Day Seven

We've definitely been busy since the last time I wrote. On Friday we went to two museums, the Kwame Nkrumah museum/memorial and the WEB Dubois museum. The first was an outdoor memorial and an indoor museum. He was a very important figure in Ghanaian as well as African history, he was the first democratically elected leader of Ghana and a proponent of Pan-Africanism. In the museum there were pictures of him with JFK, dancing with the Queen of England (he was the first black man to do that) and various other important historical figures. When we were outside on the grounds there was also a group of school children visiting, and they really wanted to take pictures with us so we did that, and it was a lot of fun (probably more of a highlight than the museum itself). They were lively and cute, and their principal came and thanked us, and asked if we would visit the school, which hopefully we can! When he came to thank us he mentioned that this was the first time the kids had seen/interacted with white people, and Dr. Gilbert noted that even though our group is racially mixed, they see us all as "white" or "obrunis", which means white but is applied more broadly as foreigners. That night we had dinner at Chez Afrique, a restaurant/bar with a dance floor. It was a little different than U.S. clubs, when the owner came on the microphone to give a shout-out to us and three other groups of university students there that night, she gave the rules of the dance floor, which were no "booty bumping" or "flesh touching". I pretty much looked like an awkward white girl dancing, but it was still a lot of fun. Our Ghanaian peers were there and seeing them dance was so fun! They really get into it! It was great. 

Yesterday we went to the Accra Cultural Center, which is where they sell lots of handmade art, jewelry, etc. Our group has an established contact with one of the older shopkeepers there, Mr. Abu, who one of our groups is working with again this year on business development. We broke into groups to tour the place and he had some of his shop helpers go with each group to help us bargain, which was good because the sellers are pretty pushy. In markets in Ghana, it is assumed that the price will be bargained, so the sellers start high, and the buyer is supposed to start at 1/3 of that. I think I got some good deals, (I got a beautiful painting for 50 cedis, which is about $27 U.S. dollars!), but they also told us that if we write down the shop number and the item we want, they will go back and bargain for us. I thought that was pretty cool. Then last night we went to an African Fashion show at the Dubois center, which had designers from several different African countries. We were shocked when the show started off with oiled male models in only ripped, cutoff jean shorts parading the flags of each country! 

Today we went to the East Region to visit the Aburi Gardens, which were originally kept by colonial rulers and then Kwame Nkrumah and other political figures as an escape from the city (they said similar to Camp David but not military). It was up in the mountains a little bit, and the drive and the grounds were beautiful. A lot of different spice and medicinal plants grow there. I got some cool pictures of a hollow tree, and we had another traditional Ghanaian lunch, with french fries. On the drive back we passed Rita Marley's house and recording studio, (Bob Marley's wife), whose presence has brought a small Jamaican population to Ghana. Tonight we are going to a jazz club, which I'm excited for! Tomorrow is our agency orientation, where we will meet the people we are working with and get a chance to discuss our workshops a little bit so we can make any needed modifications. I'm a little nervous, but I think it will also give me a much better idea of the feel of our service week.