After things wrapped up in Axim on Friday afternoon, it was time to meet Duncan and a big group of friends at a beach resort 25 minutes west of Cape Coast. From Axim I caught a ride back west with my WiLDAF colleagues as far as Takoradi, where I then caught a tro-tro towards Cape Coast and finally a taxi to the resort.
The resort was quite nice, and we did a little swimming and played cricket on the beach. On Saturday we all headed in to Cape Coast for the Oguaa Fetu Afahye festival. The streets were teeming with people, and we watched as seven local chiefs were paraded around town while held aloft in decorated wooden beds. This being Ghana, where one uses one’s head to carry just about anything smaller than an SUV, each of the beds was held up by four men standing under the corners. This job was perhaps only slightly better than that of the poor guys that had to walk the parade route carrying huge drums on their head while another dude just behind them ceaselessly banged on the drum in an apparent effort to increase profits for those in the hearing aid manufacturing business.
On our way back to Accra on Sunday afternoon we again stopped in Cape Coast, this time to watch a Ghanaian Premier League soccer game between the Cape Coast Mysterious Dwarfs (best team name ever) and the Accra Mighty Jets. The atmosphere was quite good, with the quality of the soccer probably just below that of the Vancouver Whitecaps.
Matt...not really karen but can't figure out how i can make comments..so using karen's...this is somewhat unrelated to your post but i just wanted to write to say i loved your piece for Sankofa...
ReplyDeleteI hope you are enjoying your placement and feeling like you too are making a contribution...can't wait to read more. christine campbell, national director, external relations, cci