So This is the New Year...

Thursday, September 21 –The Adventure

At 10 AM Ghanaian Time, I was greeted by Penina, Elissa, Sheanna and Shelby. This was just part of the group that would be heading out to Sefwi Wiawso for Rosh Hashanah; we would be meeting others in the town.

We promptly grabbed a tro-tro from Legon to Circle, and then from Circle to Kumasi. In an almost appropriate twist, we had a preacher on our tro-tro for the first hour. I slept through most of it, thankfully. Our tro-tro was packed, and the rows of seats were very close together. After the first couple of hours I decided to stand for the rest of the trip. We arrived in Kumasi in five hours, the fastest trip I’ve had going either way. We asked around for a tro-tro to Sefwi Wiawso. Finally, someone says to come on his tro-tro. We climb in, and after some time, we reach the end of the route – in Safo, not Sefwi. Oy. Because we are taking up seats going the other way, we must pay the tro-tro fare again. The driver says that he will drop us in Sipi. Okay. Sipi is just a Danish construction site. Apparently because we were white, and in the area, we were Danish. We would have been left high and dry if it weren’t for Collins. Collins got off the tro-tro with us, and found us a hotel. While he was gone, we spoke with some very nice security guards, one of whom played soccer all over West Africa in his day.

After 45 minutes or so, Collins returned with a taxi. He joined us for a ride to a “hotel.” The manager, or whoever was working, told us it would be 20,000 for a room for a few hours, or 50,000 for the night. The five of us concluded that it must be a brothel. We got 3 rooms, costing each of us 30,000 for the night. Not too bad. Collins told us to be awake at 5AM, and he would take us to Kumasi.

Friday, September 22 – The Arrival

5 AM, and no Collins in site. By 6AM, we decide to leave. A very nice man named Wilson picked us up and took us into a local town, where, by some twist of fate, we were met by Collins. Collins took us down to Racecourse tro-tro station in Kumasi and helped us find a tro-tro to Sefwi (not Safo). We gave a bit of money to Collins for all of his kindness and his help.

Walking down to Racecourse, a random man getting a haircut started speaking in Hebrew. This confused and surprised us, for sure. Penina spoke with him for a moment, and then we dashed off to the tro-tro

So we’re on our way. Again. The ride to Sefwi is smooth and beautiful, going through the lush, green Western Region. The ride lasts about 2 hours. As we pulled up into the tro-tro station, we are greeted by Alex Armah, the leader of the Jewish community in Sefwi. He flashes a big smile and shakes all of our hands. We load into a taxi, which has already been paid for, for a quick 15 minute ride to his house.

The house is incredible. There would be nine of us staying there tonight, plus his family. The Armah’s fed us immediately – typically Ghanaian rice and beans. After dining, we were taken on a quick tour of Sefwi with a teenage kid named Joseph. On the way, we sang some songs in Hebrew, which made all of us left. Upon returning, with a few hours to spare, we broke out some cards, and played some Hearts and Spar.

Then the rains came. Hard. Hard enough that we were able to take showers in the rain. It was all rather funny.

6 PM rolls around, and its time for dinner. More good food: yams with sauce this time. Then Shabbat. Shabbat was beautiful. There is someone in Sefwi who makes challah covers (which you can see in the pictures). Alex led a short service. Candles, blessing over “wine” – we used Fanta and Coke – and challah –just a standard loaf of bread. To cap it all off, we sang Eliahu Hanavi, Hineai Matov and Oseh Shalom.

After,Joseph, Alex’s father told us that there would be a midnight service in the Synagogue to kick of Rosh Hashanah.

Saturday, September 23 – Rosh Hashanah

So we missed the midnight service. We were told later that Joseph or Alex tried to wake us, but we were all out cold. We were all somewhat disappointed to miss the service.

Morning service was at 8. The service was beautiful. The Jewish community is about 80 people. About 35 showed up. The community is very young; most of the people in the synagogue were small children, who were absolutely adorable.

The service begins with a couple of Ghanaian songs in Sefwi, the local language which is very close to Twi. All of this service was done in Sefwi. The bulk of the service was the reading from the Bible. Alfred, a young man, translated his English Pentateuch into Sefwi, and then Alex expanded on Alfred’s reading after every verse. The service concluded with prayers for the nation, for Israel, and for peace, along with some more songs in Sefwi.

After a quick lunch, we returned to synagogue around 2. The afternoon service started around 3. With the exception of the three opening songs in Sefwi, the whole service was done in English. They did many of the main prayers: Amidah, Kadish, Aleinu and Mourners Kadish. This service closed with Psalm 27.

We returned to the Armah residence to have a sit-down with Alex. We did a rapid-fire of questions and answers, which I know for me would have been very intimidating. He answered questions until we were out of them.

Around 6, we dined again. All typically Ghanaian food again. Nothing new. Then we had a brief Havdalah service. Alex asked me to lead the service. Uhhhh, okay. We lit candles (not a Havdalah candle), did the blessing for wine over a glass of Coke, and blessed the spices, which was a flower ironically called “Christmas Tree Flower.”

For the remainder of the night, we were joined by the children and Joseph to play lots of Spar.

I know I didn’t adequately describe the experience. There really is no way to. Hopefully the pictures below will help.

To sum up in one word: amazing.

Shana Tova.

LDG

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The one mezuzah on the Armah house
Close up of mezuzah
Challah cover made in Sefwi
Synagogue 1
Synagogue 2
Synagogue 3
Alex on the "bimah"
Alex on the "bimah" 2
More Alex
Alfred reading from Genesis
Shelby and a couple of the girls in the synagogue
The Armah Residence
Precious and David
Apples and Honey -- Yum
Precious and David as frogs
Rachel -- I want to take her home with me