Anomabu
Today we met Dom in Ayikoayiko and followed him to church. A member of his church had seen us on the street the other day and invited all of us to attend their Sunday services.
I have never really spent much time in churches, so it’s hard for me to say how this service (which was Baptist) differed from that you might find in the US. Other than the fact that half of it was in Fanti, obviously. Everyone was incredibly welcoming and happy for us to be there and I felt as included as reasonably possible considering my lack of background with religion.
The services ran somewhere a little over three hours, and the singing, especially the girls’ choir, was beautiful. On our way to meet Dom for church we actually passed another church that was mid-song and I realized the “French sounding wailing” we wake up to most days is probably actually this church. I have no idea what was being sung, but I really liked it. They are very animated here when it comes to their praise and there is a lot of singing, guitar, drums, brass, all mixed together.
Collection takes place mid-service and everyone who is going to tithe marches around the church in a giant conga-line to deposit their tithing in a bucket in the center. This was maybe the most notable difference from how things are done in the states.
The pastor talked a lot about being spiritually rich, despite being financially poor, and this is something I can see completely eye-to-eye on (although frankly both are important for health — without food, shelter, and social/spiritual fulfillment people will not thrive).
After church Miranda and I were famished and headed out to grab some lunch. Dom went to charge his phone and we agreed to convene later to head to Anomabu (a beach Dom wanted to take us to). We eventually met back up at Ayikoayiko, walked down the hill to Tantri, and caught a drop-in taxi to Anomabu. The first time I’d ridden in a vehicle in several days.
Halfway there we hit a police checkpoint. These are always in the same place, and they are generally staffed by one or two guys in blue-camo BDUs with AK-47s. Previously they have just waved us through and I’ve been told they are essentially looking for large stolen goods and that sort of thing. Anyway, today they asked for our driver’s papers and he handed them his papers with a Cedi inside. The officer walked around the back of the vehicle and returned the papers, unopened, minus the Cedi. Through Dom we attempted to ask the driver what the repercussion of not bribing them would be, since he wasn’t doing anything illegal (that I saw), and he basically said they would hassle him for a long time and make his life hell, so it is easier to bribe them. $1CEDI is about 1/3 of what the average Ghanaian makes in a day, though, so although it may not seem like much, that is a lot of money, especially if you think about how many vehicles these cops are stopping (they had a trotro in front of us stopped when we pulled up).
A friend of mine had told me about the bribery he’d encountered last year in Ghana at police checkpoints, but I had thought perhaps that was an aberration. Ghana is high enough on the development ladder, and devoid enough of corruption (I’d thought) that I’d expected not to encounter this. So that was a bit of a let down.
Anomabu was quite pretty, and we managed to even get Dom on a slackline for a short while. Miranda and Dom played Frisbee, and in general we all enjoyed ourselves.
Also, after church as we were walking to the road some kids asked me “How are you?” — Kids seem to like to practice their English (which often amounts to only “How are you?”) with us. I replied, asking him the same question in Twi, and I could almost see his mind explode, haha. I did this a few other times today and I feel as if my Twi phrases are becoming intelligible.
When we walk places (which is nearly all the time) we often encounter groups of kids who will shout “obruni, obruni!” at us. Except in the way that little kids cannot enunciate well, if they are under 3 or 4 years old it often is more like “bruni, bruni” or “boony, boony!” Miranda said she likes to pretend they are calling her “Bunny,” heh.
Assuming we are not in a very touristy area we will usually say hi or wave back to them, and it is very rewarding to see their faces light up. In general, kids are easy to delight, but it’s nice to have these sort of interactions, and to maybe feel like in a way we are slightly broadening some kids’ worldviews when we are able to wave and maybe exchange a couple of words in Twi.
We took a trotro back from Anomabu and parted with Dom at his stop. He has some other acquaintances in from California tonight, so perhaps we will get to meet them tomorrow. Also, speaking of private-sector transport, just so this post won’t be devoid of photos (everything I shot today was on film), here’s an image from Accra — this might look to you like the shoulder, but to our taxi driver it looked like a whole other lane that no one had been smart enough to merge into … before him, that is.
