Thursday morning August 18
Yesterday was a great day! John and I left Cape Coast at 3:30am to come to Accra. The goal of today was to have a meeting with Kofi Gbolonyo – the person who does drumming workshops in the summer at the Nunya Academy in the Volta Region. And the other main goal of this trip is to hang out with Michelle Quigg, my friend from the World Music Drumming workshops. I got to do both on this trip! The meeting with Kofi was at the University of Ghana, which was an added bonus. Before the meeting, we walked around the campus and had breakfast in the dining hall. That campus is really lovely, though it’s much smaller than UCC. Once we got back to the music building, we met all of these people that John knew. It was a great time of just being around wonderful music people and chatting with them and making connections. It was like a reunion when Kofi walked up, because Michelle knew him from several years ago, and John knew him from when he was a kid (they are both from the Volta Region.) So it was so cool to see everyone reuniting and such. I love how the network is so tight-knit here. It seems like everyone knows everyone else, especially in music. It’s one of the most amazing things that just keeps happening here!
Pictured below is me, John-Doe, Michelle, and Kofi, as well as some photos of the University of Ghana.
The meeting with Kofi was everything I wanted it to be. It was great to meet him in person and have all my questions answered. He told me all about the workshop and I told him how my plan is to bring a group of music teachers to it in 2024. I got his contact information, and I have a better understanding of what goes into that now. What a wonderful person with a lively spirit for music-making. Can’t wait to work with him again. I’m excited to share with my colleagues so that we can make this next trip happen!
After we met with Kofi, John and I parted ways. He went to the Volta Region to visit his family, and I went with Michelle for the rest of the day. I spent the day with her and her partner Fii. We went shopping at some different shops around town, which I will be back to. It was so nice to just be with a friend and do familiar things like shopping and lunch. After we went to the first shop which was called the Wild Gecko, Fii picked us up and we went to lunch at this Western-style restaurant called Sunshine in the Osu area of Accra. It was such a lovely spot! We had a nice lunch and I got to chat with them and get to know Fii a bit better. He’s so nice and easy to talk to, and they are so cute together! They were so gracious to take me to a Vodafone store so I could get A Wi-Fi router for my apartment. That took some time and I was so grateful for them to help me figure out what I needed and to sit there and wait while we got it figured out. Now I have Wi-Fi at my place! After that we went to another store that was a co-op created by women – another very cool shop that I’ll be back to to buy souvenirs and sugh. And I love that it’s women-owned.
After our day of shopping and eating, we went back to their house to hang out for a bit. The traffic was unbelievable and it took forever to get there! But once we did, wow! Fii’s house has a lovely garden area in his yard where we sat under a tree amidst all of his plants and talked for a bit…until the mosquitoes almost carted us off. Then we moved indoors where I learned a new game with them and I met his mother. It was so wonderful to hang out with them all day, and a nice vacation from being in Cape Coast!
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