A Visit to a Ghanaian Village

I’m quite certain I’m one of maybe 10 people in the world that enjoys the airport. It’s not that I adore the mediocre airplane food, the long security lines, or the polar temperatures; I love knowing that I’m on my way to new places. All my best adventures start and end in airports.

That being said, I’m quickly developing an equal affinity for harbors and ports. Because airports connect so many places, when I first step off a plane, it can feel like I’m still in undetermined land.

Stepping off a ship, however, feels like a discovery.

After , with nothing to watch but the waves peaking up to kiss the sky, seeing land is the most beautiful sight imaginable. Finally you wake one morning and the horizon line holds a heartbeat again.

I rose at 5:30 a.m. to see the sunrise and watch Africa come into focus. I was still half asleep so I’m not sure if my eyes were still hazy or the sky was too foggy, but Africa grew into more of an impressionist painting, with clouds of silver dust pulling us towards the dock, than a realistic portrait.

We settled in the Tema port on the southern coast of Ghana. Tema is about an hour south of Accra, the capital city of Ghana where most of the tourist attractions are located.

On the first day, , I took a tour around the city.

I visited W.E.B. Dubois’ home, the Arts and Crafts market, and the Kwameh Nkrumah Memorial Park among other attractions.

In Ghana, street vendors walk from car to car with large bins of goods balanced effortlessly on their heads. The women wear brilliantly colored, festive patterns and those with babies use large pieces of equally vivid cloth to secure the babies to their backs. When I say that you can buy anything from your car in Ghana, I mean it—whiteboards, toilet seats, plantain chips, shoes—you name it, they sell it. I personally bought four mangoes because their smell was irresistible and they tasted sweeter, juicier, and tangier than any I have ever eaten.

Because it was such a packed five days and Ghana exceeded even my high expectations by leaps and bounds, I can’t possibly tell you everything without writing a novel, so I’m going to focus on one experience in particular.

While I was taking my city tour, my friend Travis (who filmed ) was walking around Accra meeting as many people as possible, but he hit it off with one street vendor named Dennis, who he spent the next couple days with as well. Dennis took Travis all over Accra and introduced him to the version of Ghana he knows best. Dennis is from an area about 8 hours north of Tema called Kumasi and on our second day in Ghana, he invited Travis to travel to Kumasi with him to see his village and meet his family.

Travis relayed this invitation to me and on day four, we took the shuttle to Accra, met Dennis, took a taxi to the bus station, found a bus, and spent the first four hours of the bus ride listening to a pastor talk about the importance of dreams in Twi (one of the Ghanaian native languages). We spent the next four hours on a bumpy, rust-colored dirt road.

Eight hours after leaving our ship, we arrived in Bonwire, the small village where Dennis grew up.

Following Dennis around the village enveloped by the scent of campfires and plumerias, watching the sun slowly creep away from the approaching moon, was surreal. Every time I looked at Travis, I couldn’t help giggling at the goofy, Christmas-morning grin he had plastered to his face. He might as well have been in Disneyland.

Dennis took us to his father’s workshop, where five men from the village work on looms and weave vivid scarves, blankets, and clothes, which can sometimes take up to six months to finish one item, depending on the intricacy of the pattern.

Then he took us through the village, introducing us to everyone on the way, until we reached his home. The homes in the village were simple, small cement buildings with very minimal furnishing, maybe one bed and the electricity in the village automatically shuts off at 8:30 p.m., so the people wake very early and go to bed around 9 or 9:30 p.m.

Previous to this visit, Dennis had not visited his family since the end of November, so they were of course very happy to see him and the fact that he’d brought two American students with him was just an added bonus. The children in the village ran to say, “Hello,” to Travis and me and begged us to take pictures of them so they could see themselves on our camera screens. Dennis’ uncle passed away just a few days before we’d arrived so his entire family was together to prepare for the upcoming funeral. In spite of how busy they surely were, the family was extremely kind and appreciative of our visit. They didn’t speak English so we communicated mainly in nods, smiles, and songs.

My favorite part of the visit was after dinner when Dennis and his father took us to church.

His father is the leader of the choir so he sat with the other singers outside and practiced while Travis and I were taken inside to sit in a circle with the other churchgoers that evening. A girl sitting next to me passed me a hymnbook and opened it to the correct page, pointed to a hymn and the circle began singing. Though the book was written in English, the people sang the hymns in Twi, so while I was trying to learn them very quickly, I was also trying to sing the words in English as best I could without getting confused by the Twi version. It was not an easy process, but a woman sitting behind me tapped my shoulder and assured me that I was doing a good job following along.

In the morning, Dennis took us in to Kumasi and showed us around the largest palace in Ghana, inhabited by the King of Kumasi. Then he put us on a large bus that would take us all the way to Tema. Our goodbyes were bittersweet, as I have never been so thoroughly accepted into a family of complete strangers, but had a strong urge to immediately contact my own family.

In the United States, if I met a group of tourists, the chance that I would eagerly invite them back to my home so quickly, (particularly if it was an 8-hour trek) is almost nonexistent.

The sense of familial unity in Ghana was much more prevalent than any place I’ve visited in the United States.

Neither approach is better or worse in my opinion, but the difference was amazing to witness and experience. I’ll be surprised if I experience any kindness that surpasses that of Dennis and his family at any time later in my life.

Travis and I got back on the ship, knowing that the next six days at sea would be significantly less enjoyable since we’d have preferred to stay a few more days and then fly to Cape Town to meet the ship. Leaving on the ship, though, provided me with the opportunity to gradually reflect on my time in Ghana. It took me the entire six days to come to grips with the nonstop emotional, mental, and physical stimulus I encountered.

When you fly away, everything gets smaller so quickly because you’re above it, and then all of sudden it’s gone. When you sail away, everything gets smaller but you’re on the same level so you get to see the trace of the land slowly shrink into the distance until the horizon line flattens again. The romanticism of it is more intriguing than a speedy takeoff from an airport.