Soccer Fever

Yesterday was the grand kick-off of the African Cup of Nations, which is a soccer tournament like the World Cup that African Nations compete in, and the tournament is being hosted right here in Ghana. The excitement has been simmering in the air for months now, but this past week it's reached fever pitch. Every channel on TV talks of nothing but the upcoming tournament. Mus heard on the news that the price of hotel accommodation in Accra has sky-rocketed, with most hotels having $300 as their lowest rate! They're expecting over 1million foreign tourists here in Ghana over the next three weeks, which is double their annual average of tourists. I hope that prediction is right- the government has spent a lot of money building four brand new soccer stadiums for the tournament- I really hope they get their money's worth out of hosting it.

Yesterday's kick-off game featured Ghana versus Gambia. Unfortunately, on Saturday our TV broke and was in the repair shop during the game. Mus and I discovered, however, that one can easily track the score of the game by listening to the whole town of Obo. I had thought Packer games were noisy in Wisconsin, but Ghanaians take cheering to a whole new level.

I think three factors assist them in this:

1. Soccer is the only televised sport. It's kind of a monopoly.

2. For games like this, many people will drag their TVs onto the sidewalks or to their porches, so people are congregated on the street, watching and cheering. Plus, everyone's windows are always open, so even people watching inside their houses contribute to the din.

3. Ghanaians love drumming. To celebrate, they grab anything handy and start pounding on it. After Ghana emerged victorious, the impromptu drumming lasted a solid 20 minutes. During this drumming session, Mus caught sight of 2 old women, dancing butt-to-butt like bears in an old Disney cartoon, and drumming on their saucepans with spoons.

In other news, Mus has a new hobby that I find very enjoyable. His favorite domestic activity is currently making juice from fresh-picked fruit. Everyday for the last week he's spent an hour in the kitchen, blending and straining the fruit. So far my favorite has been his coconut, watermelon, orange, pineapple combo. Very smooth on the palette. Today, he's experimenting with papaya.

And a final tidbit for you to chew on- I just found out that the Ghanaian term for second-hand clothes is “obruni w'awu” which means “The white man is dead.” Apparently, this signifies the idea (and I don't know if anyone believes this...) that when a white man dies, his clothes are shipped to Africa. They reason that if the man was still alive, he would need his clothes, so why would he send them here?