And on the seventh day...

Ghana is a hodge-podge, a cocktail of different religions. However, knowingly over generalizing, Ghana is largely a Christian country. Like an old saying that described Haiti as ‘90% Catholic and 100% Voodoo many Ghanaians practice Christianity while retaining faith in their traditional religions. When I came to work wearing a bracelet that someone had given me on the street my colleagues sneered at the beads and warned me that the bracelet could be cursed.

One of the ways faith is flagrantly expressed is through the naming of the little shops that line the roads. One strip of shops in Accra reads: ‘the almighty lord – snack shop’, ‘God Bless all who provide work for me – Rubber Stamps’ ‘God’s sons electrical enterprise’ and ‘I Love Jesus Ent. Dog Food Depot’. There are also countless stalls that are identifies simply by passages from the Bible which are lost upon me being that the most formal education I had on these verses are the posters that wrestling fanatics curiously wave on giant posters when going to a match. The versatility of the bible amazes me knowing it is pertinent enough to enthusiastically quote at the precise moment when Macho Man Randy Savage is beating Hulk Hogan over the head with one of his shoes. The radio in Ghana is often tuned to one of the many stations that feed the country a healthy dose of Gospel music, preaching, and Christian talk radio. The title of the song escapes me, but there is a song with the chorus “shake your booty that Jesus gave you” that always uplifts my spirits and gets the tro-tro singing along. The vendor’s sales chants and the mates of the tro-tros hawking mantras are often besieged by men with megaphones passionately filling the stations and markets with the sound of Jesus. I cringe when a preacher boards my bus and doesn’t stop reciting verses until our destination but I am the minority, and the passengers are usually responsive to even the most uninspiring. The back of taxis and tro-tros proudly display the vague and not so vague references to their faith in bold yellow letters such as ‘jesus wins’ ‘be good’ ‘don’t be surprised’ ‘faith in Jah’ ‘Gods time is good time’ ‘except (which I think might supposed to be accept but I’m not sure), etc, etc. And, Sundays remain the only time when the restless and welcoming city of Accra seeks its solitude.


In fact, my first Sunday in Ghana I went with Auntie Theo to church. We went to the ‘late’ service at 9am and by the time we arrived the full piece band and 40 person choir were already feverishly doing their part to lift the crowd on their feet, sing, and shout. There were thousands of worshippers in the Church and hundreds more outside watching on big screen televisions. Occasionally someone would dance down the aisle or spontaneously and singularly shout out praise but mostly those in attendance managed to form a single cohesive entity that clapped in rhythm, danced in synch, sang in tune, and prayed in unison and I tried to carry on but struggled to keep my anonymity amidst it all. Towards the end of the service the pastor asked all those who were new to the church to stand up and my perspiration and short breaths announced my fear to the congregation. I thought about remaining in my seat but I figured that the crowd would probably be able to tell that the small white Jewish American wasn’t a lifetime member, so for the first time in the service I addressed God – to pray that I wasn’t the only newcomer. My prayers were answered and out of the thousands, two other men cautiously stood. Those around me all personally welcomed me and I have to admit that it really did feel special… but not special enough to accept the pastor’s invitation to hold a special prayer after the service for all those new to the flock.

I am usually cynical when it comes to religion, but I have discovered the importance of faith. This became evident when working with social workers around the Aguglushi market and visiting the ruins of people’s makeshift homes that had been razed by fire months ago. These people lost all their possessions and a few of them were still sleeping on the ground beside their salvaged property; a small blue tarp that twisted in the wind providing the only shelter from the elements. It had rained the night before and the ground was now mud. For them, Religion is the one thing they still have.

Again, I am not the most religious person but Christianity abound, I sought out the only known Jewish community in Ghana. Gratefully, we stopped in Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Region, after a five hour bus ride where I seemed to occupy the only seat without a working air conditioner and I had to peel myself off the seat when we arrived. I was traveling with Johanna, a study abroad student who was writing a research paper on the connections between Israel and Ghana. Our destination: Sefwi Wiawso.

One phrase that tends to come up over and over again is ‘wow, it’s really a small world.’ The farther I travel the more pertinent this saying becomes. Well the world shrinks ever smaller when you are speaking of the Jewish people where you can run into any other Jew in the world and play six degrees of Joushua Goldstein. Johanna and I were checking into our hotel when a friend from the States had called my mobile and I explained to her that I was going to Sefwi Wiawso and a man sitting in the lobby said ‘I’m going to Sefwi’ and so started a pattern until we were traveling to the village as a group of seven. Typical to Ghanaian travel none of us had any concrete directions to the settlement, but we were armed with a name of one of the religious leaders which is usually suitable since Ghanaians all seem to know each other somehow and are pretty adept at six degrees of Kofi Nkrumah. Of course, if that failed, wandering in the desert-like heat is in our ancestral blood and we were prepared for that too.

