The most surreal shabbat ever

This weekend we went to the nearby village of Dalun. Joel has written an entry about our whole trip so I don't want to bore you with repeating what he has said. Instead I will just write what my impressions and feeling where from our visit. (So for the details please read Joel's blog before mine!)

I have, by now, become accustomed to being one of the only eight Jews in Ghana (that we know about anyway!) and I have become used to explaining what Judaism is to people who have never heard of a Jew before. But only this weekend it hit me what that really meant - and how I was one of only two Jews in the whole of Ghana (and possibly even West Africa) strictly keeping all of the laws of Shabbat. But this weekend it also hit me that, despite all the hardships this may bring about, how important it was that I am here in Africa. It was the most surreal thing ever this Friday night as we sang Kabbalat shabbat and made kiddush with about 30 Ghanaians before explaining to them what Judaism was all about. They all seemed to think our religion was great and wanted to know how to convert! It was great to tell people about our religion, and obviously not for any missionary purposes because Judaism discourages converts, but just so that these people know something else about the world. And of course, it was highly amusing to have Ghanaian Muslims wishing us 'Shabbat Shalom' (or rather variations of it that they could remember) throughout Shabbat.

The trip was so interesting as my first proper visit to an African village. We had a tour around the village, met many of the villagers and paid a visit to the local Chief in his palace. They were so welcoming and friendly to us, as all other Ghanaians we have come across have been. I certainly learnt a lot from this weekend as I saw the huge differences between rural life and the towns. Whatever I thought about the problems of urban Ghana, the villages have it so much worse. Many of the children we met don't go to school, either because of lack of money or because their parents want them to help at home or in the farm, and the young adults we met have mostly finished school yet have no funds to continue their education but at the same time are unable to find jobs. It just seems like an endless cycle of poverty. But we found the villagers happy because it rained heavily over the weekend which means a good harvest.

And I cannot finish without mentioning our cultural entertainment on Friday night were the local danced for us - and of course we joined it much to their amusement! I don't quite think we heard the rhythm as well as them... but at least we tried!

And something else I have just seen that Joel has forgotten to mention. The NGO we stayed at had its own radio station for the local area. On Saturday morning we had a tour of the centre which ended in the radio station - where they then told us to go speak live on air, which resulted in Sam sounding very British and Aron giving a shout out to the chief (I'm still not sure how acceptable that was!) and us singing the song 'Od yavo shalom aleinu, Saalam....'. We were convinced no one would have heard, but later on in the day I met a guy who asked me what the song had meant! So we sung a Jewish song about peace on Ghanaian radio station - something else that added to the surreal nature of our weekend!