Engagement party and new haircut

Hello all!


This Saturday, Clara took us to her friend's engagement ceremony. In Ghana, when a man wants to marry a woman, tradition has it that he must ask the bride-to-be's family for permission. The actual words involve something along the lines of "I saw a beautiful flower in your garden, and would like to pluck it and take it with me." The family then discusses this matter with their daughter, and a few weeks later, comes up with a list of gifts, a set of conditions, if you will, for the man's family. So in Ghanaian culture, it is the man who provides the dowry in a marriage. The engagement ceremony is the when the families confirm the couple's union (after carefully checking if every item in the list was provided).

The party was taking place in a family friend's house, with a beautiful courtyard full of decorated tables, a catering buffet, and an amazing Ghanaian percussion group. If we hadn't been told it was an engagement party, I would definitely have thought we were at a wedding. There was, however, one thing missing... Only the bride's family was present. Also, neither the bride or the groom were to be seen.

Two of the drummers, Kwaku and Anthony.

We sat at a table, talking and eating a few entrees, while Clara explained to us how marriages in Ghana work. A few minutes later, the drumbeats began to pound. During the musical introduction, a procession marched in, carrying large, wrapped packages. It was the groom and his family, bringing along all the gifts that comprised the dowry.

The two families sat together, separately from the guests, and the mothers gave start to the celebrations. Each of them took turns with the microphone, welcoming the other family and talking about their children. Some of what they said was in Twi, and although Clara did translate good part of it, I can't completely explain what they were saying. But the bride's mom did make sure to mention, how late the other family was...
The family member's then took turn introducing themselves, saying their names and their relation to either the bride or the groom. One of the bride's aunts offered a song, in Twi, which basically all the people present (except for the few obrunis) sang along with such  emotion, that it rivaled the power of the drums.

The gifts are then taken by the woman's family, to see if the contents match the list of required items. This, however, is mostly done for tradition's sake (no one really expected the bride's family to refuse the man on the spot). After coming outside and accepting the gifts, the family brings out the lady. In a fun joke, sometimes the family will bring out the wrong daughter. Upon refusing his substitute wife, the woman's family asks the groom for transport money to go bring the real bride. We were not witnesses to this, sadly.

A priest then came, and said a few prayers to bless the couple and the event. The couple is then allowed to exchange rings, and their union is official. This was the cue for the family members to take the microphone and start giving their wishes and marriage advice. Although some were pretty sound, a few were not so sober. In probably the funniest event of the weekend, the host made a very long speech, which was probably entitled "marriage is not sweet!!!!!".

After a few good laughs, the new bride and groom walked around to greet their guests. They were both wearing traditional Ghanaian clothes, made of a special type of cloth named kente, and the bride's body was painted.

The engagement was an incredible party, with a lot of new customs to observe.One of the drummers, Anthony, is Clara's friend, and we might set up a drumming lesson later this week. Also, I am definitely getting a kente cloth in our time here in Ghana!



Oh yes, my incidental haircut... On Sunday, I decided my hair was getting to long for the hot weather in Ghana, so I accompanied my brother Kwasi to a nearby barber shop. Kwasi already has short hair, so he only took about 3 minutes to be done. Apparently, I was the first straight-haired person the barber had ever "worked on"... Not a good sign haha

Communication was being a bit of an issue, so I explained to Kwasi what I wanted, and he helped me translate that to the barber. I asked him to trim my hair a little, make it short, but not shave it off. The first result was what we Brazilians call a "bowl haircut", meaning it looked like he put a bowl on my head and used a machine around it. Basically, the second time around I said I wanted to cut more around the sides and the back, to get rid of the the bowl-line.

Result: my sides were shaved off. I looked like I had a block of hair on the top, and just my scalp on the sides and back! Not too many options left, we had to shave it off.

It was actually a pretty fun process, and I think the barber had never cut off so much hair from a single person (not because my hair was particularly long, just because most Ghanaian men already style close to shaved heads).

Kofi, me, Alex (my buds who work at the internet cafe where I post)

 So in my efforts to become more Ghanaian, the haircut can now be checked off!

Slowly looking like a local, (but not really),

Henrique

Volunteering

For the past week I have volunteered at SISS, or Self-help Initiative and Support Services, an NGO that aims to empower individuals from marginalized communities, and raise their standards of living. Trainees are taught skills such as catering, bead making, tie-dye, and computer skills. Also, through programs involving personal development, health instruction, and start-up assistance, SISS has impacted the lives of over a thousand people in the past 12 years.

My first day at SISS involved getting to know the organization, reading past reports, project outlines, and participant profiles. Mr. Asante and Salina, the people responsible for coordinating the NGO’s efforts, were readily available and very helpful in providing instructions. There are many success stories, such as that of a 20-year-old who went on to open her own catering business, which indicate the potential impact the programs have in the lives of the trainees. The participants range from 18-25 years of age, living by themselves, or with as many as fifteen family members. Their reported incomes could hardly be called sustainable, and the need for work deprived many of educational opportunities.