Indeed, someone at the tro-tro station knew the spot and when a man greeted us with ‘Shalom’ we knew we had made it. We were warmly welcomed with beverages and a snack and as we noshed we discussed the history of the community. Sometimes it can be difficult for me to understand Ghanaians. Even if we are speaking in English both our accents can be an impediment to any fruitful dialogue and some things get lost in translation. Joshua, a middle-aged man of the community, kept referring to his grandparents and brothers and it became increasingly difficult to discern whether grandparents meant ancestors or his parent’s parents and whether brother meant his sibling or all the Jewish people as both meanings were used interchangeably. So basically, I sat there not knowing if we were talking about biblical times or the 1960’s and enjoyed my snack. When I couldn’t make sense of what was going on I stole glances of the rest of the village, tucked away in a lush valley, forming a striking scenery. For more information about the history of the 15 family strong Jewish community you can visit Kulanu.org, an organization that is dedicated to finding and assisting lost and dispersed remnants of the Jewish people, and they can fill in the details.

The sun soon set and Shabbat was upon us. All seven of us stayed with one of the leaders of the community’s house and they couldn’t have been more hospitable (something I am really starting to take for granted here). A small service with the family was held around the dinner table. The prayers were in English, Hebrew, and Twi. There was no electricity and the two Shabbat candles remained the sole source of light casting shadows that accentuated our modest ceremony. It felt quite special to be in a stranger’s home in such a foreign place and yet be reciting the same songs and prayers I have known all my life. I would have stayed up and played with the kids a little bit but I was preoccupied with thoughts of the egg sandwich swimming in a vat of oil that I ate from a street vendor earlier in the day in Kumasi. It was one of those times that even as you were eating it you are telling yourself ‘this is going to make me so sick’ and sure enough it did.

All was well in the morning, and as a group we walked for fifteen minutes until we came upon the one room basic structure that was the synagogue. Some other members of the community were there already and men had occupied one side, women the other. About 15 children reserved the first two rows and they were already participating in an impromptu lesson from one of the elders. The congregation did not have a rabbi but did have Alex, a young charismatic devoted man, who led the service. He recently tried to go to Israel to study and become ordained, but was refused a visa. There seemed to be about 30 people total in attendance and while some of the songs had a distinct African beat and the Old Testament was read in Twi, the service was also distinctively Jewish.

Admittedly, the whole thing was just bizarre. Where did these people come from? How does this community really start? Hundreds of visitors have seemed to come over the years and it is hard to tell how culturally sensitive one should be and how much these visitors have shaped the practices of these people. This is a community with its own beliefs and its own customs. Do they really want to assimilate into the global Jewish population? Do they want our suggestions (as some of my travel-mates made) on things that they can add to their service? One woman I was with had generously given them menorahs, dreidels and books about Judaism and I wondered whether this was something they ever asked for. Will adopting all these outside influences weaken their own faith and lose their sense of origin and identity. Or, will these gifts make them feel more welcomed and closer to the rest of the Jewish world? I myself gave them a menorah I had received for my Bar-Mitzvah and they seemed to genuinely appreciate not only all the gifts but the suggestions of additional prayers that could be added to the service. How much of this was just hospitality and how much was genuine we may never know.

After services I walked with Samuel, a young boy from the congregation ‘into town’ to pick up some yams and water for lunch. Into town was apparently a 45 minute hike uphill in the midday sun and I was shvitsing so much people kept offering me their handkerchiefs. By the time I got back, Luba, an NYU student, was already packing to head out back to Accra and I decided to accompany her.

We got to the station in Sefwi just in time to see a Kumasi bound tro-tro leave. It was 3:00 and we were worried that we would be stuck in Kumasi for the evening. I asked the driver when the next tro-tro would leave and he said two hours – a crushing blow to hopes of sleeping in our own bed. I then asked him what time he thought it would leave and he said 3:45 – a strange sense of hope. Luba suggested we go have a beer and not being one to turn down a drink followed her to a local spot. Yada Yada Yada we got drunk on beer and plastic satchels of gin that were about 10 cents and curiously labeled as a sports drink with happy little soccer players on it as we performed a frenzied little dance of running to and from the station and bar only to narrowly miss transport to the city and soaking up our frustrations with more libation. We missed two more tro-tros. When we finally boarded a bus we only survived for 30 minutes before Luba pleaded “Driver, I have to Urinate”. God bless that girl. She squirmed past laughing Ghanaians, went behind the tro-tro, pulled up her skirt, and pissed alongside the road.

Kwaku, an incredibly kind man who had saved us a spot on the tro-tro from Sefwi insisted that he escort us to our Accra bound bus and soon we were on our way home. This time the bus was painfully cold – the mate was wearing a damn winter jacket and I occupied my time contorting my body to hide as much skin under my shorts and t-shirt. A preacher boarded the bus and started a sermon as if to deliver confirmation that we weren’t in Sefwi anymore.