In the wake of the festival, Anloga has calmed significantly and everything has returned to the normal, leisurely pace of daily life. The streets are filled with the usual suspects and the pulsing Hip Life beats are far more faint. Allow me to divulge a bit about our first-hand experience with the Anlo Hogbetsotso Festival, a “Festival of the Exodus.”
To pay homage to the tradition, I’ll explain the reason we were so fortunate to celebrate this event amongst our Anlo-area neighbors. The Anlo Ewe people migrated to this area of the Volta Region from Notsie in Togo, as legend has it, walking backwards. While under the oppression of a tyrannical ruler for many years within the kingdom contained by a clay wall, the Ewe people needed a strategy for escape. The wise elders instructed them to pour every last drop of water they could throughout their day of labor onto the clay wall that trapped them. They even urinated on the wall, allegedly. This practice continues even today. People pretty much pee anywhere here, unless specified by the phrase seen painted or etched on the wall or sign, “Do Not Urinate Here.” Anyway, back to the legend. When the wall finally collapsed, the Ewe people migrated away by dancing backward, so the ruler’s guards would see from a distance that they were facing them and so their footsteps appeared to be toward the kingdom, so they would not be followed. (Yeah! Damn the man!)
A common theme of this festival, therefore, was this very form of backward dancing, along with all the music; the beating of traditional drums and singing. Saturday morning, the durbar of chiefs and their families, seated under festival tents to watch the display being put on across the festival grounds before them, donned colorful regalia, along with most others in attendance from infant to elder.
Another common theme seemed to be the incredibly delayed event start times, which meant they didn’t conclude until around 3:30 AM on both Friday and Saturday evenings. After a lot of standing around and waiting on the festival grounds for something to happen Friday evening, Justine, Sayra and I met up with the Lumana staff/our Ghanaian posse and their brothers and sisters (not really, just what everyone here calls friends). On the walk home after spending a couple hours at a local bar, we happened upon a reenactment of this exodus legend; a play, if you will. We decided to indulge and Mr. Eric Fiazorli’s friend Kenneth was so kind as to translate much of the entertainment for me, which began at around midnight. I might have misread the situation, but I’m pretty sure he and I also agreed to begin working on the screenplay for a Braveheart-esque, Hollywood epic based on the Anlo Ewe Exodus. I soaked up as much legend as my mind could take, but coming up on 2 AM, I couldn’t hack it any longer and had to call it a night.
After the daytime Saturday festivities at the Anloga festival grounds concluded and evening was upon us, Lumana trustee and advisor Emma(nuel) stopped in to pay us a visit on his way to Keta for the Mama Hogbe Beauty Pageant, as he mentioned he would a few days earlier when I met him in Accra. After catching wind of a few details earlier and pondering whether or not to attend, I decided to blatantly invite myself to tag along with him.
Emma is a saint of a man. Upon meeting him about a week ago in Accra (for a moment he posed as a fabric vendor and I told him I wasn’t interested… I didn’t put it together that he was dressed to the nines, far from any fabric vendor, until after Sayra who had met him once before greeted him). He came to us at Tudu Station once we arrived, told us tons of information about Accra, took us out to lunch at none other than KFC in the Osu area, patiently strolled behind us through the Art Center while Sayra and I sauntered around looking at fabric, drums and other random knick-knacks for at least an hour, escorted us to the Post Office and got us into a trotro home, all during a very extended lunch break from work. When he mentioned his intentions to come to Anloga for the Festival on Saturday, we certainly encouraged him to pay us a visit.
Once Emma and I arrived at Mama Hogbe a bit “late”, we purchased our tickets with the start time of “7:00 PM Prompt,” pushed our way through the gates and proceeded to wait for another 3 hours until the event began, just before midnight. After the 15 contestants introduced themselves individually, then came back to perform their talent based on how they epitomized the morally-sound Ewe Woman, they narrowed it down to 5 contestants. Already I was beginning to fade. Interjected with two separate Hip Life musical performances, they asked the remaining pageant contestants two rounds of Ewe trivia questions, each time the announcers repeating “show some love, show some love” and “who will take the crown?” Finally, at 3:30 AM, after experiencing what felt more like a game show than a beauty pageant, contestant number nine took the grand prize, “A BRAND NEW CAR!” and Emma and I were already halfway out the door. He’d called a taxi that we found waiting for us outside the venue in Keta and made the trip home. Emma dropped me at my gate at 4 AM and we said good evening/morning.
Long story short, everything in Ghana, including the events, “will come with time,” as they say. Note to self: next time, bring Red Bull.