still behind! -the north: witches, motorbikes and what not!

helloooo!!!!
wow, time is going by really quickly! i have my last lectures today, my twi final next monday, the rest of the month off, and then 4 finals in december! yikes! not sure if i'm ready for the countdown to begin....
3 weekends ago (ya i'm really behind, sorry) kurtis and i decided to trek all the way up north, almost to burkina faso, mostly to see how it is up there and also be history nerds haha... so it was a 15 hr bus ride up to bolgatanga (bolga) so we left on wed. Dunno if it was just bc we were spending 15 hrs on the bus, but we really enjoyed the movies- i really want to visit nigeria now just to see the acting scene, bc its absolutely fascinating. the best part about them, aside from their incredibly low budget, predictable plot (the prince falls in love with the village girl, but his mother doesnt allow it, but they end up together anyway; and/or all problems are solved with the loud prayer and the incantation of "IN THE NAME OF JESUS!"), and the fact that there is part 1....AND 2..... AND, if you're lucky, part 3! is how incredibly excited the entire bus is about it - not just laughing at jokes, but telling characters OUT LOUD what to do, cheering for them, etc....empassioned is the best word i've found for it - its pretty amazing!
As we went farther north, the scenery changed a lot - accra itself is really really urban, not very nice looking in most places, but when you get out, (and to the E and W) its really green/tropical/beautiful.... and turns out when you go even FARTHER north it turns into savannah.... kurtis likened it to california's central valley, which i gotta agree with in a lot of ways, cept its one of the least developed places i've been! no large fields of crops, but just grasses and trees growing...! very very different from accra in very good ways! Other differences before i tell you what happened:
1) everyone rides motorbikes/bicycles everywhere- we had really unpleasant tro-tro rides bc so much is unpaved/dusty/slow so everyone had it figured out! the best part is that even WOMEN rode the motorbikes! i'll have to explain more later, but ghana is SUPER male-oriented/dominated, and i have never seen a female tro-tro, taxi, or motocycle driver, so seeing so many in bolga was really funny, esp since they're driving these big harley-esque things in their slits and cabas (most formal dress) haha....
2) language: a bunch of us are taking twi, because although english is the official language, twi is spoken by much of the country, (english is almost everyone's 2nd language) and its REALLY helpful to know some basic things.... anyway, they dont speak twi in the north, its not (former) Akan territory. boo. so our skills were completely useless, and we never even figured out the word for white person, or any other basic words that make us better travelers.....it was kinda frustrating, and makes me even more cautious about traveling outside of ghana (ghana is surrounded by french-speakers so if i went there i wouldnt have a CLUE whats going on at ALL!)!!!
3) facial scarring: so btw, nowhere near the majority, but a fair, noticeable number of people have ethnic scars on their face, usually in Accra-area as a .5 inch or so mark under one or both eyes, a bit below the cheekbone. one story i heard is that its a tradition from times of hand-to-hand combat when you need to be able to identify each other (pretty effective, i would say!). anyway, so up north, we saw some crazy-cool scarring. the guidebook described it as "spider-webbed" but it was more like concentric half-circles very close together from around the eyes alllll the way across the cheeks, sometimes with more complex designs in there they were generally much lighter (not as deep) than the ones here! but they were fascinating and i hope they showed up in some of the pics i took, but no promises!
4) a bit more on life in general: it was lower standard of living up north. not gonna lie. many students on campus, esp those who have spent their entire lives in only one or two regions of ghana, have a really bad impression of people up north, so i really havent talked to ghanaians about the trip too much, but it really was def. less developed, way fewer people spoke english (why would they need to? politics are spoken in local languages and the few foreigners who do come are generally volunteers who are staying for an extended time and so learn their language...we got asked mroe than once if we were from the peace corps hah), only in bolga did we see any 2-story buildings, or ones made out of anything but clay and/or natural products and/or sheet metal, and much dustier (not gonna say dirty-cus thats a matter of if you clean the dust/dirt or not!)..... but it was also a really really really nice, calm break from life in accra. we didnt get hassled anywhere near as much! woot!
5) much more muslim; maybe this is why so many in accra have a negative opinion, because religion IS such a big issue, but it was really cool - really interesting to see more elaborate mosques, more ppl in traditional muslim clothes, just a different feel in general! yes, we still did get woken up in the morning to christian music, but also heard the nighttime (and other) calls to prayer just as much! very cool! id really like to go back up to the northwest (we were in the northeast) where they have more historically interesting islamic points!
