Soccer and ceremonies

Today was one of the best days so far. We got up early this morning to travel to a village called Agogo. Here we went to the forest area to plant trees to help with a reforestation project. I got to plant five little saplings. Now I am determined to come back in the future to check on my trees. Planting trees really worked up the group’s appetite so afterward we headed to a hostel to grab lunch: fried rice, plantain, and chicken.

Me with my tree. Adinkra symbols Weaving kente cloth

While we were eating our professor asked us if we’d be interested in a game of football against some local schoolchildren. Ten of us volunteered. I have never played soccer in my life but I’ll try anything once. After we finished eating we walked to the football field for the match. However, when I say field I don’t mean a grass field, it was dirt and gravel. The kids we played against were probably 7-12 years old and way better at football than we were. Apparently watching the World Cup doesn’t make me any better at playing football. We ended up sprinting, well some of us, up and down the field chasing the never tiring children. We managed to score one goal which brought the final score to 3-1. There were so many schoolchildren cheering on the sides when their fellow students won. We walked off the field sweaty and scabbed up from falling. Despite the loss playing with the kids was an awesome experience.

The next thing on our agenda was visiting the Agogo chief’s palace to receive an official welcome to the village. We had to dress up, which was awful considering I was covered in sweat. The ceremony was interesting. There was traditional dancing, which surprisingly looked like some hip hop dancing I’ve seen back at home. At the end we got to get up and dance with the dancers in front of the chief and his “cabinet.” After the excursion we traveled back to Kumasi and had a great dinner and birthday cake for Maureen, a fellow student on the maymester.