The entry I meant to post on April 12 ;)

Greetings family and friends!

So, life has been quite eventful since last I wrote. The trip to Takoradi was extremely fun and worthwhile, so I’ll begin with that.

I was rather surprised at the invitation for Easter weekend to come to Takoradi… I had been planning to spend Easter at the seminary, as I had seen some neat pictures from last year, but it was not to be. Sometimes you receive invitations that you can’t politely turn down, so I went – to visit Mother & Father Laryea, who are friends (practically siblings) to my host parents. Father Laryea is also an Anglican priest, and they’ve come to Cape Coast for funerals multiple times.

Anyway, the Laryeas don’t actually live in Takoradi. They don’t live in it’s sister city, Secundi, either. They live in Essikadu, a village/town which is smaller than the other two. From west to east it’s Takoradi, then Secundi, then Essikadu, and then an hour later, Cape Coast (with many other places in between, like Elmina). These are all pretty much along the coast. What I learned while I was there is that these three places to which I was exposed behave very much like communities at home. Residential communities that are closer to Essikadu are still claimed by Secundi, because Secundi is bigger. Also, Takoradi has more business and industry than Secundi, so people consider the former to be more lively & the latter to be more tame. People go to Takoradi to work & for active fun, and they go to Secundi to wind down & settle down. Interestingly, both Secundi and Takoradi have lots of roundabouts. I think this is true in other cities as well, like Accra, but perhaps not to the same degree as the twin cities. Takoradi is also especially beautiful to me because it has so many established trees along the road, whereas Cape Coast just seems to have a lot of bare dirt and buildings. As I think I mentioned the last time I wrote of Takoradi, it also seems very well maintained in general.

I spent midday of Good Friday, though, in Essikadu. I’m not sure I know of anything to compare that town to… it’s a crowded but lively and seemingly happy little place, on one side surrounded by bush, and on the other quite close to Secundi. On Good Friday every year, the Anglican church does the Stations of the Cross in the morning, and then at noon has another service where the crucifix is shrouded, then uncovered, and you can ceremonially come up and kiss Jesus on the cross (I did). Then, all the churches in the community get together and process around the town (I also did this. People decided that I was brave, and they approved. The kids, of course, shouted “Obruni!” all along the way, and were their normal, cute selves.) A lot of people at shops along the road were still working/ waiting for customers when we processed by. Sometimes we also sang songs, as did the other churches independently, but the way the Anglicans were arrayed in two lines, one on each side of the road, was hardly conducive to group singing. Through this, I came to understand precisely what processing entailed, and also got to walk all around Essikadu. Apparently this multi-church effort also occurs in Ola, Cape Coast. However, when we were done processing, I was pretty tired from a combination of factors, and slightly afraid of getting sunburnt, so I went inside and skipped the last part of the service. I’m really glad I went, though.

Shortly afterward, a friend of the Laryea family who I had already met in Cape Coast came over to take me out & introduce me to the area. That was when I really started getting a feel for the three places (Essikadu, Secundi, Takoradi) as communities, having their own, interconnected identities and functions. While we were out, we also came upon Market Circle, which is this huge circular building surrounding a (surprise!) circular market in the exact middle of Takoradi. Apparently Market Circle is one of the more famous places in West Africa, so I’m surprised we didn’t visit it the last time I came to Takoradi with my Guilford group.

Now, if truth be told, I find markets very intimidating. The pressure to buy is rather high, I don’t really understand bargaining like I should, and I don’t speak Fante as well as I’d like to. When I know I’m going into a market and not buying anything, I almost feel worse, because I feel like a poser and a tourist. There’s just something very strange about being a tourist in Africa, and I would simply rather avoid it. I can talk more about that later. But anyway, in this case, we went in to see some of my host’s friends who work at the Market. They have extended family there, so one of them took me by the hand and led me around. She explained the different sections of the market where different things were sold, and told me that unfortunately, since it was a holiday (Good Friday), most places were closed. I was still able to see quite a bit, though.

One thing that I saw on the outside was tons of people selling fruit and vegetables out of baskets and carts. They were blocking a lot of traffic, and my friend said that they were only able to stay there because it was a holiday and no one was willing to “sack” them on that day. On the inside of the market, when walking around I saw the section that had burned down a few weeks ago. When I say “section”, I mean dozens of wooden stands; they’re not a cohesive set, except that they probably sold similar things, and were touching each other, and therefore close enough for the fire to jump between them easily. So, while there, I decided to ask the person who was leading me around some question. Is it hard to get established again after such a fire? Yes. And are the people selling outside the ones who used to have stands in here? Yes. Ah, I see. It’s a hard topic all around.

