beeeee our guest!

This was an email to Lizzie and Allie from Tuesday but it describes my day: I was up at 5 to get the video camera for my documentary making class from the Academic Center where the cameras are kept. From there we went to Kokrobite where our project is. We're doing our documentary on this NGO that's based in Kokrobite, a beach town about 45 minutes from here. The NGO was started by an African-American woman who came to Ghana to help people through art. She built a school on the rocky beach and it was SO BEAUTIFUL. Literally one of the most stunning places I've ever been to. I feel like I say that a lot, but I was in serious awe of these school grounds. It was so nice to see how much work she put into this haven for learning the arts. To start off, she told us a little about herself, since this was our first time meeting her. She told us about why she started the program and about some of the kids, then we got a tour from Kofi. During the tour, we saw the glass bead making station, a brick making station, the sewing area where they make clothes and bags out of recyclables (oh yeah, everything the kids use in their artwork is sustainable and recyclable - so that's a plus!), and just around the place in general. After the tour, Renee (the lady I've been talking about) again talked to us more. I was taping at this point and seriously, she's a very very interesting woman and I taped her for about 45 minutes!! She's had a very wonderful life and she's so insightful, I think I'll learn a lot from her. After that, she had tea and bread for us. This tea was incredible! It was just lemongrass that she boiled but it was oh so delicious - you know how I loooove my tea. We also talked with this lady Yuko, a Japanese woman living in Ghana too. She told us she's going to make us homemade sushi soon and teach us how! Ah I'm so excited. I've missed sushi soooo much! After we were done at the Kokrobite school, Renee's driver took us home - I know, how posh haha. It's weird most people here have drivers because getting your driver's license is really difficult. We had to stop at Yuko's home first to drop her off... and she invited us in! She gave us like a five course snack that was so so good. Everyone here is just so hospitable. And we're really excited to do our documentary on Renee and the Kokrobite Institute! So, all in all, today was very fun! Oh and I'm really happy because I thought I got my phone stolen, but one of the girls I volunteer with actually had it so I got it back!

Wednesday, for my photography class, we went to the Jamestown Castle/Prison. It used to be a slave castle, but then turned into a prison, but then just last January (2008), it was turned into a 'museum'... we got to walk through it and see the old cells. It was pretty eerie. Their toothbrushes were still there, there were photos and magazine clippings up on the walls, old shoes, and lots of dust. It used to be a slave castle, so, just like Elmina castle, many people were tortured, held, and sent off to their slave life from here. These Rainbows that I've been wearing everyday while I've been here have walked on some very intense grounds that have been through a lot. Its weird to think about...

Then later on Wednesday, we had recitation. Really I'm not sure why I'm in recitation, because I don't need to have four credits for my University of Legon class - that's an NYU thing, not an LMU thing, but I'm so happy and thankful I am. Two weeks ago we watched Traces of the Trade. After we watched it, I seriously just wanted to go to my room and cry until I stopped crying. I don't know if it hit me so much because I'm here in Ghana where much of slave trading went down, but I would highly recommend this film to everyone. It was about this woman whose grandmother traced their roots back to however long ago - she found out that her family was descended from the biggest, most powerful, and prosperous slave trading family company in the United States, the DeWolf family. It was a really moving story about how she recruited 9 of her family members to go on a journey with her to trace their ancestors past and the past of the slaves. They went from Rhode Island (where most the slave trafficking occurred) to Ghana (to the slave castle that I visited) to Cuba and back to Rhode Island. And oh geez, it was just so good. It was so frustrating though because right after we watched the film, we went right to dinner, without any discussion on the film. Andrea and I just sat. Expressionless. And didn't really want to be at dinner with all 40 people from our group. Half of the group didn't see the film so they weren't affected at all, then some of the people who did see the film, just didn't seem moved at all. So going to recitation this week was so helpful and important for all of us. We talked about how the film was so hard to see and how it really did immobilize us for quite some time. After seeing it, you just want to know, what can I do now? But what is the first step to reconciling this horrible, horrible past? Acknowledgment, is the consensus we came to. That's the first step and then from there, there will come some good hopefully. It was just so hard to watch the film because just because of my mere skin color, I felt so terrible for all that had happened.. and I don't even know if my family was related to the slave trade directly, but everyone, and literally everyone - even if you had sugar in your tea, prospered or gained from the slave trade. I started wondering what I would've done if I had lived in the time of slavery. I feel like human beings are human beings no matter their skin color and I sincerely hope that I would've done something to stop it, or at least not have participated in it. But even that is hard to say, because even today there are forms of slavery or at least human rights are being violated. For example, every time I buy something from Forever 21, I have to wonder, at whose expense am I getting this very cute, somewhat nice piece of clothing for very cheap at? But then we discussed how there is a difference between owning Forever 21 clothes and actually having shares in the company and running it the way it is run. It just makes you wonder. We also talked about how there is so little education on slavery/African history in US schools. We all know that there was slavery and that it was abolished when Abraham Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation, but really... we don't know anything! Acknowledgment and education. That is where we can start. Oh and that brings up another very interesting point about wealth and the slave trade. From those 9 relatives who went on the trip, 8 of them went to Ivy Leagues and have a ton of money. One of them went to University of Oregon, his family doesn't have a lot of money. Then when they looked at their family roots, Tom, the guy who went to U of Oregon, was the ONLY one who descended from a DeWolf who wasn't directly involved in the slave trade. The ONLY one. All the other DeWolf descendants (i.e. the rich, Ivy League ones) descended directly from DeWolfs who had their hands in the slave trade. Interesting.. and very telling! Tom also wrote a book that we read an excerpt from called "Inheriting the Trade"... also very moving and interesting.

