Leftovers

Learned: funerals are often held months after the death of a person, especially if that person is a chief. The bodies just chill in hospital freezers. Normal people have their funerals several weeks or up to a month later. I imagine that has to do with saving money for the funeral and subsequent festivities. I’ve been asking everyone about the mentality of the clapping and dancing and it seems that it’s a fairly new thing, perhaps based partially on consumerism. But most Ghanaians themselves don’t seem to understand it.

Feared: I’m convinced that I’m going to fall in a hole or gutter. And/or accidentally drink tap water.

Compared: The women carrying their children strapped to their backs with cloth. Last night I saw one from afar in the dark and couldn’t help but think of a Japanese kimono, the child like the big bow in back.

Observed: Walking home last week around 10 pm, I saw lots of people sleeping outside. Some of them had mattresses—too hot to sleep inside. An occasional man would be sleeping outside a storefront—security. But there were also homeless people, with cardboard on corners not obviously in front of a house or business.