Kumasi

[CLT: "Lost at Sea" - Jimmy Needham]
This weekend we went to Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Region. The region is in the center of Ghana, and it used to cover an area of land larger than present-day Ghana. Though it wasn’t super far away, it took longer to get there because of the crazy road conditions; sometimes the road was one big construction/demolition zone. It was worth it though to see the awesome mountains we drove through. Little simple towns sat at the foot of the “highlands”, it would be amazing to explore them one day.
First in Kumasi, we visited the palace of the Asantehene- the “king” of the Ashanti region. Many of the people there respect the Asantehene more than the President. His palace was nothing like the ones you see in Europe. It was a simple British-Colonial style house absent of extravagance; the most glamorous things were the golden relics the Asantehene wore as a status symbol coming from the time when gold was so abundant in the region.
The rest of our time in Kumasi was spent shopping around the local craft villages. We visited another Kente weaving village, a woodcarving village, and an Adrinka cloth printing village. Adrinka symbols represent ideas or values from religious to family to war. This was the coolest place we visited because you got to see how they made Adrinka cloth from getting the dye to printing the symbols on the cloth. You could even pick the symbols you liked and print your own cloth if you wanted.

Besides the Adrinka place, my favorite place we visited was the Kente village, not because of the Kente. Instead of getting bombarded by salesmen shouting out, “Oburoni!”, I went to a roadside stand and bought a ball. I took it over to a group of kids that were playing on a side road and just started to play with them. It was wonderful to just interact with the people who lived there, and even speak a little Twi with them. They laugh when they hear you speaking Twi with a different accent, and it was great to lose track of time kicking a ball back and forth with a growing crowd of giggling kids. I left the ball with them to keep playing when I left, and it was probably the best 67 cents I spent this weekend!