April 1st

This past weekend my program, CIEE, went to Kumasi, a city about 5 hours away. We left early Saturday morning and went to two different villages. One of the villages was where they stamped fabric with different African symbols and the second was a Kente village. At the Kente Village we watched how they made the Kente cloth out of beautiful yarn to make designs and different colors. Both the villages were tourist destinations so they had a lot of people just waiting for us to get off the bus and buy things from them. Looking at anything is very stressful, we have found that if you point to something or say, “That is nice” the seller will take about 6 different ones to show you and say, “What one do you want?” I did buy one piece of Kente cloth to show how intricate and beautiful the fabric is. After the villages we went to the largest market in Western Africa - we only walked around a small part of it but drove to the top to see the entire market - it was HUGE! On Sunday we went to a museum about the chiefs in the Asante Region (where Kumasi is) it was very interesting and very well done. On Sunday afternoon we went to the Ghanaian Black Stars football game against Benin. The game did not start until 5 pm but we arrived about 1:30 for a seat - apparently we had tickets but the seat number doesn’t really apply - it is a first come first serve basis. It was a beautiful outdoor stadium with about 10 different ‘bands’ playing music before and during the game. Each ‘band’ consisted of some drums and sometimes a trumpet or trombone. Before the game everyone was dancing and having a great time. The hotel we stayed at on Saturday and Sunday night was the same hotel that the Black Stars stayed in. We saw most of them but didn’t know them by name but we always said hi or good luck or good job. The name Black Stars comes from the Ghanaian flag - it has three horizontal stripes - a red on the top, yellow then green on the bottom - in the middle is a black star.

This weekend the theater department is putting on Joseph and The Technicolor Dream coat and I will definitely go and see that. On Saturday I am going to tour a Ghanaian Prison with my Penology class. Penology is the study of the prison system and is definitely one of my favorite classes. My other favorite class is Culture and Reproductive Health, it has only about 30 students in the class so we are able to have discussions.