water fire dust


The end of Winter Break. It has now been almost a month and a half of no classes. Looong. The interesting things that have happened during the interim are: Christmas Travels, visiting friends, the Fire Festival and the onset of Harmatan.
Christmas- my first one not celebrated with the Benges. Sad day-o. A group of us decided that the best way to cope with missing family on Christmas was to head to the beach.  So I made my way down to meet up with 7 other PCVs at a place called Green Turtle near Takoradi. We had wonderful food and spent most of our time lying on the beach. One of the other guests organized a sandcastle building contest and 3 of us decided to form a team. While everyone else was building traditional sandcastles we got festive and made giant sleigh in which Jesse posed as Santa and Alison, Jess, Rachel, Sarah, David and myself were reindeer. It turned out pretty amazing I'd say  They awarded us the drama award. Christmas Eve was the highlight of the 5 days at Green Turtle. After a deliciously American dinner of salad, potatoes and fish, a troupe of drummers and dancers came and danced around a giant bonfire on the beach. I was hoping everyone would join in the dancing, but noone did, so finally I did all by myself and the kids had a good time trying to teach me all the different moves. They also got a kick out of the sparklers Jesse brought, twirling them while then danced. Christmas Day we exchanged small gifts and just relaxed. Jess's sister Rachel had come to visit for Christmas and was amazing and brought some Christmas presents from Mom and Dad in her luggage for me. So we all enjoyed same dried fruit and dark chocolate. Yum Yum.
I got back to Tamale just before New Years. Nash and his brother and I celebrated by going to a local roof restaurant and watching people throwing fireworks at each other down on the street. I had my guard up all night tho, because every once in awhile someone would toss one up to where we were, making us jump. 
Jess came to the north for a week after her sister left. I had been talking about painting a mural on my wall for awhile but hadn't gotten around to it, so we finally made it happen! It's only halfway done now, but is already amazing. We painted a giant tree with all kinds of oddities intertwined- fish being the main thing so far, but more will be added soon. Was fun having her stay though, too bad we can't double up at sites!
FIRE FESTIVAL! Friday Jan. 18th. Probably one of the most interesting things I have experienced so far here in Ghana. This is a festival unique to the north. 7 days after the first sighting of the new moon, Dagombas gather to reenact the story of a prince who was lost in the woods and the whole village went into the woods and set a tree on fire so the prince could find his way home. I came to Tamale to celebrate it with Nash's family in their area of town-Hilltop. Around 7 people started gathering, dancing to drums and getting pumped up. Many of the young guys were dressed up crazy- some like warriors, some like women, and some in just plain ridiculousness. Then after everyone made their way to the main street they lit their torches and began marching towards a designated tree. It was a wild parade of dancing, chanting, waving machetes and setting everything in sight on fire. The chants were ridiculous- some examples are: "If you don't have a wife, go have sex with a cat" and "Whoever is the strongest has the least faults". Hah. Once they reached the tree everyone threw their torches on it, broke off a limb of the tree and paraded back to the starting area. They did this 4 times, each one taking a different path. I loved it. For the most part I stayed on the edges away from the flying fire. But went in the middle for the second march for awhile and danced with a torch someone gave me. The night was lovely. It went late. We didn't return to the house until almost midnight.
So those are the highlights of my break. The weather has changed to Harmatan Season. This means that the wind blows down off the Sahara and makes everything extremely dry. Dust blows everywhere, coats everything and turns my boogers black. The nights are very cold. I had to buy a blanket in town even. Everyone is always asking how I'm coping with the weather. I tell them that I love the cold but that I could do without the dust!