We went to Ntonso, an adinkra village, where we stamped cloth with adinkra symbols. I brought school supplies for the children in the area we were going to be in. There were only about 3 kids when we pulled up in the bus. Then when I wanted to take a picture with them a few more came. Then when I wanted to give out school supplies it started to get a little crazy. The teacher in me tried to create order by making them form a line but that only worked for about a minute. Then the students started pushing each other and fighting for the pencils. An older man from the community, maybe in his twenties, came over to help so I gave the items to him to pass out. I left to go listen to how to make the ink for the adinkra cloth.
The process of choosing the cloth and getting people to help me make it and it not be a rushed job felt overwhelming. I felt like my cloth wasn’t as good as it could have been because they were rushing me. I’m considering going over the messed up areas with permanent marker. Then it might be obruni adinkra cloth which is not good. Because I spent most of my time in the back looking at pre-made cloths I missed Dawn and a few others get trampled by the students. The students were grabbing her bag, she got hurt with a pencil, the students were pushing each other…it was crazy. Very over-whelming.
Adrinkra Cloth
A young man showing me how to make kente cloth. He grabbed me to show me how to do it and I told him no because he would ask me for a dash. He said, "No, no I just want to show you."
Of course later he said, "You can give me something...only from your heart." I laughed and said , "Told you!" Little trickster. That one hadn't been pulled on me so I gave him something. It was funny.
At the hotel, I’ve been practicing my Twi with the staff. I introduced Christina to the bar tenders and waiters as the “obrunihema” (the queen of the foreigners) with her eclectic style. They found it to be pretty funny. But they corrected be and said its “abibinihema” or queen of the Black Americans.
One of the waiter’s name is Ebenezer. I told him the Christmas story staring Ebenezer Scrooge which he had never heard of. He is a student at the University of Ghana and he works over the summer to make money to pay for school. There isn’t a student loan system in Ghana so school is paid out of pocket. He told me that he has at least one class that has 700 students. That’s a lot. I asked how does the professor handle so many students and he said there are teaching assistants (TAs). Now, I’m a TA and I find it challenging to grade papers in a class of 120 . I don’t want to find out about 700. He said the professor lectures over a PA system because the students at the top can’t hear the professor or see well for that matter. I also asked him how did he feel about Elmina Slave Castle. I was taught that often times most Africans feel indifferent about the slave trade because it didn’t affect them as much as colonization…which in many ways replicated slavery (forced labor, mass killings, severed limbs, etc). But he said it was sad and he cried when he went to Elmina. I was expecting something else but I appreciated the surprise.
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