Feelin' So Hot Tamale

So far, some of the most rewarding and enriching experiences I've had in Ghana have been when I've traveled. There's a quote that really captures the idea, although I don't remember it exactly. It's something like, "You can learn more by traveling five miles than by reading a thousand books." Or something like that. New places equal new people, new ways of life, and new ways of thinking about life. It's amazing how different places can be, even if they are within fairly close proximity. Accra is a big city, not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks about Africa. Big buildings and urban life just don't fit into most people's minds when they think of Africa. One of my friends actually asked me this past weekend if I thought Africans would have ever built big buildings if they hadn't been colonized. They were impractical for so long because of the mobility of and the distance between African peoples. Now, they've made their way into some of Africa's big cities. On top of that, there's cars everywhere, banks, restaurants, business suits, and of course, Coca-Cola. I don't want to say these things aren't African or can't be African (except Coca-Cola, of course), but they are just not what one envisions when the image of Africa is evoked. No, instead images of vast dusty savannas with trees spread far apart appear. Villages with little mud huts, no electricity, probably no running water or flush toilets... that fits the image. The African sun beating down the most intense waves of heat imaginable... that also fits well. Cities like Accra just don't fit that image.

Well, this weekend, I saw that image of Africa when I traveled to the northern part of Ghana. However, don't mistake what I write. This was no more Africa than Accra is, because if there's anything I've learned from being here, it's that Africa is not a single image any more than the United States is (you know, images of fat racist white people stompin' around with ice cream cones, sittin' in front of the TV to watch American Idol and complaining about their heart medication or gossiping about Britney Spears latest pregnancy... that sort of image). So, Thursday morning, I woke up at 4:30 AM to load the bus for Tamale. Tamale is one of the largest cities in Ghana, although with a quarter of a million people, it's rather small compared to Accra and Kumasi. It's the only large city in the north part of Ghana, and it serves as the transit hub for that part of the country. It's several hundred miles away from Accra, and the journey is a long one. I slept for the first few hours of the bus ride, but I woke up as we were nearing Kumasi. I was surprised we had made it to Kumasi so quickly, considering the last time we went it took about 10 hours to get there. The bus ride was pretty uneventful. I mostly just read this fabulous book called Graceland. It's about a 16-year old boy who lives in the slums of Lagos, Nigeria, the largest city in Africa. He grew up in the villages, but after his mother dies and his father becomes a hardcore alcoholic, he moves to Lagos and makes a living by doing Elvis impersonations for rich white people at the beach. He ends up getting involved in all sorts of crazy things like cocaine dealing, organ trafficking, and traveling concert parties. I highly recommend it. But other than that, the ride was uneventful.

We arrived in Tamale around 7:00, 14 hours after our departure (of course, there were stops along the way). Our group was so large that we could not all fit in one hostel, so we occupied two. The hostel I stayed at was called the Tamale Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies (TICCS), and the other one, which I ended up staying at, was called the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT). We were all so exhausted from the ride and all the undigested food in our bellies, but nonetheless, we all ate a very large dinner of spaghetti and vegetables. I also met the owner/director of TICCS right before dinner. I was sitting with one of my friends, John, just chatting, and he came up to us and started a conversation. We found out that TICCS is a Christian institute specializing in cross-cultural ministry (they even offer a masters degree in it). So their focus is on promoting cross-cultural understanding with the intent of using that base to spread Christianity... interesting... I quickly passed out after dinner from food coma. Not the worst thing to fall asleep to, but not the best to wake up to either.

The next day, I awoke at 6:30 for a fun day full of TICCS. The itinerary was pretty packed, including a morning full of lectures. In fact, there was no free time at all for our trip, but there were lectures planned for 7:30-12:15. We were told we had to attend all lectures, but as I've learned from being here, the NYU in Ghana staff really have no leverage with which to enforce their authority, and I don't appreciate them not scheduling any free time for us. Nonetheless, I decided to give the lectures a try. After a breakfast of french toast, grits, and fruit (where's the protein?), we went to classroom where we met probably the creepiest man in the entire world who you'll be reading a lot more about. His name is... well, honestly, I don't want to tell you because I don't want to bring disgrace to his name, but we'll just say his name was Jim. Jim is a lawyer from southern California, probably in his 40s, volunteering at TICCs. He's been there since January. He wears a hat that says, "The Honest Lawyer... Can You Find One?" and his eyes seem like they are burning a hole into whatever he is looking at, like he was addicted to acid for most of his life and now he's permanently damaged. Jim introduced the director that I'd already met and the rest of the staff. A man named Frank began the first lecture entitled "Languages in Ghana." The lecture wasn't bad or anything, but it basically assumed that we just got to Ghana yesterday. From what I heard about the other lectures, they weren't any different either. C'mon, give us some credit for having been in Ghana for almost four months. The whole point of the lecture was that there are 50 native to Ghana, and some are more widely spoken than others. "No! Really? I thought people just spoke English and African."

