Ghana runs on festivals. Traditional ones tied to harvest, migration and the authority of chiefs; religious ones; and a newer layer of arts and music festivals that have made Accra a destination.
Attending one properly is the fastest way to understand where you are living.
Accra’s own
Homowo — the Ga festival, and the one that belongs to Accra itself. Held around August and September across the Ga towns — Ga Mashie, Osu, La, Teshie, Nungua, Tema — each on its own date.
Homowo means “hooting at hunger”: it commemorates a famine the Ga survived, and celebrates the harvest that ended it. The signature is kpokpoi (kpekple), a steamed corn dish sprinkled through the streets by chiefs and elders for the ancestors, eaten with palm-nut soup.
There is a ban on drumming and noise in the weeks before Homowo in Ga areas, which is taken seriously and has caused real friction with some churches over the years. If you live in a Ga neighbourhood, respect it.
Chale Wote Street Art Festival — August, in Jamestown. Street art, installations, performance, fashion, skating, music, and tens of thousands of people filling the old streets of Accra. One of the best things that happens in West Africa, and free. — Things to do in Accra
Around the country
Aboakyer — Winneba, in May. The deer hunt festival, in which two Effutu companies compete to catch a live antelope. Old, competitive and spectacular.
Odwira — Akuapem, around Aburi and Akropong, in September or October. Purification, harvest, and the honouring of ancestors.
Akwasidae — Kumasi, every six weeks on the Akan calendar. The Asantehene receives homage at Manhyia Palace in full state. If you are anywhere near Kumasi when one falls, go.
Damba — the northern festival marking the Prophet’s birth, with drumming and horsemanship in Tamale, Yendi and across Dagbon.
Fetu Afahye — Cape Coast, September. Cleansing and celebration.
Hogbetsotso — Anloga in the Volta Region, November. The Anlo Ewe commemoration of their escape from Notsie and migration to their present home.
Kundum, Bakatue, Ngmayem and dozens more — almost every traditional area has one.
Pan-African and diaspora
PANAFEST and Emancipation Day — Cape Coast and Elmina, around late July and 1 August. Performance, ceremony and remembrance, drawing the diaspora to the castles. — Cape Coast and Elmina
Year of Return in 2019 and Beyond the Return since have made December in particular a season of diaspora homecoming. — The Right of Abode
December
Detty December is now a season in its own right: concerts, festivals, beach parties, weddings and a very large diaspora presence in Accra from mid-December into January. Afrochella, since renamed Afro Future, is the anchor event, with dozens of others around it.
If you are coming: book flights and accommodation months ahead, expect prices to rise sharply, and expect government offices to be effectively unavailable from mid-month. — Public holidays
Attending a traditional festival properly
These are not performances staged for visitors. They are religious and civic occasions with chiefs, elders and ancestors at the centre.
- Find out the date locally. Traditional dates follow their own calendars and are announced by the traditional council, often not far in advance.
- Dress well and modestly. Ghanaians dress for these. Print cloth is always right.
- Ask before photographing people, and especially before photographing chiefs, shrines or rituals. Sometimes the answer is no.
- Do not walk in front of a chief in procession, and stand when the palanquin passes.
- Remove your hat in the presence of a chief. Do not offer or receive with the left hand.
- Go with someone local if you possibly can. The difference between watching and understanding is a person beside you explaining.
- Bring cash in small notes for food, drinks and contributions.
- Expect it to run late. It will start when it starts.
The wider rhythm
Alongside the festivals sit funerals, which in Ghana are large public occasions with their own calendar, dress codes and obligations — and which you are far more likely to be invited to than any festival.