the seasons are becoming schizophrenic

We walked outside this evening to go to dinner and discovered it was significantly cooler outside than it was in our air conditioned apartment. After going back to turn off the a/c and grab a sweater we remarked on how it was hard to believe it was August because it was 60 degrees outside.

I began to think about fall. I began to think about how much I love fall. I began to think about how much I love fall clothes. I started getting very excited.

As we rounded the corner I looked on the ground and saw this,



I looked over to the curb and saw this:


I thought to myself, "ah, I do love the fall with the leaves turning colors and crunching under my feet."

Then I remembered the part about it actually being early August. What the hell? How come the leaves are changing already? My next thought was that maybe they were leftover from last year at fall (ummmm, how this happens when the streets are cleaned twice a week I don't know but it is more logical than leaves changing in AUGUST). So I looked up at the trees and saw this




Hmmmmmmm........

journey of a sock

I took along James' honeymoon socks as my trip knitting. I had plans to do his socks AND some christmas socks but I grossly underestimated how long it takes to knit socks. Since I was knitting James' socks the entire trip they had some wonderful adventures. Besides doing most of the things we did there were some special highlights for the sock.

It got to sit on a termite mound (to give a sense of scale).


It did such a good job at this that its hard to find--look on the left just above and to the side of the little arch.

Some sock knitting got sadly interrupted because of the bad condition of the roads, so it just got to gaze out the window for a little while:


Maybe the roads don't look so bad to you but imagine a really really bumpy roller coaster and it was sort of like that.

By the time the first sock was finished it was famous. Women (who were trying to sell us things off of platters balanced on their heads while we were stopped in traffic) stared in through the windows and had extensive conversations about what I was doing and how I was doing it. It got to meet a crocheted purse made by the Nigerian women sitting in front of us at a Durbar (ceremony thing where chiefs and important people meet).

It was officially finished at lunch after we me met the chief of the Gunja (he was not introduced to the sock, some things don't translate well). James was appropriately pleased....


My mother thought perhaps it felt like expressing its inner thoughts as a hand puppet.....


And Emmaunel (our driver who thought it was really hilarious that I spent all my time knitting socks) thought perhaps it might make a good necktie...............


The second sock felt a little jealous as it had little of the glory of the first sock. It was all business and work work work with that one. But the night after we returned from Ghana it was finished and James officially has honeymoon socks (two years too late)

Safari birthday

My 30th birthday was at Mole National Park, a game preserve. If you ever have a chance to have a birthday in Northern Ghana I highly recommend it here. The animals are all wild and there are only people in a tiny fraction of the preserve. Basically the animals do what they want and the people work around them. Thus being woken up by baboons jumping on our roof. There are antelope, baboon, elephants, egrets, crocodile, lions (in theory), and tons of pretty birds. But really there are two main reasons why the game preserve was great:

Reason #1


Baboons. They are awesome. They stole some ladies bra and underwear she hung out to dry.


Reason #2


Elephants. They are huge.

Happy Birthday to ME!

James does not like Fu Fu

Fufu is a staple of Ghanian cuisine which basically consists of yams (real ones not sweet potatoes) that have been pulled and mashed. It eventually makes a lump of stretchy substance that you can use to eat your food with your hands. In Ghana they make fufu by using tall tall poles to pound the fufu in a low bowl. It looks something like this:


This picture depicts the Ghanian story about why god is far away. He used to live nearby but kept getting hit by the poles the women were using to make fufu. He got very upset and decided to go far far away where he wouldn't get hit anymore.

James is an adventurous eater so for lunch our first day in Kumasi he decided to get Bush Meat stew with Fufu. Here is what it looked like:


My mom and I tasted it. Fufu was not so yummy. It might be our least favorite food in Ghana.

That night around midnight (well after we had gone to sleep) James leapt into my side of the two twin beds pushed together in our hotel. He started grumbling, "I'm cold, I'm cold, I'm cold!" I told him to turn down the air conditioner. He shut it off. Since James had been hot the night before with the same air conditioning level I thought perhaps we should take his temperature. 102 degrees. We had no blanket in the hotel room so I covered him with everything we could find that might be warm, including the mosquito net:



Since his fever kept going between 99 degrees and 102 we got to embark on the lovely adventure of going to foreign clinics. We went to the Cocoa Board Clinic, a clinic for cocoa employees (one of Ghana's biggest exports). It was quite lovely and civilized. ...James did not have malaria and they gave him some antibiotics. The best part was the pharmacy that was IN the clinic.



My mom and I spent the day feeling a little under the weather and slightly feverish as well. I'm convinced it was the Fufu.

Adinkra

Adinkra is a cloth used for serious occasions. People wrap themselves in it for funerals in particular but for other less grim occassions as well. We visited the village outside of Kumasi where much adinkra cloth is made and got a tour of how they make it.




They make up dye to dye the fabric black. It comes from wood. The fabric gets dipped in the dye a few times a day for a month and is left to dry in the sun in between dippings......


There it is spread out to dry. On the left in the big oil drum they are making the ink they use to decorate the cloth. It comes from a bark and gets reduced down until it is a very oily thick substance.



They spread out the cloth and use the ink to draw out a grid with a comb. They will use these stamps to decorate the inside of each square on the grid:



Each stamp has a different meaning that is associated with some sort of proverb like saying.
As if the demonstration couldn't get any more exciting they let me try...........



I love getting to play with things. Here are my stamps.



I just picked them up out of the bucket and had no idea what they meant but apparently here are their meanings:

On the top right is "NYAME BIRIBI WO SORO, "God is in the heavens" or a symbol of hope. It is a reminder that God's dwelling place is in the heaven, where he can listen to all prayers."

On the middle left is "MMUSUYIDEE, "that which removes bad luck" or a symbol of good fortune and sanctity."

On the middle right is "NYAME NNWU NA MAWU, "God never dies, therefore I cannot die" or a symbol of God's omnipresence and the perpetual existence of man's spirit. This signifies the immortality of man's soul, believed to be a part of God. Because the soul rests with God after death, it cannot die."

And on the bottom left is "GYE NYAME "except for God" or a symbol of the supremacy of God. This unique and beautiful symbol is ubiquitous in Ghana. It is by far the most popular for use in decoration, a reflection on the deeply religious character of the Ghanaian people."


Hmmm, auspicious? Can you tell that the Ghanaians have a bit of a thing for god?

James loves Red-Red

Red Red is a bean stew that comes with plaintains. It often has goat, chicken, or fish in it. That's it in the bottom left hand corner. It might be our favorite food of Ghana.

A recipe for veggie red red to make when we get home. Yummy.

fabric here, fabric there, fabric fabric everywhere

Accra (the capital and big city in Ghana) is filled with luscious fabric. Everywhere you go many of the women are wrapped in the most amazing prints I've ever seen. A few yards of fabric seems to have many different purposes, it can be a skirt, a shawl, a dress, or a baby carrier. Brilliant.

You can buy lots of fabric at the Makola market. Its like the Mall of America for Accra. Stall after stall of merchants, many of them selling fabric.



among other things...........



I like the fabric best, miles and miles of fabric...............



We won't discuss how much I bought. Yet anyway.