Sunday

I was woken up this morning right as the sun was rolling around the horizon at five in the morning by the choir of chickens outside.

Church and world cup, you couldn't ask for a better day of rest. Mass was at the Ridge International Church in Accra, where Sunday best translated to some pretty cool fabrics all over the place (including the couple seated in front of us in matching Ghanaian flag outfits). We of course prayed for the national team for their upcoming match (it must have worked, final score 1-0, Ghana).Other than that, it's been a day of reading, some hand-sewing, and world cup games. Real work begins tomorrow. I stood out on the upstairs patio and took some pictures between rain showers.

Day 1

I touched down in Accra around 7am local time, something around 3am back home. Once we broke through the clouds, boom, there was Accra. I'd watched the plane icon on the little monitor on the seat in front of me sail over Ivory Coast, but with all of the clouds (it's the rainy season, after all) it didn't look like anything special. Everything is so green, and the dirt is so strikingly red, it's pretty cool to see. It's not hotter than back home here, but it's almost full humidity, and so when there isn't a breeze, it's a bit difficult to sit around in the heat.

We were led off the airplane onto the tarmac to meet a bus to take us back to the terminal. The bus was covered in "New York" signs and drove us all of 100 yards, so when we got off and turned around, there was the plane. I ended up chatting with some soccer fans in line for customs, they were on their way to South Africa to see three or four matches. (Hello, if you're reading!)

Fran was waiting for me at the entrance to the terminal, no problems there. We took a cab back to the house in Tema, first taking the main paved road, then turning onto the dirt roads. In the rainy season, the roads are either pitted or covered in mud, so it's slow and zig-zagged going.

The house is still under construction here, but it's a pretty cool place. I'll be putting up some pictures of it tomorrow when it's light out again (sun sets around 6:30, so it's already dark outside).

Well, that's it for today. I ended up sleeping a whole lot during the day to catch up on jet-lag and general sleep deprivation. The US-England game is on. I can hear fans cheering from outside the window, it feels like I'm back in state college again during March Madness or the World Series.

One last thing before I sign off. With tea, we had these:



Sorry about the reverse image, it was taken with a webcam rather than a camera.

Eve of Departure

I can't say I've been this nervous in a long time. Nothing in particular is really bothering me, either, so it's not like it's something easy to fix. I just know that no matter how much I read, no matter how many pictures I see, how many times I unpack and rearrange my luggage, I won't be ready for what I'm about to face. I'm not unprepared and I'm not ignorant, I know that is at least partially true, but it's an entirely different world some 36 hours from now that I'll be entering, and nothing in all of my years of schooling really prepped me for this kind of an experience. I'm absolutely excited.

I've been perusing the internet looking at wax prints recently, and have found a few interesting bits. Firstly, and this Fran did tell me, the biggest designer name in African wax prints is actually a Dutch company, VLISCO. According to Wikipedia, they began printing wax textiles in the Philippines, but discovered that their batik techniques carried over well to African prints and so they began to sell in that continent as well. Their market in southeast Asia ended when the Philippino buyers decided that they wanted to buy things made in the country, and so VLISCO Veritable Wax Hollandaise became known as an African textile primarily.

This company, and African wax prints in general, are some of the coolest things I've seen. Let me show you.

This bold red print features electric rotating fans. I absolutely love it to pieces. The lines that imply movement just give the fabric a bit of a buzz, it's so cool!






This piece feels like a 1980s tribute, but the cut they've chosen really shows off the pattern.




African designers aren't the only ones employing these wax prints. Gucci and Balenciaga featured wax prints in their collections intended for summer vacations this year, but it seems like the world of high fashion might be catching on to the wild assortment of opportunities offered by this style of printing. The modern idolatry of mundane items lends itself to some wickedly cool and eye catching patterns that make you think just about anything could be converted to fashionable fabrics.


