Religion is strong here. The southern part of Ghana where I live is mostly Christian while the northern part is significantly more Muslim. In my town, there is a Muslim district, which I live on the border of. But most of the culture that I'm exposed to here is Christian.

 

Religion manifests itself in so many ways here. In education, there are Methodist schools, Presbyterian schools, Catholic schools, and Muslim schools in my town, to name a few. At my school, which is a government school and not officially associated with any religion, many students take Christian Religious Studies and all students take Religious Moral Education, a class that could be renamed Christian Religious Moral Education because those seem to be the values that are preached in this class. No Muslim classes are offered, but there are Muslim students at the school.

 

Religious-themed music is popular, and a surprising number of students enjoy praying, probably because it involves a lot of singing and dancing. Church attendance is not 100% on Sundays, but it seems fairly high. There are dozens of churches in my town of a few thousand people to fill.

 

Signs of religion are everywhere too. People give their businesses names like, "Hand of God Cleaning Service" and "All Proclaim Jesus is Lord Enterprises." Stickers on taxis and buses give thanks to god for providing these vehicles. "By the grace of God" is a standard everyday phrase. Preachers on tro-tros (mini-buses) are a regular site and most passengers not only pray along with them but often give them money too.

 

I could go on and on about Christianity in Ghana, but my point is that this religion, which is strongly entrenched in so many different parts of life, exists side-by-side with Juju. I don't know the proper translation of Juju, but it's what the local fetish priests practice. This "magic" is not viewed as some anachronistic, obscure cult. It's widely believed.

 

For example, there was recently a case of a fetish priest in a nearby town who murdered his wife and child (don't worry, no one I asked could recall a similar case in the area). I listened as one of the teachers at my school, himself a university graduate, was telling the story to other teachers. After recounting the ritualistic nature of the killing, the teacher said that it was very important to catch this criminal right away because if he touches a wall he can vanish. The other teachers then interrupted that they need to smash an egg on his forehead. The storyteller agreed. Yes, an egg to the forehead would prevent him from vanishing.

 

Over the past few days, I've discussed this Juju with several students and teachers. I have been informed that these priests have powers. They can turn blood into money (but why wouldn't they turn the blood into dollars instead of cedis?). They can move someone's mouth to the back of his head. They can vanish and reappear somewhere else. Also, if a preying mantis goes up your nose you will change sexes, and there are dwarfs with backwards feet who live in the forests (this fact came out several weeks ago while I was teaching science and one of the students asked me about the DNA of dwarfs. I thought she was talking about short humans, so I told her that their DNA is nearly identical and a very small difference makes them shorter. But she pressed further and asked about the backwards feet. Right.).

 

So far nearly everyone I have spoken to believes in this sort of thing. The Juju priests get their power from Satan, which allows it to fit in with Christianity. Not sure how the dwarfs and preying mantises work.

 

I suppose a belief is a belief and people can believe whatever they want to believe. If God can publish books from the top of a mountain and have a kid, why can't Satan grant magical powers? So don't forget to always carry an egg with you and watch out for preying mantises and dwarfs...

 

Addendum #1: The term is over! Woohoo! I'm going on a vacation from my 27 month vacation...

The other day I realized that every time I eat beans I am also eating bugs. This is unfortunate, but I'm still going to eat beans.

 

Beans are sold out of a giant 2-3 foot in diameter open-air bowl. Beans are bought by the cupful. One cup, measured with an old tin can, will last me a month or so. I have bought beans three times, and the last two times the bag of beans I brought home was filled with small insects. After the first time, I figured it was a fluke, so I threw it away. After the second time, I figured this is something I'm just going to have to deal with. I try to pick them out and rinse the beans, but the bugs are small, so I'm sure I'm missing some. And cooked beans that I buy from someone on the street for lunch surely have not been cleaned so well.

 

So I eat insects. I've eaten much much "worse" things in this country (poopsoup anyone?).

 

 

Because of my beard and light skin, I get called Jesus by random people on the street. I often find this amusing and sometimes I play along telling people in Twi that yes I am Jesus, and I have returned. I think they generally take this as a joke. So far I don't have masses of people following me around worshipping my shoes or anything.

