The village of Sumburigu is near Bolga in northern Ghana. In July three woman from the village packed their bags with important things like crushed stones, dowadowa leaves and coal tar and took a very long bus ride to Accra where Belinda, the daughter of one of them, joined them to travel to Aba House. Belinda was important because she was the interpreter from fra fra to english.
The women were essential because they were coming to paint our wall. Anyone can paint a wall, but not the way they do it On the first day the wall was chiseled and then plastered with a mixture of sand and cold tar. Traditionally cow dung is used, but cold tar served the purpose.
At the end of the fourth day we had a spectacular wall full of symbols relating to life in northern Ghana.
I asked the women to sign the wall (how western of me) and they each left a handprint (how African of them).
The womens names are Adintoge, Asinsoboro and Adompoka.
The workshop was truly in keeping with our mission of cross cultural understanding and next summer....... another wall.
The women had never seen the ocean and when we took them onto the deck for a view, they wanted to know how the boats stay on top of the water. Good question. Then they went to the water to dip their feet in the surf and they collected a botle of ocean water to take home.
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