The Ramadan parade

Approximately 12 percent of the Ghanaian population is Muslim. The religion predates the arrival of all others, brought to West Africa by North African traders long before Christian missionaries decided the souls of those in the region required saving. One wonders of course at the contradiction of protecting their afterlife while deeming their current life of such inconsequent value.

Cape Coast includes a number of mosques. And while its adherents mix naturally with and blend into the pool of other faiths, they were on full and raucous display on Sept. 30 to celebrate the end of Ramadan.

After 40 days of fasting during which only tea or water is consumed from sun up to 4:30 each day, it was time to celebrate with music, a parade and lots of food. Shops were closed. The very best clothes were retrieved from the closet. Instruments were tuned.

Sitting in the Oceanview, the Internet café we use, which despite its inviting name could not view the ocean with the help of the Hubble telescope, we heard the music. At first I took it for a passing car radio or perhaps a local shop; music is as ubiquitous as the sun in Ghana.

But soon it became clear that what we were hearing was live, and it was getting closer. It grew louder and louder until many stood from their computers and hurried to the café’s two large open windows. There, on the streets behind the building, passed an enormous procession in a blur of incredible color.

Some carried instruments. A band played from the bed of a truck. Recorded music blared from speakers. And meanwhile the hundreds making up the parade throbbed like they were trying to wriggle out of their clothes. Everyone danced, clapped their hands, cheered and sang.

I hurried out the room and down the stairs with my camera and moved quickly down the street to try and catch them. But they caught me. As I tried to determine which sidestreet would get me there, the parade burst around the corner and in seconds I was swallowed up in it, a sea of grinning, sweating faces, a whorl of color and motion.

After some moments a man dressed in a gold ankle-length gown with a matching headpiece (on right in picture with red scarf) grabbed my arm and dragged me into the mass of bodies. “Come! Come!” he said. It was clear I had little choice in the matter and allowed myself to pulled forward. People danced by me. Some shouted to me and smiled and a man to my left pounded on a drum that I felt in my stomach.

“You take picture!” the man in gold shouted.

“Take picture?” I asked, unsure I’d heard him and somewhat hesitant as Ghanaians can be shy around cameras.

But by this point the man had already brought the procession to a stop. Stray bodies flowed around us like froth at a logjam. A group of perhaps 20 men formed in the middle of the road facing me. The old graying gentleman in the middle I took to be someone important and the purpose of the photograph.

I quickly directed the camera and took a picture. Or believed I had; with our camera it can be hard to tell. Already the weight of those coming up the street behind was beginning to dislodge them.

“One more!” I shouted. I snapped a second just as they gave way and the dancers gathered up my subjects and I, too, was overtaken.

“You come to the market with pictures!” the man in gold said, a smile on his dark, wet face. Then he said something else but it was lost in all the noise and he was carried down the street. I jumped free and watched it all go by and panted as if having just been spat out by a set of rapids.