Sefwi Wiawso cont.

When we finally arrived at the village, several children came to carry our bags and bring us to where we were staying. We stayed with a large family in their little housing complex. There are lots of bedrooms surrounding a grassy area that has some roaming chickens and goats. There is an area used for cooking with large pots and a little outhouse. The reasons there are so many bedrooms is because there are many people. There is one husband, two wives, and eleven kids, though some of the kids are married so have moved out. I'm not sure how many family units there are like this, but there are about 100 members of the community in general.

We went to the room were staying in, which is also the common room of the house and the father, Joseph, recited the traditional Friday night blessings in English (Kiddish on Coke, motzei, etc) and sang a couple songs in Twi praising God. They did not eat a meal though, they eat just had a bite of bread. Then, they left and we settled in a little bit and ate a gourmet meal of bread and canned food.

The next problem we faced was the bathroom. To begin, it's a stone seat on top of a large hole in the ground. There is no running water. Second of all, we had to walk outside in order to get to it and we had to bring our own toilet paper, but there was no eruv to carry it. We were very creative and made belts, scarves, and necklaces. Also, because of the way the stone is designed, we cannot squat or else we would miss the hole. So we lined the stone with TP and hoped for the best. Later when we returned to Accra we told our Ghanaian friends about this and they were horrified. Apparently you are supposed to stand on the stone and then squat. But no one explained this nuance to us. As you can imagine, we greatly limited our trips to the bathroom.

The next day, we went to synagogue, which was in a small building about ten minutes away. When we finally arrived at the village, several children came to carry our bags and bring us to where we were staying. We stayed with a large family in their little housing complex. There are lots of bedrooms surrounding a grassy area that has some roaming chickens and goats. There is an area used for cooking with large pots and a little outhouse. The reasons there are so many bedrooms is because there are many people. There is one husband, two wives, and eleven kids, though some of the kids are married so have moved out. I'm not sure how many family units there are like this, but there are about 100 members of the community in general.

We went to the room were staying in, which is also the common room of the house and the father, Joseph, recited the traditional Friday night blessings in English (Kiddish on Coke, motzei, etc) and sang a couple songs in Twi praising God. They did not eat a meal though, they eat just had a bite of bread. Then, they left and we settled in a little bit and ate a gourmet meal of bread and canned food.

The community does not observe Shabbat like we do, so there were some difficulties with that. They use electricity so when the left our rooms, they left the lights on so we had to sleep with them on. Luckily, they also left on the fans, though.

The next problem we faced was the bathroom. To begin, it's a stone seat on top of a large hole in the ground. There is no running water. Second of all, we had to walk outside in order to get to it and we had to bring our own toilet paper, but there was no eruv to carry it. We were very creative and made belts, scarves, and necklaces. Also, because of the way the stone is designed, we cannot squat or else we would miss the hole. So we lined the stone with TP and hoped for the best. Later when we returned to Accra we told our Ghanaian friends about this and they were horrified. Apparently you are supposed to stand on the stone and then squat. But no one explained this nuance to us. As you can imagine, we greatly limited our trips to the bathroom.

The next day, we went to synagogue, which was in a small building about ten minutes away. The synagogue is a small building with a few rows of benches. There were about eight men, a couple of women and lots of children. There was one man who led the service using a Sim Shalom siddur (Conservative prayer book) in English. He read several psalms and went through most of the service. The whole congregation they recited Shma together in Hebrew. For the Torah service, the leader took out a mini-Torah, like one used in a children’s service and brought it around the room for people to kiss. He then read verse by verse out loud in English from a Hirsch Chumash, explaining in GREAT detail every verse and then he repeated in Twi. He then did the same for Haftorah. As a side note, it was EXTREMELY hot and the fans were not on. I was pretty uncomfortable throughout the service due to the heat. The service was concluded with a song in Twi, which I now know.

We went back to our rooms to find the fans had been turned off, so at this point I was pretty aggravated with heat. We ate our lunch of bread and canned food and we then took naps. I think the sheets were drenched in sweat when I woke up. There was one eight-year-old girl there, named Rachel, who hung around us. She was incredibly sweet and adorable. Rivky taught her to sing a Hebrew song (Modeh Ani) and she sort of taught us a song in Twi. She showed us how she’s learning the Hebrew alphabet and how she can write her name. She was our guide throughout the weekend.

We concluded Shabbat and afterwards, we hung out with all the kids in our rooms. We got to know them well and eventually we invited them to come to us for Shabbat (foreshadowing for the next post!).

We woke up a few hours later (at 4:30 AM) to begin our journey back to Accra, which luckily took only eight hours, as opposed to thirteen. Again there were some problems with chickens. The bus from Sefwi Wiawso to Kumasi was fine. From, Kumasi, we took a deluxe tro-tro to Accra. We had made French toast a few days earlier and were planning on eating it for breakfast on Sunday (it has not been refrigerated for three days and though it tasted a little off surprisingly no one got sick). Anyways, so I had to do a ritual wash of my hands before eating the bread so as I got off the tro-tro to wash, a woman got on with a live chicken in a plastic bag with its head sticking out. She put the chicken on the floor EXACTLY where I was sitting and Rivky told her that I was sitting there, but the woman did not move it. Meanwhile, I had already washed my hands, which means I cannot speak so I’m motioning vigorously to move the chicken, while half laughing half crying. I jump onto Rivky and the whole tro-tro is laughing at me. Eventually, the driver moved the chicken to the back seat (which is where my bag was so I was not too happy about that either), and we were on our way. The driver made it back in what seemed like record time. No exaggeration, he passed every single car in front of him at every single point possible. Luckily, we made it back to Accra okay and when we took the tro-tro from Accra to Legon, the same chicken lady was on it with us!!!! It must have been fate!