ama sitsofe

that was the new name given to me today at the naming ceremony in the Torgome village. Ama like i said before means that i was born on a saturday, but since clearly not all children can only have 14 name options, another name is chosen for the child by their father. Ceremonies like naming a child, marriage, funerals are really big deals in this culture, and since we all need new names, the chief got to pick them for us. The chief himself could not make it to the ceremony because apparently his daughter died yesterday? (someone told me this after the fact, and i'm kind of shocked that the whole village put on the whole performance for us anyway). But a bunch of elders presented us with our new names and gifts- these cool little pots and bracelets. We learned later how to make the pottery. they also did some traditional dances for us, but by far the most fun part of this whole ceremony was taking pictures of the children and showing them the pictures. they loved it. In Ghana, we're supposed to ask people for permission to take their picture typically, but with kids they recommend taking the picture and then just showing them since they like it so much. so we did this a lot and more and more kids just materialized around us, and they kept getting cautious the longer we were there. at first they seemed kind of afraid of us, but then they all wanted their picture taken and to press buttons on the cameras, but they were so funny, because none of them wanted to smile for the camera, so i have a lot of serious looking children pictures. it's fun stuff, and hopefully tomorrow i'll take the time to pick a place to post a ton of photos. i'm too tired again tonight to do it and will only write a bit more for now. we also went to a wildlife park today, but saw no wildlife. we did however see a cave where people used to live, and i climbed up a tree in my skirt. i somehow missed the memo that we were going to hike up a little mountain after the ceremony and see these caves, so hiking in flip flops and a skirt was kinda bad. but when we got there, there was a little tree (15 foot stick) you could shimmy up, and of course i had to do it, so one girl recommended tying the bits of the loose skirt together to make it more like pants, and that at least got the fabric out of the way. in any event it was funny.

just a brief note about yesterday. we went to an art museum and saw some cool stuff, plus a few of the strange coffins...like a shoe, or a pineapple, or coke bottle, or other weird stuff. i'll show you. i missed the coffin shops to go back to university of ghana, but i still got a taste of the strange options, and i can go to the shops another time. i also have a better idea of my classes and community service activities, but i'll write about that when i'm more sure and more awake. we have more fun stuff planned for tomorrow, and i'll write about it after the fact. there were more things i was going to write about, but i guess i'll have to do it next time because i can't remember. so until then~