Good evening. This is the news at ten, and I'm John Humphrys.
Actually, I'm not John Humphrys. Many of you (I hope) will be quite pleased to hear that; to those who aren't, I am sorry to disappoint, and I will try harder next time.
Tuesday, 19th August
I threw up after taking my larium again, so decided to change to doxycycline.
Wednesday, 20th August
Jo and Sasha were enskinned as Queen Mothers of Champe. I was at work, and in the afternoon went to get my enskinment garments made.
Thursday, 21st August
Went to get the enskinment garments. This consisted of a white 'butter curry' (phonetic spelling), matching white trousers, boots which make me look like a homosexual cowboy, a white hat, a cow's tail and a walking stick.
Friday, 22nd August
Got enskinned! We went to the village, Bokpomo, after a bit of a hassle getting a bus to take us there. When we arrived we waited while everyone else prayed (it was 1pm). While we were waiting someone asked me if they could marry Abi ("your sister"); I told him that was up to her. We then rode on motorbikes to a nearby village where the chief was that day. When we got there tom toms were beaten to announce that an enskinment was taking place. I don't remember the order of everything, but it involved being presented to the chief, accepting cola nuts from him, eating one (yuck), being given water by a villager, sitting down in front of the chief's dais and having my garments put on me, being presented to the women of the village, having to dance (briefly, thank goodness) to the tom toms, watching some professionals dancing to the tom toms, and probably other things that I don't remember. At one point they set off a gun outside (so that everyone would hear that an enskinment was happening; the gunshot would carry further than the sound of tom toms).
The end result of all this was that I am now Yimahi-Na of Bokpomo.
After this we went back to Tamale, and Mr Sulley had a dinner in the office for me and Abi and other people involved in Nfasimdi to say goodbye to us. Abi, however, had to go back to the house because she had stuff to do before Shabbat.
Saturday, 23rd August
Five of us (Sasha, Abi, Dan, Joel and myself) left the house. We got an MMT bus to Mole, which was possibly the most crowded vehicle I have ever seen. At one point an old Ghanaian woman sat on Sasha's lap for half an hour, and at another I had to put Abi's headphones on Joel, Abi had to DJ, and I fed Joel biscuits because he was unable to move. This journey lasted about six hours. However, when we arrived in Mole, the motel turned out to be very nice, with a pool. We spent a lot of time in the pool.
Sunday, 24th August
We went on two safari walks. We saw elephants, baboons, water buck, kop, bush-buck, and about a billion insects which ate us alive. Basically, it was incredible. I can't really describe it, so I'll just show you the pictures when I see you.
Monday, 25th August
We got a bus to Kumasi, which broke down on the way in a place called Techiman. However, the driver (who was hired by the guy we hired to get us to Kumasi) paid someone else to take us the rest of the way. Anyway, we got there in the end, and were met by a friend of Imoro. Imoro's friend, Shaibu, had got us cheap accommodation at a teaching hospital with some trainee nurses. To thank him for helping us we took him out for dinner in a nice hotel in Kumasi.
Tuesday, 26th August
We got a bus to Cape Coast this morning, and have spent the afternoon looking around town. We have so far found the best pizza so far in Ghana, Cape Coast castle, which we have 'done', and the beach, which is filthy. We plan to go to a nearby national park, Kakum, where you can do a walk through the forest canopy, tomorrow, and Elmina the day after that. On Friday we will travel to Accra, where we will stay until we fly on Sunday.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment