The hype started more than a year ago. Towards the end of my Peace Corps training I traveled to what would soon be my new home for a four day visit. I arrived about two weeks before the town's annual festival, but unfortunately I was back in training during the festivities. This festival attracts people from all over the world, I was told by people in town. It's world famous, I learned. The men dress up as women and parade around the town. There is much rejoicing.
Much of the excitement actually came from the school typist. She had been assigned to take me around town during my visit. She was a good guide and occasionally dispensed random advice such as, "fornication is a sin" and told me the story of how her husband proposed to her over the phone before they had met or even had a single conversation. Throughout the next year she would occasionally bring up the festival saying things like, "you will go and your mother will be happy." Indeed.
The owner of my house, a kindly old man named Papa Eidu, is also enthusiastic about the festival but in a different way. He told me the Akwanbo Festival celebrates the warrior heritage of the people. It was originally a three-day festival (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) but has more recently been expanded to an entire week. On the first three days, different groups of people parade through town, apparently somehow recalling how people used to come back from war. The big day is Saturday when the town gathers at Victoria Park, a big field in the middle of town.
My final source of information leading up to the festival was one of the construction workers who live with me. He comes from Accra and had never heard of Akwanbo before. I never really thought it was world famous, but I thought at least maybe it was Ghana famous.
From what I know about celebrations in Ghana, I expected a lot of drinking, dancing and some sort of official ceremony that would start late, drag on for too long, and be conducted entirely in Twi.
Akwanbo for me started on Tuesday (I wasn't in town on Monday). There were a lot of people parading through town, including a few men dressed as women, as well as some more traditional drumming. Wednesday featured a small group of old men sort of dressed as warriors singing and parading through town.
I invited some other Peace Corps Volunteers (aka whites) to come on Saturday. Keeping with local tradition (although this is more applicable to funerals), we started drinking early and then headed into town to see what was going on. As predicted by Papa Eidu, the town had indeed gathered in Victoria Park in the traditional Ghanaian fashion, sitting in plastic chairs under canopies that are arranged in a rectangle. This is the standard arrangement for all official ceremonies, such as funerals, weddings, and graduations. The dais canopy was empty upon our arrival, and it seemed that we just missed the parade of chiefs who are traditionally carried in by their respective entourages. Oh well. You've seen one chief parade you've kind of seen them all.
Then two teams of "warriors" (the only real warrior element was the guns) each danced in the middle of the rectangle. There were also a few men dressed as women. Then we left to do more drinking. When we returned, the Dick Cheney of Ghana (aka the vice president) had just rolled up in his motorcade. The dais was now full of various officials who were being introduced. We can only guess what happened next since we left, but all signs pointed to long speeches in Twi.
Till next year…(actually, I'll probably be in America)
Addendum #1: Grading is harsh at my school. I kind of curved my final grades so as not to fail 90% of the class, but it seems that most teachers have no problem failing a significant percentage of their students.
Addendum #2: Mike, I think the reason I can't poop and scoop is because the toilet is not a sanitary environment. So, for example, if the previous person had worms then perhaps those worms would also show up in my sample. Just a guess…
¶ 12:31 PM 3 comments