After the first lecture, Frank told us we could take a few minutes to stretch before the next one began. Tania and I knew this was our opportunity to ditch the program. We had actually wanted to leave before the first one even started, but there were too many people telling us, "They're waiting for you to come to start." So we just walked out. On the one hand, it was kind of rude to the people giving the lectures. On the other hand, it was kind of rude of the NYU staff to not give us any free time and then not tell us about it until after they declared we could not drop out of the trip. In fact, Tania and I, as well as four other people who decided to ditch the lectures, were the only people who even got to see Tamale at all.

So... Tamale, the city in the north. As I've already said, it's a fair-sized city with about a quarter of a million people. However, what's so interesting about Tamale is that it's essentially a rural city, something I've never really seen before. Sure, there were a few main roads, a few (very small number) of multiple-story buildings, a few restaurants and other services you'd expect in a city, but for the most part, Tamale's a bunch of villages that sort of grew into each other and became incorporated into the city. Tania and I walked down the main road of the city which had a separate pedestian and bike lane separate from the road which was very nice. There were lots of people who rode bicycles, and even a fair number who rode motorbikes. Weaving in and out of all the people and bikes was actually a challenge. I suppose that was the most city-like thing about Tamale - a high concentration of peoples in a small area. We walked around, not seeing much that was out of the ordinary, other than an abudance of mosques. The southern part of Ghana is predominantly Christian, but the north is mostly Muslim, although Christianity is definitely still a strong force. There were a few spectacular mosques in the city, most notably the Central Mosque, the only real landmark in the city that can be seen from a distance.

If you read about my trip to Kumasi, you might remember I wrote that people there didn't harass me nearly as much as in Accra. Well, this was even more true for Tamale. Many people, especially children, yelled out, "Hello!" to us, but that was pretty much all. They were satisfied with a big wave and a smile. The only real exception was a man with a shovel spear who came running up to us. His English wasn't so hot, and so Tania and I thought he was trying to sell us the shovel. He kept saying something about a farm, and we kept trying to tell him that we weren't farmers. But it turned out that he just wanted to say hello to us and he just happened to have the shovel with him. He was nice. So, the people were nice, and the furniture they were selling of the side of the road had the most wonderfully tacky designs on it, but other than that, there's not much going on in Tamale. Tania and I kept walking for a long time, just chatting and waving at people, until eventually the heat started to get to us. We took a cab back to the hostel, although we spotted the central market on the way, so we got out there to check it out.

The market was nice, a pretty typical market, very friendly, not too big, not too small. The only bad thing about it were these millet balls that Tania and I bought. The millet balls looked like fried dough dipped in sugar, but it turned out to be fermented millet with flour. It was the most repulsive thing I've ever eaten in my life. It was absolutely horrible. These millet balls should be marketed in America as a hunger-control mechanism, though, because I was starving when I took a bite out of it, and immediately afterwards, I wasn't hungry at all. We preserved the specimen of millet and showed it to Chris who told it's supposed to be eaten with some sort of milk or porridge. I suppose that would make more sense, but I'm positive it would still taste horrible.

On our way back from the market, a little boy on a bicycle came riding up to us and said, "Hello, I want to be your friend." I said, "Oh, really? What's your name?" He told me his name was Michael and we told him our names. Then he just continued to ride his bike next to us as we walked. We didn't really say much to him because we didn't really know what to say, but just went right along with us. He got off his bike after a while and started walking and pushing his bike. I suppose it is difficult to ride so slowly. The whole time he just smiled and kind of giggled, not saying anything to us but absorbing every bit of the moment. After about 10 minutes, he told us he had reached his destination, and so he was off. We walked back to TICCS drenched in sweat and snuck into the dining room where everyone was eating lunch. It was an awkward entrance since we had left earlier, but a little awkwardness never kept me away from lunch before, so why stop now?

After lunch, we all loaded the bus to go to the famous Dr. Abdulai's clinic. Some have called Dr. Abdulai the Mother Theresa of Africa, which, after meeting him, you'd realize that's an understatement at best. This man was an absolute saint. He's a trained medical doctor, did all his studies abroad, but then he returned to Ghana to open up a clinic outside Tamale for people who need operations, mentally unstable people, homeless people, and anyone else outcast from society. It doesn't matter these people have money or not. Furthermore, his clinic relies on the knowledge of Western medicine while creating a more holistic healing experience. In fact, his clinic is more like a little village, making people feel right at home. He and his volunteer staff work hard day and night, and they all, staff and patients, seem to be the happier for it. They also have a soup kitchen serving a few hundred people daily which Dr. Abdulai told us hasn't missed a meal since 1989. He's also gives small interest-free loans to people who need money to start up their own work to support themselves as well as a structured plan for how to go about starting up their own business.

