Funeral
*Fair warning: as I write this, I am absolutely wasted, so please pardon any misspellings. I'll do my best*
Saturday, August 19
Much to our dissapointment, Ryan's Pub did not have Guinness on tap. So it was 17,000 cedis -- less than 2 dollars -- per Guinness. Still not too bad. It's a great little pub, filled with ex-pats. It almost felt like home.
Waking up was not as easy as I thought it would be. I got up during the later end of the morning, just in time to attend a funeral in West Legon. Duncan, Kathy, Liz and I wandered over around noon to hear some absolutely mesmorizing drumming. It wasn't like any other drumming we had heard thusfar. This was definitely unique to funerals.
A funeral in Ghana is not like a funeral in the states. It's more of a celebration of life, filled with singing and dancing. There were easily a couple hundred people packed into a tiny little area. Duncan got in on some of the music, playing some sort of rattle in perfect rhythm.
The coffin came out about an hour after we got there. People danced around the coffin to the beat of the drums. The coffin was then hoisted three times, so everybody could see it, and then it was carried away. We stuck around until the coffin, which was covered in a beautiful green kente cloth, was carried to the cemetery, about 3 kilometers away.
We followed the procession to watch the coffin be put into the ground. The emotion here was definitely more somber. Many people were shedding tears. It was the complete opposite feeling of the ceremony. I almost felt guilty taking pictures, but we had permission to do so.
As soon as the burying was done, we went over to our friend Harrison's "spot" -- a bar. For the better part of the afternoon, we drank apoteshie -- Ghanaian moonshine -- and danced to some rockin' hiplife music. A lovely girl named Maybell danced with me for some time, scatterred me with kisses, and then in a rather fresh move, handed me her phone number. I won't be calling her any time soon. In all, the afternoon cost us a grand total of 4 dollars per person
By 5 o'clock, the four of us were well trashed. All of us are looking forward to dining at Rich Love and getting some chicken from Yaw. I don't think I'll be going out tonight. Going to take some time to recover.
I'm going to do my best to get some more pictures up tomorrow afternoon. It takes so long, but I definitely want all of you to see what I see.
LDG
Saturday, August 19
Much to our dissapointment, Ryan's Pub did not have Guinness on tap. So it was 17,000 cedis -- less than 2 dollars -- per Guinness. Still not too bad. It's a great little pub, filled with ex-pats. It almost felt like home.
Waking up was not as easy as I thought it would be. I got up during the later end of the morning, just in time to attend a funeral in West Legon. Duncan, Kathy, Liz and I wandered over around noon to hear some absolutely mesmorizing drumming. It wasn't like any other drumming we had heard thusfar. This was definitely unique to funerals.
A funeral in Ghana is not like a funeral in the states. It's more of a celebration of life, filled with singing and dancing. There were easily a couple hundred people packed into a tiny little area. Duncan got in on some of the music, playing some sort of rattle in perfect rhythm.
The coffin came out about an hour after we got there. People danced around the coffin to the beat of the drums. The coffin was then hoisted three times, so everybody could see it, and then it was carried away. We stuck around until the coffin, which was covered in a beautiful green kente cloth, was carried to the cemetery, about 3 kilometers away.
We followed the procession to watch the coffin be put into the ground. The emotion here was definitely more somber. Many people were shedding tears. It was the complete opposite feeling of the ceremony. I almost felt guilty taking pictures, but we had permission to do so.
As soon as the burying was done, we went over to our friend Harrison's "spot" -- a bar. For the better part of the afternoon, we drank apoteshie -- Ghanaian moonshine -- and danced to some rockin' hiplife music. A lovely girl named Maybell danced with me for some time, scatterred me with kisses, and then in a rather fresh move, handed me her phone number. I won't be calling her any time soon. In all, the afternoon cost us a grand total of 4 dollars per person
By 5 o'clock, the four of us were well trashed. All of us are looking forward to dining at Rich Love and getting some chicken from Yaw. I don't think I'll be going out tonight. Going to take some time to recover.
I'm going to do my best to get some more pictures up tomorrow afternoon. It takes so long, but I definitely want all of you to see what I see.
LDG
posted by Lee Gerston at 11:09 AM
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