Our first visit to Kyekyewere: Rapid Cultural Immersion Part One

We awoke the next morning (October 28th) to our first of many breakfasts consisting of some variation of meat, beans and toast. Instant coffee instead of brewed. Canned condensed milk for creamer.

We left our hotel with our driver around 9am. The village chief had sent his gold mercedes and a driver, but we opted to keep our driver (who we are now affectionately calling Eddie) around. The drive to Kyekyewere was not far and on mostly dirt road once we left the main vein on which our hotel was located. The picture below is of this dirt road.



The housing along the roadside was mostly concrete with tin roofs and did not appear to contain more than one or two rooms. Goats wandered freely.



We stopped at a centrally located building where Chief Nana Yaw lives with his family designated by the village as "the palace." Here was a large room where our first ceremonial discussion occurred. Below is the door to the palace. On the door are Adinkra symbols. The meanings of each are not a single word, but relate to a proverb. The top symbol has something to do with "The great panorama of Creation" and that only God can see the begining/ending of things. The bottom has a meaning similar to the biblical phrase "eye for an eye." The middle, as I was informed, had no specific meaning.






Our meeting included village elders, Chief Nana Yaw, our driver and my mother's friend, Daniel in addition to us. We sat in a circle of plastic chairs in the palace. Before conversation could occur, we conducted a round or two of hand shaking (right hand only) and were given "water" from the chief (this was really coca cola and fanta).

Talking to Chief Nana had to be done via a second party. Although, sometimes for simplicity, he broke this rule and spoke with us directly. Mom did all speaking from our party. Essentially, she confirmed her intention to raise funds to build a clinic in the village. Chief confirmed his intention to donate land for this cause as he felt it would be good for the village on many levels. He envisioned a much larger "hospital" and I began to sense that with any endeavor like this, there is always more one could do, but being realistic and setting limits is the best way to actually get anything done.

We left the meeting as a group to see the site and to visit a clinic in a neighboring village.