Kumasi and Cape Coast

Instead of deciding to stay in Techiman (about an hour from Kumasi) for the night, we pushed on to Kumasi and decided to stay at the same place we stayed before with the hot showers, and omelet breakfasts! We decided that the next day (Saturday) we would go to the kente cloth village (bonwire) and the wood carvers village and the HUGE market. The market is known as one of the largest or the largest in all of west Africa. We headed to the kente cloth village first. The weavers are all men. It seems very taxing to weave this cloth. It's complicated and I don't quite know how to explain it except that they hold some string in their toes to keep the different threads that they weave with their hands tight. When you arrive at the building where the do the weaving, all the weavers stop weaving when you get there and follow you around begging you to look at their cloth so that you'll buy it. There were about 10 different weavers and each are at different levels of expertise. This guy claimed he was one of the master weavers and his work was beautiful. Outside of the building there are tons of people wanting you to buy their kente goods: keychains, bookmarks, purse's, jewelry, hairbands, etc. It can get quite annoying. But for some reason at this place we all decided that it was a great game and enjoyed the bargaining. I had this little boy trying to sell a purse to me. I actually like it. He said $4 and I knew that it was worth about $2. So I said, no 2. He gave me the puppy dog eye look, "please, no. 4" I looked at him and said, "you know that 2 is a good price." He was obviously learning the process of convincing the foreigners to buy goods because he got all shy and looked down and smiled. This is what actually stole my heart. I said, "see you are smiling. you know i'm right. i'll give you 2." he kept smiling, but realized he was totally giving it away that I was right. It's like he was telling himself, 'compose yourself, you're losing the battle! you're giving it away!' So he looked down and then looked up but with a pleading look and said, no please 4" I just smiled pinched his cheek and said, "tell you what I'll give you $2.50 but only because you are soo cute!" This made him blush again and he smiled and looked down. And of course he accepted the deal.

I have no pictures of the wood village and none of the market. Craig actuallly wouldn't let me take the camera to the huge market because he knows a few people who've had their belongings stolen from them there. The market is insane. There are soooooo many people. Literally invision a cattle drive and their herding the cattle into the pen and it's bodies against bodies moving slow and steady. Well, that is exactly the process here. There were 5 of us and 2 kids trying to keep track of one another. we had to hold onto one anothers shirts or you get separated in a matter of seconds. We bought some flip flops for 60 pesewas( like 60 cents). I tried to buy some used jeans and offered $3 (which is very good) but the guys wouldn't accept anything less than $10. Totally trying to rip me off but he let me walk. oh well. The best buy of the day was Craig's. We were walking past a bunch of stands that had all different kinds of jerseys. Ana, LOVES the Lakers. (why not, she is from LA) We wanted to get her something for her for Christmas. Her favorite player is Kobe Bryant. We just so happened to pass a stand with a Kobe Bryant jersey hanging there. We asked her if she'd be interested in it and of course the answer was yes. It looked reallly nice and had his new number on it so she'd be current. Craig bargained and got it for $4. After purchasing it, we looked at it in even greater detail and folks it was the real deal. I'm talking $150 real. It had tags on it, and the stitching and embroidery was professional. It was not a knock-off. We were almost speechless. We couldn't believe it! In the states this sucker is sold for about $150. Yet, in Ghana $4. The only thing we can think of is that it was stolen in the shipping process and somehow made it's way there?! Even better, we noticed that there was another one so after discovering this, Ana's friend Ganisha immediately bought the other one. Can you believe that!

So we stayed in Kumasi for 2 whole days. We relaxed on Sunday. Craig and I found an LDS chapel there and went to church. After a great relaxing break from our travels we headed out first thing Monday morning for Cape Coast. Did I mention that our van had been having transmission problems? Kumasi came at great timing because our driver was able to get the problem fixed during those 2 days. So on to Cape Coast. We stayed at a guesthouse there. After check-in we went to Castle Restaurant to eat lunch. It's located right next to Cape Coast Castle. Perfect since the girls wanted to tour the castle and Craig and I wanted to shop around in the market on the inside of the castle walls. At the restaurant, we celebrated Adriana's birthday. It was New Year's Eve. Can you imagine having a birthday on New Year's? What a party every year! Craig and I ordered hamburgers at the restaurant. Only to be disappointed. If you order a beef burger, it always comes back as an Italian Sausage burger. Not horrible, but definately not what you want when craving an American burger!!!
Our view from our table. Awesome!
After lunch, the girls toured and we enjoyed shopping. While we were shopping a local dance and drumming group started practicing in the courtyard for an upcoming show. We got to sit and enjoy! It was awesome. The castle is in the background of this shot.
Up close, these dancers are blowing some kind of traditional horns made of some kind of animal horn (bulls?). Sorry, it's not like I know everything here! It's very cool though to watch.
More to come of the rest of our stay. The internet has really been giving us problems lately, so that's why there is always so many days inbetween blogs. Hope you're enjoying the crazy Waite saga.