In Kumasi, a group of us visited the cultural centre and its small, but interesting, museum, where we learnt amongst other things about fertility dolls that women (even today still apparently) look after as though they were real children in an attempt to have kids. We also learnt our Ashanti names which are based on whether you’re male or female and on the day of the week you are born – mine being ‘Ama’ as I’m a female and born on a Saturday.
Visiting the sacred sword stuck in a rock (similar to Excalibur) was a strange experience in itself as we had to walk through the Komfo Amokye hospital to get to it, seeing a surgeon wheeling a covered body right past us on the way. Mohammed Ali was apparently unsuccessful in his attempt to remove the sword from the stone, which is fortunate as its removal would symbolise the end of the Ashanti culture and make a lot of people very unhappy to say the least.
Walking past a newsstand, I was intrigued by the following newspaper’s headline. It makes for an interesting read – apparently medium-sized (not large) is preferred.
Lastly a group of us visited the main market (Kejetia) which is one of the biggest in West Africa. It is heaving with people bustling about and the cries of sellers touting their wares. Our group wasn’t on cook group duty so we didn’t have to buy anything, rather just wandered around and unwittingly drew lots of attention to ourselves, particularly due to Garrett’s size – being constantly called a ‘big boy!’ or ‘big man!’ followed by fits of laughter. This is also where the corn row mullets were made.
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