TUESDAY

Today is the beginning of the Elmina festival! It seems like there’s always a holiday or something to celebrate here in Ghana; not that I’m complaining. Collectively we decided to take half of the day off to watch the parade and other festivities. I stayed at the house today with Nick, Katie and Jessica. I began patterning a somewhat tailored jacket. I’ve been struggling a little bit with patterning because its been so long since I had a class but I still enjoy doing it
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The parade was supposed to start at eleven am. The Silver Spoon and Sea Top had been blaring music since ten this morning. We were worried we were going to miss a lot so by noon we stopped working and got ready to leave. By the time we were ready the rest of the design team had returned from the office so we could all walk to downtown Elmina together. In true Ghanaian form when we arrived around 1 or 2pm the parade had still not started. We found a good location at a restaurant off the street and right on the beach. We grabbed some drinks and waited for the parade to start.

The parade was so colorful and exciting. There were 11 different chiefs from surrounding tribes that were being carried through the streets. There were other important looking people that were covered by massive umbrellas. They were all adorned with gold crowns and jewelry. The pictures can describe the action better than I can so stay tuned.

Once the parade was finished we headed down to where the fishing boats are for the boat race. Of course we ran into Steve and Tom; Bruni’s are easy to spot out in the crowd. We didn’t get to watch the race, who knows when it got on its way. We did however get to watch the entertainment; kids drumming, dancing and doing all sorts of things on the boats. We waited for so long for the race to start but it was getting late I think we all lost our patience. It was just small boy Katie and I that weren’t heading to Eli’s for dinner so we decided to try the African Pot; a restaurant just down the road that we’re been wanting to try for a while. When we got there they were only serving Bonku, Fufu or groundnut soup which all have meat in. I told the waiter I was a vegetarian and his response was well we could just scoop the meat out for you… no thanks! Across the street was an Africana-Cuban restaurant which we passed on our way and we figured we’d give that a go. I’m glad we did because the woman was so friendly and very accommodating I had rice with spicy veggie stew; emphasis on spicy! Katie and I both asked for a glass of wine with our dinner and they brought out a whole bottle for us three to share. Once we were finished eating and drinking our bottle of wine we walked back to the house. We noticed that people were still eating at Eli’s so we stopped for a chat before heading home. Early to bed tonight; we’ve been staying up later and later so I’m happy to have an early bedtime, now if only Sea Top and Silver Spoon would stop blaring music I’d be able to fall asleep.

Cravings today… Dairy Queen Blizzard; these Fan Ice just don’t cut it.