In which I grapple with culture and tradition...

The world of Ghanaian culture and tradition is basically unfathomable.  Nobody gives you the same story.  Everybody has a story (many) to tell.  Usually they don’t make any sense to the uninitiated white man.  Here are just a few of the “facts” I can piece together…

Witchcraft

The word witch is synonymous with demon or evil spirit and in a 1999 survey 92% of the population believed in witchcraft.

Witches are in fact fallen angels; the angel spirits took possession of rivers, trees, animals, humans etc and became the gods of Africa.  So, in essence, all Africans live under the curse of these fallen angels and all evil acts originate from the demons.  Any disasters in your life; disease, accident, miscarriage, murder etc are linked to these fallen angels/witches.  You can inherit ancestral curses.

Demons can enter humans through being a witness to a trauma; even watching a disaster movie on TV can leave you vulnerable.

So, I guess it’s important to stay on the right side of the demons by following traditional rules.

Funerals

A safe, smooth passage from this world to the spirit world is vital. This is yet another major part of Ghanaian life and culture which is very complicated and confusing.  There are as many different rituals and traditions as you and I have had hot dinners.  As the ancient traditions mingle with Christianity and Islam; as the tribal traditions become muddied by intermarriage; as the younger generation gains education, new rituals are born.  I find the process quite disturbing, haunting and unfathomable.  Here are some random impressions…

Christians will have a coffin if it can be afforded.  The more money you have, the more ornate the coffin; in Accra you can get aeroplane, train…anything goes…style coffins.  Otherwise it’s a white shroud.

                                         Anything goes coffins!

Whilst Christian and Islam burials all have a traditional element to them, there is also a strictly traditional style funeral.

In general, burials take place within hours of the death.  Funerals can happen up to a year or so later – when the family has enough money to host a big, sometimes week long, party.  However, I’ve just returned from Kumasi where I’ve learnt that the Asante tribes can leave bodies in the mortuary for up to two years so that burial and funeral can take place together (except if you are Muslim when the maximum time that can elapse between death and burial is 40 days).

 

I'm told that in some areas there is a strict dress code for every day of the funeral if you are close family...or even nearly close!

 

Family and friends help to dig the grave.  Most of these are within the family compound or land (some are very inconveniently placed in the middle of the fields that farmers need to plough!).  Traditional graves  are upright and located by an upturned half-pot. 

 

 

Christian graves are large but look like those in a UK churchyard. 

 

I’m not sure about the Muslim equivalent.

A soothsayer stands in the grave to receive the body.  Sometimes he gets buried with the body but appears miraculously elsewhere!  It’s a very important and coveted job (for some reason).  He wards off evil spirits. The belief is that after death a person goes to the land of the dead; in effect another plane or dimension, not the equivalent to heaven or other group definitions.  I think the soothsayer is supposed to facilitate this transition.

In the Upper West Region (we are Upper East) there is at least one tribe which “stages” the body.  The body is placed on a chair, on a raised platform.  The mourners conduct a wake around the body, dancing and ululating.  Close family will remain with the body throughout the night, before burial.

Here in the Upper East, gunpowder is used by traditionalists to explode across the land (sometimes causing death in itself because they use very makeshift equipment).  The wealthier the family, the more explosive the burial. 

After the burial the wife/widow is supposed to stay at home for 40 days (numbers vary).  She is visited by the whole community and any other hangers on (like us).  She has to sit in her room, on her mat, looking suitably forlorn, doing nothing, for 40 days!  Tradition has it that this is to make sure that if she happens to be pregnant it must be from her husband since she hasn’t been allowed anywhere else…no point in the family looking after a baby someone else has fathered!  I’ve just read a story whereby 3 old ladies were rescued from being shut in a room for 9 years after the death of their husband, the king.  This has nothing to do with pregnancy and a lot to do with Human Rights!  For the rest of the family, when you visit, the men seem to gather in a big circle outside the compound whilst the women congregate inside.  There is a great deal of ritual handshaking, beginning with the men.

