Blogs from Central, Ghana, Africa - page 3

This weekend I took a trip to a nearby town called Cape Coast. This town is about three hours outside of Accra and is the site of the first European contact with Ghana. The town has many historical sites as well as lots of beautiful beaches. Just outside of Cape Coast is the Kakum National Park. On my first morning in Cape Coast I went to this national park where they have a famous canopy walk. This involves a short hike up a hill and then it is made of a series of rope swinging bridges up high in the canopy of the forest. The walk was incredible, but a little frightening. Unfortunately Saturday is a big tourist day so the walk was fairly crowded and noisy and most of the wildlife that lives in the ... read more

Technically we went to Brenu Beach again which is near Elmina.... So this weekend we decided that as it was pretty much our last weekend travelling around Ghana we wanted it to be relaxing after quite a stressful week at the hospital. (We saw a still birth at the same time as a healthy birth resulting in me passing out, i'm going to blame the heat and well the fact that it was very distressing! The still birth baby was breeched as well and all blue, horrifying.) We left bright and early on Saturday not really sure how to get to Brenu but we knew its where we wanted to be! So got a tro to Accra and then somehow found a tro to Cape Coast. That tro was luxury! By far the safest and fanciest ... read more

Well, we have a bit of misery now. We are staying at a very nice hotel (Lagoon Lodge) and there is no air conditioning. The ceiling fan works very well so it is like a Saskatchewan summer night in late July. There don’t seem to be any mosquitoes in my room so that is good. I don’t have a mosquito net and I don’t want to have to wear bug spray to bed. I’ll go down to breakfast soon and then it will be off to the credit union to begin our work. I’m going to see if I can arrange to have some laundry done. I have been hand washing my things as I go however I have a few things that I would like dried in the hot sun. I got a couple pictures ... read more

I am writing this little diddy from my hotel room in Cape Coast and I'm like teetering on the edge of my seat. Though the jitters are partially due to the fact that I've had like three cokes today (they taste so much better when they don't have corn syrup in them and come from glass bottles), I'm jumpin' around like a Mexican jumping bean because Sam and I are officially starting our internship with the United Nations tomorrow! By a stroke of (true-to-Ghanaian-fashion) luck, last week Sam randomly went by the director's office (Yvonne) on her way to class. If you recall from my older posts, we were supposed to be interning with Yvonne last semester, working to develop training manuals and seminars for teachers for environmental education. Specifically, we were to work with climate ... read more

Our day started in luxury (I’m sorry Barry. I know you told me that the Irish need misery but there was none at this point). We had a lovely breakfast in an open air restaurant with a morning breeze coming off the warm Atlantic Ocean. We took advantage of the time to rest, relax, catch up on a bit of reading and tour the grounds of the compound. I came across the band’s gear (from the night before) and was happy to see that they use the same (exactly) kind of equipment that our “Greenwood Band” uses when we play. Next, Barry arranged for a driver to take us to Elmina and our next hotel (the Elmina Bridge House) which is directly across the water from the Elmina Slave Castle we wished to visit in the ... read more