So our first day up there, we went to sirigu, even closer to the burkina faso border, to where there's a womens craft co-op that is doing reasonably well! it was pretty cool to be taken around the place, but honestly there wasnt anything else to do other than the tour/museum (as cool as they were), and it took a really long time for the tro-tro to fill up (there and back). the tro-tro ride there was one of the most unpleasant ever - it was about an hour over pretty bad dirt road, in a modified midsize car, meaning that ther was a second row of seats added to the back. however, instead of 3 in each row, the driver made 4 of us squish in each row except his, meaning that not only could i not move my feet bc of the cargo, and i was getting hugged by the ppl next to me (ok not tooooo abnormal) but also were hitting our heads on the roof, and got a thick layer of dirt on us. also, 3 of the women in the 2 seats we large, middle-aged women with children on their laps. so if you count them, there were 14 of us! everyone was complaining, and the guy's car almost broke down too! hahaha o ghana....
The next day we went to gombaga, where there is a witches camp. the ride there was also pretty exciting, as we were traveling in a HUGE tro-tro that fit 40-60 (dunno how many ppl were riding on the top) people in it, when i realized that, as slow as everything was going, at least we werent gonna get there and have our day ruined by rain! it hadnt rained in weeks! as i also laughed at how nice it was that the windo next to me had no window in it, bc the breeze felt AMAZING, oh yes, it started to POUR! the old woman next to me got really angry as we both tried to hide, and everyone laughed at us (including kurtis), and tried to get us to move, but there really wasnt room :( finally, the lady grabbed a prayer mat from the empty seat in front of us and we held it against the window. oh ps, its made out of STRAW!.... oh but ps, it dried within 15 minutes of when the rain stopped and we got out of the tro-tro... hahahha
anway, so we got to gambaga after a wild goose chase to find a wall built in the 16th century, which would have been cool but our only directions were "to the left of the dam" and nobody seemed to be able to lead us there, but we DID find it!!! haha witchcraft is a big deal here, so this camp is actually for women who have been accused of being witches can go, to avoid being killed by their village. apparently, they arrive, and the chief performs some type of ritual so that they're not witches anymore, (something involving killing chickens and alcohol, suprise, suprise) but since their village wont accept them anymore, they stay there. there's apparently been some issues from humanitarian orgs who believe the place is like a prison- that would be an arguable point, given that people dont really leave, except that their standard of living, while low, is barely, if any, lower than that of the rest of the village! actually, when we met the chief, and he asked us what our mission was. when we responded that we wanted to see the camp, he asked us (through his interpreter) "do you have a problem?.... or do you just want to look?" hahahahahhahahahaha we assured him that we were just history students traveling...
so the camp itself was relatively large, with a couple hundred people in it, but it was really difficult to get an idea of what people thought about being there: everything was done through the interpreter, the chief's son, who often didnt even ask the woman the question, and just answered it himself, and anyway he could have said whatever he wanted us to hear! still, it was cool to check the place out - i had heard about it in my study of religions class, so it was super cool! the ride back was less eventful until we got onto a tro-tro that had to be push-started (by all the guys in the tro-tro -- maybe there IS an advantage to being a girl?) several times on the way...
we got back to bolga relatively early and went to tongo, which was a really cool little village but the tour was really bad, but it was cool to see. a ghanaian who looked at my pictures of the chief's palace (where his extended family lives, taken from his roof) he asked if people actually lived there. i said yes, and he was completely amazed - its this huge labrinth of small huts/houses that has no planning and cant be too sanitary and what is running water? dunno. it was a really pretty, mountainous area, so it was really nice to see!!! good times!
when we returned to bolga, we were already feeling a bit strange/out of whack, and we both woke up the next morning to our 15 hr bus ride back feeling super sick. go us. luckily, the movies were from the same producer as the "chart-smashing" ones we watched on the way up! woot! we got back to accra, and ended up getting a free ride from some guy who'd been on the bus w/ us! woot! but our luck ran out when we got home and the water was out :( we were SO dirty and sick for the next couple days but hey, gotta say it was pretty awesome! woot!
have a awesome day and i'll try to catch up a bit more! sorry!