While I was at the market, though, my friend decided that I should have some African clothes, and therefore bought me a dress! I think it’s called a bou-bou, though one of my 5 year-old relatives in my host family had one on the other day and called it something different. Anyway, it’s basically a huge rectangle of fabric, with a lined hole already cut out for your head. To try it on, you wear it like a poncho, but then they simply sew two long lines down the sides to make it into a dress, leaving spaces at the top for sleeves. I’ll take a picture for next week. Mine is batiked (tie-dyed) green and yellow, with a subtle orange background, and I love it. They also gave me a head-scarf to go along with it, and I wore both on Easter Sunday.

Saturday I spent the morning doing some homework and playing with some small children. That afternoon, I went with that same family friend back to the market, bought some cloth which I will later get made into a dress, and went to hang out at the beach. Ironically, I have never in my life been under so much pressure to drink alcohol as I was in Takoradi and Essikadu. And interestingly, no one was trying to get me drunk- they just all thought it was preposterous that I didn’t want to drink Guinness, Spark (a local carbonation + gin drink), and brandy. I know, I’m strange. Ah well ;) By the way, Ghanaians treat Guinness and all drinks made by them as if they were their own kin. It seems more universally “Ghanaian” in their mindset than the Accra Brewing Company.

As for the rest of that day, I came home, had fufu with light soup (with insane amounts of meat), and then went out to a club with the same family friend and the market ladies. They had also arranged for one of their nephews to come along to “keep me company”. From some earlier conversations we had had at the beach about friendship, courtship, and marriage, I knew that they were somewhat disappointed that I’m not dating a Ghanaian, so they got this boy to come along. I had lots of mixed feelings about it, but overall thought “what’s the worst that could happen when I’m going out with a total of five other people?” This turned out to be a fine theory. I actually had a *great* time. The boy was very nice, we talked about all kinds of things, and then we had fun dancing together. He wasn’t a fantastic dancer, but he was willing to be creative and it was great. We played off each other well, and no other guys bothered me. Overall, this was a marvelous success.

As a side note, though, Ghanaians love my dancing. It’s slightly different from their aesthetic of dancing, but people are always telling me that they approve and like it. On that particular night my friend also said “they had never seen a white lady who could dance to the rhythms before”, which is a perfectly fair observation. It’s just interesting to me that over half of the songs played at the club came from the United States. Of those, perhaps 4/5 were done by African Americans, and it’s crazy how everyone can adopt music, beer, or any idea as their own no matter its source. But anyway, when I dance, in church or in other contexts (yes, I sometimes dance in church, but only when I feel led) people say “Aye adze” – You have done well. It’s nice. I also got this comment that same night when I helped push a car so that it could be kicked into second gear, as it’s starter wasn’t working. That felt good, especially because a part of me was fighting the fact that I was a girl, wearing a dress, being taken out to a club and feeling somewhat stereotypical. This worked out well to balance my sense of self-identity, since both dress-wearing and car-pushing can be fine things in the US and in Ghana.

Sunday was fairly calm for Easter, though I was intensely tired. We came in at about 3:20am, which is culturally even later in Ghana than in the US, so then I slept at 4am and then I woke up at 8am for church at 9am. Keep in mind that I was already tired from the past several days, not to mention the hours of dancing. Then the Easter service was very nice. Mother Laryea gave me her white handkerchief to wave around at the appropriate times since I didn’t bring mine (handkerchiefs are very important in some churches). It went on for about three hours, and the communion was especially nice. This service in Essikadu was even more exclusively in Fante than the other Anglican services I’ve attended. They said most of the creeds and prayers entirely in Fante, and at the times when the words were definitely in English, the Father Laryea just said the liturgy while the congregation sang. In this service, also, we processed – but this time we just went around the church once. There’s also a lot more standing in Anglican services than I’m used to, which is fine, but different.

