My friend, Delia, and I traveled to Lioti Wote in the Volta Region and did a "village stay" with a family for 5 days. Our host, Kuma, is a graduate student at the University of Ghana and studied in the US for a school year and also lived in Germany for four years. Kuma, and many people in the Volta Region are part of the Ewe Tribe and spoke Ewe, instead of Twi... so my limited tribal language skills weren't getting me very far here!
Once we arrived in the village we met Kuma's family and then proceeded to greet the entire village. According to Kuma, this greeting is absolutely necessary and expected. If you don't participate then you are being rude and disrespectful. Kuma kept commenting on the "communal society" and said that while he appreciates many aspects of the tradition, he says some things are becoming outdated, such as this method of greeting.
Highest Peak in Ghana... Conquered!
-The mountain and a glimpse of the village-Mt. Afadjato is the highest mountain in Ghana and is located in Lioti Wote. Early Friday morning before it got too hot outside, Delia and I met our guide and started up. Our guide, Joshua was wearing long pants and flip flops to climb this mountain! What!? And at times... would run up! He made it look so easy! But don't let the Ghanaian fool you! It was tough!
The view from the top was awesome. We could see the entire village down below and the next mountain over was Togo.
After hiking the mountain, we relaxed at nearby Tagbo Falls, a beautiful waterfall. Being the first waterfall to that extent I've ever seen, it was amazing.
Wine from Trees
Later that afternoon, Kuma took us to a palm wine "farmer", so we could see the "tapping" process - how wine is made from trees.
Palm trees are cut and laid on their side for about a week. Then a hole is cut and a jug is placed underneath to catch the wine. Everyday the farmer comes back and puts fire in the hole and cuts away more of the bark so more wine will flow.
The farmer goes around to all his trees every day and repeats the same process. To me, it seems very tedious and doesn't reap a large return. It amazes me how people ever perfected the extraction and realized that the fluid which comes from a tree is alcoholic. At the end of our tour, we all tried some... drinking out of "calabash" which are little wooden bowls. It was warm, but very sweet. Definitely a favorite among the locals.
You may now kiss the Brother...?!
Saturday love was in the air.
A traditional wedding ceremony took place in the village.
The entire service was spoken in Ewe, but thankfully Kuma was there to translate for us.
To begin with, the groom's family carried in the dowry, or gifts for the bride and her family, on their heads. Yes! On their heads. It wouldn't have been done any other way!
The bride wasn't yet at the ceremony, so the family had to take their "car" and go get her - but they didn't have "gas". A collection was taken up. Then the "car" broke down and again another collection. The groom's family had to raise at least 50 cedi before the bride would come.
The bride was right inside the house the whole time.
The cute thing- when it was time for the bride to come out, there was a lady with a "steering wheel" leading the bride and members of her party into the ceremony. Haha.
The most interesting part about the whole thing though is that the groom wasn't ever there! He was in the U.S. and couldn't make it back for his own wedding! It was the groom's brother who stood in for him... I don't know why they couldn't have just waited until he was actually there... They will have a church ceremony later, and I can only hope he's present and accounted for for that one!
He has Risen!
At four am on Easter morning Delia and I are woken up by the sound of drumming and singing out in the street. People were dressed in all white and represented angels. Apparently they were shouting "He has risen!" in Ewe; a tradition they perform every Easter morning, to get everyone excited about the day.
Later that morning we attended Kuma's church for an Easter service. Surprisingly there was nothing spectacular or different about the church service. A lot of dancing and singing, but that is nearly every church service in Africa!
I was actually surprised at how much it seemed like just another day all together. No one greeted each other with "Happy Easter" like we do in the United States. We didn't even eat as an entire family for dinner or anything.
Evidently the "celebration" happens on Easter Monday.
On the agenda was musical chairs, tug of war, drumming, dancing, and singing, and other games. Delia and I were excited and ready to participate!
Activities were suppose to begin at 9 in the morning, but of course, they didn't.
At 10:30 I asked one of the guys why we hadn't started yet and he informed me that they were waiting for everyone to take their breakfast and get ready.
I tried to explain that the people should have planned ahead and taken their breakfast earlier, and that the activities should have just started without the people who weren't on time. Haha. Oh man. Why do I even try to reason with the Ghanaians?
Eventually is started to rain... pour. It soon became obvious that the "scheduled" events weren't actually going to take place! Haha. Oh Africa! Never a back up plan. Nope. That would be too efficient!
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