Witchcraft!
Tuesday, June 13th, day 40 - woke up at 04:30 since we were to leave from the hall at 05:00 to go to a bee site for practical sessions. We ended up leaving at 5:30, in three vehicles this time. The big bus, our usual pick up, and the GIZ landcruiser, since they're still with us, and i went with them. We headed east for two hours eventually arriving at a village of mostly huts far off the main road.
There we first had to greet the chief, who was looking grand with an arm chair throne atop his dais and a sub chief sitting below him. He seemed friendly and thanked us for coming to his community.
The beehives were maybe 200 or 300m from the village through a teak forest. First two hives we looked at were too cross-combed to do anything with but the others were alright. Seemed nearly all the hives on site were occupied. Saw two hives queens in a row but both darted away successfully, moving very fast. One took off in fact and alighted on a branch high above with a bunch of bees. I hope they'll return to the hives.
Bees were very calm, i was able to take off my gloves while working on all the hives. As has often been the case then some trainees wanted to give that a try too and Williams chastised anyone who attempted to do so telling them I can do it because i am very experienced but they cannot. I feel like this is thoroughly counter productive to our training goals, i really really like to see trainees feeling comfortable taking their gloves off, i think it's a great step towards being very comfortable with the bees. I actually brought this up with Williams later but he said the policy came from Courage so I'll have to talk to Courage about changing it.
Later when one of the women was being interviewed about the training she was emphatic that seeing i could take my gloves off around the bees made a strong impression on her that bees aren't as scary as she'd thought.
Meanwhile also though I'm told that in the village they were seriously thinking i was engaging in witchcraft for handling bees without gloves and without getting stung. They presumably found out when we returned but i imagine them somehow knowing as it was happening despite being separated from the events by 300m of thick forest through the magic of the "bush telegraph."
Being accused of witchcraft mostly seems funny and people were mostly laughing about it but there's a dangerous edge to it. People seriously believe in witchcraft and one can get violently run out of a community for it. Fortunately i was surrounded by dozens of people who like me so i was safe. There's apparently at least one "witch community" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_camp) here in northern Ghana where people (mostly women) ostracized from other communities for witchcraft move to.
And in related news on the middle of the grounds of the GNAT Hall where we're doing our training there's a large (half acre?) circular area enclosed by a tall wall with one padlocked gate in it, inside is a forest of big trees, and i had observed some beehives. Today Courage told me the whole reason that is there is because there's idols to ancient spirits in there so development went around it and enclosed it without disturbing it; and one of the idols is to bees. There's a shaman who looks after the hives in there and can commune with bees and such. Obviously this sounds fascinating and i wish i could meet him and learn more about that ... but all that is literally witchcraft and maybe it's best not to encourage anyone in thinking I'm into that.
In the afternoon our usual hall had been double booked and another group occupied it so we met under the large thatched canopy of the outdoor eating area. We couldn't use the projector, so i was prepared to talk about my business segment which doesn't really have any pictures, but the participants easily occupied the entire hour we had with questions.
Also i note it feels much nicer and cooler under a thatched canopy than corrugated metal.
For dinner to avoid an hour wait we called in our order an hour before we went in but they seemingly disregarded this until we showed up, our food still arriving about half an hour after we got there. I requested red-red, but they said they were out so i ordered the spaghetti. Wasn't sure what to expect but when it came it was really good, a variety of vegetables mixed in, a good flavorsome local spice, and pieces of chicken. Unfortunately these pieces of chicken also included lots of little pieces of bone so it was slow going as every bite had a sharp little hidden bone in it somewhere.
I asked Courage and Arne what the plan for next year is and it kind of sounded like it's the end of the project. I was hoping it would continue to expand next year to more communities, but it sounds like they'll just do some evaluation and then that might be it?
In the evening i was trying to prompt the guys to tell Arne about the drink i mentioned the other day, sobolo, but i was mispronouncing it as soboto or some such, and when they realized what i meant the guys laughingly said i had "broffalized" the word, "broffa" being the local language word for white person.
There we first had to greet the chief, who was looking grand with an arm chair throne atop his dais and a sub chief sitting below him. He seemed friendly and thanked us for coming to his community.
The beehives were maybe 200 or 300m from the village through a teak forest. First two hives we looked at were too cross-combed to do anything with but the others were alright. Seemed nearly all the hives on site were occupied. Saw two hives queens in a row but both darted away successfully, moving very fast. One took off in fact and alighted on a branch high above with a bunch of bees. I hope they'll return to the hives.
Bees were very calm, i was able to take off my gloves while working on all the hives. As has often been the case then some trainees wanted to give that a try too and Williams chastised anyone who attempted to do so telling them I can do it because i am very experienced but they cannot. I feel like this is thoroughly counter productive to our training goals, i really really like to see trainees feeling comfortable taking their gloves off, i think it's a great step towards being very comfortable with the bees. I actually brought this up with Williams later but he said the policy came from Courage so I'll have to talk to Courage about changing it.
Later when one of the women was being interviewed about the training she was emphatic that seeing i could take my gloves off around the bees made a strong impression on her that bees aren't as scary as she'd thought.
Meanwhile also though I'm told that in the village they were seriously thinking i was engaging in witchcraft for handling bees without gloves and without getting stung. They presumably found out when we returned but i imagine them somehow knowing as it was happening despite being separated from the events by 300m of thick forest through the magic of the "bush telegraph."
Being accused of witchcraft mostly seems funny and people were mostly laughing about it but there's a dangerous edge to it. People seriously believe in witchcraft and one can get violently run out of a community for it. Fortunately i was surrounded by dozens of people who like me so i was safe. There's apparently at least one "witch community" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_camp) here in northern Ghana where people (mostly women) ostracized from other communities for witchcraft move to.
And in related news on the middle of the grounds of the GNAT Hall where we're doing our training there's a large (half acre?) circular area enclosed by a tall wall with one padlocked gate in it, inside is a forest of big trees, and i had observed some beehives. Today Courage told me the whole reason that is there is because there's idols to ancient spirits in there so development went around it and enclosed it without disturbing it; and one of the idols is to bees. There's a shaman who looks after the hives in there and can commune with bees and such. Obviously this sounds fascinating and i wish i could meet him and learn more about that ... but all that is literally witchcraft and maybe it's best not to encourage anyone in thinking I'm into that.
In the afternoon our usual hall had been double booked and another group occupied it so we met under the large thatched canopy of the outdoor eating area. We couldn't use the projector, so i was prepared to talk about my business segment which doesn't really have any pictures, but the participants easily occupied the entire hour we had with questions.
Also i note it feels much nicer and cooler under a thatched canopy than corrugated metal.
For dinner to avoid an hour wait we called in our order an hour before we went in but they seemingly disregarded this until we showed up, our food still arriving about half an hour after we got there. I requested red-red, but they said they were out so i ordered the spaghetti. Wasn't sure what to expect but when it came it was really good, a variety of vegetables mixed in, a good flavorsome local spice, and pieces of chicken. Unfortunately these pieces of chicken also included lots of little pieces of bone so it was slow going as every bite had a sharp little hidden bone in it somewhere.
I asked Courage and Arne what the plan for next year is and it kind of sounded like it's the end of the project. I was hoping it would continue to expand next year to more communities, but it sounds like they'll just do some evaluation and then that might be it?
In the evening i was trying to prompt the guys to tell Arne about the drink i mentioned the other day, sobolo, but i was mispronouncing it as soboto or some such, and when they realized what i meant the guys laughingly said i had "broffalized" the word, "broffa" being the local language word for white person.