This time I stayed with Delali in her home. She is a dance professor at the University of Cape Coast where I was teaching last fall; the only female professor on the tenure track in the department. In addition, Delali runs her own hair salon and taxi service; and she has two young children. She's a pretty remarkable person and it's clear that she is well-respected and well-known in the community and at the university. We didn't become friends until the last month of my time in Ghana, but once we did, we connected easily and deeply. We have grown quite close over the course of this year and I am forever grateful for her friendship. I do believe this will be a friendship to last a lifetime (she is adamant that I’m her big sis and she’s my little sis...I love that!). It was great to spend some time with her and her family and get to know them better.
Here’s the big news…Delali and I have recently gone into business together on a pig and chicken farm! I know...you didn't see that coming from a mile away! It’s integrated farming so it’s all on one plot. Currently we have 4 female pigs that we are going to cross to keep making babies and we are going to sell them. And we have two types of chickens: 8 who lay eggs and about 30 that are broilers--that means we are going to sell them to be eaten when they are big enough, though some of those will turn into layers as well. And we are planning to buy more of each, as well as guinea fowl and some turkeys. And eventually expand with the pigs as well.
How did this come to be? Well, we have been talking about ideas for a while now, because we knew we wanted to do some type of business together. But Delali ultimately decided on pigs and chickens for now. Since she is on the ground and mostly running it, I was happy to go along with what she thought was best. Without going into too many details, we have spent the better part of the past four months, planning, buying materials, and building the structure. And of course, we bought pigs and chickens! I’m so proud of us for bringing this to fruition. Mostly I’m proud of her for learning all about it and making it happen. It is no small feat to get something built in Ghana, and Delali made it happen rather quickly. I’m humbled that she asked me to be a business partner with her on it. While I was there, I learned a ton about the daily ins and outs, and it was really interesting to be on site. There is so much that goes into managing the farm, but she has good people that are reliable and dependable that we pay to help with everything. Suffice it to say things are going really well and we are continuing to expand. Here are some pictures of the farm. We are going to finish the structure eventually, but for now, this is our humble start.
One particular highlight about my time with Delali was that I got to go with her research group to a remote village outside of Cape Coast called Mpraem. Her research group has been going out and doing work with them for about two months or so. The community’s main income is cocoa farming so their research was focused on helping them think about how they could earn more income with the cocoa farming for the community. They did this educational research through dance and drama. It was a really interesting collaboration between dance, theater, agriculture, and business colleagues. I got to go for the final drama and dance performance. Though everything was in the local language and of course I couldn’t understand it, it was really cool to see the community and everybody coming together for this event. Of course, Delali told me all about what they were doing which was essentially to try to get them community members to think creatively about possibilities and solutions and to use the arts to help educate and motivate them to do so. Friday while I was there was the research group’s last day to go out to the community; they will go back again in January to see if the people have implemented the strategies and are doing more for cocoa farming in their village. It was a cool experience but wow, what a long day! On the way back from there our van broke down so we had to wait for someone to come and fix (both of) the fan belts. Might I also say that it was VERY HOT and we had a lot of people in a small van, as well as lots of drums and equipment. It was quite a sight! Once we got back to campus (it was about a two-hour drive, plus an hour of waiting for the van to be fixed), we were already late for the Music and Dance Department's musical practice that was scheduled for that evening. What a day!
The University of Cape Coast Department of Music and Dance is currently putting together a musical theater production that tells the story of Kwame Nkrumah, who was Ghana’s first president, and the person who led them to independence from the British in 1957. Nkrumah has a lasting legacy in Ghana because he did so incredibly much to build up the country once it achieved independence. This musical production is about his life. It will be performed at an international conference (Pan African Society for Musical Arts Education – PASMAE) that will be held at UCC in late July. I will actually be presenting at this conference but remotely, so I won’t be able to see the final production. But luckily, they were doing most of their heavy blocking and rehearsing of the musical while I was there. There were lots of extra practices during those two weeks so I was able to see them make a lot of progress on it. This is a collaborative effort by the entire faculty of the department, and all of the music and dance majors. I actually marvel at the fact that the entire faculty is able to come together and make this program happen. It was really cool to see the creative juices flowing among them as they worked to create the scenes over the two weeks I was there. Delali is the director of the production, so she has the final say in everything. And because she is a dance professor, there is a lot of movement- and dance-based activity, which makes it really fun and interesting to watch! I LOVE seeing the students dance and sing tons of Ghanaian songs from different ethnic groups. It’s been one of my favorite things, to sit in rehearsals and watch, then talk it over with Delali, John-Doe (my close music education colleague and friend), and Eric (the department chair who is also another pretty good friend of mine).
They actually did have a small performance the first week I was there as a sort of teaser to let people know what is coming up. So I got to see that. SUPER COOL.
In addition, Delali and I had a lot of time to talk and hang out in person which has been lovely. She’s been one of the main people I’ve talked to since I’ve been in the UK. We’ve been on the same time zone which has been really helpful, but also, we are in the fun new part of a wonderful friendship. So while I was there, we talked a lot about ideas for our farm expansion and more things we can collaborate on together.
I spent a lot of time playing with Delali’s two young children also, who are so fun and cute! I especially enjoyed letting Yaa do my hair and playing games with her. And making funny faces with Ama and feeding her when she would let me. It was really cool to be in Delali’s space and just learn about the rhythm of her life. We also got to hang out at one of Delal's favorite restaurants called OneAfrica, which is a health resort started by an African American who moved back to Ghana and opened up this place. It's a beautiful place where they make local Ghanaian food to order. I hope to go back and spend more time there in the future.
There are some food and drink pics in here also. One dish is red red (it's a bean stew served with fried plantain and garnished with gari, which is toasted cassava flour), one is groundnut soup with chicken and fufu (a starchy food made from cassava and plantain that has been boiled, pounded, and rounded). The drink in the calabash is called Pito - a type of beer that is made from fermented millet - it's very sour.
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