It started with an evening chat in Cantonments at my cousin's house on Friday night. Saturday was spent visiting a recently widowed colleague, then off to Virgo's friend's house for (delicious!) groundnut soup and fufu. After that a quick trip to the in-laws turned into a 5-6 hour discussion on politics and the upcoming elections.
Sunday started with a church service in Korle Gonno for my aunt who'd been buried on Thursday, followed by the usual family gathering with 'small chops' and banku and tilapia.
(Picture from Virtual Tourist)
After a rest at the house with no electricity (or generator), my mother, Virgo and I then joined my uncle and his family for a lovely birthday dinner at Imperial Peking and to my surprise I had never noticed Granada hotel, which it is part of.
It was a weekend full of Ghanaian food and family values. The nicest part of it was seeing how people actually come together when someone has died. In this case, Mrs. D's husband, her husband of approximately 38 years, who passed away just a week ago. During our visit which lasted an hour or so, about five other people stopped by. Rather than creating an intrusion, which I had always assumed it would, it seemed to create a nice opportunity for her to speak about what had happened and for the visitors to praise her husband, without anyone putting pressure on her to serve drinks or food.
However, the 'light off' (that's power-cuts to you non-residents) in both Accra and Tema during the weekend lead to memories of load-shedding days, which I hope, nay, pray will remain a very distant memory!
