Girl Goes Ghana

Before I got to Ghana, I was under the impression that chiefs were a bit of the thing of the past. I knew that Ghana was a democracy--one of the most stable democracies in Africa, with free and fair elections. Just like the United States, it has a President who is elected every four years. Under this system, where is there room for a chief? That's what I thought. But oh, how wrong I was. Every community has a hereditary Chief and Queen Mother. They are not related to each other, and they aren't married; rather, there is generally one family in town that produces Chiefs, and another which produces Queen Mothers. Here is me with the Queen Mother and Chief tying a bracelet to my wrist to welcome me to the community. Next to me is our community nurse, Emelia. The Chief generally controls just about everything in town. When I wanted to start teaching English lessons, I asked the Chief. When I wanted to form a committee to discuss sanitation projects in the community, I ...

Back in April, when I visited my community for the first time, the town hosted a welcoming ceremony. They sang and danced for me, I sang and danced for them. They thanked God for sending me to their town, and I tried to hide how incredibly intimidating I found that. All was going well. Then they asked my name. Now, I happen to like my name. And I've lived in a few different countries and never had any particular trouble with it. However, for whatever reason, despite the fact that all the sounds in my name are also present in Ewe, it seems to be impossible for people in my community to pronounce without significant coaching. They can get "Billy" or "Belly" just fine, but when I try to get them to say "Bailey" I might as well be trying to get them to imitate the sound of the vomiting cat. They seem to think it's a little uncouth, and probably not worth the effort. Thus, the very first night I spent in my new home, I was given a new name: Adzo. ...