Purim in Ghana

The Fast of Esther was on Thursday, which was also the same day as my Twi final and I had to teach in the morning. I was slightly nervous about fasting in the 90+ degrees weather with all this activity, but I knew that if I didn’t feel well I could break the fast. Luckily, I made it through the day with no water and no food.

On Thursday night, Rivky got a call that there was going to be a megillah reading in Accra on Saturday night! We knew another girl who was going so immediately after Shabbat, we rushed to hear the megillah in a random neighborhood. I cannot even tell you where we were, whose house we were at, who even read the megillah. All I know is that I showed up at some random guesthouse, which used to house the KJB, and now a random secular Israeli lives there. There were about twenty people there, mostly secular Israelis, a few Ghanaians, and some university students. A British man read the megillah and our mission was complete.

Meanwhile, we decided to host a Purim party that we called for 9:30, but we didn’t even get back until 9:30. Luckily, no one is ever on time in this country so people ended up coming closer to 11. We made TONS of Hamenstachen (I didn’t actually partake in the making because I was at my internship so props to all of Pentagon who helped!) of really creative fillings including pineapple and mango. The pineapple was surprisingly really good! Anyways, the party was a great success, with lots of music and people (though nothing could come close to comparing to Ghanakah). And I forgot to mention, that on Saturday during the day, we had no water and no electricity so we were worried that we were going to have to cancel the party, but the electricity came back, though we had no water for three days.

Anyways, the next day we attempted to make a gourmet breakfast in honor of Purim, but it didn’t come out so well. Our program had arranged to take us to the beach for the day, which was really nice. Rivky had arranged with her rabbi that we would call into his megillah reading in Baltimore and listen over the phone. But the problem was that we were on a beach with blasting music, wind, and waves so hearing was a potential problem. But have no fear, because Rivky found the ideal place for a megillah reading. There was this makeshift wooden bar that was not in use, so we sat under the bar to protect ourselves from the wind. As we were waiting for the reading to begin, a host of fishermen came pulling in their nets shouting, as Rivky was on the phone with the rabbi’s seven-year-old son trying to coordinate. He asked what the noise was and Rivky tried to explain that we were on a beach with fishermen. Our perfect place wasn’t so perfect anymore. As we were searching for an alternative location, the fishermen left, so we got our bar back! Our little shack protected us from the wind and we miraculously could hear every word of the megillah and we even booed at Haman’s name.