Oh Naamma- Two weeks in a village!

All I can say is yay for the village!!! Our group was split into 3 groups and placed in different villages. I was in Naamma, the smallest of the three villages. It was absolutely fantastic!! The people there were so welcoming and friendly! They loved having us there. They have about 500 people in the village, but it definitely seemed like a lot less than that. I again got to live in the chiefs house, although it was not nearly as glamorous this time :) But the chief, Nana, was to cute. He was like an adorable grandpa, and was so happy to have us!

The kids were a major part of what made the experience so great. There were kids all over the place, and they LOVED us. They loved that we had camera, they loved that we were white, they loved that we liked to play with them and they even loved to just sit and look at us. They just wanted to be with us no matter what we were doing. They were so excited even to help us with chores. For example when we went down to the waterfall/spring to do our laundry they were fighting over who got to wash which piece of our clothing. It was actually quite funny. No matter where we went there was a brigade of children following. There were these 4 brothers that I really came to love. The oldest were twins about 8 years old, Penny and Kakra, their brother was Niko he was about 5 and then the baby. They were the sweetest, cutest boys I have ever met. We all got "married" to one of the boys. My husband is Penny, the older twin. Despite the communication barrier and age difference we were a match made in heaven!

As this was my second experience living in a chiefs house since I have been here, I felt compelled to learn more about the chiefs, elders and their role in the Ghanaian society. I feel like I was pretty much led to study chieftency for my mini research project. It was actually extremely interesting! The institution has so much tradition and is so infused with history as well as a means of keeping social order. I got to interview all sorts of interesting people while I wast there studying this topic. I even got to meet one of the paramount chiefs (top chief) of the region, who is known for his silver stool, during a spacial event called akociday. It was pretty cool! It is also interesting learning how the chiefs and the government must work together in Ghana, because both groups have power and are considered to be figures of authority. In the village the chief and his elders are the ones to settle small disputes that take place in the community. They call it arbitration, and reminds me a lot of restorative justice, which I am obviously way into! I got to attend one of these events, where 5 or 6 cases were being discussed. The outcome is usually the guilty person paying a fine to the elders and the person they cursed. Which was another interesting thing... most of the cases were over cursing people to death, an offence that it taken extremely seriously here. This led me to discover the strong belief in small gods, spirits and witches, which I think will be the topic of my next research paper!.These are all things that majority of Ghanaians believe in, or are at least conflicted about not believing in. Interesting stuff!!!

Well I have a bunch of people waiting on me to finish, so I think that I need to be done, but this has definitely been one of the best part of my trip so far. Not to mention we had a great chief and our food was actually pretty good!!! I was really sad to leave the village this morning, and got sadder and sadder the closer we got to the city. Thankfully we will only be in the city until tomorrow and then we begin a 3 week travel adventure, one week in Tamale up north and then I believe 2 weeks at cape coast, but I am not totally sure on that one.

<3 <3 <3