BECA Travels: Seeing the Sights of Kpando

Seeing the Sights of Kpando

This afternoon, we kept the van and went to two other places in the Kpando area. The first was a potter whose pottery is fired in leaves.  Most of the pieces are black – the natural clay color without glaze – and a few are a warm brown. There were all kinds of pieces – little animals typical of Ghana and other parts of Africa, coasters, teapots, mugs, bowls, decorative pieces, vases and pots.  Most of the pottery was decorated with symbols of a particular group of people in the area.  The sellers had a legend of the designs and their meanings.  At the pottery hut, we ran into a group of Americans volunteering in a different part of the country, who were on a weekend outing in Kpando.

We then went to the Lady of Lourdes Grotto.  The first thing we saw was a big, semi-outdoors church.  It was interesting, but nothing special, so several of us were confused.  Then our driver took us up in the hills behind the church, and there were statues of the stations of the cross – large, white, vivid statues set among the trees and hills.  We walked around and took pictures.  I managed to step in a river of ants close to one of the statues, and I learned very quickly what the expression, “ants in your pants,” means. They bit, and ran quickly up my leg to bite some more.  Not fun. By the time we were ready to leave, the priest of the church had arrived, and he asked to meet us, so we chatted briefly with him before returning to HardtHaven.