one day

Day 107.

Aburi Botanical Gardens. An hour north of Accra in the hills just beyond the Accra Plains. From the entrance, you turn around to see a panoramic view of Ghana’s capital and its surroundings – from there everything looks small and clean. Directly in front of you are houses made out of cement bricks or scrap wood with tin roofs in need of repair, if there is a roof at all.

The Gardens are small and not so well organized but they are well maintained. The place was full of Ghanaians enjoying the fresh mountain air and cool weather – drumming, singing, dancing, running, laughing, and even some students copying down scientific names! Walking in the shade of unique trees covered in vines felt like a fairy tale, especially when we stumbled upon kids playing in The Strangler Ficus Tree, a Ficus Elasticoides that strangled an Afzelia Africana killing its host and creating a hollow interior…perfect for climbing.

Thunder. Suddenly, it started to rain and people from all directions went running for cover. Kids laughing, tripping, yelling, parents right along side them. When it let up, we left the Gardens and walked towards the station. Carmen bought a coconut on the side of the road and just after the man hacked it open with a machete, it started to pour. Quickly, we hid under a truck until the coconut man showed us to an overhang where we stood crowded with about twenty-five Ghanaians also waiting for the rain to stop. It was pouring harder than I’ve ever seen it pour. Then it stopped.

Exhausted, we returned to campus, ate banku at night market, and came back to our room. A dance and drumming group from the Volta Region was performing at the drama studio on campus this weekend and in return for them performing for us, we were supposed to perform for them. Carmen and my dance classes were asked to participate – people from her class performing Gown, people from mine performing Kpatsa. I couldn’t do it on Friday night but signed up for Saturday. Expecting there to be four other Obrunis and ten Ghanaians as there had been the night before, I arrived to find nobody from my class. Ten minutes before we were supposed to go on, seven Kpatsa dancers showed up, all Ghanaians. Ten minutes later, I was the only Obruni on stage in front of one hundred plus people performing a Ghanaian traditional dance. Despite my worrying that it was going to be terrible, I had so much fun.