I got to take a tiny nap after church and after lunch, but then we were invited over to a judge’s house (also a congregation member), so we stayed there, and everyone else spoke in Fante smattered with occasional English, so I tried to stay abreast of at least the topic of discussion, but mostly listened to the Christian music (from the US) playing in the background. I knew a lot of the songs from my childhood, youth choir, and the past few years of occasionally hearing Christian songs on the radio, so it was nice. They also served us really good food, so though I had only eaten a few hours before, I had to eat yet again, and remained full for the rest of the day through the combination of drinks I was given and one final kabob. Overall, it was a very nice day. I even got to spend some evening time in the middle of Essikadu, hanging out with some guys, one of whom was going to marry the next day. So it was a “bachelor” gathering filled with non-bachelors, but I had fun, drank Fanta, and also got to speak with children and learn more about Ghanaian names. Monday was a fiasco of getting back, hanging out with Professor Lawrence’s family, and then spending time talking to Giftie & Katie in Ola, so I’ll just move straight on to the glorious issue of naming in Ghanaian, and particularly Akan cultures :)

So, all names have meanings here, and not just in the sense of “hey, if you look this up it has some archaic meaning” nor in the sense of “hey, you were named after some biblical person”. The names here mean something in the present tense. However, because names are so standardized, and no one cares about last names (they were forcefully introduced by the colonizers) it’s very common to meet someone with your own name. Sort of the “John Jacob Jinkle-Hiemer Smith (or Schmidt)” dilemma, but no one seems to mind. I think I’ve maybe given a little background on this before, but now I’ll try to be thorough, since my knowledge is more fleshed out.

So, first of all, there are “day names”. These are names derived from the day of the week on which you were born. Everyone has a day name with which they identify even if it’s not the name they go by. For example, my sister Tracy was born on Saturday (making her an Ama), so she was very happy when a girl named Ama won the Ghana’s Most Beautiful pageant, over girls with names from other days of the week. I’m putting the Fante versions first, then less common forms & nicknames in parentheses, then any Asante/Twi variants in brackets.

Pronunciation Guide: “dw” is pronounced “j”, and for Kobena and Kow I’ve but in an “o” where there should instead be an “open o” character, but Microsoft Word doesn’t have it on it’s character list. Alas.

Boy Girl
Monday (Dwowda): Kodwo, (Jojo) Adwowa
Tuesday (Benada): Kobena (Koby, Ebo) Abena, Araba
Wednesday (Wukuda):Kweku (Abeku, Kuuku) Ekua, Kukua
Thursday (Yawda): Kwaw, Kow, Yaw Aba
Friday (Fida): Kofi (Fiifi) Efua
Saturday (Memenda): Kwame, Kwamina Ama (alt. spelling: Amba)
Sunday (Kwesida): Kwesi [Akwasi] Esi [Akosua]

So, now you know that Kofi Annan was most likely born of Friday. I say most likely because I have met one person who was technically born on Thursday, but his family wanted to name him after a notable family member who was born on Friday, so they decided it was close enough and named him Kofi anyway.

Day names are important and also nice because they give you another seventh of the population to identify with. At church, during one of the (often multiple) offering collections, either your day of the week will be called or there will simply be a basket with your day’s name for you at the front. So you deposit your money with the rest of your comrades, and there’s sometimes a mini-competition between the days of the week as to who can bring more money to church. More on collecting money in Ghanaian churches in another entry.

There are also specific names for other circumstances. For instance, if you’re a twin, your name is Ata if you’re a boy, or Ataa if you’re a girl, and then Panyin or Kakra if you’re the older or younger twin, respectively. Often, however, “Ata” gets embroiled in other people’s names, and twins just go by Panyin & Kakra. Kakra is part of the same word family as “small” and “a little bit”, but I’m not sure about Panyin. In Fante culture, twins are appreciated and looked upon as signs of super-fertility and therefore super good fortune.

Other names:
Tawia- a child born after twins
Baako- an only child
Piesie- firstborn of a nuclear family
Manu- secondborn of a family
Mensah/Mansah- boy/girl names for third born of a family (that’s me!). Sometimes without the final H.
Maana or Anan- fourth born (I think... Chelsea, someone told me to be sure to tell you that you're Maana, but I need to check on the spelling ;))

After the third born, you just use the Fante names for numbers to designate children. Often, though, these are placed with day names, especially for the higher numbers, so no one would simply be known as “eight”, but they might be Kofi Awotwe. This gives you quite a lot of information. This boy is the 8^th child of his family, and he was born on Friday. My name, then, is Esi Mansa. In most other cases apart from birth order, however, the other name besides the day name comes first.
For example:
Owura/Ewura- Lord or Sir/ Lady or Madame. Can be combined with any day name, though I’ve only seen it done for girls. It’s often used to designate a person who’s educated, or who is getting their education. So I’ve been called “Ewuresi”, which is Ewura plus Esi.
Paa- you use this when you’re naming a child after someone’s father. Ex: Paa Kweku
Maame- you can either use this to talk about someone who’s old enough to be a mother, or if you’re naming a girl after your mother. There are lots of Maame’s in my family here.

