Ghana Post 2 - Tafi Atome

Tafi Atome and the Sacred Monkeys-

One of the villages on our itinerary was the village of Tafi Atome. This was a planned stop because Tafi Atome is unique in their relationship with the monkeys surronding their area. The village views the monkeys as sacred, and has created a monkey reserve around the village so that no one can harm the monkeys.  The village made the decision to protect the monkeys because of their ancient history and the monkeys that surrounded their lands ever since the began their immigration through Africa. The people of the village believe that the monkeys followed them all the way to their location.. The monkeys now are so used to the people, that twice a day they come into the village. Once in the morning to get fed breakfast, and once in the evening to get fed dinner.  During the day they retreat into the jungle. We got to venture into the jungle in search of the monkeys.   Luckily, we spotted a whole group of the monkeys.  The monkeys are the Mona Monkeys. They came right onto the branches over our heads to grab bananas. Our tour guide prepared us and brought bananas for all of us to give to the monkeys.  We would just hold the bananas over our heads and the monkeys would hang down from the branch and peel the banana right in our hand!! They are particular about their monkeys though, and the monkeys will only eat them if they are not overripe. They peel the banana before they eat it because they can tell the scent of the human on the peel, and see it as 'dirty' and wont eat it. If you take the banana out of the peel and then toss the banana to the monkey, they will catch it out of thin air, and then clean the banana since your hand touched the banana instead of the peel. Once they are done cleaning they will eat the banana.

In addition to our monkey expedition, while in Tafi Atome we got a tour of their village. The village people live in huts with thatched roofs. THey have a seperate hut for their kitchen so that if the kitchen burns down it does not burn the whole house down. Their kitchen only consists of an area to cook food over an open fire.  The village that runs through Tafi Atome is where the community bathes. The women also do their laundry and washing in the river as well. The river runs near the village and is also used as 'fresh water'.  The women fetch the water from the river and carry it on their heads. The big bowls of water looked so heavy, they had to be at least 10 gallons of water! The young children learn the act of balancing the water on their head as young as 3 years old. They start with just a dinner bowl full of water, and our guide said that the first few weeks they almost never return to the village with water still in the dinner bowl. As they get older they get better though. By the age of 7, they are expected to be able to fetch water (in much smaller amounts than the adults) for their mothers. We saw a child probably about 6 years old carrying a 2 gallon bucket of water on his head. There is one well in the city that has water that is considered better than the river water, this water is drawn directly from the water source below the river.  Their is a school in Tafi Atome for all the children.  The town 'supermarket' is an area where each of the different crops of the village is sold. They sell fresh fruits and vegetables as well as fish. There were goats and chickens roaming freely throughout the village as well. The chickens I assume are for eggs, and the goats are for meat. We thought that the goats would also be for milk, but our guide told us that they do not milk these goats.

Prior to our arrival in Tafi Atome, our tour guide taught us a song in Eve, the language of this region. WHen we arrived we walked over to the school and began singing the song, the children came outside and joined in our song. It was so much fun to sing along with them. They started clapping and even dancing a bit. I was so glad that Sam had taught us the song!