Day 4: Accra & Tema, Ghana

What a day! Visited the National Museum, Kwame Nkrumah monument and the local town of Tema. I am exhausted – physically, mentally, and emotionally drained.


The National Museum is chocked full of various artifacts and recreations of Ghanaian, West African, and African history. It seemed to me to be quite large, by Ghanaian standards (two stories, 5 large rooms). Downstairs was information pertaining to Ghana: puberty and mating rituals (mostly tribal traditions of the indigenous peoples); musical and dancing traditions, including sample instruments (drums, xylophone, horns); the role of children in the family; woodwork and textiles (including descriptions of meetings of differing carvings, symbols, designs, and patterns and sample loom). The upstairs had more original artifacts from other West African countries including skulls, art, jewelry and traditional tribal adornments.

The most impactful piece of the museum for me pertained to the slave trade. Tucked away towards the back of the museum is a dark hallway with glass cases of information about slave trade. Many original artifacts have been preserved, including accounting records for the buying and selling of people. These ledgers did not list slaves by name, of course, rather they listed as items purchased: 1m, 3w, 3b, 2g, 1c (m=man, w=woman, b=boy, g=girl, c=child, non gender specific). It was sickening to see people reduced to items like this. AND, it was sickening imagining what tasks people were assigned …especially when only 1c (b/g) was purchased. What was this child forced to do? How often were these children (and adults, but especially children) purchased for sexual satisfaction? Reading these slips made my stomach turned. It is a very chilling feeling. A piece of wood from one of the ships read three words only: “Peace and love.” Original shackles and chains used on the boats as well as branding sticks were also on display. There are not words to describe how it felt for me to see these items – I cannot even begin to imagine what it might be like to see these items for those who are direct descendants of Africa. Chilling is the best word. Nauseating works too. Intense. The final piece was a door labeled “The Door of No Return.” This dark tunnel led out of the museum to daylight for me, but I know where it led for so many other people in history…
Next week we are visiting two slave ‘castles’ in Elmina/Cape Coast. I am nervous about those experiences… it is all so in your face. I am privileged to never have had to feel sooo deeply and intensely about this topic before. I am both anxious and terrified of that experience. I am so angry that slavery happened – angry that humans are capable of such atrocities. Angry that similar atrocities are still happening today and so many stand by, ignorant, and do nothing. What should I be doing? What can I do (physically and emotionally)? What is the best approach, for me, in addressing global social injustice, war, and strife??? Am I doing enough? Is there such a thing as “enough”? If so, what is it?

The Kwame Nkrumah monument and museum was less emotionally charged, yet equally informative and engaging. This man is the shit. He is everywhere in Accra and people, for the most part, loved him. As the first President of course he will forever remain a famous political figure in Ghanaian history and on top of it he did so much good for the country. I have to learn more about how and why he was overthrown or lost power. This monument stands at the exact location where President Nkrumah declared Ghana’s independence in 1957, directly across the street from the old Parliament. In front of his monument are statues of men drumming and blowing horns as a reincarnation of those who were playing music for the festive welcoming ceremony. His body rests in a tower behind the statue that represents a tree and a sword down so he is forever resting under the tree. Behind the monumental statue and tower is another statue – an older statue of Nkrumah that had been vandalized by rebels. It has no head, one arm, and a gash in the back of one knee. The statue stands today as a political statement of “you can’t take me down.” There was a one room museum in back with some photos of President Nkrumah (taken with various political world leaders) as well as copies of the several books he has written. At the gift shop I made my first Ghanaian non-food/drink purchase: a beautiful set of hand glazed bowls (3 for 9 cedis, or about $6.50 total) and a wallet (2 cedis, or about $1.50).

After lunch at Ange Hill Restaurant a group of us headed to Tema (which I previously learned was “the only well planned city in Ghana”) with K, our Assistant Program Director. K. was born and raised in Tema as a little boy and is now finishing his Ph.D. at UT-Austin. He was kind enough to take us to his hometown, introduce us to his family and an important mentor of his, share his homes with us (mom and dad are divorced), show us his schools, and take us to a funeral of a community member.

