On Friday, I got a ride home from two coworkers after talking with one of them about how the African people are still economic slaves. He is very black power/African power kind of guy, of the Ga tribe (second biggest after the Ashanti). We were also talking a lot about HIV/AIDS in Africa-- everyone talks about it here, it is a really big deal. I was talking to one of my coworkers who used to work in an orphanage in Ethiopia. She had all of the 162 children tested for HIV earlier this year; 70 of them tested positive. In the general population of Ghana it is not as common but they treat the people who have it very differently, they are effectively outcasts.
We were stuck in traffic in the slums where all the Muslims from the North reside and run their scams and centralize their burglary (at least, that's what they said). One of their friends ran up and they were all slamming each other and whatnot, very friendly-like and I found out afterwards that he is the head of the Accra mafia. They got to know him because they are the ones who put together publicity events for Vibe and they need him for their security. The police here are extremely corrupt and ineffective; whenever there is a private event, private security is hired. They had security guards for the wedding reception at the house on Saturday.
There was a benefit concert with John Legend and reggae star Luciano, from Jamaica, on Saturday. I didn't go, but Luciano came to the studio on Friday with his whole reggaed-out crew. They were all wearing dreadlocks, tie-dye, Bob Marley, weed leaf parphernalia and greeted you with an explosive, "Rastafaaaaaaaaaaarrr!!" I have no idea who he is but it was fun anyway, he was quite nice and the rest of the staff was all in a tizzy about his appearance, including the CEO, which was great because then he was very happy for the rest of the day and chatted with everyone. Usually he is very stone-faced and silent.
The wedding reception was very nice. The bride spent the night at the house so we saw her get ready in the morning. I also saw them preparing some of the food. There were ten or so people behind the house beating out fufu (popular Ghanaian dish) with giant sticks in a bucket and cooking rice, fried chicken, fried fish (whole fish), spaghetti and blood stew over fires. The wedding was all purple, so the two flower girls looked very cute. About 200 people came back from the church for the reception. The women were all decked out in African garb, it was awesome. They looked so good. The bride was wearing the "traditional" white dress and the groom was in a fancy suit with a violet tie and handkerchief. The reception was less crazy than I anticipated; I helped to serve food to the lines of people who filed past. There was music and some dancing but mostly men danced and women watched. I guess Ghanaian women also find the men here a little overwhelming. By the end of the night (actually 6:30pm), the hiphop group who had performed two songs earlier started breakdancing on the porch; they were really good. Marie (also staying at the house) and I were the only white people at the wedding; the children (and some men) thought we were pretty interesting, especially once the digital cameras came out. Yesterday was the first day I invented my fictional fiancee. Everyone wanted us to take photos of the wedding because no one else had a digital camera and a lot of people wanted to have their picture taken with us on the real photographer's "old" style film camera. The bride and groom also wanted to have their photos taken with us, even though we didn't know them at all until the day of the wedding.
"Obroni! Obroni!" I have a lot of photos but I can't put them online because the computer situation here is so iffy... I think I'm going to have to wait until I get home for everything, which sucks because the blog is going to be so much less interesting now!
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