Bead making oven, Bead making, Stamping Adenkra, Pounding Bark, Making the Dye

The Biggest Market in West Africa (Shipshewana on Steroids)

The Asante Chiefs Palace -We couldnt take pics inside :(, The Hotel

The Mall, My ICT classroom with 1 working comp, my new room :)

Kente Cloth Making :)

More updates

I'm using the internet at the hotel that I am staying at in Kumasi!! YAY! So I thought I'd take this opportunity to update my blog :) Thursday we didnt do much at all... The internet was down at the Aya Center like all day so we were trying really hard to find some way to use the internet since its pretty much one of the only days that we have time... while we were sitting there waiting for the internet to get fixed a few of us started talking about what we were going to do over our midterm break (October 20th week). Alicia mentioned that she'd love to go to Egypt and I was like we should totally do it- she checked with a travel agent and did some research when the internet was fixed and before I knew it the plans were all together to go. The plane tickets are reserved- we are paying for them on Monday and we are going to fly out the 20th of October and stay for a week... We're staying in a hostel in Cairo the first couple of nights, then taking a train to Alexandria and then I dont know we havent gotten all of the planning done lol... all I know is that I'm soooooooo excited that I can barely contain myself!!! We mostly talked about that the entire night with everyone who is going- I think its 4 girls and 1 guy. :) :) :) :) We had class but it all seemed like such a blur because I was day dreaming about pyramids :) After class we all ate dinner and then packed because we had to leave really early in the am to go to Kumasi the next morning. The most powerful tribe in Ghana are the Asante Akans. Their empire used to be bigger than Ghana itself until the collapse of it due to British colonialism. Anyway, Kumasi is the cultural capital of the area and its people. The first king to rule was said to have friended a priest named okomfu anoichi. The priest commanded a golden stool down from the sky and he gave it to the person who was to be the ruler of the people. The golden stool is said to hold the souls of the Asante people. and if it is ever to be taken away- it would be the end of the empire. Who ever is enstooled has the power to rule over the land and the wisdom to lead. When the British came here they demanded that they wanted the stool so that they could be the most powerful, the people gave them a fake stool, and when they found out that it was a fake they captured the chief and the queen mother and took them to cells in Elmina castle for a long time. At this time a very powerful woman organized an army of thousands of troops to fight the British and get the chief back. (I forgot her name) but because of this women are the most highly regarded in the society. The royal family is traced through the women - so if a king dies it is usually his nephew or brother or uncle or cousin that is enstooled (never his son). This is so it is for sure that the blood of the royal family stays in power since one can trace the bloodline through the mother and only the woman knows who is the true father of her child (I hope that this is making sense!) If you dont get it lemme know. Okay so the priest that commanded the golden stool from the sky planted two trees in sister cities in Ghana ... they are called Kuma trees- he said that one will live and one will die and the town where the one lives will be very prosperous and the other will never progress. The town that we are in is called Kumasi (Kuma the tree and si meaning live) and the town next to us is Kumawo (Kuma the tree and wo meaning die). Kumasi is a booming town with a huge population that brings in a ton of money and the other one is still a very small traditional town with not a whole lot to offer. So thats pretty much what I remember about the history of the town. Kumasi is full of muslims that live in zoongos (muslim settlements) They came here from the north to try and make money- in the north there are very few cars at all and everyone rides motorbikes so there are a ton of muslim people dressed in like head to toe traditional muslim attire driving around on motorbikes its quite a site! What else what else... hmm I dont remember everything that I learned but itll prolly come to me while im typing. After the 5 hour bus ride on bumpy unfinished roadsm we finally arrived at our hotel. It has a really nice pool and the rooms are awesome- we had a great lunch and then headed off to see the cheifs palace and the museum that was connected to it. The museum held a bunch of artifacts that were used by previous chiefs, it was really neat to see. My favorite thing was a war drum that was used to scare off people. Its wrapped in cheetah skin and when you run the piece of wood across the top it sounds like a big cat (tiger leopard or something) roaring... so the people would hide in the trees and play the drum to scare off the soldiers and then they would attack while the troops were trying to run away from the "animals"- I want to buy a war drum- no doubt about that lol. After the museum we went to the biggest market in West Africa- omg it was sooooo overwhelming- it was like Shipshewana on steroids no joke. I have a ton of pictures- I can't even describe it in words... it was super intense. We didnt really buy anything because it was crazy and it was mostly food stuff but it was a great experience. After the market we went back to the hotel for a nice dinner and then went to a place to watch a football match on tv and dance to a live band :)