On the second day, I gave a presentation on personal finance. After seeing the incomes and current jobs of many of the participants, it was clear there was little perspective for growing earnings, let alone financial planning. So I called a few banks in Ghana, found out which savings account was the most viable, and made a few recommendations to the trainees, along with a handout with financial planning guidelines. Thus far, about 10 of the 60 students present have asked for my number, and said they were interested in opening savings accounts.

Currently, SISS works primarily with residents of Agbogbloshie, a slum in downtown Accra. Last Friday, I had the chance to tag along a visit by Mr. Asante and Salina, in an effort to implement fire-safety training in the slum. The challenges of 55 thousand inhabitants were clear: lack of sanitation, narrow dirt paths, and, surrounding the area, a trash-covered lagoon.
  

The smell of burning rubber is constant, due to the amount of electronic waste being burnt, just a few steps away from where children are playing and people are running their businesses. Animals roam the alleys, sharing the same ground where people wash dishes or even bathe themselves. Across the Agbogbloshie "border", there is a market, where many of the women sell food and other supplies.

Look closely: this is the lagoon.

The slums in Brazil, specifically in Sao Paulo and Rio, present a generalized view of what poverty is. Or at least, what it seems to be. Visiting Agbogbloshie, talking to the residents, and becoming friends with the trainees from there, create a much more vivid picture of what it is to live in a slum. On a daily basis, volunteers at SISS talk, teach, and learn from young women and men from Agbogbloshie. Being able to teach some skills and help the NGO does not seem like a fair payoff to the unique cultural exchange we participate in every day.
 

Today was a national holiday, Kwame Nkrumah Day, and despite not having formal work, one of the trainees, Georgina, invited me, no – demanded - that I be present to taste the food she would cook for her catering test. The warmth of the Ghanaian people proves to be infallible, no matter what their background. Oh, and the food (banku, fried rice, and different kinds of plantain bread) was absolutely delicious!

The proud cooks and the instructor. Georgina is the third from the left.

 In a few weeks, I will move to another institution, the DAI Organization. They are about to launch a project on economic development in Ghana, focusing on agriculture. This was one of my service aims for the Bridge Year, being able to get a look at the bigger picture, as to learn lessons that can be applied in the next ten or twenty years. I am extremely grateful for the chance to work hands-on with an NGO, and further on to observe the macro challenges of economic development, a topic which is in my academic plans for Princeton. Also, the comparison between development in Brazil and Africa was one of the reasons I chose to spend a year in Ghana.

For the rest of my time with SISS, my main assignment is to research funding options, from deciding which organization seem like compatible partners, to writing a grant proposal. Although this is a very challenging project, and NGO funding is a very competitive process, I believe this a great opportunity to concretely help SISS beyond the time I will be present.

Life in Ghana

Akwaaba!

Because we only recently arrived at Ghana, a lot of new and exciting things happen every day - definitely more than I could possibly blog extensively about. So I'll keep the structure of a few anecdotes about what we have been experiencing.

We went to the University of Ghana to visit the campus and talk to Yemi, one of the African Studies professors. The University is the most prestigious learning institution in Ghana, and attracts a wide variety of West African students, as well as study abroad programs from all over the world. In its objective of providing education to a wide variety of people, Ghanaians don't have to pay tuition. In its relatively short history, just over 60 years, it has achieved the spot of one of the top 10 schools in Africa.

Over the next months in Accra we have many lectures scheduled with professors from the University of Ghana, on topics such as the history of Ghanaian politics and the development of Ghana’s economy.

Our trip to the University was not, however, only focused on academics! We had a legitimate Ghanaian dance lesson, with two musicians playing drums and bell, and three dance instructors teaching us the traditional moves. The Akans, the major ethnic group in Ghana, used dancing as way to teach actions, like how to sweep the floor, mash yam and wash clothes.

After about two hours, we learned two different dances, that involved responding to change in drumming rhythm, pretending one leg was shorter than the other, and of course, free-styling.

 

 

Though we had been eating traditional Ghanaian food at our hostel for the past week, our first time eating exotic food was at a nearby “chop bar”. Replacing the daily courses of delicious plantains, rice, cooked vegetables, chicken and tomato sauce, each of us ventured in more challenging culinary experiences. My personal choice was fufu with bush meat soup. Fufu is pounded yam or cassava, and has a very doughy consistency to it. Apparently, it is so hard to chew you eat it by swallowing chunks. Unfortunately, I was only told this around dinner, and to figure my way around ruminating the fufu. As to the bush meat, I am honestly still am not sure as to which animal I consumed, though it had a very gamey taste to it. I’ve heard it could be a dear-like beast, a grass rat, or just anything they can catch in the bush. Yum!

