Holidays

Overall, Christmas in Ghana did not make me as sad as I thought that it might. It was more of a detached weirdness that I wanted to call people and ask them what they got to live vicariously though them, but honestly I did not feel sad to miss the stress of buying people gifts and all the stress that comes with the holidays. Christmas in Ghana is a more than a week long occasion, it really goes from before Christmas to after new years. Someone actually stopped by my house yesterday for a new years visit. So what my counterpart (John) told me was that when people come by to see you, you are supposed to give the children biscuits (cookies) and the adults a drink (soda). We never went out and got sodas so I didnt give those out, and I bought a pack with a lot of biscuits and only on one night did children come by to ask for anything. So now I am left with a lot of biscuits that I am not particularly interested in eating...I gave a pack to the person who visited me yesterday. John says the children will come eventually. Technically he said “By all means, they will come”. He has some phrases that he likes to use a lot, one is by all means, another thing he says a lot is the word compulsory, which I am not sure I have ever used in conversation in my entire life. So anyway when the kids did come for the biscuits, it was Christmas day, and I was sitting with John's family (my new family) after dinner. We were sitting on the veranda by the light of a kerosine lamp. We had eaten fufu with light soup and chicken for dinner, so our tummys were very full and I was feeling very relaxed and happy. Suddenly in the distance we could hear some yelling, which wasnt out of the norm because throughout the day I had sometimes heard adults celebrating and happily yelling, or sometimes children, or sometimes loud explosions that sounded like gunshots. The gunshot noise came from this thing, I think it was called a cabart? It is something like two plastic bottles and like a science experiment they put something in the bottom and add some liquid and it makes a really loud noise and explosion. They do this around Christmas. Anyway now the yelling was a crowd of children who were actually singing a song and beating on pots and pans. The Christmas song they were singing is one where you ask for things, and they were heading for my house. Im not sure if they went to every house or just houses where they thought people would give them something. I couldnt make out the words to the song but it was something asking for presents, and had the word father christmas in it, and they all filed onto my veranda and sang for me. I gave them a lot of biscuits and then they changed the song to a celebratory thank you song and inserted my name into it. I really wanted to take a video of them singing it and make them work for the cookies but my camera died right when I started video-taping. Other than the biscuits there is not any gift giving that I saw. For the christmas tree they take palm fronds and braid them, and make an archway in front of their house. They decorate it with flowers and balloons. Christmas here is about visiting people, I think thats why they make an arch to their house. One of my chiefs came to my house yesterday to ask me how I brought in the new year, but I was at farm and missed it. So I think basically the holidays consist of visiting people and especially after new years you ask everyone how they brought in the new year. And by brought in the new year I mean how your life situation is at the beginning of the new year. The saying in my language around the holidays is jeha eya ne jeha ebanau wau which means may another year come and meet us. And the response is kabiwasi nadeke wange, which means and may we be alive. Or something like that. Wow it doesnt sound very festive when I read what I just typed but people are ecstatic when they say this to each other, and they especially go nuts when I say it. When I ask them how their christmas is going, some people have told me that it is only okay, and that it was much better last year, because this year they dont have much money. It really makes me want to be able to help my village. One of my purposes for being here is to increase household incomes.