Names that often stand alone:
Giftie- the first girl, the only girl, a girl child for whom the parents are especially grateful
Nyamekye- Gift of God, used whenever you think your child is a gift of the Supreme Being. Usually for boys.
Uncle- a boy named after someone’s uncle
Auntie- a child named after someone’s aunt, or just an older woman who acts like everyone’s aunt.
Agyeman- Savior of the nation

There are actually a lot of names like Agyeman, but I don’t know all of them. They basically serve the same purpose as Auntie, Uncle, Paa, etc, though, because names are given to remind children that they should live up to a certain standard. Traditionally, this meant living well and positively, and upon death becoming an ancestor, which is not an automatic honor. Naming someone after a person reminds them to live up to that person’s standard, and naming someone after an idea works in a similar way. Parents never name their children after themselves (it’s considered presumptuous. Who would do such a thing when there are so many ancestors who are so much more worthy to be honored?). That’s why most Ghanaians are particularly appalled at the notion of surnames, which they still must use, because surnames carry on names from fathers to children. Also, even though the overarching matrilineal families have names, they never actually form a part of the children’s names. The families do have rallying cries, though… there are seven families, but only two rallying cries, translated as “sixth fortress” and “ninth fortress”. No one is quite sure why. But anyway, if you call both sixth and ninth fortresses at the same time at a gathering (presumably an Akan gathering), you can get everyone’s attention at once. I forget how to say fortress, but this appellation is added onto another standard way of beginning an address. So you say “Aban Asia na Akron, mfre yie! (Fortresses six and nine, let us invite good)” and then everyone says back “Yie mbra! (Let good come)”. I feel like it’s a nice way of starting things. You’ll notice again the verbs for call (fre) and come (ba/bra). Neat, isn’t it?

Finally, there are also earned names (for a good or bad reputation you might have), nicknames, stool names (for chiefs), and baptismal/Christian names for the many people who still use them. People often go by their baptismal names in school, and are twice as likely to tell me those names first rather than the names that they prefer, which is I feel is unfortunate. Currently, however, many people are rejecting their baptismal names, saying that their traditional names are fine, that there’s no need for them to have white people’s names. Others also dislike the names, but don’t want to change them because of the legal hassles and how very conspicuous it looks anytime one changes one’s name. It implies that you’ve done something wrong and cannot be trusted for testimony. How unfortunate.

Also, it seems to me that here the children take the father’s last name, but when two people get married, they often both hyphenate their surnames to include both theirs and their spouse’s. So, for example, my siblings here all use the surname “Baffoe”, but my parents are Dorcas & Victor Atta-Baffoe. People’s surnames also seem rather arbitrary, because they’re generally just taken from men’s names a long time ago, which they were then required to place on their children. So it’s just a whole host of first names being used as surnames, like Mensah, Essien (six), Atta, etc.

Now for another short topic I’ve been meaning to write about: Gye Nyame.

Gye Nyame is the symbol that should be in this entry around here somewhere... and it’s an Adinkra symbol. There are many Adinkra symbols, and the theory is that they were probably created by Arabs several centuries ago, then they were adopted by Akans and mostly used at funerals. There are tons of them, and they all have interesting, complex multi-layered meanings, but Gye Nyame is one of the most common, and it’s a good one. It means “Except God”, or in other words, “I will fear nothing except God”. It also encompasses a whole worldview that includes ladders, the living, the unborn and the ancestors, but nowadays you’ll find it everywhere in Ghana. It’s in churches, on altars, on pillows, on business signs, on the 50^th anniversary of Ghana logo. It pervades everything, and I think that some versions of it are remarkably pretty. I appreciate the fact that it can be stylized in many ways, and I usually draw it at the top of my daily journal every time I write. I try to use it to keep my priorities straight.

Anyway, that’s it for the day :) We’re going to Volta region this weekend to see waterfalls, climb mountains, and do many other hopefully exciting, crazy things. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. I love you all so much! Thanks for caring!

Love again,

Rachel Rose