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Day 5

Wednesday, market day in Odumase.  We rise and have a walk over to the annex where I buy a strand of beads made from the glass I sent home with Cedi last summer. After getting to the compound and having tea I set about grinding the beads from yesterday while Cedi gives a big tour to a bunch of missionary ladies who show up. I finish up with my grinding about the time Cedi is done with the ladies.  A little past noon we head off to the Odumase market with Kujo, Cedi’s brother.  Herb is pretty well by now and Melissa is feeling better also. Tom is still a little green around the edges, but comes along anyway.  We drive the two miles to the market and are let off with Kujo as our guide. It’s a good thing he’s along with us as the market is very large and he knows his way around well. We walk down into the market past a myriad of booths selling hardware, and kitchen goods and then into the food area which is awash with color and food items known and unknown to us. The local people all love color and the mode of dress is always colorful.  We wend our way circuitously around and through and up and down to finally arrive at the bead area of the market.  There are four lanes of bead booths nearly all full with sellers of Krobo beads of a wide variety of designs and styles. Near an hour walking about the bead area and I buy a good bag of the local beads, some 22 varieties. 

A selection of beads on just one table

The food section of the market was awash with color and a wide variety of foods

The bead sellers were plentiful and had lots of beads

Then we move on to the cloth buildings. There are two large buildings given over to cloth sellers and we are treated to a serious eyeful of colorful prints and batiks being sold by some fifty or more merchants. It is overwhelming.  We each buy several pieces of cloth and by this time Tom starts to get the twirlies.  So we agree to end our market day on that note. It’s a fair walk up to the main road where Cedi will meet us to take us home.  We make our way out and buy some water and sodas and meet Cedi. The day is the hottest we’ve had yet and we are glad to get back to the compound where we can take some rest in the shade.  

Mr. Kwasi arrives for a visit in the afternoon to discuss meeting with us the next day in Accra and takes notes for an article he wants to write about Cedi in the upcoming Sunday Accra paper.  Once again the sky opens up for a major downpour that has us all holed up in various buildings trying to have conversation amidst the deafening roar of the rain on metal roofs. Kwasi takes pictures and notes and collects bios of Cedi and me and we agree to meet him the following day in Accra. He then takes his leave and we go out to the hot shed to check out Kwadjo’s recent efforts with my project beads.  They are coming along and we discuss variations to the process and shapes for his next bout with the parts I brought. Tomorrow we will be gone into Accra for the whole day and he will be working with my glass while we are gone.  We then take supper and after a good look at the local frog population, which is brought out by the rain, we head back to the Starr. For the first night I don’t nod off on the way back to the hotel.  I’m finally getting my internal clock in sync with local time.

  Day 6, Accra day,

  Cedi shows up in the van with Melissa and Mr. Sikapa and we buy water and load out for the trip to town.  It’s a good two hours plus and we make it to the University where we meet with Professor Crossland of the Archaeology department and have a visit and discuss the project. I give Professor Crossland a Flag bead for the university collection and we talk about him coming out to Cedi’s the following weekend.  On taking our leave we find a lady selling bananas on the street and buy some from her. They are delicious

    We head off across town to Cedi’s shipping agent that is near a Komatsu dealer where we go in, and Herb leaves some literature on his drill rigs for them.  We change some money at a local currency exchange office and then head off across town again to a different bank for Melissa to exchange some traveler’s cheques. Along the way we stop at a post office which has a military man posted outside as a guard. He’s armed with an AK47 but is actually somewhat inconspicuous. He’s the first armed person we’ve seen in Ghana. We buy our Ghana post cards here then head off to Melissa’s bank.  Here we are beset upon by local high pressure kids selling tourist stuff. We have a grand time getting shed of them short of buying something from each of them. They try what seems to be a common hustle on us with one asking Melissa her name as she walks off, then after she’s left coming up to me telling me that she asked me to buy something for her. Of course he uses her name, which gives the impression that she did indeed make such a request, but when she returns he is busted, and we leave him holding the bag. We’re not buying into his deceit and let him know it.

   Again we drive off across town, this time to the location for the bead society meeting. Mr Kwasi’s office is at the same location so we will meet with him as well. Accra is a large town of somewhere between 3 and 7 million depending on who you talk to.  There is a lot of traffic, but we make the venue in time for the meeting and my presentation.  There are refreshments and finger foods present which we are grateful for as we’ve been in the car and running all day and haven’t had anything of substance to eat. 

    We have introductions and I make my presentation with the computer as a slide show screen and the presentation is well received.  After a question period we mill around for a bit, visit some, show some beads, and buy some beads from a local vendor,  then take our leave for Odumase.  

   This trip takes us a long three hours as we are in the night rush and we make Cedi’s place around ten pm. It’s been a long day, especially for Cedi who has been driving for better than twelve hours. Herb has some discussion with Cedi in the car on the way home to find out that the average worker in Ghana makes 3-5 cedi per day and many just drink it all up. The cedi is on par with the dollar so that’s about 3-5 bucks a day.  Alcohol is a problem for many Ghanaians and there is much concern over it in the greater community.  Cedi doesn’t drink and we don’t see any evidence of any of his workers falling ill to this problem.  We return to the Starr and have some discussion of the day before retiring for the night.