This part of our Ghanaian trip is probably the most interesting. We spent some days in Claudia’s mother’s village and it turned out to be an experience of a lifetime for Mikkel and his parents. A 7 hours drive from Accra,t he village is called New Denkyira Obuasi and is in the Central Region of Ghana.This is also where Claudia as a child often visited from the city and spent time with her grandmother. She has many fond memories from this village.
What is great about the village is that it is so pure, in the sense that influences from modern life is to a minimum – it’s “back to basics”, low paced, non-excessive lifestyle. All green forest surroundings and nature, food is fresh from the farm and cooked from scratch with no preservatives or additives. Yes, living as one with nature. We made sure to also visit the family’s cocoa and vegetable farm.
Mikkel and his mother in-law celebrated their bithdays together. The party was intended for family, but it turned out the whole village had heard of this event and were getting ready to participate.
So the visitors were part invited guests and part random people from the village. In other words, the party became way bigger than planed. We weren’t bothered by this, it’s after all a collectivistic society and inclusive culture. It was also quite fun for us to give people the opportunity to celebrate with us. Share the fun, share the love!!
The celebration was traditional, with traditional Kente dancers and drummers, and the regional chief making a grand entrance.
Mikkel and his parents were naturally the center of attention. Everybody wanted to dance and take pictures with them. Our village experience was no doubt the most interesting of our trip to Ghana. We will remember this for a long long time.
Traveler to Traveler 