I had a traditional dress made out of black and white fabric for the funeral. My favorite part of the weekend was the reception on Sunday when my friend/research assistant asked the DJ to play a song for his grandmother who along with all of her descendents and all of their friends got up to dance. We were a crowd of 50 or more women wearing matching clothes, gathered in a tight pack, kicking up dust as we slowly danced in-step across the outdoor reception area.

It must give you a real sense of accomplishment to have so many descendents and for them to gather and support you like that.

My least favorite part of the weekend was trying to find a place to sleep. We talked to a man from the village about arranging a place for us to stay, but he was acting sort of strange. He went on and on about being a soldier and wanted to show me his ID card. He assured me that I would be 'protected' in a way that was not at all reassuring.

We left him and when we returned later to ask about the room he was evasive, asked us to sit down and talk and maybe eat some food. It turned out that he hadn’t arranged anything because he was drunk and therefore was not too concerned with hospitality (which was an extremely unusual circumstance for me in Ghana where people are almost universally generous and hospitable).

We were rescued by an elderly man who was very patient and polite and spoke excellent English. He was trained as an engineer and was, in fact, the appointed family elder (the community leader in essence). My friend went to check out the room this elder found for us and he said it was ok...

...as it turns out it was not ok. When we returned to the room that night I find it's miserably hot and there's no fan or electricity - not even a slight breeze. When we entered I noticed two enormous cockroaches on the door (which doesn't lock). There was a window with a screen, but the screen had holes in it leaving us exposed to mosquitos. The walls were dirty and covered in scribbled lyrics from rap songs. There was a thin foam mattress on top of a bed frame with widely spaced wooden slates that I fell between when I laid down. Before going to sleep I had to pee in the yard because we couldn't find the toilet.

I fell asleep sweaty and woke up stiff and achy, although somehow once I fell asleep I didn't wake up until morning. There was also no running water so we had to wait for someone to fetch water for us so that we could take bucket showers. Someone has smashed some eggs in the hallway so as soon as it was light the hallway was swarming with flies.

I made the best of it and the next day after a fruitless search for a hotel room or a room in a guesthouse or anything we managed to upgrade to a bedroom with a ceiling fan in someone's house.

I learned how to say a lot of new things in Twi that weekend. Things such as "he is drunk" and "I have eaten fufu before" and "I will not dance because I am tired."

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