One Month Down...Holy Cow!!

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Hello again everyone. I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. It's been a month since I first set foot in this interesting country. This last week proved most interesting. I started it by going to Medina once again (the large market near us). I explored it much more this time, taking lots of pictures and perfecting my bartering skills. I went a little fabric crazy and made friends with a woman named Lydia who helped me pick out complementing colors to have taylored into shirts and skirts.
After our day at the market we were informed that there was no school Thursday or Friday due to Ghana's Independence Day. Most of us had absolutely no idea that we would be experiencing this holiday, but we were all very excited. After waking up very early on Thursday morning a bunch of us took a tro tro to Independence Square where a huge parade, including school children, military officers, and military machinery took place. The colors and music were absolutley amazing. Some of us were afraid that this year things would be toned down because last year it was the 50 year anniversary of Ghana's independence and people told us it was a huge blowout, but this year proved to be just as exciting. After watching the children and officers march, the President of Ghana was escorted into the square by four armored cars and soldiers on horse-back. I've never been so close to any political leader in my life. Our group of 7 oburonis was sitting on the stairs of one side of the stadium surrounding the square and we ran to the side-rails to snap as many shots of John Koufuor (president) as we could. After some music and singing, a plane, four jets, and three helicopters flew over the stadium leaving streams of colored smoke in the air. Cannon fire followed the avian display and the crowd, exhibiting the Ghanaian colors of red, gold, and green cheered after every shot.
After the exhausting morning at the celebration, I decided that it was time to try to make my favorite American delicacy...chocolate chip cookies. Ask any of my family members, they can tell you that I make pretty dang good cookies and ever since I came to Ghana I've been wanting to test my culinary abilities abroad. After hunting down the necessary items, I locked myself in the kitchen and baked away. The gas/open flame oven that I was forced to use proved a bit difficult, seeing as it burned the bottom the cookies in aobut 2 minutes, leaving the insides uncooked...however, all of my housemates were extremely greatful and sang my praises for aobut 2 hours after devouring every single morsel and crum that I put out for them.
Because there was no class on Friday some of my friends in my program and I decided it was time to do some traveling. Being in the city is always exciting, but we needed a break and decided to get out into the country. Early Friday morning Lizzy, Lindsey, Jordan, Rachel and I caught a tro tro heading down the west coast, out of Accra. After about an hour in the cramped space and after consulting our handy-dandy guide book, we got off at a small fishing town called Winneba. We found a nice taxi driver who took us to a small hostel on the beach where we ate lunch. Of course the tuna sandwiches we ordered took about an hour and a half to get, but we had fun drinking our Fanta's and talking about all we'd exprienced since arriving in Ghana. It was a very relaxed afternoon. We walked along the beach for a while, debating weather or not it was appropriate to don our bikini's and soak up the sun...however after passing lots of judemental seeming fisherman, we thought it better to head to a beach that our hostel cook reccommended.
We arrived at the Magjoy Royal Beach Hotel at about 3 in the afternoon and decided that this was as good a place as any to spend the evening. Because the tide was in, the beach wasn't exactly tanning-ready, so we decided to take advantage of the one airconditioned room we rented and watched London beat Milan in the European Football Cup. We ate a dinner of fried rice and chicken that night and made friends with the manager named Louis who was half Ghanaian and half Russian. We learned that he spoke Russian, Twi, Spanish, French, and English, and was an agricultural consultant who travled extensivley around the world before becoming a taxi driver in Ghana fifteen years ago, before becoming the manager at the Magjoy.
The next morning we woke to the sounds of what seemed like a goat being slaughtered right outside our window at about 5 a.m. and soon realized that it was a baby goat just being annoying. With the tide being low Louis told us that we could walk across a tributary that fed into a river so that we could walk along the other side of the beach to a village that supposedly had a whale shrine. So the five us of though, "That sounds cool!" and decided to walk across. Little did we know that "walking" was actually wading. As we started into the much deeper-than-we-thought water where tons of children were playing we started sinking in the sand and realized quickley that our bags and cameras were in a dire position. Thankfully the children, sensing our distress thought it would be fun to help the ridiculous oborunis across in exchange for us taking massive amounts of pictures of them. If you only learn one thing when in a develping country, it's that children (an older people alike) love getting their picture taken and seeing themselves on your camera (which is easily done with a digital camera). After walking for about 45 minutes and taking lots of other pictures along the way, we came upon a very small group of huts on the beach where men and women were working on carving a boat. We tried to ask them if there was a whale shrine anywhere, however, no one understood a word we were saying and so we were content with taking lots of pictures of the village and shaking many hands.
After heading back to the hotel and learning that we had to leave by noon due to the hotel rules, we decided to head back towards Accra and stop at another beach town called Fete along the way. The guide book said that there was an old slave fort there and so the five of us were intruigued. After the tro tro let us off at a measly looking junction, a taxi driver offered to drive us the rest of the way to Fete for a fair price (let me tell you, fitting five tall, athletic girls in one taxi takes some talent). We asked the driver to take us to a place where he thought we could get a good lunch and so he dropped us off at Tille's Hotel. We looked it up in the guide book and learned that it was one of the most expensive hotels in the area and realized that the slave fort we wanted to visit was actually in the next town over. However, because we were famished and by the looks of it the hotel seemed to have a private beach, we decided to pay the $3 fee to spend the day there. After scarfing down the best cheeseburger and fried ever, we ventured down to the very nice private beach. The five of us were used to seeing beaches strewn with trash, rocks, and seaweed, but this beach was clean and beautiful. It was just the time away from the city that we were looking for. While eating the dessert of fried pineapple with cinnamon and vanilla icecream we ordered and shared, we witnessed a Ghanaian wedding on the beach (from a-far of course). It was very beautiful and the entire party seemed to be having a great time. At about 4:30 in the afternoon we decided that it was time for us to head home, and after catching a series of tro tro's to get home we finally arrived at our residence at 8 p.m. sandy and salty and badly in need of a shower.
After a good night sleep, I woke up this morning and tackled my laundry. At about noon, three of my housemates and I decided to head to the Trade Fair, a fair of sellers and craftsmen from all over West Africa who come to sell their things in Accra once a year, due to the fact that it was the last day. It was wonderfully empty because most of the shoppers had been there throughout the week and because it was the last day all the sellers were willing to let their crats sell for cheaper prices so that they wouldn't have to lug them back to where they came from. I purchased a bag from Burkina Faso, some earrings from Niger, and a necklace from Cote d' Ivoire. I tried my best to employ what little French I knew in order to barter with the men from Niger and they were very appreciative...it was a great cultural experience.
I hope that this next month proves to be just as exciting as this first one. Again I can't believe how fast the time is going. It seems that in no time I will be home in America completing my final year of university...but I'm going to try to soak up all the adventure I can before that happens. At the moment the sky has turned from a calm light blue to almost black, and golfball size rain drops are beginnig to fall. They are starting to turn off the computers in this inernet cafe due to the lightening and thunder that is crackling throughout the sky and so I take my leave. Wish me luck on the 15 minute walk I have to get back to my house...and pray that the African gods smile down on me and find humor in my situation.

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