Widows also have to undergo some sort of purification/cleansing ritual to get rid of the evil spirit of their late husbands.  Customs are many and varied but examples might be, drinking the water that the late husband’s body is washed in or having your head shaved!

Family, friends and colleagues are expected to visit the family to sympathise and offer support (monetary).  After a suitable period a member of the family then visits all the sympathisers to say thank-you.  The process is a community affair. 

Office staff arriving to sympathise with the family of a work colleague.

The funeral is a big party where animals are butchered and roasted, drumming, singing and dancing happen, family and friends gather from far and wide (at your expense if possible).  It can last a week or more.  Again, the more wealth you have, the bigger the party.

At the funeral the soothsayer may accuse one of the attendees of killing the deceased eg by a curse or evil thoughts (very embarrassing!).  The soothsayer is in communication with the “dwarf” world – spiritual beings which float around and whisper to them.

 

Courtship

A traditional courtship has many aspects.  Once the relationship is established, when the male visits the female’s house he is expected to take gifts for each member of the family.  This happens for about three visits before he can state his intentions!  If the family is not impressed with your gifts then you’re in trouble!  Both families conduct thorough investigations into the “stock” of the betrothed before approval is given.  There is also the question of how many cows your future wife is worth.  The female has to spend several weeks with her future mother- in- law to learn about the family/tribal traditions and to keep house appropriately.  I’m not quite sure what her dowry is.

I’m told that modern couples get round these traditions by getting pregnant.  Then nobody cares and I’m not quite sure what happens.

A final gem (Thank-you Adam)

There are only a small number of cats in the area.  When I commented on this I was told that cats are killed and eaten before they reach 5 years old.  At that age the cat becomes too “human”, they understand what is being said and become a bit of a threat to the family.  My question is, since families don’t know the ages of their children, how do they remember the age of the cat?!

 

In which I become a Ghanaian gourmet...

With thanks to Judith for helping me get the illustrations sorted. :)

Were I to ask you about your last evening meal I’m pretty sure you would begin by naming the meat/fish/protein content.  In Ghana the list would begin with the carbohydrate: rice balls, TZ, banku, fufu and so on.  The reasons for this I hope will unfold…

In the main, a Ghanaian evening meal consists of a stew or thick soup served with “stodge” – a large portion of starchy carbohydrate - which is much cheaper and more filling than the meaty protein content.  Here in the north, the favourites of these staple carbs are the locally grown millet, maize, rice, closely followed by beans (black-eye and barambarra) and yam.  The stew/soup could be made with groundnuts (peanuts), chicken, goat, guinea fowl, dried fish or, more occasionally, dog or donkey.  You must be able to get pig as well, given the number of them that roam the land, but it's not mentioned much; perhaps because many of the locals can't eat it for religious reasons.  Okra is also a favourite; it cooks into a very slimy, green stew.  The stews are heavily spiced and, since ALL the meat is used one way or another, you are never quite sure what you might be eating. 

 A large portion of "stodge"

Instead of cutlery the stew is eaten with a carbohydrate spoon.  You tear off a piece of your rice ball, banku, fufu etc and use it to scoop up the stew.  However, in order to change your rice into a stodgy spoon-ball or your yam into a thick ball of fufu there is a huge amount of preparation:

 Banku with Okra soup.  You eat the soup by tearing off pieces of banku to use as a spoon.

      To make Fufu:

·        Peel and boil the yam

·        Mash

·        Pound and stir, pound and stir, pound and stir, for many hours (!) until you have a starchy, congealed mass.

·        Form into large balls

Pounding fufu - watch your fingers!

 

Similar processes are involved in forming rice balls and TZ.  A further process is required for banku in that you must allow the maize to ferment first.  I’m told that a previous volunteer got drunk through eating too much banku.  I don’t think we will fall into that trap!

 Cooking can be a labour intensive, communal affair.

