{"id":37,"date":"2008-02-18T16:24:16","date_gmt":"2008-02-18T16:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/crystalnorth\/?p=37"},"modified":"2015-05-18T16:27:40","modified_gmt":"2015-05-18T16:27:40","slug":"taste-of-ghanian-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/crystalnorth\/2008\/02\/18\/taste-of-ghanian-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Taste Of Ghanian Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"crowd_clapping\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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So today\u2019s Saturday, and we got up early so we could go into the cultural center in Kumasi with Erica, to do some perusal and general souviners-type shopping.\u00a0 We got a LOT of great stuff, and I finally got my cloth for an outfit! It\u2019s absolutely gorgeous cloth, and I can\u2019t wait to take it to the seamstress tomorrow in Ankaase to get it made.\u00a0 So, now seems like a good time to talk a little bit more about general Ghanian culture, since it\u2019s fresh on my mind from our trip today\u2026<\/p>\n

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We rode a tro-tro into Kumasi, that we caught in Ankaase right by the hospital. It only cost us about 45 cents each, amazing.\u00a0 Tro-tro\u2019s are everywhere, and in a lot of ways, the easiest way to travel.\u00a0 They\u2019re these white, VW-type van things, originally designed as 16 passenger vans, but converted to seat about 25-30 people, depending on the day.\u00a0 Kids sit on their parent\u2019s laps, there is no idea of pesonal space, sometimes there are chickens and such riding alongside you. It\u2019s quite the experience! They kind of look like clown-cars when they\u2019re totally full, people bursting from the seams. Same idea, for those of you who have been to Honduras, as the collectivo there.\u00a0 There\u2019s this guy who sits at the door, who seems to dictate who gets on an doff by these hand signals and certain taps on the bare metal interior of the tro-tro.\u00a0 I\u2019ve tried to watch, to see how this guy knows what one of the people (in the midst of the sea of people standing around) on the side of the road wants a ride, but it\u2019s an absolute mystery to me.\u00a0 It can get pretty claustrophobic, smelly, and hot inside one of those, especially considering that there is no such thing as air conditioning in them, but my two experiences thus far haven\u2019t been too bad.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019m being lulled into this false sense of security, about to be awakened by the worst tro-tro ride of my life. Bring it on! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The idea of retail and stores are definitely different hear (shocker, I know).\u00a0 With the weather being so hot, most everything is open-air style.\u00a0 Even the houses in the villages, as run-down and sad as they are, have these open air spaces in the middle of them around which the rooms are organized. The stores consist of these small rooms, with almost ALL their merchandise sitting on the dirt or street in front of the room.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking rows of tires, old TVs, car radios,\u00a0fridges, car engines, mufflers, the works.\u00a0 And each store is dedicated to one type of retail. There are stores, like in this village that is wholly devoted to wood-carving products, where you do go inside the small room to look at their goods.\u00a0 Those places are especially interesting for an obruni (I\u2019ve been spelling that wrong, by the way. It\u2019s not albruni, it\u2019s obruni).\u00a0 They immediately surround you, even in each other\u2019s shops, and start asking what you will pay for what they\u2019re holding.\u00a0 IF you show the slightest interest in something on a shelf, they will grab it, dust it off, and start asking what you will pay for it.\u00a0 If you say you\u2019ll come back later, they will follow you, and ask if you still want whatever it was you were interested in before.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got to have a pretty strong resolve to be in a situation like that, or you end up buying much more than you intended, and spending a ton more money! I really like bartering with them, so I have fun with it. It can be pretty exhauting though, if you\u2019re there long enough.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Kumasi (big city about an hour\u2019s drive away), people like the streets with their goods they want to sell.\u00a0 They will sit side by side in the dirt by the road, or on the pavement if the sidewalk is big enough, lay out a tarp or two, and have all their goods arranged on top if it.\u00a0 All varieties of veggies, clothes, shoes, sunglasses, cloth, you name it.\u00a0 The sidewalks are absolutely packed.\u00a0 A lot of places will also have peeled oranges and friend plantains for sale.\u00a0 I stay away from those\u2026.I\u2019d rather not feel the ill effects of eating them, if you know what I mean\u2026.!\u00a0 There are also women and men walking aorund with amazingly heavy loads on their heads, perfectly balanced.\u00a0 They do that all over, and it never ceases to amaze me.\u00a0 We saw a little boy the other day with a huge bag of charcoal balanced on his head, walking to the next town over.\u00a0 When I say bag of charcoal, think large bag, previously used as a flour bag, probably containing 15-20 kg, filled with the charred remains of something they use to burn fires.\u00a0 Young women with bowls of water bags, plantain chips, etc. will stand on the roads and go up to the cars, tro-tro\u2019s, busses, etc to try and sell their stuff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Something else fascinating to me is what happens if you refuse to buy something from someone.\u00a0 They are still as nice to you as they were before you said no!\u00a0 I refused to buy something from someone today, and he wished me a good day and said God Bless.\u00a0 Even in rejection, Ghanians are the nicest people ever! Now granted, we have had plenty of over-friendly people talk to us too! I had one guy come up to me in the tro-tro station in Kumasi (utter chaos, through and through), and ask me if I loved him. Before I could reply, he said \u201cI love you, do you want to love me?\u201d and repeated this over and over until I just smiled and walked away.\u00a0 How endearing\u2026.!\u00a0 And another guy who I bought a little figuring from asked me if I was married. I must admit, I told the smallest of white lies and told him that I was. It was just easier than dealing with the consequences!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m almost done with my 600 page book (Woman in White, for those of you who care\u2026.an amazing, suspensful book!), if that gives you any indication of the laid-back atmosphere of life here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I can\u2019t believe that we leave a week from tomorrow!\u00a0 It\u2019s way too soon.\u00a0 We actually looked into changing our plane tickets, so that we would be in Ghana longer and London for less time, but turns out that it would have cost us about $650 each in order to do that. Hardly worth it.\u00a0 I guess we really do have to leave.\u00a0 I wish we were here for a few more weeks at least.\u00a0 I also have this not-so-fleeting wish that I could change my ticket from London to Seattle to something more exciting like London to somewhere-else-in-Africa.\u00a0 I\u2019d totally look into it, except getting a visa this last minute would be a headache, especially living in a remote village like Ankaase. More adventures will just have to wait I guess\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  So today\u2019s Saturday, and we got up early so we could go into the cultural center in Kumasi with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/crystalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/crystalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/crystalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/crystalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/crystalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/crystalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/crystalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/crystalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmedblogs.us\/crystalnorth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}