Rasta parties! Who knew that rastas were the greatest people on earth? This Wednesday, some friends in Accra and I went to a Reggae party on Labadi Beach. We heard about the party from an orientation on safety that noted this party as one to avoid. Rastas are really no match for a gaggle of American girls, so we figured our odds were good. Trying to get to the party was an adventure in of itself because there are no addresses on the beach! So we had to go through a swanky hotel and bribe the security guard with GC5 in order to even get on the beach. Following the sounds of Marley we pulled up to the party and pretty instantly had a fan club. Every single one of us got a Rasta friend and copiously enjoyed their generosity! The funniest thing about the rastas is that the next night we went to another bar in Osu, the downtown area where we live, and we saw the same bunch of people! Accra is a small town. Hey, yea, imagine running into you here...hmmm? Besides the enjoyment of partaking in the Rasta rights of passage, their friendliness is really a testament to the fabulosity of the Ghanaian people. They are so incredibly hospitable!
Welcoming and beautiful. They are incredibly ethereal and graceful. Many of the people walk around the streets with huge items balanced on their heads. Whether it’s bananas or an enormous rack of sunglasses, you see people weaving the streets with things on their heads. The most incredible thing is that they NEVER bump into each other or trip and drop their load. Its really interesting because they don’t need Gucci bags to make them look classy, no matter how little they have, they manage to be incredibly graceful and elegant.
Today, we went to a town about an hour and a half away from Accra called Torgome. It was positioned as a ‘visit’ to a traditional village, but it was really a paid program by a tour company. Nonetheless, touristy doesn’t necessarily mean inauthentic here in Ghana. We stepped off the bus and 50 children swarmed around us waving and trying to hold our hands. I just need to say that these kids are the CUTEST. They are so full of life and joy. They play well with each other and are very polite. Mind you, they have what we would consider next to nothing. Then we partook in the opening greetings and naming ceremony. We shook the elders’ hands (with our right hands, because its disrespectful to use the left!) and were seated for prayers. Each one of us was then adopted, in some sense, by a family of the village; we were given names and sweet bracelets. It was nice, drumming and dancing with everyone. The dancing was really interesting, because you can see how their dancing has so influenced dancing in this country. Fast footwork and booty shakin!! The younger children dance much more aggressively I think because it’s seen as inappropriate for the older girls.
I had a great time at this village; it was awesome to see a functioning community that has so few of the tech tools that we consider necessary for survival. However, I left confused. Finding out that they get paid to let foreigners come in and peep made me think that it wasn’t all that genuine. And it makes me feel phony that I played with all these beautiful children and had such good conversations, only to never see the people ever again. And that’s the view of Westerners that they get every time visitors come? Maybe I’m overanalyzing it because for the most part, ‘tourists’ in Ghana are doing extremely genuine work. So were pretty engaged in cultivating understanding. But how can I maintain my integrity here and not become a humanitarian that only participates to inflate her ego?
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