This month in Ghana, it’s the season for the Homowo festival. Homowo means ‘hooting at hunger.’ It’s a harvest celebration that centers around a community feast. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
“I’m thinking about when I was a kid, celebrating Homowo festival, it was the most fun that I’ve ever had as a child. And I lived in my village with my father. And all my brothers and sisters were around.”
Obo Addy is a master drummer who grew up in Ghana.
“Everybody who is gonna cook will get up at maybe 2 o’clock in the middle of the night and start the cooking. And the cooking is soup with fish in it and corn meals. And then we have something they call Poupoie. And Poupie is made out of a corn meal, and then they steam it, and mix it with palm oil. And then we eat it with the fish.”
Once the food is ready, the whole community is invited to share in the meal.
“At noon you come outside your door and yell: “Come on everybody, we’re ready here” so you can see everybody running into this house, and then when the time you get there the head of the house will be sitting by a huge pot, with this soup in it. So everybody will gather around. The old man will take a fish from the pot, trying to give it to somebody, somebody will grab it away from him and run away with it. So it’s all like fun and games, and people will be laughing and then they go to another place.”
Mr. Addy has brought the tradition of Homowo to the city of Portland Oregon, where every August you can join in with a public celebration of dancing and drumming.
Additional funding for Pulse of the Planet has been provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities. I’m Jim Metzner.