Impromptu Adventures with Ampedoo...

Here in Ghana, every agricultural area (and fishing area, too) has a taboo day once a week. The day of the week varies from area to area, but on a taboo day, it is understood that the spirits of the forest (or water) demand that all humans stay on their roads or in their villages, and leave the spirits and their domain alone. It seems everyone has a story of what has happened to someone who has broken the taboo. Sometimes, the spirits will gently warn you by manifesting themselves in a strange sight, such as a huge, artificial light miles from civilization. Sometimes, they will teach you a lesson, such as the arrogant man who thought himself stronger than the spirits; he found a beautiful piece of cloth in the forest, but when he tried to pick it up, his fingers and toes gnarled up, leaving him crippled for the rest of his life. Sometimes, they dispense justice, such as the thief who took advantage of the empty forest to steal from others farms; he met a spirit who told him he would die that day, and the next morning, he didn't wake up.

Now from what I gather (and this is just a few sources, so don't take it as reliable, academic research or anything) the spirits are actually a society or a culture who live in a parallel universe, outside of our time/space continuum. They can go anywhere and see anyone at anytime. But there's many of them of varying ages; they give birth, grow old, and live their lives in a society that holds them accountable. They have individual temperaments and personalities. As a society, they can be reasoned with. For example, I asked what would happen if a child went missing in the forest, and they had to search for him or her on a taboo day. Apparently, the village would use a talking drum to inform the spirits of the missing child and ask that they allow a search party to enter and find the child and return to the village unharmed. Apparently, this is acceptable to the spirits.

When appearing to people, the spirits take on the form of short, black dwarves with dreadlocks. Apparently, they sometimes abduct people, especially white people (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is apparently an African fairy tale). They don't harm the people they abduct and they bring them back whenever they ask, sometimes with pocketfuls of gold if they like the person. The abductees then return, well-fed and happy, though having lost all sense of time.

It was because of all this that Mus and I decided not to walk in the forest on Tuesday. Mus and I both thought that Tuesday was the taboo day. Still, the weather was perfect for some exercise, so we decided to take a short walk around town. I knew that later that day we would be going to the big city to visit Mus's auntie, so I decided to dress up a little with a nice sleeveless top and some nice jewelry.

As we were out and about, we decided to stop and visit Mr. Ampedoo, our friend who's a local farmer and very knowledgeable about the area. He helps us answer all kinds of questions and even takes on fantastic hikes. While visiting him,we find out that Obo in fact has several taboo days. Different sections of forest have different taboo days, based on what river they border. Mr. Ampedoo offered to take us on a short walk up a hill to see a spectacular vista of Twendurase, a neighboring village.

Well, of course, short is a relative term, and as Mr. Ampedoo and his fellow farmers are accustomed to making10 mile round trips to their farms over steep terrain with 40 lbs of produce on their heads. Still, I was in the mood to walk for awhile and I knew the forest would be beautiful, so I agreed and we set off.

As I mentioned earlier, I hadn't prepared for a hike. I didn't have on sunscreen or insect repellent, and I hadn't eaten a whole lot for breakfast that morning. So after an hour and a half, I could feel my blood sugar starting to drop. I was having so much fun,however, I did not want to turn around and head home. I also knew that if we kept walking, there was a good chance we would find some fruit to eat; luckily, when you're out in the forest it's considered absolutely fine to take fruit from someone's farm if you're hungry. The rule of thumb is that you shouldn't take more than what you can eat on the spot. I told Mus I was going to need to eat, and he told Mr. Ampedoo to keep a lookout.

Unfortunately, all the fruit we passed was too green to eat, and after another 20 min I was not feeling great. Then we spotted some palm trees that had been felled. The ends of the trees were propped up on a log, and they each had a plastic bottle under them.

Soon we located the farmers who were gathering the palm wine. They were in a small lean-to distilling the palm wine in large steel drums to concentrate the alcohol. Mr. Ampedoo asked them for some food. One farmer went out and brought us a bottle of what he said is his sweetest palm wine, fresh from the tree, and the other took some fire from under the steel drum and roasted some plantain for us.

It certainly wasn't my favorite food; I've never cared much for plantain and fresh palm wine tastes a bit like vinegarette salad dressing. I also had the strong suspicion that since the palm wine was just sap straight from the tree, that I was probably drinking a great deal of bugs from the black, opaque jug. Still, it was fun, all of us eating this farm fresh meal, and moreover, I needed the food to get home and it's what was available.

They gave us a bottle of the leftover wine and after a long rest and some good conversation, Mus and Mr. Ampedoo and I headed for home.

On our way home, we passed an elderly woman who was on her way to her farm. Mus and I both greeted her politely, and then kept walking, but Mr. Ampedoo stopped to chat with his friend. She asked him, wide-eyed, if he was with the obruni (meaning me). She said she couldn't believe her eyes seeing an obruni all dressed up, walking out of the forest in the middle of the afternoon. She said that until I greeted her, she thought that maybe I was a spirit or something in disguise.

We all had a good laugh about that. So Mus and I returned home; I brought home a wicked sunburn on my shoulders and Mus brought home a bottle of palm wine that was indeed full of bugs.