Blogpost January 24, 2019
Mannie is a Ghanaian-Italian first year from Chicago that came to Ghana for the first time in order to learn about slavery and also meet his family for the first time. Prof. Iddrisu secured a ticket previously for Mannie to go to Kumasi to meet the uncles and grandma. And with the agreement of Mannie’s uncle, who agreed to stay in contact with Mannie’s until he gets to kumasi, Abdulai got Mannie into the Government Transport at the Tamale Transport Yard, at 4:30 am. This will be Mannie’s first time meeting with his grandmother. He met the uncle when we passed through Kumasi last three weeks. This was a 7 hour bus ride and Mannie made it safely to Kumasi.
“ It was really nerve racking going all the way to Kumasi by myself but it was also very exciting meeting my Ghanaian family for the first time. It has been such an experience finally getting to be home and live within my own culture.” said Mannie
Mannie’s uncle picked him up from the bus stop at exactly 2:47.
Mannie met his grandma for the first time in his life.
The rest of the group got to sleep in until 9 and after breakfast at our usual joint, we had multiple groups do different things on our free day/last full day in Tamale. We had a picture with Fussey, owner of MilikiKuul, where we had the sumptuous meals.
One group went back to the Tamale Central market where we shopped at a couple days ago and at the Center for National Culture that had lots of touristy souvenirs and cool artwork painted by some of the locals.
We went back through all shops to make our last minute purchases for family and friends before leaving Tamale.
Prof. Abdulai took a different group of us to the market. We managed to squeeze 7 people into his Suzuki Grand Vitra, and it was quite the Ghanaian driving experience. He helped us look for African fabrics and black soap. However, a trip to the market with Abdulai involves him making a series of stops to say hi to people because he knows everyone. We spent time at the fabric store picking out fabrics for Morgan and Matt to take back to the States. After the market we squeezed back into Abdulai’s Four Wheel car and drove to the cultural center to meet the rest of our group.
After that was lunch at the usual spot and then afterwards a small group went to a local bakery to get bread for our long trip to Kumasi the following day.
Later that evening, most of us went to the youth and cultural center to play some basketball, volleyball, and soccer with some of the people there.
It was a very fun way to end our final day in Tamale!