Field Trippin'

Graffiti photoshoot with Nicholas & Elizabeth!

Yesterday, the kids got to go on their first field trip with us for a free screening of Despicable Me 2 that was generously shown just to us by the local movie theater at the mall. The mall was pretty much like any other theater that I’ve been to, complete with stadium seating and a slightly overpriced popcorn stand. For some of the kids, it was their first trip to a movie theater, so I imagine the big screen left quite the impression. They also clapped whenever the good guys came out on top over the bad guys. While the theater experience itself was exciting, there was one other place that was really exciting for the kids… the bathroom.

Bathrooms are one of the things on my list that I will really appreciate when I get back to the States. There are some typical restrooms and there are also some places that are literally just floors. The floors are the most common/only bathrooms the kids use, so they were having a field day in these public ones (and the attendant wasn’t too happy). They were amazed at the liquid soap and how the hand dryer worked. As I was sitting trying to pay attention to the movie, I was wondering what these kids could have possible drank to run to the loo so many times because the slushie machine was out of ice (I tried to buy one and was kindly declined). Apparently, they just wanted to keep washing and drying their hands.

Reservoir at our house

Besides the foods I am adjusting to (I have somehow managed to consume 9 hamburgers and 13 servings of French fries thus far), there are many other things that have taken some time to get used to. Public works in most of the city don't seem to be at the top of the government's to-do list (but things are starting to change), so things like running water are hard to come by. At the school, there is a reservoir of water, about 5 feet or so tall, to use very sparingly for washing dishes (there is even a key!). Drinking bagged water was easy to get used to, and even easier knowing that you can buy a huge bag for less than $1 USD that will last 8 people an entire day.



One thing about living in Accra is the constant noise of roosters, honking cars, and music. But not even one hour outside of the city is an awesome botanical garden. For under $6 round trip, another volunteer and I, Lauren, ventured out to Aburi for a day. Within a few minutes, we were up in the mountains that overlooked the metropolis. And when we finally reached the gardens, there was peace and quiet... the only noise you could hear was that of crickets and me sipping my Coca-Cola. There was also a lot of cool fauna and this HUGE tree that is the park's oldest (at 150 years old).

The Aburi Botanical Gardens is probably the closest that you will get to a park in this city... unlike most of the other places I have been to, there is no "central park" to go to and the greenery can only been seen on the ride on the way out. And the peace & quiet was great preparation for the final week (!) of the Akosia project.

Live from the Set!

On Friday afternoon, the two groups wrapped their films. Working with these two groups proved to be quite exhausting and challenging, and it felt like I was back in college shooting a project at about 20 times the intensity. Part of my job on this project is to make sure that the daily schedules get followed, and this is especially important to do when you have a limited time to get footage shot. When you're shooting a project with people your own age, people listen and know that they need to get things done. When you're shooting a project with at least ten kids whose first language is not English, they get distracted easily, and they have never made a film before, it makes for a tough day. But in the end, the kids pulled through all with amazing performances and work, and I can't wait to see what the final projects will look like at the screening this coming Friday.

The film scripted by the Mangoes, The Friendship Bracelets, is about a group of friends who all share bracelets that symbolize their friendship. One of the characters, Nii, becomes jealous of the friendship shared by the girls and convinces Kofi to steal one of their bracelets. The girls turn on her because she isn't wearing her bracelet, a deal breaker, until they learn that she never intentionally took it off. Nii learns that what he did is bad, apologizes, and the group all becomes friends once again.

One of my favorite scenes in the Mangoes' project is the end scene (in the style of Bollywood) complete with song and dance. Since these kids love to randomly break out in song, having music in their movie was a must. We shot this scene on the beach featuring all the Team Mango members. On the way there, I had the best tro-tro ride to date... the entire time they sang and clapped getting ready for their on-screen debuts. 

One of my other favorite scenes was shot at a nearby park. There, one of the characters is visited by two ghosts who advise him to give back the stolen bracelet. The two ghosts, Joseph and Patrick, delivered hilarious performances while hanging from a tree and were able to memorize and recite a few nice blocks of dialogue.

Not only did we get to teach the kids what working on a film set is like, but I also got to learn attempt to learn some acrobatic tricks. Razak, who plays Nii (sitting under the tree with the ghosts in it), attempted to teach me some gymnast/break dance moves. "Doing" one trick, I almost fell flat on my face (good thing my shoulder was there to catch me), but redeemed myself when I demonstrated that I could do a bridge and a cartwheel. A few of these kids are really good at doing acrobatics, so they were able to incorporate that into the film a bit.

