Obruni in Aburi

Another Tuesday adventure…
This week Tuesday was a holiday in Ghana. It was the end of Islam’s Ramadan month, and thus a national holiday (although Christianity is the main religion of Ghana, Islam is also respected. The two religions get along quite well, along with African Traditional Religion, and often these three beliefs can be found in one family. In fact, a friend of my roommate goes to mosque on Fridays and church on Sundays because her father is Muslim and her mother is a Christian! I can talk more about why these faiths all get along if anyone’s interested.) Since it was a holiday, we did not have our Twi language class. Instead, Alissa (also a Calvin student; her blog is linked on the side) and I went for an adventure in the town of Aburi.
Aburi is a town up in the mountains, about a one hour tro-tro ride away from Legon. We didn’t really know what to expect when we got there, but I was sick of experiencing western culture and was ready to explore Africa. The guide book had talked about Aburi being a place you could catch tro-tros to other places, so we figured even if there wasn’t anything there, we could keep going. Aburi does have a botanical garden, but since our group will probably go there together later, we did not go at this time. Alissa and I took our time wandering around the town of Aburi. We met a lot of interesting people and started to really feel like we were in Africa!
Let me give you a few highlights:
A man named Boat was one of the first people we met in Aburi. He is an artist, and has spent the summers of 2006 and 2007 in Michigan! He has friends in Lansing and has also attended some African-American art festival in Grand Rapids! He showed us his shop. He is a woodcarver and does some painting and other forms of art as well.
We ate fufu (pounded yams) with fish stew at a chop bar – a small restaurant of sorts; more casual than an American restaurant, but a friendly place where you can sit down and order most Ghanaian foods. There is no menu, but what they offer is painted on the outside sign. There are “chop bars” everywhere you go in Ghana, particularly in urban areas. Usually women do not eat at chop bars – it is supposed to be a place for men to grab a quick bite to eat. Women who eat in chop bars are seen as not able to cook and provide for themselves, and thus not suitable for a husband, which is the main goal of women’s lives here (a husband, as well as children).
We took a walk and ended up near what we think was the town garbage dump. We saw a man digging around in it. He had no shoes and his clothes were torn and dirty. Our hearts ached for this man. Alissa had some plantain chips (like potato chips…kind of) she wasn’t going to eat, and I offered him 1 cedi (about 1 dollar). That is enough for one to two meals. My heart ached for this man, as well as the poverty and the environmental damage of the dump right off the main road past the town.
We met a sweet woman named Beatrice. I had decided that I wanted to buy a Coke before leaving town, and I went to Beatrice’s shop. She sold me a Coke and also talked with me a bit about her culture. She taught Alissa and I a bit more Twi (the local language here that we are taking a class in), and told us a bit about the festival coming up that our class will actually be attending. She was a very nice lady. We had a good time getting to know one another before Alissa and I got back on the tro-tro and headed back to Legon.
Overall, I loved my day trip. Although we did not do anything “spectacular”, I was able to get away from Western culture and the more modern way of life of Accra. It felt like Africa. I saw men digging a trench for a gutter. I saw countless little children around who called us “obruni” (white person) which gave Alissa the title for this blog post, which I then stole from her :). Though the shops in town were open, people were having a fairly relaxed holiday, walking around town and greeting their neighbors, friends, and even strangers like us. We found the people in Aburi to be extremely friendly and welcoming to us. It was a great way to spend my holiday!