A Little Shopping Adventure

(Luana:) Just to set things straight: I am no longer the only shopper on this trip. Our luggage is now three large wooden masks heavier, following a visit to the Ahwiaa wood carving village in Ghana. Bob found two irresistible additions to our wall o’masks at Ahwiaa and another at the museum shop of the Manhyia Presidential Palace Museum, just two of the shopping delights of our overnight trip from Accra to Kumasi. How we are going to get all this s-t-u-f-f home from Florida in a few weeks weighs heavily on our minds, but soon the weight will move heavily to our shoulders and backs.


Anyway, back to the trip. Kumasi, in central Ghana, was the seat of the Ashanti Empire and was once the capital, but now Accra is the capital. We went there primarily to see several craft villages, including the Bonwire (pronounced bon-weary) village where Kente cloth is woven, the Ntonso village where Adinkra cloth is made, and the Ahwiaa wood carving village. We also saw a couple of local history museums, as well as lots of countryside (since we spent hours and hours traveling on bad roads).

Kente is the colorful Ashanti ceremonial cloth that is hand-woven on a horizontal treadle loom, with the weaver using both his hands and feet. (Apparently women do not weave; only men do.) They weave strips measuring about 4 inches wide; these are sewn together into larger pieces of cloth and worn for important social and religious occasions. Each pattern has symbolic meaning, such as integrity, harmony, courage, so in a sense the cloth is a form of written language. I just know that I like it and wanted to see it made and probably buy some.

In Ghana, buying things is a contact sport. The salespeople grab at you in order to keep you away from their competitors, and they start draping things over you and insisting that you buy them. It’s hard to look around and touch the things you’d like to touch, or even take a breath or collect your thoughts, but somebody has to do this thankless job! So, while Bob took pictures, I sucked it up and bravely entered the fray. Wish I’d had more cash on me, too -- I came away with some lovely strips of kente and learned a bit about the weaving process while I was at it. My best score was a tote bag woven from kente strips.

We also went to Ntonso to see the stamping process for Adrinka. It’s kind of like rubber stamping, but with some pretty large stamps, and the “ink” they use is made from boiled cassava that has been through an intricate cooking process until it is virtually black. It sits up a bit when it’s stamped on the cloth and is slightly shiny.

As with the kente weaving patterns, the stamp symbols represent qualities such as life, fidelity, strength. (Ghana is very big on symbolism and traditions.) In addition to the stamping, they do some silk-screening as well, and we all got a laugh over the strips of Adrinka that had portraits of Barack Obama silk-screened in alternating patterns with Ghanaian symbols. (You might have to turn your head sideways to see his face in the photo.) Africans really seem to love Obama and we definitely felt the goodwill trickling down to U.S. visitors throughout our time in Africa.

Julia visited Ghana right after Peace Corps and she brought me a beautiful piece of Adrinka that has strips of Kente sewn into it. Right now I can picture it on the dining room table at home. I didn’t see anything more beautiful than the piece she gave me, so I just enjoyed watching the process and looking at all the lovely work. It also helped to really, truly be out of cash. When the salespeople said they would make a special price, I could honestly say I couldn’t pay ANY price. And that’s a good time to stop.