Our first stop was at K.’s childhood home where his mother still lives to pick up his 2 ½ y.o. daughter The houses are all very small and close together with goats, chickens, and dogs roaming freely in the neighborhood. A heap of trash was piled outside. K. made a point of informing us of the changes to Tema since he was growing up. He said there is now much more trash and disrespect in the community. When he was a child, he recalled, the city was cleaner and people had more commitment to maintaining the community. His mother’s home was quite small and extremely warm as they do not have air conditioning. I believe they spend much of their time outdoors. His cousin was there cooking something delicious smelling in the kitchen. Mom came out to greet us; she was obviously shy and sweet. Acesi was quite shy, and probably overwhelmed by 25 new faces, as well.

Next stop was to one of K.’s key mentors growing up, Mr. Ofori-Nyako and his wife. Now a retired architect, Mr. Ofori-Nyako was the first City Planner for Tema. Essentially, he was *the One* who made Tema “the only well planned city.” He briefly shared his experiences working for the city as well as his views of how the city has changed. Having heard his wife is a teacher in the Ashaiman community where I will be completing my project, I snuck into the living room to strike up a conversation with her about her thoughts on the girls’ empowerment program and the key needs of the girls. She said the largest concern for girls is staying school and one of the largest preventable barriers to girls completing their studies is teen pregnancy. As such, she talks a lot with the girls about sexuality, menses, and the importance of waiting to have sexual relations with boys because “the boys leave you and it is hard to provide for your child.” (Sound familiar?) Many of the street children, she said, have no fathers or no one to provide for them. She doesn’t believe that talking about sex is bad. “The parents are too busy at home to talk about it with them, so someone at school has to.” Maybe she can run the world??  They invited the group back next Saturday for a community wedding! I hope (and believe, who am I? Obama?) that we will be able to attend. It should work out…

Following the visit with Mr. and Mrs. Ofori-Nyako, we walked a few blocks to K.’s father’s home. I was carrying Acesi, so I lagged back a bit and her and I pointed at dogs and trees and chit-chatted in 2 ½ y.o. English/Twi/Ga. We both knew about the same amount of Twi/Ga so it worked out well. Acesi really took well to me and several others were jealous that she let me hold her first. It’s just a magical touch I have…  I love kids!

Afterwards we headed over to the funeral. I felt a little uncomfortable crashing a funeral, but K. assured me it was OK. Since he grew up in this community, I trust knows better than do I. We walked through a long alley (which was lined on both sides with trash, and we passed a man who was peeing on the wall as we all walked by. I am not sure if this is common behavior?) and arrived at K.’s secondary school where the funeral was being held in the back area. We walked in to about 200 people sitting in chairs under four ‘gazebo’ type tents (making a square) dressed in dark colors (reds, greens, and black are worn if the deceased was under 80. White is worn for someone who passes after age 80 as a sign of respect for the long, full life they lead.). The tent nearest to our left when we walked in consisted of the family of the deceased. After K. went and greeted the family they welcomed us to participate. As the family members sat, we walked through in a greeting line and shook the hands of each person. We did not say anything (such as “I’m sorry for your lost”), but shook hands and smiled. The feeling was not somber, but was celebratory. A large, framed picture of the deceased man sat in front of the family. We were then invited to take a seat. K. did not want to do this as his plan was originally to just stop by, observe, and leave. I was not comfortable with that voyeuristic approach (even though he swore it would be fine!). I am glad we sat and participated until the made a formal greeting to us on the loud speaker (they had an emcee and a sound system). Ugh!! Hello, Americans! K. said this was an honor to be greeted and this is how the family shows thanks. It felt odd, like we were stealing the attention away from their ceremony. Maybe that’s self-centered? I try to just trust in K. and remain open to all of the experiences. The family then got up and came over to us and shook our hands in a receiving line sort of way. Again, no exchanges of words other than Akwaaba, or welcome, were shared. To then show our thanks, we collected cedis to make a donation to the family which is customary. The funeral is a very costly endeavor and the community makes donations to help off-set costs. We sat for about 20 minutes as a band of drummers and trombonists performed music (interesting note, people did not clap at the end of a song. Also different for me.). K. wanted to get moving but was having trouble getting away from all of the obligatory greetings and people to talk to (you know how homecomings can be!) so he asked us to get up in small groups and start heading towards our van. But, we were all distracted. As we left the tents we walked across a field where about 50-100 kids were playing. And, they wanted to play with the obronis, or foreigners. They were certainly not shy about coming up to us to play. I was immediately mauled by a group of about 10. They were very intrigued by the digital cameras and wanted to take pictures. First I took pictures of them, and then they wanted to take pictures. I shared the camera and let them take pictures and they were having a blast making funny faces and being silly. Again, I found myself carrying around two little kids as they were tugging on my legs. I am such a softie sometimes 

