This past weekend I took a trip to the second largest city in Ghana, Kumasi. Kumasi is located north of the University of Ghana in the Ashanti region. The trip took about six hours through beautiful mountain terrain. The only downside to the bus trip through the mountains is that instead of a regulated speed limit the government of Ghana has decided to regulate the speed of automobiles by laying a gratuitous amount of speed bumps ranging in size from a simple rumble strip all the way to a small hill that requires drivers to come to a complete stop. There was a silver lining about the speed bumps though because it gave many opportunities to capture the beautiful scenery through the Eastern region.
Once in Kumasi we visited the Asantehene Palace and museum. The Asantehene Palace belongs to the king of the Ashanti people. The Ashanti people are a sect of the Akan ethnic group which makes up many of the people in southern Ghana and is about 40 percent of the population. The Ashanti still have a thriving culture that is exemplified in the palace, festivals, and their monarchical structure within Ghana. The Ashanti are very proud of their heritage especially the golden stool. The Golden Stool is the most important part of the Ashanti because it was made using gold, the fingernails, and hair of all the chiefs within the Ashanti people. The making of the Gold Stool represented the unification of all Ashanti people. As long as the stool remained with the Ashanti they were all united. The British did try to take the stool from the Ashanti during the British colonial period; however the Ashanti gave the British a replica of the Golden Stool and kept the real stool until after the war between the Ashanti and British was over. The rituals done over 400 years ago are still performed today by the Ashanti people and they truly are a thriving culture within Ghana.
The next day my group traveled to three craft villages to learn about the art done in the Ashanti region; the villages were the Bonwire, Ntonso, and Ahwiaa. The Bonwire village was known for making Kente cloth, which is only found in the Ashanti region. These weavers would weave all day on large wooden looms. The looms were manually operated and took quite a bit of practice to weave at even a slow rate. I was able to weave part of a single-weave cloth and found out that it takes a great amount of coordination between your hands and feet.
The next village we traveled to was the Ntonso village which is where Ashanti symbols are pressed onto fabric. Within this village we learned how the ink was made from trees imported from the north and then boiled down until only a thick black ink remained. The symbols had many meanings and were very interesting. Symbols representing “accept God”, unity, and strength were prevalent on the fabrics that were being sold in the village.
The final place we stopped was the Ahwiaa village which is better known as the wood-carving village. This village had more shops filled with beautiful African wood-carvings than I had ever seen before. Every shop had its own special wood carving style in their pieces. The owners of the shops were the actual carvers and were very happy to give a fair price for their work. The masks and figurines were fantastic and I was able to get quite a few for fewer than 60 cedi. If there is one place that I would like to go back to for shopping it would be the Ahwiaa village.
Throughout the entire trip to Kumasi I was very happy to be seeing how beautiful the country is because being in the urban environment of it becomes hard to remember that there are many picturesque areas in Ghana. Kumasi is a very unique area that while being an urban area is very different from the Greater Accra area.
