Girls` Initiation Rites, April 14

At Mole National Park, a PeaceCorps volunteer had told me she attended a girls` initiation ritual last year, and indicated that it was happening in April in the Volta region. I couldn`t find any information about the event anywhere but I knew the girls were covered with beads. A few days later, while mentioning to another traveler about my quest for the initiation rite, she pointed me in the direction of Somanya, in the Eastern Region, an area well known for its bead making. I returned to Accra and was told there that the festival was over and took place the week before. Darn! Something however pushed me to go there, and as I neared Somanya in the evening, I spotted three fully adorned girls in a village. Were they keeping their attire days after the ceremony, with their beads and headdress? As I got to Somanya, I was again told that the festival was over. In the morning, I asked the hotel manager if he knew anything and he told me to go to the chief`s house to inquire. I walked through the town and found the chief`s house. A young man by the name of Tsitsi asked me what I was looking for. He took me to an elder who pointed to a house where we went to talk to some women elders. They pointed to another house. We went to at least five houses around the village until somehow the grandmothers were satisfied with Tsitsi`s translation of my request. We finally arrived in a compound where a ceremony was under way. Six or seven young girls were being taken through various phases of the ritual-eating roasted corn from the riverside, eating plantain fufu, etc. After a while, we were asked to leave and return the next day for the final phase of their initiation. The next day, Tsitsi took me to the chief, who turns out to be the head chief of the Krobo people. The Queen Mother (the female counterpart of the chief) was also there, and they both granted me an audience. I was sweating profusely as I formulated my questions, and was deeply touched by their kindness and eloquence. Tsitsi revealed to me that he`s part of the royal family and as a boy, sat at the foot of that chief and was his personal assistant. No wonder why he knows his way around the spiritual matters of his village! We left the chief`s house to attend the final part of the Dipo initiation and again had to go and get permission from the 80 year-old neighborhood chief who offered gin to the ancestors and our visiting party. As we arrived to the initiation compound, the girls were fully dressed with paint, beads and other body adornements. They were fed meat from a goat that had been sacrificed on the shrine stones where soon they will go to sit before being declared women. They left for the shrine and returned from the shrine on the backs of running men and women. Back at the compound, they were welcomed back and began dancing with the grandmas and celebrating with their mothers (I did not see any fathers around!).
That Sunday evening, I went to the town center with Tsitsi and his friends, and danced in the streets to the beats of highlife and hiphop music, and got a good dose of love from men and women alike.
(see slide show) (see video clip 1 and video clip 2)