The community had a naming ceremony for me and gave me a Krobo name. Because my community is made up of many smaller villages, I have eight chiefs, and eight queen mothers, youth leaders, and opinion leaders. So this naming ceremony had a lot of people in attendance. My volunteer friends nearby and their counterparts came also. The ceremony started with some singing, some speeches, and then they took me to a back room and put some traditional cloths on me over my clothes. These cloths were kind of thick and very hot. Then, as with tradition, I sat in “my mother”'s lap. Really it was one of the queen mothers. The ceremony is normally for a baby. They put beads on me, and when they named me they tied a bracelet with two beads onto my wrist. This bracelet is what they do for Krobo babies when they name them. So my name is Awisi Nakie, or Nakie Awisi. Nakie is a queen mother name, so that means that I am to be respected and there are chores in the house that I dont have to do (very true lol). Nakie is the name they give a firstborn, and they surprised us at the ceremony because John had told them I was the third born daughter whenever I came to visit in november, and we just assumed that they would give the name Mamle. Well the way they see it, I am the first born because I am the first white person born there, and I am very happy because honestly Mamle kind of sucks as a name. Awisi means that I was born on sunday. After they named me they took up a donation, which is customary. At baby naming ceremonys they donate money to buy something for the child like chickens or goats, from which they can profit later in life. My money was to buy things for my house because right now I pretty much just have empty rooms with my stuff on the floor. They gave me 125 Ghana Cedi, which is a lot and honestly I wasnt expecting them to give me anything. It was really nice and I feel very wanted and loved by my community. During the donations I danced this dance called Dipo, which is not a part of naming ceremonies normally. Dipo is a rite of passage to womanhood for girls. So I guess they were combining two into one day. During my dance people ran up and stuffed money all over me where ever they could, including down my shirt and some tried to put it in my mouth. Most tried to stick it in my beads around my neck and then it would fall into the floor but there were many people making sure all my donations made it into the donation bowl. They seemed really excited to give me money. After dancing a couple times they said some closing words, and like that it was all over. I think the ceremony was three hours long. Its weird how the Ghanaian mindset of long times not being long times is starting to become my way of thinking also. Time is not valuable to them, so they are usually not on time for anything, and the thing that they are attending waits until everyone is there to start.

After my naming ceremony me and John and Kyndra (another volunteer) went to the middle of the community for a football gala. It was a three day gala with several teams from my community and allso some from nearby towns. This was the first day and it was pretty fun because there were a lot of people there. Some of the people came from out of town to celebrate the holiday with their families in the village, and some came from the nearby areas to watch their team. John was the manager for the team from the village where we live. It was really funny because the people that arent from my community did not expect to see a white person there and they were very eager to talk to me. I think I got six marriage proposals. The people that are from my community were excited to see me also because they like it when I am involved. I try to go out whenever anything is going on, but unless it has loud music I dont really know about much. The other thing I went to was a birthday party which was basically big speakers and everyone dancing. So I went and danced of course. The second day of the football gala was even more fun, because this time I ran into my friend who is one of the people in my village that sells akpeteshie. She snuck me off from the gala to take from shots and then return. She was with some other ladies from my village and it was nice to hang out with some people that werent kids. Even though they were just as rowdy as kids. We went and stood next to the goal for the other team and cheered from there. When our team scored we rushed the field. My villages team won both of their games which made the day even better, and my counterpart yelled so much that he lost his voice. He normally has a really deep voice that sounds like darth vader but it was so high and squeaky it was hilarious. He sounded like a muppet or something. There is a lot of fighting involved in these football matches, so after the gala closed for that day everyone was trying to rush me home. I would rather people care about my safety that to not care, but it made me feel like a little baby, not even able to walk home by myself.

So whenever things arent going on, I normally spend my day talking with people. I feel really happy in my village and I really love my new family. My family is John's family. His wife is super nice and happy. They have three daughters, ages 14, 7, and 1.5. The little one was scared of me for the longest time but recently she has warmed up to me and will call my name and let me hold her and sometimes when I am sitting down she crawls all over me. I dont know how anyone could do peace corps if they didnt like kids....so the 14 year old is kind of quiet, but sometimes when I come home from going somewhere she runs up to give me a big hug. Im not sure if that is because she thinks im going to bring her something because one time she did my laundry so I brought her a meat pie (its what she wanted) from koforidua. But she knows english and Krobo so she was very helpful when I wanted to go visit people because then I could talk to anyone successfully. The middle daughter, is quite the wild child. She kind of reminds me of me when I was her age. She likes to laugh a lot. She runs to give me a hug every time I come back from anywhere. She also tries to jump on my back sometimes, random times...she will jump as high as she can onto my back and then try to climb the rest of the way up to get a piggy back ride. One time she successfully jumped all the way up onto my back and clung on like a little monkey. I usually try to shake her off. Last night I let her play with my hair...which was interesting. She took a comb and was combing from the top down, causing all the tangles to form at the ends of my hair. She put some braids in that were really hard to get out. She also went and got something from her mothers room, when she brought it out it was hair conditioner...for africans...i told her no she could not put it in my hair and then she was playing with my hair more and I could smell it and I realized it was already on her hands. I was mortified but my hair doesnt smell like it today so im over it.  

So in conclusion I am still having a great time, more to come later