Kumasi Weekend

The weeks are flying by now, even though the days sometimes seem to drag on…

Last weekend was one of the best I’ve had since coming here. CIEE took us on a trip to Kumasi, which is a major city in Ghana. It is the city where the king of the Asante empire lives, and the home of Adinkra and Kente cloth. Our first stop on Saturday was to an Adinkra village, where they make traditional Adinkra cloth. Adinkra symbols are traditional symbols, and they can portray historical events, human behavior and attitudes, animal behavior, and some simply signify the shapes of specific objects. There are 60-100 different symbols, which can mean anything from strength and diligence to wisdom and defiance. We were shown how they make permanent dye from only the bark of a specific tree and water.
Then we went to a Kente cloth village. Kente cloth is traditional hand-woven cloth that is quite expensive and symbolic. It is made of thin woven strips that are sewn together to make larger pieces of cloth. The patterns each symbolize something.
These villages were interesting, but quite difficult to enjoy because the sellers there were so aggressive. It made for a really stressful experience.

We stayed at the nicest hotel I’ve ever seen – The Golden Tulip. Ghana’s football (soccer) team, The Black Stars, was also staying there. That was insane.

On Sunday, we began by visiting the palace and museum of the Asante king. It was a very cool place – there were peacocks in the yard! I learned some interesting things. The matrilineal inheritance of the Asante people was finally explained to me… it had never really made sense before. (Basically, inheritance comes from the mother’s brother. So, if I was an Asante and I had children, those children would inherit from Jack. And my husband would pass his inheritance to his sister’s children, not his own. This is awesome because it gives women much more sway in the family and makes female children desirable.)
After the museum, we went to a Black Stars game! That was one of the best, most fun things I’ve done in Ghana. A match is only 90 minutes, but we got there 3 hours before its start, and the crowd was so much fun. For the entire 5 hours we were there, the people never stopped dancing and singing and cheering. It was such an amazing experience. Ghana won against Benin: 1-0. The only goal was scored in the very first minutes of the game. But the rest of it was still exciting; the crowd made it so awesome.

Well I should be going to get dinner now, so I should be wrapping this up. I will just finish by saying that I recommend going to see a football game in Africa (however make sure to choose a peaceful/safe country – the Cote d’Ivoire game was such a tragedy).


Also, photos of this trip will be forthcoming...