Following custom, we all ate with our bare right hands (left one is used for other personal purposes).The mixture of different taste, consistency, touching soup with my bare hands and looking at the color of Clara's dish (see below), was quite an intense exposure to Ghanaian cuisine. It was delicious though, and one of my favorite parts of acting Ghanaian so far.

Clara's choice of fish and snail soup taught us a new Twi word: huhuuhu, or scary.

On Friday we were finally sent off to our homestay families! I now live with the Kumi, in a beautiful house and restaurant compound in West Legon. The family consists of Mr. and Mrs. Kumi, Kwasi, my 18-year-old host brother, and Kumea, who goes to University of Ghana and kindly offered her room.

They run a restaurant and catering business, which means there is always something delicious to eat! Mrs. Kumi is an excellent cook, and it is always great fun to watch TV with the family while having dinner. Also, Kwasi always has a fun movie to watch, and Mr. Kumi has told me from day 1 I will be "treated as a son". From the moment I stepped into their house, I have felt comfortably at home.

I knew I had forgotten to bring something to the internet café… It’s the picture of the family =/ Sorry. I’ll have it by the next post!

 Oh, by the way, I got my first "official" wedding proposal here! haha It was at a funeral, which in Ghana is a huge celebration of passing onto a new stage of life, rather than mourning the dead. After having met many people, eaten the lunch provided by the host, and dancing to some traditional music, the Bridge Year group was set to leave in our trotro. On the way to the van, though, I was stopped after taking a picture of the band (yup, to cheer up the party even more), by a girl asking me to take a picture of her. Her brother promptly came and told me "you can have my sister!" haha I was honored, although I'll admit a bit confused, and kind of excused my way out saying the group was leaving. Of course I left my number behind.

A band in a funeral - Ghana is always happy!

Alright, I have to run to get a trotro and head home. Trotros are vans, which function basically as busses, except you can never really know if the next one is full or when it will come.

For the next post, I’ll also talk about the service placement, which will start tomorrow. Although I still lack enough information to write something solid about this, I am going to volunteer at Self-help Initiative and Support Services (SISS), a local NGO that teaches personal development, IT, catering and tye-dye. Personally, I will be working with applicant assessment, presenting seminars on self-improvement topics, and helping with the counseling of the participants. Most come from a few slums around Accra, and look to opportunities like these for starting a carreer and redirecting their lives. I’m very excited for the personal contact with the participants, and even more for the opportunity to effectively help them transform their realities.

Nante yie! (see you later)

Kwame!

At last, Ghana!

First post in Africa, YES!

After being the last group to leave Princeton, we arrived in Ghana for our on-field orientation week. Accompanied by Yaw and his constant smile, the 24 hour trip was easy to handle, and setting foot (finally!) in Africa made me shiver with excitement.

We still didn't know who our host family would be, where we were going to volunteer, how to speak Twi... Basically the last few days have been complete discoveries, one after the other. At our hostel, for example, we had to get used to sleeping under mosquito nets every night. This wouldn't be a problem, except mine is too short, and my feet stick out. Brilliant, I know.

At least the tiger's feet are covered...

We have learned a little bit (kitiwa) of Twi, with daily three hour classes, enough to impress the locals a few times a day! Oh yes, Ghanaians name themselves after the day of the week they we born on. So we all have names in Twi now! I was born on a Saturday, so my new name is Kwame.

Yaw and Clara, the two people from the program who are in constant touch with us, organized a drop-off exercise. We were left in pairs somewhere in downtown Accra, and were supposed to get back to our hostel. Pallavi and mine's place was the Arts Center, a popular place for tourists to get gifts, such as drums, shirts and crafts. It was a really beautiful place, as colorful as I could have imagined, and the shopkeepers were always very fun to talk to. In this networking activity, I met a shopkeeper (And1, and there are even better names, like Tupac and Colin Powell) who offered to make a personalized drum, with Asante symbol carvings - definitely on my list of souvenirs! The trotro ride back home was just as fun, inside a van with 15 people.

I was blown away at the friendliness of Ghanaians. I've stopped counting how many people we meet each day, many of them who come to talk to us because we are white, and are really interested in who we are.
My actual first encounter with a group of locals was on the first day, when I went out for a walk. When I saw a group of kids, I crossed over to their side of the road, and immediately got shouts of obruni (light skinned person). I replied what is culturally expected, obibini (dark skinned person), and ended up engaging in a really fun conversation with a group of about 8 kids!
We talked a lot about football (the real kind), the World Cup, and what they learned at school. The oldest of them, 11 year-old Emmanuel, surprised me with a very smart comment about politics: "If I were the president, I would not hire any ministers who could not speak French, because all of our neighboring countries speak it."
So there you go. Our talk wasn't only entertaining, these kids were also really smart! That made me smile for Ghana.

