Kumasi is the second largest city in Accra, and the capital of the Ashanti kingdom. The Asantehene, the traditional leader of the Asante, which is the largest ethnic group in Ghana, still lives here and plays an important role in the society.
What left the strongest impression on me of Kumasi, though, was not the presence of royalty, but the extreme congestion of every place we went to. The cars and the people and the constant commerce. It was intense, and hard to navigate, and if we hadn’t hired an excellent guide through the B&B, I’m not sure if we had been able to move at all.
The most dominant feature of the Kumasi cityscape is the Kejetia Market. Kumasi prides itself with having West Africa’s largest outdoor market with more than 11000 stalls, and it really is enormous. And you can find basically anything there. Huge snails for eating, trying to crawl out of their buckets, any kind of fabric you could imagine, cheap plastic knick-knacks, toiletries. Entire rows with people producing sandals right in front of your eyes, or tailors sowing you a dress right on the spot. The smells, sounds, people, everything and from everywhere at once.
We bought fabrics. Colorful, wax printed and produced in Ghana. I already have about thirty meters of wax printed fabrics, bought in Liberia when Hanna and I lost our minds in a crazy shopping spree last year. What am I to do with all this fabric?
We also went to Prempeh II Jubilee Museum, a small exhibition on Asante culture and traditions, especially showing artifacts relating to the different Asantehenes and the Queenmothers. It is really a king cult, the Asante culture, where the Asantehene is still treated like some kind of semi-god. It was interesting.
On the wall of the museum. The Asante art is full of symbols that are being reproduced in weaves and prints, carved wood, pottery, metal-work and beads. I like them, the combination of symbolism and simple patterns. I’ve done many sketches, and will definitely adapt many of the patterns into my own knitting.
Katja Malmborg 