 

Sometimes people also call me Osama, as in Osama bin Laden. I don't get the sense that he's popular here, but people have heard of him and apparently they know at least two things about him: 1 - he has lighter skin than they do and 2 - he has a beard. I don't find being called Osama amusing at all. I used to ignore it, but occasionally I'm in the mood to get angry at a random Ghanaian.

 

This was the case the other day when, walking down my very own street, a 20-something man said 'Osama' as I was walking by. Using a combination of English and Twi, I told him that what he was doing was wrong, and I told him my name is Kwabena. I started walking away and I again heard him say Osama. Now I got angry. I asked him if he spoke English (he did) and I again told him that what he was saying was wrong. I asked him if he knew who Osama bin Laden was (he did). 

 

He then pointed to his 5-year old brother and said, "this is Osama. This small boy's name is Osama." Yikes. I was very apologetic and I tried to explain to him that sometimes people call me Osama because of my beard (so weird to be explaining this to a Ghanaian), and I don't like it. I don't remember this guy's name and I also couldn't pick him up out of a lineup, so now I'm extra friendly to any 20-something man that I see on my street.

 

 

The other day we had a teachers' meeting at school. I have only attended two other meetings, and both quickly deteriorated into discussions of salaries and other payments to teachers. The focus is usually on "extra classes money."

 

The school day technically goes from 7:15 to around 1:20, but in reality the last class of the day is over at 3:10. Classes between 1:20 and 3:10 are called "extra classes." In addition to tuition, uniform fee, computer fee, entertainment fee, student council fee, PTA fee, etc, there is a special 50,000 cedi fee per term for "extra classes." This money is then divided among all of the teachers at the end of each term. If every student in the school paid, each teacher would receive about 2.7 million cedis per year, or almost 300 dollars. But not every student pays, and some of the money is used for other purposes, such as transportation to funerals of relatives of teachers.

 

Because of the strike, the headmaster, with the support of the government, ruled that all extra classes money for the term would not go to the teachers. This announcement was made at a previous meeting, so the teachers should not have been surprised by it (but they were and they were angry). Compounding their anger was the fact that the Board and headmaster had decided to use the money to build toilets for the girls (currently there are not any and they share with the boys, I think). Teachers not only did not understand the importance of girls' toilets, they also took this as a severe insult. Hilarity ensued at the meeting and I typed up a letter (they can't type) that all of the teachers signed which was sent to the Board.

 

 

Killing a bug or any small living creature in my house is often a hard decision. If I kill a spider, will there be more flies? Are the lizards keeping the spiders in check? Whose making sure the ants don't eat my food (they do)? And will the frog really bring the snake? It's a delicate Darwinian balance. One exception is the cockroach. As far as I'm concerned, cockroaches, which live in my freakin' latrine, serve absolutely no useful purpose.

 

All of this life in my house keeps my cat busy. Watching him (now a confirmed male after I brought him to the government vet) chase around a frog is PBS nature show quality material. He doesn't have a killer instinct, but he likes to swat it, watch it run away, and then chase it down. It's a small frog, the body about the size of one my cat's paws. Watching my cat chase things is one of the many ways I pass the time.

It's Saturday, so that means funerals. I have yet to attend a funeral in Ghana, but I see them happening all over. And I've talked to Peace Corps volunteers who have been to funerals, so it's sort of kind of not really like I've been to one.

 

The biggest difference between funerals in Ghana and America is that they don't seem to be sad occasions here. I don't doubt that people here mourn, but funerals are not the place for it. Funerals are celebrations of the life that was lived and, as far as I have seen, are characterized by the following:

Funerals are a booming industry here. Life expectancy is 56 and the average woman is still having more than 4 kids. That means there are a lot of people here and they're dying young. So there are funerals all the time. Saturday is the big day for funerals presumably because Sunday is for church and the other days are working days if you're fortunate enough to have a job.

 

Other than the funerals themselves, the most visible signs of funerals are people making caskets. They're everywhere, and the caskets seem to be about the fanciest thing that most people will ever own. In Accra, there is one part of the capital that manufactures and sells "novelty" caskets for people who want to be buried in a giant rooster, cell phone, gun or bus, to name a few examples...

 

Addendum #1: There are only 2 weeks of teaching left in the term. The three week break starts December 15, during which I will be welcoming my first American guests to Ghana. Unfortunately, they're my parents (just kidding!).