On Sunday, we made a quick group visit to an open-market. I keep being blown away at how beautiful this country, and especially these people, are. We wandered through the narrow alleys of stands, surrounded by plantain, snails, fruits, vegetables, and meats. Before that, we were offered different sorts of clothing, cell phones, and shoes. 

On Friday we will finally get to meet our homestay families, and on Monday we start our volunteer placements. As of now, I only know the name of my family, the Kumi, and we have been visiting institutions to choose where to work. We still have a lot of expectations, but personally I can affirm that motivation and excitement have grown exponentially.

By the way, today is 7 de Setembro, so happy Independence Day, Brasil!!

Yebehyia bio (see you again)!

Kwame

So it begins

Hey everyone,

I have been here at Princeton for six days now, and in such a short time, orientation has already taught us a few things. Let's get straight to the point though: only a few days ago I decided to follow Scott's, Bridge Year Program associate director, advice on keeping a blog. I expect it will make keeping in touch with friends and family a lot more practical, but it also plays a very important role in digesting the potentially confusing experiences we will face in the next 9 months. Hopefully it will also become enjoyable for you all along the way, because you're definitely going to be helping me!

An idea some of us Bridge Year students came up during orientation: instead of always taking pictures of ourselves, we got stuffed animals to represent Princeton and our group. Props to Brett Diehl, Zach Ogle and Andres Parrado!

There you have it! No name yet; we'll figure that part out when we get to Ghana.

The Bridge Year Program is open for 20 incoming freshman to Princeton University to go on a gap year, a "Bridge year", doing service abroad. There are currently four options of destination: India, Serbia, Peru, and Ghana, each with different aspects to the service, language, and homestay experiences. It is quite an innovative program, only on its second year, but already succeeding in defining part of the University's profile. For more information on the Program, and monthly updates from the field, take a look at http://www.princeton.edu/bridgeyear/

Orientation was a mixture of meeting great friends for the next five years, getting some coaching on leadership, service and cultural learning, and how to approach our time in a foreign country.Thanks to the BYP for the great days here, John Luria, Scott Leroy and Lily Akol! Talking to our Group Leaders, in our case Yaw Gyamfi, and the very first Bridge Year alums, Cole Freeman representing Ghana, got me even more anxious to get on the plane. Anecdotes from Cole and Kathleen, another present alum from Ghana, were very much exciting, but my mind just could not rightly picture fishermen's canoes covered in cellphone provider ads, or what it feels like to stand out in the crowd as oburoni, or a person with lighter skin.

The thought that immediately comes to mind after orientation is not to rely on preconceived expectations. As Cole said, we may feel over-prepared now, but as soon as we get to Ghana, the feeling that arises is still that of being completely lost. Luckily, there will be four companions in a similar situation, Ryan, Cam, Lindsay and Pallavi, as well as Yaw, a Ghanaian who already treats us as brothers. Even though the point of doing such a different trip is to move away from your comfort zone, and learn from the challenges faced, I'm sure there is a pretty warm safety net for this journey.

Ghana Group

Though I've gone back and forth in my mind of what to try to accomplish, what to expect, and how to apply the experiences from Ghana, no previous experience of mine was as intense as this one ought to be. I've come to embrace the possibility that to go in a state of devotion, without expectations on what to see and what to get in return, will be the way to learn the most from what is to come.

I absolutely can't wait to start learning Twi, and hopefully to be able to pass (linguistically) as someone who has been for some time in Ghana. The main component of our trip though, the service project, is one of the greatest challenges that lies ahead. We were told repeatedly to go with a lot of flexibility and no expectation to save the world in nine months, but what I believe the real challenge will be is to continue motivated on a daily basis, while striving to create an impact that will sustain itself when we leave. Although I want to first visit the different organizations that need volunteer help in Accra, I plan to work on some placement that involves the public sector, maybe with water or energy distribution and efficiency.

Being a Brazilian, I have some vague conception of what it is like for a country to face the challenges of being a developing nation. I expect Ghana will provide a much broader view at that, and probably even harsher. One of the reasons I decided to go the Bridge Year, was I felt the opportunity to go to Princeton was so unique, I had to use the resources presented in ways to benefit more people. Hopefully this experience will allow me to incorporate that way of thought into my life.

There is just so much about the program I haven't touched on, such as the homestay, Ghanaian culture and living in a village, but we're off to the airport in about an hour, so I will be sure to update on that, when we are in Accra. 

One last thought: we spent just enough time on campus so that it already feels a little bit like home. One of the best things about Bridge Year, and this is a consensus among all 20 of us, is that after this adventure, a four year one begins at Princeton.

(insert some catchy farewell in Twi here),

Henrique