Meeting the cocoa farmers

Surreal. Overwhelming. Fantastic. Arriving in the village after about one hour or so (another mad, slightly terrifying at times) drive out of Kumasi we turned left on to a red sandy road... Small villages popped up by the road in the otherwise thick vegetation, the landscape was beautiful and i am sorry to say the camera does not capture the full beauty of it. We picked up a woman who was walking beside the road with bags, on her way home to her community after buying food at the market. She didn't speak any English but Erica, the Kuapa Kokoo representative, chatted away in Twi, the local language. Along the way Erica greeted people from the car. People looking curiously at the Ubruni in the backseat. Finally we stop, we have arrived in a village with houses , some more looking like sheds on both sides of the road. Right next to us, cocoa beans are drying on mats on a table. Goats and chickens stand in the shade underneath it. We join a group of people sitting on wooden benches under a tree and two plastic red chairs are pulled out for me and Erica. The driver disappeared, i think he went to the church, where i later on found out it was a service. A catholic church. According to Erica Ghanaians have a lot of faith, by that i mean both in religious terms as well as staying positive about the future. After a while i started asking my questions and since most of them didn't speak any/poor English Erica was kind enough to translate into Twi. In the middle of my questions the chief of the village turn up, we shake hands. Erica ask me to asked him a direct question so i did. It turns out he is a rich man, and that he therefore can afford two wives, and he could even afford a third, so what did i have to say about it? The people sitting under the tree laughed so hard i thought they were going to fall of the benches! I smiled too, shaking my head saying no no no, i have a man in Sweden. This is the kind of thing you read about, surely the first time i got the offer to be someones third wife! I fisnished my questions and they wanted to ask me some questions; am i a student? working? married? do i have children? how old am i? I enjoyed being there. People were very kind and uncomplicated.
While Erica participated in a PTA meeting i went with some ten people to a cocoa farm. We drove for a few minutes, stopped by the side of the road, pulled out the machetes and just walked into the bush. All of a sudden one of the men stop and say: this is a cocoa tree. We had entered the farm. Basically it's like being in a forest. I learned what they look like when they are ripe (they turn yellow), and we came to a big pile full of cocoa fruit. They gave me one to show people in Sweden! Afterwards we picked oranges, i learned that here they use the machetes to peel the orange, and they suck the juice out with the mouth, and don't really eat the orange. They took a picture of me doing this, while laughing... Then one of the men told me to bring him a camera the next time i came! ...and that they would very much like to open a shop where they could sell fruit, maybe i could help save up money for this? I told them i am a student, but once i have a full time job i will do my best to help them accomplish this.
We drove back to the community, and i visited the school where Erica was. Kuapa Kokoo has built this school consisting of two buildings and today 500 students are attending classes there... From four years and up. But Erica told me that the cocoa farmers leave even younger children there, knowing that the teachers don't mind. A British woman was working in this community for two years as a teacher, she only left in December last year! In one of the rooms the students had an exam so i couldn't enter, but i was welcome to enter the other one together with the principle. Wow. 40 or so students stood up to greet me "Good afternoon madam, how are you?" I replied and when asking how they were doing, i was met by a mutual "we are fine, madam, thank you". Disciplined students, to say the least. Erica said there is a lot of respect for teachers. I believed her. When i came out i was met by a staring group of young children, maybe between two and seven years old... I waved at them, smiling and they did the same. Waving and smiling. Waving and smiling. I just wanted to give them a big hug, they were adorable! Instead i pulled out my camera and took a picture, that when i later showed it to them, ended up with them giggling and pointing. Pure happiness.
After dropping of the chief's first wife (who i found out has ten children) and the farmer whose cocoa farm i had visited at two different communities we drove back to Kumasi. I enjoyed a delicious, spicy guinea fowl with rice at a restaurant with Erica. For some reason the driver sat at another table, Erica thought he didn't feel comfortable sitting with us. Let's just say he wasn't the most charming, nor talkative, man in the world. And not a very good driver neither.
Erica then picked up an outfit at a place for a funeral this weekend. She told me Ghanaians spend a fortune on funerals, that they enjoy funerals too much. The thing is you have to have a new outfit for every funeral. Some people attend funerals even though they don't know the deceased. They enjoy the ceremony apparently; with its free food and free drinks... Like wedding crashers in the west i suppose.
My reflections on yesterday turned into 13 A5 pages... I tried to keep it short here. I would just like to add one thing that Erica told me in the car on the way back to Kumasi. She said Africans are normally put forward as poor, and yes there is a lot of poverty here in Africa. But people are happy. Content with what they do have. Above all they tend to keep a positive state of mind. The people i met today may not have had a lot when it comes to financial means and material things, attributes many aim for in the west, but they were happy. Content. I am very grateful to have met them and to be on this journey. What a day.