. Re-election happens in December but for now the VP takes over office.
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