Anyone familiar with Ghanaian culture knows the role that football, or soccer as Americans call it, has in the society. One cannot walk down the street without being bombarded by endless advertisements and vendors selling jerseys with players ranging from the Asamoah Gyan, the captain of the national team, to the more well-known Cristiano Ronaldo. Football is very much the glue that holds the stratified society together. Though occupations differ between people in the society, everyone in Ghana understands the language of football. For this reason, it was very fitting that I start there
After finishing our profiling at the Westphalian Children’s Village, we packed up our cameras and documents and made our way 10 minutes down the road to Anja’s Children’s Home. Upon our arrival on Wednesday morning, we realized our game plan at this orphanage would be much different than our last. Instead of the near-adults that we profiled at Westphalian, we were overjoyed to find that the kids at Anja’s Children’s Home ranged from the ages of 6-17. Unprepared for our arrival, the director sent most of the children to school that day, forcing us to transcribe for the entirety of the day. As it neared midday, we took a break and went to the village to look for something to eat. Though most of us have our own favorites when it comes to Ghanaian dishes, almost all of share a love for Red Red. This dish, made up of fried plantains and black-eyed peas, is possibly the best tasting and most filling food on earth. Besides being amazingly tasty, the most monstrous portions of Red Red can be bought on the street for only four cedis or about one US dollar. For eight cash-strapped interns, better or more affordable food cannot be found
After our long search for Red Red, we ate and returned to the detective-like task of transcribing. After a couple of hours of hard work we completed documents for all 14 of the children who needed profiling, leaving only the interviews for Thursday. Content with our progress, we walked across the street, met the children who had recently gotten out from school and we began playing football, volleyball and Frisbee. Initially, I thought I would be able to hold my own in football, weren’t they just 10 year olds? I had 8 years and puberty on them how could I not keep up with them? How wrong I was. But after being nutmegged, juked and outrun by kids who were only half of my height for two hours in 90-degree heat, I decided not to push my luck and sat down in the shade exhausted. After recuperating from the extreme heat and our embarrassment, the team disembarked from the Children’s Home and made the long drive back to the hotel.
The next day we began the long process of the child interviews. Each lasting around 25-40 minutes the interviews are the most time intensive step in the process of profiling. As a cameraman, I recorded the interviews, charged the cameras and stood by as the interviews were conducted in Twi, the native language. After two weeks of living in Ghana, I’ve realized that no matter how hard I try, I’m always three steps behind the action. Though nearly everyone speaks English with perfect fluency, almost all dialogue is conducted in Twi, leaving the eight of us interns very confused. With a vocabulary in Twi that consists of only the words ‘Hello,’ ‘Thank you’ and ‘High five,’ I find myself lost most of the time. Though I have no idea what is being said during the interviews, the body language of the children reveals their personality and how happy they at the orphanage. By late afternoon we wrapped up the interviews and bid farewell to the children.
After a long, hard week of profiling, all of us were elated about our weekend trip to Mole National Park. Mole is located in northern Ghana and is a nature preserve that houses many animals from warthogs to elephants. We left at 4 a.m on Saturday morning for Mole, wanting to arrive in time for the morning jeep tour around the park. After our arrival we ate breakfast and took in the beautiful surroundings. Just before midday we embarked on our Jeep tour of Mole. Driving on a bumpy dirt road, we scoured the wooded savannah looking for any trace of animal life. As we entered the main watering hole, 7 elephants stood in a circle in the clearing. Everyone yelled excitedly and I’m pretty sure Hailey shed a few tears. After an abnormal amount of selfies and group pictures we left the elephants and returned to the park headquarters.
Our final tour that day was a Jeep tour at dusk. Though we saw few animals, the experience of being in the wild surrounded by the calls of thousands of insects, birds and monkeys was amazing. The long drive and countless hours of keeping our eyes peeled took its toll on everybody, resulting in nearly everyone passing out on their beds as soon as we got back to the hotel.
We woke up bright and early on Sunday morning and began our final, walking tour. During the beginning of the hike, we saw an elephant on the football field, baboons on power lines and warthogs in the trash, but as we continued we made our way to the larger watering hole. As we neared, we found the elephants and followed them as they made the walk to the watering hole for their bath. We looped around the water and watched from the other side of the shore as the elephants entered the water and poured water from their trunks onto their backs to wash off the mud that they caked themselves with to protect from the sun. Crocodiles lurked on the surface, keeping their distance from the elephants. After an hour of sitting on the shore of the watering hole, we returned to the motel, packed off and said our goodbyes to Mole.
Sweaty, dotted by mosquito bites and exhausted, we hunkered down for the long car ride back to Kumasi, excited to begin a new week of profiling.