 

Ghanaian food preparation is therefore extremely labour intensive!  Women work together on the streets, pounding enormous pots of fufu etc.  There is a system: three or four hands stir while one pounds…lose the rhythm and you could end up with some very sore fingers! My personal thoughts are: one-the introduction of a spoon might revolutionise this style of cooking and, two-what a huge amount of effort for a very bland, tasteless ball of stodge.

Tuo Zaafi (TZ) is a favourite accompaniment to stews here in Zebilla, made with the local maize flour and jute (?) leaves.  Millet porridges are also popular.  These are the sorts of porridges that are eaten throughout the day and can be purchased and sucked out of a plastic bag.  In fact, all meals are interchangeable.  Rice balls for breakfast is very common although this might be taken in the office at 9 or 10 o’clock (or at play time in school (for both teachers and pupils)).

In our office there is a surfeit of overweight men.  I think that their fathers were farmers who worked hard on the land and needed lots of carbohydrate to sustain them.  Their diet reflects this.  However, when you are sitting around in the office you are not burning off all those carbs.  Possibly a re-think of dietary requirements is in order here!

Street food, Ghanaian style, is readily available if you shop at the right times.  Market days happens every third day and many women will be up at three in the morning to prepare foods for sale.  As well as the labour intensive dishes there are stalls selling fried yam (big chips), plantain, roasted guinea fowl, barbecued maize and meats.  Paul’s favourite street food is the donut which comes in huge varieties both savoury and sweet!  You can watch the ladies frying up the donuts in enormous aluminium bowls on the streets (very safe!).  Oils are readily available in the forms of groundnut oil and palm oil, both locally produced.

 Cooking and selling donuts.                         

 

                                                                              

On the whole, we have managed a healthy diet though we have had to be creative!  Catching your meat before you buy hasn’t really been an option (!) and although there are a few butchers, the flies surrounding the stalls are not encouraging.  So, our protein comes out of a tin: corned beef, tuna, mackerel, along with eggs and beans.  Basic fruit and vegetables are seasonably available but there isn’t huge variety.  Right now I am pining for a nice cauliflower!  We don’t have to agonise about the choice of apple we fancy this week; it’s the boring green one or nothing…and only if you get to the market before they’ve all been sold!  At the moment it is difficult to find oranges and bananas so we are limited to mangoes and apples although avocados seem to be in season as a kind of substitute.

 

 

 Palm nut soup with fufu.

 

You buy your veg etc by the bowlful – no need for scales!  And how much a bowlful costs depends on the seasonal glut and/or whether the delivery lorry has passed through town.  Goods don’t come from very far afield; none of your fancy southern goods here (pineapples, papaya, green beans…), possibly because of preservation problems but, more likely, because of their expense.

 Buying tomatoes by the bowlful.

We cook on an oversized camping gas stove.  There is a kind of oven but we have never used it because we were told that the gas leaks and it is extremely old and dirty! Within their compounds, women seem to use a little aluminium stand filled with charcoal but on the streets they use logs; a neat system of large logs fed under the pot as they burn through…saves an awful lot of chopping (oh and Ghanaians use the word chop as meaning “eat”).

 A typical charcoal burner

 

 

 or using logs.

 

Enjoying a restaurant meal in Zebilla is quite difficult to imagine.  We have eaten out; there is a “chop bar” near the office, a place romantically called “The Container” (because that’s what it is), “Friend’s Gardens” (which may/may not have food…they sometimes don’t even have drinks!) and a nameless one further afield.  Two of these four serve your food in a polystyrene container: a huge dollop of luke warm rice with a spiced up fish or meatless leg of guinea fowl plonked on top.  Fruit juice comes in the form of the large cartons you buy in the supermarket and a glass if you insist.  In the other two the experience is slightly better in that you have a real plate. 

 Banku with tilapia fish...on a real plate!

Eating out is a better experience in Bolgatanga and improves considerably as you travel further south.  Of course, we don’t do this very often...remember the tro-tro journey?!