A weekend trip to Kumasi

Wow, I am awful at updating this …

We just arrived back from a five and half hour drive back from the weekend spent in Kumasi, a town outside of the capitol Accra. This was the last paid trip that our program will take us on. The trip consisted of a visit to a museum of a palace, touring a kente cloth making village, a symbol fabric stamping village (on the kente cloth), and my favorite a wood-carving village.

The process of making kente cloth was really amazing work and very labor intensive. I am going to attempt to explain the process but it is very difficult to do so… So here goes my attempt:

A guy sits in this very small wooden bench with a bar that fits right on top of his legs that is connected to a huge loom. I had the opportunity to sit on this large loom. Once seated you have to take off your scandals and place between your big toes a metal disk connected to a string. Then, in your hand you hold a spool of thread. Next, you pull down on one of the metal disk with your foot which allows the loom to open at a certain angle for you to thread the string though. Once the string is threaded, you pull down a comb pushing all the thread closer and tighter together. Then you proceed to do the same process, this time pushing down the metal disk in your other foot that opens a different side of the loom. This system is repeated over and over again each time alternating the pulling of the string with opposite feet.

The end product is a long skinny strip of cloth that can either have a single, double or triple pattern. Also, depending on the pattern and colors each cloth has its own meaning. I bought a yellow, black and orange cloth that means peace & unity, and never-give up.

Then we went on to a print making village. This is where you took the kente cloth and were able to stamp symbols on them. There were over 50 different African symbols each with their own different meaning. I had one guy named Daniel that instantly became my “friend” and helped me design all my fabrics. At the end after I paid him he stood outside our tour bus motioning for me to come outside. It is common here to have the men be quiet pestering and I figured he just wanted me to come out so I could give him my number or so he could con me into giving him more money. Surprisingly, out of my disbelief he actually came onto the bus and gave me a strip of kente cloth and said “for free” and he turned and walked off the bus. It is just amazing how genuine the people here are.

Lastly, we went to a wood-carving village. It was here that men spent all day carving anything u can name. They had beautiful sculptures of African woman, kings and queens, masks, animals, plaques, drums even huge tables and chairs. There were sooo many things that I would’ve loved to buy but would have no idea how to bring them home. We were very rushed with time here so most of our group felt as though we didn’t get adequate time. However, there is a wood-making village in the outskirts of Accra near the Aburi Gardens that can be easily traveled to as a one day trip. I am hoping to go there soon.

We stayed two nights in a very nice hotel called Treasure land hotel. The best parts of the hotel were the amazing room air-conditioning, hot water for showers, and pool. The un-lucky part was that every night they played music by the pool and our room was located right above the sound system. One night we could actually feel our beds vibrating to the music. I guess that was sort of relaxing.

The last day before the return home we went and visited the Kumasi market. This is the largest market in all of West Africa. I had no idea how large it was until we were actually in the market. There were people everywhere and it was one stall after another. The market itself was not any different than any other market I have went to. There were fish accompanied with the lovely smell throughout the entire market, pig’s feet, men chopping raw meat on whatever surface they can find, live crabs and slugs, beautiful fabrics and any other home essential you could possibly need.

Overall it was an incredibly packed weekend and I am very rest-less due to the fact that we just got back from sitting all day on an almost 6 hour bus ride. I think I am off to go get some food in the night market and go for a walk.
Until the next time!

~Stacie~