Saturday- woke up super early and took a nice hot shower- omg so amazing. ate breakfast and then left for the villages that we visited today. We went to a kente cloth village, a stamping kente cloth village and a bead village. I have a ton of pictures so it will be easier to see what Im talking about when I put those up. Kente cloth is the original type of cloth that people have been using here forever... its made by weaving threads together on looms- I got to try it!! :) Each strip of cloth takes about 3 days for one person to make and to make a kente cloth it takes 20 strips to get sewn together- so the big ones were SUPER expensive like 150 cedis but thats like a months worth of work so I can understand. I bought a couple of strips of the cloth so that I could bring them home for everyone to see. It was fun bargaining with the people and I got a pretty good price. After that we went to a village to learn how they make stamping on kente cloth. We learned how they make the dye from pounding the bark of a certain tree and boiling it down- then we got to stamp the actual kente cloth (so fun) there are 150 symbols that are used by the Asantes so we got to learn about their meanings and stuff. I also bought a stamped cloth so that everyone can see :) After that we went to the bead village and watched how they make glass beads. The whole village greeted us and the kids held our hands as we walked to the bead making place. The men make the beads and the women sell them- we got to watch the men make some of the beads. They grind up broken glass bottles that they get from the brewery and then add chemicals to them to make patterns and turn them colors- then they put them in a clay mold and bake them for two hours... when the beads are done they grind them and then give them to the women to sell at the market... I got some beads too so that everyone can see :) After that we came back to the hotel and swam while we waited for dinner which was really good... and then I typed this blog while waiting to go out dancing so thats as far as Ive gotten in my life. Peace for now- I'll update as soon as I can

updates :)

Sunday night was pretty fun. When I went home from the olympics all of my roomates were still in their pajamas... they hadnt done anything al day! Im so lucky to have cool people that I work with to take me out to do fun stuff... otherwise I would def be going stir crazy lol! I got invited to go to a house party for someone who was going off to study abroad. Even though I was totally exhausted and had to work early the next morning I decided to go and I am so glad that I did. I had a blast! The music was blaring and everyone was having such a good time partying and dancing, I met a ton of really cool people- totally worth it!
Monday- I didnt exactly know what i was going to be doing at school and the headmisstress wasnt around so I just chilled until she got there. Then she told me that I was going to be helping out the ICT teacher and also helping in the library. ICT is information and communication technology (computer). I was really impressed when I walked into the computer lab. There were about 30 older looking mismatched computers in the lab- which is more than I expected. Little did I know that only one of them actually works so all of the kids share one computer. I basically just shadowed the teacher and watched him break the class down into groups so that everyone could have a turn on the computer. It basically takes a whole week to teach the class something like Microsoft Paint- its really frustrating but I'm doing the best that I can. Monday after class there was a meeting with all the teachers. I'm pretty sure that half of the people at the school think that I am a real, paid, full time teacher because they give me all of the responsibilities of a teacher. They have student supervisors each week that are in charge of the students in the morning (to make sure that they sweep out all of the classrooms and get to the morning prayer assembly on time) and then afternoon ones that make sure that stuff is cleaned and locked up and that the students are back in their rooms. Now I'm on the list for teachers who do that so my duties start next week... i'm on the morning shift so I have to get there an hour earlier than I already do... that means waking up at 4am- im not looking forward to that lol. At the meeting they also talked about teacher salaries. One of the teachers told me that he makes about 250 cedis ($180) a month... he spends 40 a month on transportation alone... I have no idea how they are surviving on these salaries! No idea at all! After the meeting I got home pretty late because of traffic and the dinner group was already making tacos (homeade tortillas and salsa omg so tasty) and then after dinner I went straight to bed because I was totally exhausted!
Tuesday at school was basically the same thing- not really much to report. I watched the teacher and helped with the class... then went home and hung out with the roomates before heading to bed- pretty boring all together
Wednesday- Woke up and had class in the morning which was not as boring as usual but still pretty bad lol. Then used the internet for a while before heading out to buy everything for my dinner group to make dinner. We decided to have sweet and sour stir fry. So we bought all the veggies and the sauce and everything between classes. Then we had our next class which we talked about the economy of Ghana and the problems with the various leaders that its had over the years... I though it was really interesting so I didnt mind that class at all. After class my dinner group started cooking. I cut up all the veggies and stuff while the other girls dealt with the chicken, and I also made a chocolate cake from scratch with frosting which was definetly the best part of the meal :) After dinner everyone kind of did their own things... a few of us went on a walk and just went exploring for a while which was nice because the weather had actually cooled off. Then when everyone got home we just talked and listened to music before bed :)