As of tomorrow, editing on The Friendship Bracelets and the Coconuts' project (title pending) will be starting (so make sure to check IMDb for updates... just kidding). There is still plenty of music and some spoken word art to be added in to make this a very Ghanaian film.

 

The Production Phase...

This past weekend was the first time we really got out of the city of Accra for more than a few hours. We got to ride on a semi-coach bus with a view obstructed by a bath tub (yes, a bath tub. Apparently someone thought it would be a good idea to buy one in Accra and transport it for two hours on public transportation). After three hours or so due to traffic, we arrived in Cape Coast, a neat little town on the ocean. Two of the main things to see there are Kakum National Park and the Cape Coast Castle.

The Cape Coast Castle is a cool fortress-like building but really marred and ugly once you learn its historical past. This castle is one of the ones that was used to send slaves over to the Americas during the triangular trade. The whole coast of Ghana is lined with these forts, reminding people of the evils of history.

Kakum National Park is known for its wildlife, but mostly the famous canopy walk. You are about 40 meters (or 130 feet) above the trees on these planks of wood held steady by steel ladders and suspended by ropes and steel cables. It is a very rickety walk, but an awesome view of the jungle. There wasn't much wildlife to see besides butterflies and lizards in the park at the time, but somewhere there are over 50 elephants roaming around the park!


Back in Accra... After two weeks of working with these kids, they are finally ready to shoot their first short films. One group, Coconuts, has a Ghana meets The Goonies storyline, and the other group, Mangoes, has a story about friendship that would be a great addition to the Disney Channel's original movie catalog. The concepts and elements of the films were created by the kids with the help of all of the volunteers, as well as the costumes, props and other production design elements.


I worked with the Mangoes, the first group to shoot. We shot at two different locations, a school that is out of session for the summer and the volunteer house. Throughout the day, we shot five out of eleven scenes... Not bad for amateur film makers! The one crew member we were missing was the intern to run and get us all some Starbucks (or instant coffee because this is Ghana). But by the end of the week, the kids will have enough footage to make two ten-minute films...

Ishmael directing three of the principle characters

History 101

I’ve already been in Ghana for two full weeks which is pretty hard to believe, but there is still so much to do and see. I have been able to fit in some tourism here and there, and tomorrow I am off for a weekend trip to Cape Coast to do the famous canopy walk and see one of the forts that was used in the colonial-era slave trade.

Elliot, one of the Ghanaian volunteers who helps run the
project and is our on-call tour guide extraordinaire

Before coming here, Ghanaian history wasn’t something that I knew very much about since we never learn about it in history class, but even after doing some Wikipedia-ing and visiting the National Museum, it is still a very complex place. But this is definitely the first place I’ve been to where you can dramatically see the effects, some good and some bad, of rapid Westernization. 

 

One of the important landmarks that I’ve seen here is a l’Arc de Triomphe look-a-like in Independence Square. Ghana was under European influence for hundreds of years, but it was most recently a British colony known as the Gold Coast up until 1957. The Independence Arch was built and people symbolically walked under it to mark the transition from colonialism to independence. And you can definitely see the Ghanaian pride just walking around… all the cabs have Ghanaian flags and the color scheme on many buildings and structures is red, yellow, and green. 

Ghana also has a huge music scene, which was a must to witness on my to-do list, and so far, I have seen five shows with many more in the works. From what I’ve heard so far, there is your rap-reggae-African drum blend of music, some rock music, and also a lot of spoken word art (which is essentially doing poetry with a beat behind you). I’ve collected a playlist of over 40 songs with no end in sight. And music is also very important to the kids we are working with… any given opportunity they have, they will dance or play some kind of musical instrument. So for the final film project screening, we will also be putting on a concert while we show the student-made films... more to come!

 

First Day at The Street Academy

For the few days of my trip here, it was mostly about getting settled in and learning the ropes of Accra. I've also been getting to live with and hang out with the other international volunteers who I am working with. They are from the UK, Poland, and Australia, and I can already feel myself speaking with a slightly more sophisticated vocabulary and sentence structure because of their influence (the battle is not over). There are several Ghanaian volunteers who we are working with as well, which is very helpful because the kids that we'll be teaching the ins and outs of film do speak English, as it is the national language of Ghana, but they also all speak a local dialect called Ga. In a lot of cases, their Ga is a lot better than their English, so unless someone is interpreting for you, things get can a little crazy.

