"I'm Trapped Inside a National Geographic Documentary"

September 24
Ghana Day 3

First off, this post is shorter so its a good one to read (I know all of my previous posts are insanely long so here's a break). Tomorrow's post should be short too. I'm writing this post 2 days after it happened.
I think I might be under the influence of some anti-diarrhea pills (I took some just in case after eating the local food at Fred’s) while I write so if there are some discrepancies, don’t blame me. Today, I’m signed up to for what is called the Torgorme Village experience. I got on the bus and met one of my friends on the bus who was also on the trip. The bus headed north-east, passing through really pretty countryside. There were large rock hills with trees covering them. Our first stop that we came to after about an hour and half of traveling (we went away from traffic so it wasn’t too bad) was the Torgorme village. The village was located in a forested area. Upon entering the village itself, we were greeted by hundreds of kids who ran up to the bus waving to us. They were all genuinely excited to see us. We walked under the canopy of some trees which were in front of their village center where the villagers were waiting to greet us. I remember there were a man and a woman on the microphone: the man was saying ‘Akwaaba’ (welcome) and other things in their language while the woman constantly shouted “You are welcome” (constantly).
As we walked to take our seats, we walked around the edge of the circle where the elders and chief shook our hands. While we were entering, some local children were playing the drums. Most children were wearing their school uniforms but others had colorful dresses and sashes. After sitting down they welcomed us with a dance by some of the local children who were accompanied by drums. It was about this time that I realized I felt like I was in a National Geographic program. The chief could not speak directly to us for some reason and therefore had someone else read his welcome to us. There were more welcome statements and then a dance in which we all joined in, dancing around in a circle. Then there was a ceremony in which we were given tribal names and a pot with our names on it and a bracelet. My name was Yao (based on the day of the week I was born) Mawutor- Mawutor meaning “God’s Own” which was kind of a letdown because I wanted something like “Brave one” or “strong”. Anyway, we sat and enjoyed the children dancing for us. While sitting, there was a fight that broke out between two of the tribe kids (about 8 years old). Surprisingly the elders didn’t seem to notice or if they did they didn’t care (eventually a girl stopped it). Also, some kids were messing around with an elderly woman who had danced earlier. One thumped her on the back of the head and she turned around and started whipping them with her stick while the kids ran away laughing. After the ceremony we played around with the kids for a couple minutes and left with kids chasing us. I only got to see a limited view of the village itself but it looked like it had decent housing (everything I describe about other countries is relatively speaking).
After this we drove to lunch which was at what I think was a military school or something (it had a mess hall however the premises were completely empty). We had a rice ball and a peanut soup with chicken in it (it looked like what we had at Fred’s the night before) and jollof rice. After this we drove to what is called Shai Hills reserve which is a vast region with the large rock outcroppings covered in trees. The surrounding are of these hills are mainly tall grasslands with trees scattered around (it looked like the Africa you see in movies). We drove around for a few minutes and went to one of the hills. We hiked up it and went into a cave that was once used by a tribe (they were driven out by the British) and was now occupied by bats. There were a lot of flies (everyone freaked out because we thought they were mosquitoes) and parts of the cave were covered in guano (bat crap). We left the cave and headed back to the bus. While leaving the park we spotted some antelope way off in the distance. We left the park and went to a different section to see if we could see some baboons. We walked through a small (empty) community where some baboons apparently frequented, but did not see any. We eventually did see some on a side road but only a short glimpse. We got back on the bus and drove back to Tema.
Fred told us the day before that we could return to his house if we wanted to and to bring a few others. We got back to the boat and I asked my roommate if he wanted to come and he agreed. Also, my friend Pat came along to (he had dinner with friend the night before I did). Our bus shuttle ran an hour late, but we eventually met him at the gas station and he took us the five minutes to his house. His oldest sister Olivia made the same dish I had the previous day for the people who weren’t there the day before. I got yams and beef which tasted way better than the other dish which wasn’t that bad but really strong. His mom was awake to talk to us and she told us that she was a seamstress. One of the girls in our group bought some bracelets and the mom restrung them for her. We all talked for a while longer and then eventually said our goodbye’s to the gracious family and left to head back to the shuttle. Originally, my roommate, Pat, and I were going to find an internet cafe so I could finally upload my pictures. However since there was only one more shuttle and we didn’t want to have to grab a cab, we decided to take the shuttle. We said our goodbyes to Fred by shaking hands. One thing I forgot to mention was after you shake hands with people, you snap your fingers with theirs. We all got on the shuttle and went back to the boat. Its amazing the different kinds of people you meet. I met Fred through word of mouth and everyone sort of passed him around and he didn’t seem to mind one bit. There are very few people in the United States who would invite random tourists (especially one’s as loud and obnoxious as we were) into their homes. I know I’ll probably never see my friend Fred again but I have his Facebook and hopefully we’ll keep in touch. Tomorrow I have a field trip to Kakum National park and the Elmina slave castle (again).