The 183rd Episode : Village elder
Village elder (2nd from left in the front row)
and people who seemed to be important ones like some leaders
(Kumasi, Ghana)
[June, 2009 Kumasi, Ghana]
Finally, we reached the destination town, Kumasi. But the final destination was a suburban village with a gold mining site. The road condition was worsened as we drove towards the mountains. The pavement got simple pavement and hollows appeared in places. Would there be water pool after the rain. The car meandered from side to side to avoid them but sometimes fell into them due to too late steering, when the car bobbed up and down a lot and I had to hit my head on the ceiling. At last unpaved road appeared and the rough road with bare red clay in bad conditions continued on and on. The car bobbed up and down much more. I felt like I was on an expedition just like seen on TV.
Finally we arrived at the village, the very final destination. As the mining site belonged to this village, we needed to greet the village elder here respectably.
He came back a little delayed due to a funeral happened in the village. He were in black, probably ethnic costume of mourning. As the last ceremony of the funeral began, some people in the same costume stood in a line. The village elder fired a single blank shot into the sky. It told the end of the ceremony.
It began next ceremony for us to obtain the permission for the gold mining. The village elder, other people who seemed to be important ones like some leaders and we sat opposite each other. A bottle of alcohol was presented to the village elder as a souvenir. He spoke something with another man and handed it to him. Then the man walked around with a few drops of this alcohol in front of us while chanting prayer-like words. And lastly we shared the remaining alcohol by passing the bottle around among us. It looked like Japanese "exchanging a cup of sake".
The same is true that alcohol gives people the power for prayer and exchange in faraway worlds.
