My biggest learning experience thus far on Semester at Sea was definitely “Tagorme Village Cultural Immersion Overnight”. This trip was my home stay in Ghana. The night before this trip was spent frantically packing everything that I may need for my overnight. How I forgot to pack toilet paper was the least of my problems. The bus drove about an hour off road to the village early in the morning. As we entered the village, there were people sitting there to let us in. As we continued to the center of the village where the community center was, children started appearing out of every building (hut), and started running to see who we were. When the children saw who we were, their faces lit up like I have never seen before! They started waving to us and couldn't wait to meet us. I have never been so eager to get off of a bus in my life! The children gathered around the bus and we were finally let off the bus. As each of us stepped down, 3-4 children per person grabbed our hands and walked us to the place that we were headed for a “naming ceremony”. We were instructed to follow the lead of our tour guide as we greet the chiefs and elders of the village. These were the most important people the community and were dressed in their traditional clothing and accessories. We went down the line shaking each hand, and one of the mothers of the village stood to give us each a hug and said “welcome home child”. We were seated in rows in the presence of the elders and chiefs, the mothers, and all of the children who were on a break from classes. To start the ceremony one of the mothers recited a prayer in ewe, the local language. The prayer involved screaming, crying, smiling, pouring liquids in the dirt, and welcoming the ancestors to join us to protect us all during our stay.
After several introductions to the village and distinguished people, we were then called up one by one be be given a local name, a handmade pot with our name written on it, and a bracelet that was made by the women of the village. My local name is “Adzu Fafali” which means “God is Peace” and I was born on a Monday. After we got through the entire group, we were then called up in pairs to meet our host mothers. I won't bore you with how we left the village to go to a resort for lunch, instead of dining with our famillies...sometimes I wonder SAS..Anyways, after lunch, we returned to spend the rest of the day with our families. During this time, Wonder, the “English speaker” of my family took me and my roommate around the village introducing us to people and telling us about the way of life in Tagorme. I met the whole family which consisted of a mother, 6 aunts, uncles, cousins, 5 babies, and the rest of the extended family. We walked down to the river bed and watched a man fish for Tilapia. The children get so excited when they catch a fish! Later, he took us to the village church where I met the pastor. The church is an Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Then, I was introduced to the chief of the area that I was staying in. I was told to bow down to him before I shake his hand, hmmmm....anyways, we kept walking around and met more people.
As the day continued, we were sitting around talking and watching the women of the family prepare the dinner. The local food that is commonly eaten for supper is “Fufu”. Fufu is some kind of nut that grows on a tree and then is ground into a mill. From here it is heated over a fire and stirred into a ball that is then dipped in to a fish sauce. I helped make this dinner! After the sun went down, it was time to meet with the entire community for dinner and dancing. Again, dinner was catered for the students so that the families would not have to provide for more mouths. After we ate dinner, there was a drum circle and we danced the night away with the children and other members of the community. The mother's of the families did not approve of our “attire” for dancing, so our mothers snuck up on us and wrapped a traditional African weaved skirt on each of the girls. After the dance party, we returned to our homes. While there, my roommate and I just sat and watched the family interaction. There was virtually no way to communicate with the family so we just observed and let it soke in. The family sat around outside and talked, the children were bathed and put to bed. Shortly after, we went to our room. We were in what our tour guide referred to as “decent rooms”. Our room consisted of a mattress and sheet, a fan, and a box. That's it..a little different from America huh? There was no running water in the area, there were no toilets. The water was fetched each morning by the family and stored in a container for use throughout the day.
The next morning, we woke up at 5:30am to watch the sunrise. When we went outside, everyone was already awake! Wonder was out fetching water, the women were cooking breakfast (which people were already lined up to buy), and the children were up helping with the whole process. The people of the village have a system that seems to work. Each family is responsible for different goods, and they sell their goods to each other to survive. The time quickly came to say goodbye to our families. We shared breakfast with them inside the church, exchanged contact information, I presented my homestay gift, and said our good-byes. Although we were there for only hours, it felt like these were people of my family. The entire community is like a big family and they welcomed us in with open arms. Doing this homestay was a humbling experience that I will forever remember. Thank you everyone for giving me this opportunity to see a different side of the world!! 
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