The North: Part One

This is for those of you who are eager. I'm trying to update as much as possible. I wrote 86 full pages my journal over the course of the week we spent in the North...haha. It's so hard to summarize this experience!

Monday to Monday, October 5-12, the Calvin group took a trip to the Northern Region of Ghana. The primary purpose of our trip was to study Development in the North. We stayed in Yendi (a small town) for three days, Tamale (a bigger town) for three days, and in Mole National Park for two days. Through conversations with important figures in the community, visits to NGOs, and time spent time with the people of the North, light was shed on issues I have never seen so close up. This trip was so full in every sense of the word: academically, experientially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. The North is a place of unimaginable beauty and great need. I can’t wait to tell you about it!

Monday morning, the 5th, at 4:30am I awoke to my alarm clock, snuck out of the room, and got on the Institute of African Studies Bus to begin our day of travel to the North. I had been freaking out about this 12 hour bus for a while, thinking we would be throwing up all over each other. I somewhat forcefully convinced most people to take Dramamine—I came with a large supply. Because of this, most of us slept almost the whole ride. Whoops! We stopped every few hours—in Kumasi, Kintampo, and Tamale—to go to the bathroom. Rather than Rest Stops with flushing toilets, sinks with soap, vending machines and maps, our stops were in markets with street vendors and bathroom facilities that were basically private-ish cement “enclosures” with holes in the cement slab on the floor. Painted on the cement half-walls are pictures of males or females and the simple command to “urinate here.” Let’s just say I far prefer the woods. We arrived at our destination, Yendi, exactly 12 hours (quite a long trip for only covering 435 miles…) after we left Accra. Everyone was healthy the whole trip! Yay!

There is a definite climate and landscape change from southern Ghana to northern Ghana. It was at least 95-100 degrees F most of the time we were in the North (and has been about 85 degrees F average in Accra). One day it rained and was much cooler, but the rest of the days we sweat like crazy! The North is so beautiful. Part of the reason you notice it so much more than the South is because the North is predominantly rural (the South has many more urban areas than the North). With fewer cities and more uninhabited landscape, the beauty is so much more noticeable. Little villages line the road. I love the little structures that make up the villages.


The huts are circular, mud-walled, and have grassy thatched roofs. I have been having a hard time truly grasping the poverty I know exists in The North has high grasses that blow in the wind and the landscape is peppered with much shorter trees than the south. Everything is lush since it’s the end of the rainy season. The sky is majestic and beautifully blue with a gazillion fluffy clouds. It reminded me of a Michigan summer sky. Lovely. Oh! The stars were the best I’ve seen here thus far. Not much city light to spoil the gorgeous night sky. Being in a much more rustic, natural place was such a blessing. I was getting sick of the city complete with it’s exhaust, sewage, and pollution.

The three days we spent in Yendi, a small town 2 hours East of Tamale, were wonderful. We started off our time there visiting a small grassroots NGO called B.I.R.D.S. (Bang-Gu-Manga Integrated Rural Development Society). The NGO works with the local community and primarily focuses on empowering women through micro enterprise. That day and the next we visited some of the places where these women work. At one Women’s Group, the women pick, process, and produce Shea Butter. Mommy I bought you a blob of it for 5 pesewas (3 cents ☺).

The women let me try forming the shea butter into the correct shape/blob. It was difficult to form them as perfectly as the women do, but the art major in me enjoyed it!

The women told us that their goal is to expand the business but they don’t have the capital to expand. Another Women’s Group processes local rice—which used to be a main export in Ghana. Now, rice (which is a staple food here) is 60-70% imported which is very sad since Ghana has the raw resources to provide all the rice they need. It was very interesting to hear the NGO talk about their mission and then see it in action.

We visited one of seven female chiefs (out of the bazillion male chiefs) in Ghana in a village called Gundoyu. She doesn’t speak English so we had a translator with us while sitting in her “resting” hut. It was crowded and fly-filled and so hot. However, it was such a cool experience and I felt like I was in a documentary. This chief has been doing a lot to develop her village, especially in the area of getting young girls to go to school. This is a major problem in the North (and in Ghana in general) because women are expected to marry very young for the primary purpose of reproduction and caring for her family. School is not a priority for young girls especially in rural areas.

