A Resulting Art of Mystery

Me attempting the weaving technique of the Kente factory.

A Day of Art, A Day of Travel, A Day of Recognition-

Life has been flying by in Ghana the past few days! It has to be because our time here is almost up.
Finally, I get to share our recent story...
Wednesday, we were introduced to the artistic side of Ghana, one of my absolute favorites no doubt.
To start our artistic journey, we left the city of Kumasi to arrive at a small town just a short time away. There, we had a massive crowd awaiting our arrival.
Dr. Seth had warned us about this the night before as he explained that there would be many artists and vendors there that were thoroughly anticipating our visit, and that we should be prepared for an intense excitement upon arrival.
Just that was so, and I don't think that anyone was prepared for what we witnessed there.
As the bus came to a stop at the Kente factory, there was an immediate crowd approaching and before we could even take a step towards the factory Dr.Seth poked his head out of the bus door to warn the surrounding street vendors. Afterward, we were able to walk to the factory in a peaceful line, despite a few persistant sales pitches.
We finally stepped through the turmoil into the factory. It was a rectangular, small area about 30ft by 20 ft. that was decorated on all sides by Kentes of every design and color. Special weaving machines lined the middle of the shop.
These weaving machines were spectacular with un-believable amounts of ability. There are three separate weaves that the machines can do including single, double, and triple weaves. Wooden bars entagled with thread create the weaving patterns by being moved up, down and side to side mechanically by the weaver. The machine seems very simple if you observe it from the outside, but the string movement and preparation is defintely a hidden puzzle. When the weaving is being performed,it is so fast paced as strings are moving mutually in every different place from every different direction. It seemed as if the resulting product of art was a mystery. I was thoroughly in awe.
Setting yourself up to perform the weaving operating is quite a tediuos task. After placing yourself underneath the wooden weaving tool, you then wrap your toes tight with the thread dangling from the attached string hanging beneath you and begin to work. As you hold a wooden weaving bar wrapped with string in your hand, you pass it back and forth across the criss-crossed string surrounding the weaving tool and afterwards tighten with another wooden piece that is suspended from above.
A 30 mintute lesson passed by and we still could not get to an explanation on how to weave the multiple weaving patterns. The teaching process is as complex as the weaving tool, and is known to take weeks upon weeks to be able to completely instruct how to weave a Kente. This work is commended, honored, and treasured and will be for multiple generations to come.
Following our introduction to the myterious art it was finally time to shop! Throughout this entire trip the Kente shopping experience has been my absolute favorite and most cherished. The main reasoning behind this is the fact that every Kente design has a particular meaning. The history of the Kente is incredibly significant especially when it comes to the name and meaning of a certain pattern.
As our reading states, " Each pattern has its name and in many cases also represents the clan, social status, or even sex of the wearer; or it may refer to some proverbial saying." Also, "In olden times, the King of Ashanti appeared to hold the 'copyright' of all new designs and these he would either reserve for himself or allocate them to great men or women in the kingdom."
I was in disbelief that the art could be so impacting still today. This distictly significant fashion fascinated me and I ended up choosing the "siserhood" and "family is unity" cloths for some very special people back at home.
I left the shop in complete admiration of the trade.
Our next stop was the Adinkra village where we witnessed locals demonstrate how to make the natural ink that stamps their garmets. The ink comes from their very own badie tree and goes through an extensive process to result in an ink that is stamp worthy.
The process goes like this-
First the bark is shaven from the badie tree. Next it is soaked in tubs of water for 24 hours until it goets soft enough to break apart. After pounding the soft bark into tiny strips with a large wooden grinding stick, the tiny strips are put in a boiling pot over a fire and there they sit for two weeks until the boiling bark becomes a dark, thick, sticky paste.
This ink is then used to be the creator of many symbols upon the cherished hand woven cloth produced in the very same village.
Symbols of design were presented to us and their meanings were made known. Some were child of God, patience, unity, and back to your roots.
Afterward we were intructed to begin stamping our very own shimmering white cloth with symbols we chose from our previous lesson. We loved stamping the garmet and were particularly happy to be able to participate in creating such a natural, meaningful piece of artwork.
Afterward Dr. Seth surprised us as we stepped on the bus with the garmet and explained that he had bought it for all of us to cut and keep our personally stamped symbols. For this we were especially grateful and it became a sweet ending to our group feild projects.
I was truly saddened by our next day travels back to Accra to prepare ourselves for our journey back to America.
I am not ready to stop learning this way.
Studying the world through a book is something that I will never agian look at the same. Through this blogging adventure I now know how difficult and tedious explanation and experience through textbook and media can be to portray. Now I see that reading and acknowledging something about our ever changing world is only the begining of knowing the true story.
To me it is like a puzzle-
Reading and researching this amazing life can give you the easier outer edges but only by experince can you get the inner pieces that create the entire picture.
I am so thankful to now to have the inner pieces of Ghana.
Thursday our journey back to Accra and back to our Delta bird flying us back home began. We were all happy to arrive back, as Accra is a favorite city to many on the trip... maybe because it hosts Shop Rite, which is the one and only grocery store we have been able to access within the past two weeks. Needless to say, we made a hilarous scene later that night as we all stormed into Shop Rite. We never thought we could ever be so happy to grocery shop.
That night brought everyone some amazing rest, awesomely hot showers, delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a gorgeous sight of landing planes that is clear from the view on our hotel rooftop.
Yesterday was a "shop till you drop death match" as we hit the outer-city market. Girls were scrambling for African dresses for the banquet and all the guys could think about were Ghanaian soccer jerseys.
The day closed with a delicious feast at our favorite diner, Frankies, where Kia thankfully discovered the bakery next door. "Our rice tank has been overflowing and our desert tank is dangerously low," as Michael would say.. so about 5 doughnuts and a piece of cake later, we were aboard the bus again to the hotel where later we had another rooftop adventure of overhead landing planes and laughs.
Today began our ending presentations and banquet dinner, which has been so incredibly special that it deserves a blogging explanation within itself. The bittersweet ending will be explained tomorrow before our Delta bird flys us back.

Prepared. Relieved. Appriciative.

Until Next Time,
Life is Love