So basically, just watch/read one of those. ...transition to happy stuff.

Last night, Gaby, Tina, Mallory, Mallory’s mom and I went to the production of Beauty and the Beast at the University of Ghana, Legon. A couple of weeks ago, I went with Leah and Andrea to see the Vagina Monologues, which was really good – so I was really excited to see Beauty and the Beast. I was looking forward to seeing how they would make Beauty and the Beast with a Ghanaian twist, because that was one of my favorite parts of the Vagina Monologues. In Vagina Monologues, there is one part where they are all saying different words for ‘vagina’ and they added all the local languages, like Twi, Ga, and Asante, and how they say vagina and the audience went CRAZY because they thought it was so funny. And they also added some other Ghanaian aspects to it. So going into Beauty and the Beast I knew they’d add at least a little bit of Ghanaian culture. And they sure did. During the scene where Belle is walking through town, and everyone is singing “Belle,” instead of having people selling stuff like they would in France, they had women carrying the goods on their heads and they had little street vendors like you’d see on the side of the street in Ghana. They also used Ghanaian dance in so many of the scenes… even a little of Soulja Boy was incorporated into the Be Our Guest scene, so hilarious. One of the best aspects of seeing a play at Legon is the ‘participation’ of the audience. People get extremely into the play. They yell at the actors and when Belle and Beast were about to kiss they’d say stuff like, “JUST KISS HER!” And then there were about 20 guys in the back dancing and high fiving and just sooooo excited. I dont know if they were really that into the play or just being silly, but it was so funny. Also, they may have been hooting and Belle and Beast because they had a seriously intense on stage kiss, they weren't joking around. Oh baby baby.

Well, today, I'm just hanging out, packing for South Africa and Namibia (apparently I've been told this is a 'trendy' trip?), and getting very excited! I'll actually have to wear jeans I think.... and maybe a sweatshirt? Brr... We have a ton of stuff planned - kayaking to see Penguins, wine lands tours, sandboarding in the sand dunes in Namibia, hanging out at the beach, and a Soussuvlei dunes and Swakopmund safari. I just put a new memory card in my camera, so that means probably too many pictures I'll take.

Other stuff that has been keeping me busy and away from my blog: learning how to make Kente cloth... learning how to play the televi (these little shakers, I'll put up a picture or something sometime), African maracas, drums, and bell, studying for my African Popular Music midterm, which I think I did okay on, ...and um hanging out with friends!

I'll have so much to update on after my trip! ....be back 23 March 2009.

love love love peace!

Oh also, some pictures!
Homestay pictures (even though I haven't written about it...)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2113973&id=10808707&l=3b326
Green Turtle Lodge
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2114081&id=10808707&l=a5f5e