Holding a Bowl

//

 

I had an overnight stay at a village arranged with a group of people through SAS.  We met in the Union at like 8am, I think.  The Abowitz kids were running around being really cute.  They would come up behind people and then one would cover the person’s eyes while the other took one of their shoes.  Then the girl would shout “Retreat!  Retreat!” and they’d run away with your shoe.  The girl is about 10 and the boy is about 8.  The girl always looks like she’s plotting something, which apparently she is.  Anyway, they came back to the people later and would cover their eyes and put the shoe back on their foot, which was nice of them, and then shout “Retreat!  Retreat!” and run away.  I didn’t get angry or anything when they did it to me.  It wasn’t until they had “gotten away” safely that I realized not being upset was the wrong thing to do, and they probably would be having much more fun if I had started chasing them and picked them up and thrown them around or something.

 

Live and learn.

 

Anyway, we got on the busses a bit late, but at least they worked.  Another group was there waiting until 8:30 or so since about 6:30.  They were all really pissed.

 

There were a good number of my friends on the bus, but a lot of them were closer to each other than to me, so I was afraid I wouldn’t have anyone to sit with.  I got on the bus pretty early and took a seat in the back, and I saw my friend Dierdre getting on later and about to take a seat I think by herself.  “Dierdre, come be friends with me!”  And she said, “Oh, okay,” and came to take a seat next to me.  I got lucky that time and didn’t have the wheel well.

 

The ride was long but also pretty cool.  We went through the city and then through a long plain area with a mountain running constantly in the background but never very high.  We saw the Twin Rocks.  We drove past the second largest dam of the Volta Region and I think saw part of the Volta River, though I’m not really sure where we were.  There were gates on the road over the dam, but all you had to do was get out of your vehicle, open them, drive through, and then close them… so we wondered why they were there at all.

 

We made it to the village and like every single person in the village was in the center shady tree area waiting for us.  The elders were all on one side, and some who looked like chiefs were in the very center.  Two were holding staffs with animal sculptures at the top.  Seated further back was an older man than those with staffs, and he was holding a machete.  We went to shake hands with all of them, which was kind of awkward, and I said “Akwaba” to them, which is just hello.  I tried to look them all in the eyes but some didn’t seem interested.

 

We were all seated in plastic chairs that had “I <3 GHANA” carved out of them in the factory in the middle of the whole village.  They were playing drums and dancing and it had this weird xenophobic/nationalistic feel to it, like at any point they could come kill us.  There was a man on a microphone saying things in a different language, which added to the feel of it all.  Kids danced in a specific way that included moving their shoulders, hands, and pelvis a whole lot, and they always touched the ground like to pray or something before they danced.  Sometimes they asked us to get up and dance with them.  I didn’t really want to, but when you’re someone’s guest and they ask you individually to dance, you kind of have to.  How I longed for diffusion of responsibility!  Well anyway.

 

They also called us all up individually to give us a “traditional name,” which supposedly they have to do for any visitor.  I don’t really believe that.  I doubt when the plumbers came to install the water pipes they had a naming ceremony.  I talked to a prof about this and they said, “I’m sure that’s for the old rich white people who want to go home and say I visited an African village and was named Yao Nukunu, which means Wonder!”  That’s actually the name I was given.  Anyway, I guess it was cool enough but it took like three hours or something and we didn’t really learn much from it except for they like to dance.

 

OH.  OH, okay.  So early on in the ceremony while others were dancing, a mother took her daughter to the middle of the area and put a bowl in her hand and made her hold it up about chest level and then just left her there for like five minutes, then came back.  Deirdre was still sitting next to me and we saw it and looked at each other like, “Um… what the hell?  Why is that girl holding a bowl?”  We thought it was some freak occurrence and wrote it off as someone being cute or weird.  But then it happened again, and again.  Little girls standing and holding bowls while other people danced.  One time when they made all the white people get up and dance, there was a girl holding a bowl.  That became an inside joke between the two of us.  “What’ve you been up to?”  “Holdin’ a bowl.”

 

All the boys wore peach uniforms for the school and the girls wore green.  They weren’t really uniforms, more just clothes with the right colors.