However, I don't just say he's a saint because of all these wonderful things he did - I say it because of the way he talked about and interacted with the people at his clinic. Whilst he was telling us about all the amazing things his clinic provides for people, a very old woman, probably in her 80's, came up to Dr. Abdulai in a very glamorous fabric design. He immediately gave her a big smile and reached his arms out for her to come to him. She sat down next to him smiling and giggling, as giddy as a little girl. He had his arm around her and began to tell us about this woman. Apparently she showed up to Dr. Abdulai's clinic completely naked. She began walking around the place and throwing dirt into people's pots while they were cooking, telling them they needed more salt. And then she would start painting the walls of the huts with her feces and just dance around all over the place. The whole time Dr. Abdulai was telling us this, he was talking in a very "that's just what she used to do" kind of way. I wouldn't say that his words were completely impartial, though; no, they were definitely filled with love and care for what he saw as a beautiful person. Now this woman is mostly concerned with looking beautiful all the time, so Dr. Abdulai bought her several beautiful dresses, and now she just walks around feeling pretty all day.

As we walked around the clinic, I could tell that Dr. Abdulai had a similar relationship with all his patients. Whenever people would see him coming, he would just brighten up their world. Everyone seemed to just be happy around him, and he seemed to be as genuinely happy to be with them. You know, some people are just like that. They are hard to come by, but it's obvious when you find one. They just seem to make the world a sunnier place. Which could possibly explain why I was so incredibly hot at the clinic. I swear, I haven't experienced heat so intense in years, definitely not since I've been in Ghana. I mean it was ridiculous. I was completely drenched in sweat. You may think I'm joking, but I kid you not when I say that my shirt was one gigantic sweat stain. But, it really wasn't so bad. No reason to let a little heat get me down. We gave some stuff to Dr. Abdulai for him to give to his patients, things like clothes and Ibuprofen and stuff. On the way out, I noticed some of the huts had the star of David on them, others crosses, others Adinkrah symbols... just making sure people feel at home.

We came back to TICCS after leaving the clinic. The director guy gave us a little lecture about divination. Diviners are people who get information from supernatural powers. They are not really fortune tellers because they play a more ritual and social role, but basically they're supposed to be spiritual guiders for the community when a person has a problem or an impasse in their life. After the little lecture, we split up into three groups to visit a diviner. I got to be in the smallest group, just me and five others plus James, the only normal employee of TICCS I've met on the trip (although he did have a problem with chain smoking). We went to one of the little villages that had sort of grown into Tamale and walked for a while down a dirt road. On the way to the diviner, we saw the cutest baby goats in the entire world, and I decided that I want to live in a field of baby goats and kittens. That would be the life.

The diviner lived inside of a little mud hut that was part of a larger mudbrick compound. This little compound was so awesome, and from what I could tell from looking around the village, it seemed to be a typical setup for a home. In the middle of the compound, there was a huge cooking area, with fires and giant pots everywhere. There were two round hut structures, side by side, and then two longer buildings. There were about four women and sixteen children hanging out in this compound. Two of the women were cooking, probably for lots and lots of people considering the amount of food they were handling. The other women were either sitting on benches that were against one of the longer buildings, or they were moving about doing something. The children just ran around the compound all giggly and amused by the white people. There was one little girl in particular that I remember very well. She had no shirt on, a long purple skirt, a green waistlet (I don't know what to call it, but like a bracelet for your waist), and little metal coils in her hair. At first, when she walked up to us, she just looked at us and almost started crying (although most kids here are extremely excited to see white people, sometimes they start crying). She quickly ran away from us and sought the protection of one of the women. But then when all the other kids started taking an interest in us, she came back over and started being as wild as ever, rolling on the floor and running around like she was having the time of her life. The other kids were all equally amused, although they weren't quite as expressive as the other little girl. Some of the little boys tried to "keep their cool," so to speak by just sitting off to the side and talking about us. At one point, they were talking to each other and they pointed right at Jackie who was clearly looking right at them, but they just pretended like she wasn't there. Although it might seem rude, adults do it to kids all the time, so why can't kids do it too?

When the diviner arrived, we all stepped into one of the little mud huts and sat on those colorful mats that Muslims pray on in a semi-circle facing the diviner. The diviner was a Muslim, but religious followings don't determine whether one can be a diviner or not. There are also Christian diviners and diviners who practice traditional beliefs. And the religion of the person coming to the diviner also does not really matter because the diviner is simply a spritual guide who is supposed to help you onto the right track when you've lost your way. The man was about 30 years old. He had learned how to divine from his father and his grandfather when he was about 9. He trained for several years and has been divining on his own ever since. He told us that people come to him with personal problems (perhaps a relationship or spiritual problem), family problems (maybe someone in the family has a problem that clearly affects the whole family), and problems that affect the whole community (such as maybe a drought or a witch). He uses little cowry shells and rocks to do his divinations, mixing them up in all different fashions to determine the path one must take. When you seek divination, you don't tell the diviner your problem directly. Instead you hold a cowry shell and a kola nut to your head (although to be honest they'd prefer you use money instead of a kola nut these days) and think about the problem, at which point the diviner will begin his work. The diviner we saw claimed that he had no failure stories, that he was always right, but judging from how he offered to give me advice on my girl troubles, I'll just assume that his divinations aren't necessarily cross-cultural.

Everyone had their own personal session with the diviner after we met as a group, everyone except for me that is. It's not that I'm perfect and have no problems or anything, but I just can't think of anything so pressing that would require me to sacrifice any animals. Indeed, after a divination, the diviner makes a sacrificial requirement for you in order to catalyze the spiritual healing. He told some people to sacrifice hens, others sheep, others still chicken. He told one girl that people didn't like her, so she had to sacrifice some sort of fowl, cook it, and then feed it to a bunch of children so that they would like her. He offered to perform some of the sacrifices for them for a fee of about $30, which makes me wonder what exactly is the purpose of sacrifice. The others told me that some of the stuff he said was dead on, but then some of it was kind of vague and not applicable to them. That's pretty much what I figured. I think diviner's probably don't have any failure if the people who come to see them believe in them as a spiritual guide and authority, but we skeptical Westerners... we just don't give in to mysticism so easily. One point I would like to make about divination is that it's a traditional practice, not a part of the Christian or Muslim beliefs. What's interesting is that although Christianity and Islam are the largest religions in Ghana, in a sense they're really just a different outlet for traditional practices. For instance, the churches here are less about preaching the gospel and more about singing and dancing your praises to the lord (which, of course, Europeans and to a lesser extent Americans are not so keen on). People here also still look to their ancestors as one of their biggest sources of spritual strength, which isn't absent from Christianity or Islam, but also isn't emphasized as much. I suppose part of that, though, at least for Americans, may have to do with a lack of connection between self and ancestoral lands. It's easier to look to one's ancestors if you can truly call their land your own as well, but for someone like me for instance, I really don't feel any special sense of connection to the European lands and peoples from which I originate, but I suppose they're a part of me nonetheless.

We left the diviner and the women and all the adorable little children behind as it was getting dark. All the little kids stuck out their hands to shake ours as we left, and the adults stuck to a simple wave and a smile. We came back to TICCS where a pizza dinner awaited us. I guess they thought we weren't too keen on Ghanaian food considering the spaghetti, french toast, and pizza they had for us. After dinner, I went with my friends Jessi and Hannah over to the GNAT hostel to hang out for a while. When we got there, all the power was out. We walked into the lobby where a man sat with a little candle finding people's keys for them. We asked if he had any extra candles, and he told us, "No, this is the only candle in the hostel." I thought that was pretty funny, but not as funny as the fact that I still don't have a flashlight after almost four months of "ko bra" electricity in Ghana. (I say "ko bra" because it's a common thing to say in Twi... it literally means "go come," but more accurately means "You're leaving now but you will be coming back at some point in the near future," such as when you're going to class or the grocery store or something). Anyway, we walked up to the second floor of the hostel where we literally could not see a single pinpoint of light except for what little light emanated from the green backlight on my cell phone, just enough to see "36" on my friend Jessi's door. This hostel was so super creepy, but since I actually stayed at the hostel the next night, I'll save the creepiest for then. Jessi and I eventually went back to the other hostel so that we could sleep with a fan, much better than sleeping in a puddle of my own sweat. And so I happily dozed off after a long day of a new Ghana...

What's interesting is that I say, "New Ghana," but really, the difference comes from the fact that these people aren't the same people as the ones in the south of Ghana. Nations in Europe and Asia were able to form around single or at least only a few ethnic groups, so that most French people are of French ethnicity, for example. But the borders for African nations were artificially drawn by Europeans when they split up the continent in the Berlin Conference of 1884 without any regard for already established nations. So, for instance, in Ghana, there are over 50 different ethnic groups (you could also call them tribes or nations), but the British didn't care. They just called the whole place "Gold Coast" and assumed Africans was just Africans. Many ethnic groups were even split up. For instance, in the Volta Region of Ghana live the Ewe people, but the Ewes also live right across the border in Togo. So all these people speak the same native language, but they are split up into two different countries. I won't go into them now, but these artificial divisions of land have created a lot of problems for Africa, including genocide in places like Darfur and Rwanda. So, anyway, back to my point, when I say "New Ghana," it's not really new Ghana, but instead just old differences in language and life.