Inside the hut at Gundoyu with the Female Chief on the left in the blue. Her name is Gundo-Naa.

We also visited the Tindang Witches Camp in Yendi. This was a highlight of the trip to the North and I won’t be able to express what this experience was like. In Ghana, witchcraft is real and almost everyone believes that witchcraft is used (almost always by women) from time to time to cause other people harm/death. If a woman is accused of using witchcraft (whether it was by her choice or because it “came upon her”) she is basically banned from her village. To be excommunicated is the absolute biggest tragedy in African culture. Your family and your community mean everything and if that is taken from you, you are left with nothing. These women have nowhere to go, so witches camps were set up to house them and keep them safe. The camp we went to is more or less a rural village with many women between the ages of 35 and 95. There are also many children (children and grandchildren of the accused witches) who live at the witch camp as well. They were the first people we saw upon arrival! Amy and Naomi saved us by pulling out chocolate and Hello Kitty stickers to give to the kids. A lot of the kids didn’t have shirts, so we stuck stickers right on their bellies. It was really cute. After a few minutes getting comfortable with each other, we were all playing games, holding hands, laughing, and smiling. At one point, Grace had at least ten kids holding her hands! [Side Note: At first glance, I could tell the kids had a lot of physical ailments. Some had enlarged/swollen bellies, abnormally large protruding bellybuttons, sores on their legs, ringworm on their faces, warts and sores on their mouths, and most had coughs. I had a moment where I wondered if I should fear being in contact with them. But some gut feeling took over. I felt like God spoke to me and told me that it was more important to show these small children that I loved them than to worry about contagious coughs. So I did. I put my anxiety aside and loved the children—God’s children—the best that I could in the few hours I was with them.]

Me with my favorite little girl at the witches camp!

We walked for a while with the kids to a different part of the village. I loved this because not only were we seeing people’s huts up close and personal, but I was holding hands with adorable children, singing a song we learned in dance class called “Senowa, de de de, senowa. Senowa, de de de, senowa.” The kids caught on quickly and we were all singing this simple, catchy song in a language neither of us understood. It was beautiful! We eventually walked upon a clearing between the huts where all the accused women were sitting to have a conversation with us. Grace and I were pretty distracted because we had kids in our laps and crawling all over us. But, we heard from those who could hear better that all of the women were innocent of the witchcraft crimes they were accused of. They said that they do believe in witchcraft but that if they were actually witches, they would be dead at this point. Apparently, as soon as the women get to the camp, they are given a concoction that cures them of their “witchcraft” or kills them. So those that don’t die aren’t witches. The women said that despite the pain of being excommunicated, they know that they are safer here than they would be in their communities because of their reputation. They flee to the witches camp to have a safe place to live.

Some of the beautiful women in the witches camp.

It’s hard to describe what kind of impression this experience gave me. These women have lost everything because of deeply engrained cultural beliefs. There are plenty of people in Ghana who see that this whole situation is really horrible, but enough people fear witchcraft and don’t value these women’s rights enough that the scenario is perpetuated. It was absolutely heartbreaking. The women were so beautiful. The kids brought me unimaginable joy. The reality of their situation was just so unbelievable. I had a really hard time getting back on our bus and leaving that village. I left a part of my heart in Tindang.

On the hour long ride back from the witches camp, the sun set. Because of the rural area we were in, i.e. no civilization between the camp and our guesthouse, the stars out of the bus window were AMAZING. I have never ever seen such high contrast stars. I listened to “God of This City” by Chris Tomlin, stared out the window, and reflected on my experience that afternoon. The song fit perfectly…

You’re the light in this darkness
You’re the hope to the hopeless
You’re the peace to the restless
There is no one like our God
Greater things have yet to come
Greater things are still to be done
In this city

We have a calling in life. And that is to make this earth, the city on earth, more like God intended it to be. I am thankful we have a God to be our light, hope, and peace when the world seems bleak.

TO BE CONTINUED...