The undisputed highlight of the year was our trip to Ghana in the
summer for my grandmother’s 92nd birthday celebration and a family
reunion. Grandmother has 11 children, 42 grandchildren and about 100 great
grandchildren on 3 continents, and so as you can imagine, it was a moving and
momentous event. Everyone who was
physically able attended the 4-day long celebration, which involved copious amounts of food and
festivities, music and merriment and, in the final analysis, virtually the
whole township of Abetifi, where
she lives. Abetifi, the “highest
habitable point” in Ghana, as the
sign reads (perhaps highest inhabited point would be more appropriate),
is a quiet, lush green municipality which rests atop the Kwahu mountain-range
in central southern Ghana. Swiss
missionaries settled there over 125 years ago, and the Presbyterian Church,
built of stone hewn from local manganese-rich quarries and standing symbolically
at the highest point in town, bears witness to that bygone era.
Of course, the celebrations also entailed an enormous
amount of organisational talent. The whole clan was garbed in the same festive white
fabric with a black geometric pattern – it was left to each individual’s
fantasy to determine which style to wear. Cousins, aunts and uncles last seen
anywhere from 2 to over 25 years ago were warmly embraced and a lot of catching
up was done. My parents housed an additional 16 people (only their
children, grandchildren, in-laws and hangers-on) for over 2 weeks, but with a
military-style mealtime regime and a motley mixture of English, French and
German, we all got along fantastically.
We spent the time before and after the celebration
traveling the coastal areas, visiting
several ancient fortresses, built centuries ago by European (Portuguese (anno
1492), Danish, Dutch, German and British) colonists, colourful markets and art
and craft galleries and evaluating various beach resorts. We visited a maternal
aunt, who having taken a sabbatical year from her teaching job in Minnesota to
complete her Ph.D., was fulfilling her traditional duty as queen-mother of
Swedru quite regally. We also visited a village on stilts, aptly named Nzulezu
(on the water). Nestled in 3 metres of cola-brown water (due to volcanic
mineral salts) the village of 500 souls is accessible only by a 30 to 60
minute-long canoe ride (depending on the season (dry or rainy) and the depth of
the lagoon) through protected mangrove and crocodile inhabited wetlands.
Everything there is done on the water, whether it be daily ablutions or
laundry, and it was fascinating to see children, as young as 5 or 6, setting
out serenely and confidently for untold adventures in hand-crafted dug-outs.
The spartan but spotless 2-room guest house boasted overnight stays by visitors
from as far afield as Australia and South
Africa.
One episode, among many, stands out from our 4 week
sojourn. It was the arrival on my parents’ doorstep of our former gardener, who claimed he was
alerted to our presence in Ghana by a
friend, who had perchance espied Cord. Nothing so special
about that? And where and when did this chum catch a glimpse of Cord?
Through the windows of the vehicle in which we (10 or 12 of us) were
travelling, as it made its way through Nsawam, a large transit town about 45
minutes north of Accra. Still not impressed? How about this: the last time this
fellow laid eyes on Cord was about 13 years ago, and anyone who knows Cord also
knows that he has changed a lot in those 13 years. At the time Cord was spotted
as we drove through Nsawam, we were listening to a hilarious radio program –
the moderator reeled off various aphorisms and adages to accompany his
pronouncements, among which was “the probability of your being watched is
directly proportional to the stupidity of your actions” - just another reminder
of how circumspect one must be with one’s actions in Ghana……