By this time we had stayed about an hour longer than intended and K. had to round us up for the van. As I was walking away one sweet girl, Julianna, 12 y.o., came up to me and asked for my phone number because she wanted to keep in contact. Instead I gave her my address and told her to write. I hope she does. (She didn’t know her address so I couldn’t get that to start the pen-pal friendship). I asked what she would write to me about – she said “school.” She wants to be a teacher when she grows up.

Sad to go we said goodbye to the kids (some of who started crying ) and headed off. A few of the group members were also crying I think because of the stark poverty the saw. While I noticed, of course, the conditions, I did not see it as “poor.” In the faces of the adults and children I saw love, happiness, and joy. Simple life does not equal bad. The simple joy of playing soccer in a field or jumping in a puddle does not mean someone is destitute. I acknowledge the poverty and challenges of the community just as I acknowledge that from this community comes great people, strong people, resilient people. While K. was able to ‘make it’ does not mean everyone else will, nor does it mean they should “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” It does, however, speak volumes to me of the strength, determination, and abilities of humans – all across the globe.

We departed for a quick driving tour of the rest of Tema, particularly the industrial area. Tema is one of two main ports in Ghana (the other is Takoradi). The port employs over 50% of the town’s people. They export goods from all over the country, but especially fish, cement, and chocolate for the local community. After dropping off Acedi, we headed back to Accra for dinner at the mall. Apparently the mall is the place to be on Saturday nights. Women were dressed to the 9’s here. I had a light sandwich and did some reading in a café. It was nice to decompress and process the day.

Later… (duh, duh, duhmm)

The shit hath hit thy fan. Finally. After several days of feeling isolated, disconnected, and alone on the seriousness of our experience, we finally had a group discussion (four hours of sitting in a circle) of race, class, and ethnocentrism. Some people had strong reactions to the experience in Tema and the things they saw and felt. We finally had a space to process some of this – and it was ugly. It seems that many folks who are on this trip have not had a chance to educate themselves about the realities and effects of poverty, especially the racial implications. Having had years of training in this area, I had been feeling very irritated since arriving. I have overheard conversations and comments that just reek of ignorance and covert racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. Many of the white people in the group have not yet formed a racial identity of their own (and probably have not thought about their ‘race’ beyond ‘white’). Unacknowledged privilege galore.

I have been stewing for a few days over these issues and had a sufficient amount of anger in me already. So, when I heard complaints from white, upper-class women about feeling “segregated,” “attacked,” and “excluded,” I became outraged. I stood up and made a statement (that was, a few complained, apparently, “aggressive,”) about my frustrations, including a bold point of how this is quite possibly one of the first times they have ever felt some of those feelings of exclusion that people of color feel All.The.Time., especially in White America. The white privilege continued with ideas of “but, I didn’t do,” “it’s not my fault,” and “why am I being treated this way?” Hmmm, where have I heard comments like this before?! My patience for folks on this trip who have not explored their identities is low. I respect that we are all at different places on the spectrum, however, I inaccurately assumed that folks were more prepared for a trip of this nature. After 3.5 hours, I was running very low on patience. After one of the black women begged and pleaded with white students to “give her this opportunity” I about became ill. The parallels of a black person pleading with a white person in the heart of the origins of slavery … “Please, Master, let me…” rang so strong in my mind. I stood up after her speech and gave a white privilege and ally speech. I stood as a white person to say people of color do not need my, or ANY white person’s permission. I (again, “aggressively,” I guess) called people out and suggested that if they really want to connect that they do less talking and more listening. Don’t take it personal – it’s not about YOU (for once). Don’t expect people of color to be your tools for education – educate yourself. Seek out information on your own. LISTEN. Read. Ask questions, respectfully. Few people seemed to like what I had to say…but I had to say it.
I refuse to stand by and do nothing and let others to fight alone.
I refuse to leave it be and pretend it’s not my issue as well.

As long as one is oppressed, we are all oppressed.