This past Monday is when the Akosia film education program finally got underway! Bright and early at 7:30 am (or circa that time), we boarded our tro-tro and headed out to the Jamestown area of Accra. A tro-tro is the Ghanaian version of a public bus, but is more like a 14- to however-many-you-can-fit passenger van. Since there are so many of us, we don't have to worry about flagging it down on the street. After about a half hour ride or so, we got to Jamestown via some paved and a few dirt roads. Not far from where we were dropped off was The Street Academy, the school that we are working with to bring the Akosia project together. The kids that are in the program are street children, so they come from a variety of underprivileged backgrounds where they haven't had a chance to do much, let alone make their own movie. Yet even having so little, they are super friendly and always laughing.

We all trickled in and the kids were really shy at first, but then slowly started to warm up to us all. We then went outside for this activity called Morning Circle on a circular slab of concrete for some games. For one of them, you had to go into the center of the circle and dance according to the day of the week that you were born on. Somehow, out of 20+ kids and volunteers, I was the ONLY one born on a Monday, so I had to be the brave soul that ventured into the center of the circle first and alone.

The kids were also placed into separate groups where they have created their own mini production companies. There is one group that has this awful catchy theme song that goes "Yellow, yellow, Yellow Card Productions!" And with these groups, they have been moving around to learn about different aspects of making a movie: music, set design, story, and camerawork.

They also love when they see someone's camera. They insist on holding it, and then make you get in the picture, and a whole bunch of kids usually join in. Case in point:

Adjusting to the Ghanaian Life

Almost every morning at sometime in the early AM hours, I have been getting woken up by a rooster. Probably this rooster, but clearly he was scared of my wrath as he ran away when I was about to take his picture...

This is also probably the reason why every day, I have been the last one to wake up (some things never change). 

It's been a few days of lots of new things to get used to: walking on the streets as opposed to sidewalks, walking in front of traffic that stops for you while crossing the street (don't worry, Mom, I look both ways at least twice every time), drinking water out of a plastic bag instead of a bottle, as well as the food. In Ghana, rice and beans are among the main staples of Ghanian cuisine. It's very different than the foods I'm used to eating, ie chicken fingers, goat cheese salads, chocolate chip cookies, etc. There have been some really good things and some okay things. I've had a lot of rice with different meats and sauces, the best mangoes and bananas of my life, and this dish called red red, a kind of bean, rice, and cornmeal mixture topped with fried plantains. 

The local Ghanian restaurants are a very different experience than anywhere else that I've been. Instead of going inside a building, sitting down, ordering from myriad items, you go to a restaurant that is a small (almost) hut on the side of the street, sit down at a table on a bench, and are served your food from just a short selection of items. Then after about 2.50 cedis (or $1.25 USD), you are ready to move onto the rest of your day.

I won't lie, I have missed my typical American cuisine choices... In fact, I dreamed that I had chocolate chip pancakes. But there are a few places that can help hit close to home; a smoothie place, an ice cream parlor and a KFC (but ironically, no McDonald's).

And even though I've only been here for under a week, there are still so many foods to try, including the Tuesday Discount Pizza Day that my other groups members and I are super excited about...

First Impressions

Akwaaba to my first official entry from Ghana (Akwaaba is local for “welcome” so I thought I’d put my new found knowledge to the test). Since everyone is still kind of settling in, I haven’t seen much of Ghana, but what I have so far is completely different than what I would have ever imagined (not that I really had a good idea of what to imagine).

            The airport was an experience in itself. It reminded me of an airport that would be in a movie taking place in the 40s or 50s. When the plane pulled off of the runway, I could see this really old looking ad that was painted on top of a building and said “Fly KLM” in big block letters with no logos or signature colors. When it was time to get off the plane, there was a staircase wheeled over to the plane door and everyone just walked down that and across the tarmac (it wasn’t a very far walk), and then into the airport. Inside, the colors and fonts used on all the signs and posters reminded me of a Sunday school classroom that hadn’t been updated since the late 1980s. The airport was like stepping back into time.

            Accra so far is the most different place that I have visited. At this point, I'm not really sure how to describe it, so hopefully these pictures can help speak for me...

I think the most difficult thing for me is going to be the language “barrier.” At least in when I was in Guatemala, I knew I couldn’t understand all the Spanish that was being thrown at me. Between the other volunteers I am working with and the locals, I will probably on average hear at least six accents a day. To my New York friends, I apologize in advance if I come back speaking a bit differently...