Fowl at a Funeral

So this morning I attended my first Ghanian funeral. The father of a boy (Yakubu) whom we are sponsoring through secondary school was knocked off his bicycle by a tipper truck and killed sometime before Christmas. Most people in this region of Ghana are Muslim and a persons 'funeral' takes place a month or so after the death and burial. We arrived at the village of Taha at about 9am accompanied by Dawuda (our translator when we work with the people there).

There was an almost festive atmosphere with everyone dressed in their finest most colourful clothes, and a pair of drummers were providing entertainment. Food was being cooked in the compound houses by the women and the men were sitting in small groups and talking or eating. We were taken by Dawuda and Fatuwh ( another boy we are supporting who has excellent english) to a room where we had an 'audience' of sorts with the Fatuwhs father who would now be looking after Yakubu and his brothers (his mother had also passed away recently). We told the man that we would be able to look after the Yakubus education until he finishes SS and would also help them with his younger brother Alhassan who is in primary school. They were very grateful for this and presented us with a gift of an adult guinea fowl as a gesture of thanks. With this little fellah securely tucked under my arm we visited a number of other compound houses where we met with the cooking women and other people related to the family. On leaving we were also presented with some take away food. In Ghanian culture it is very important to accept whenever you are offered...even if you are not very hungry / scared of guinea fowl / not too fond of eating goat stomach before 10am etc.

The closeness and unity of the rural community of Taha was really evident at the funeral. There seems to be a very strong support structure for kids like Yakubu and his brothers who suffer a double bereavement by virtue of the fact that members of the community take responsibility for looking after their welfare. Despite the fact that they are quire poor they were extremely generous in giving us the fowl and we have seen this on numerous occasions...where people give us eggs or yams. Its quite a humbling experience to be given these things by people who you know are really struggling themselves.

Guinea fowl are like big chickens...they lay small but tasty eggs and their meat is slightly tougher than chicken but very palatable. The adults can be cantankerous and protect their eggs vigorously (they have been known to scratch mens eyes out...hence my pose in the picture :)...so much so that farmers will often steal wild guinea eggs and put them in chickens nests so that the chicken will raise the young fowl as a 'domestic' bird. I dont think I quite have the necessary skills to pluck and feather the thing so we'll probably give it to the local women around our house and let them hae a nice dinner.