I found a knockoff of this design today while doing some fabric shopping for skirts at my favorite cheap local shop, Jomar. Just look at the original:





Shoes! My print is green instead of orange, but the shoes are still that warm tone. There's a lot more going on in the background with some blue lines and dots. I'll be sure to post pictures of the skirt once it's finished so you can see just how much is going on in the pattern. It's probably a chinese print, the chinese have been manufacturing cheaper versions of these wax prints, but the value shows in the patterns when the colors don't quite line up like they should. I actually like they look that errors give, but it is a sign of a lower quality textile. The fabric is, however, printed on both sides, so at least it's a true wax print.





Well, I'm as prepared as I'll ever be. Time to finish up some last sewing jobs and read myself to sleep before tomorrow morning. I fried up some veggie patties for the day of traveling to hold me over until the airline dinner, I'm hoping it's enough. Here goes nothing.

Update: Photos

Coconut and Thunderstorms

Ten days to go until I take off for Ghana. It really feels like June popped up out of nowhere, but I guess that's what happens when you're busy moving around the northeast for a week and a half. I spent a good part of today dropping things off for this weekend's theater gala at the high school, then stuck around for a while to talk with some old teachers (several of whom will now be following this blog, pressure's on).

Back at home now, I'm working on some of those coconut toffee treats in addition to making some quick lunch before heading out again. I've got a frisbee game tonight, despite the on-and-off downpours and intense humidity. I know it'll be this hot, if not warmer, in Ghana, but I really don't know what to expect as far as precipitation. Fran said something about it being the rainy season over there right now, so maybe I'll get to see some impressive thunderstorms coming in off the Atlantic. (Quick update, just checked weather.com, says that Accra is having just about the same weather as Philadelphia, highs in the mid-80s, humidity making it feel like the mid-nineties, heavy thunderstorms for the next three days. Who would expect that several thousand miles away, the weather is exactly the same?)

Just popped the coconut into the oven for toasting, I'll be going back to reading some more of that book Petra lent to me. It seems pretty interesting already.

Travel Preparations

It's been a pretty hectic few weeks. Between graduations, backpacking, applying for my visa, getting my needed inoculations, and continuing work on the breakdown of a few more recipes, I've been all over the place. I've finally got a few days to recover back in state college, pick up some kitchen equipment of Fran's, and head down to DC for the weekend. When all of that is over, I'll be buckling down and taking care of a lot of reading and photography prep (for instance, I still need to figure out how to hook up my camera display to my computer so that I have a large enough display while shooting to see just what the image looks like in detail. What looks like a good shot on a three inch screen can look like garbage when blown up to a publishable size).


I got the reading list Petra Tschakert required for her EM SC 470W class a few years ago. It was a class that took students to Ghana, and I'll be pulling a few of the titles for my own reading in order to get a better understanding of the general culture in West Africa. (Bonus: I already read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe in high school, got that classic and difinitive work down.)


I'll be updating several times a week from now until departure, and then daily once I get to Ghana. Stay tuned, I'll have some more about food and art in the coming posts.

Home Again

It's my first Monday back in the Philly area, and it's bittersweet. I miss State College a whole lot, but there is a fantastic silver lining: I have access to a sweet stove, ample counter space, and one of the best grocery stores ever when it comes to produce. I was driving back from getting my typhoid, yellow fever, hep a, and polio shots when I decided that this place wasn't a detour at all, and that I really should stop in.

First thing I reach for, of course, is beets. I love the color, the flavor, the wide variety of applications for them. Second thing I go for is some green plantains, which I had to actually ask about because what they had labeled as green plantains was a stack of yellow and brown plantains (not the same flavor or texture, not what I was aiming for). They guy found a box in the back and brought them out. He goes on to ask me if I really eat these things, and if they're anything like bananas. Same question from the cashier, actually.

Plantains are for later, beets were for lunch. I made a pasta with a beet sauce and decided to practice some shooting in the last stages of cooking. Here's the final plate, really tasty, and an awesome color. I took some lighter shots, but they were all too blurry and I wasn't happy with the color. I'll have to work on that.