http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ghana/Central/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Africa , Ghana , Central en-us Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:38:21 UTC Fri, 05 Dec 2008 02:38:21 UTC Its been some time since I've written...I don't really have an excuse because I haven't really done much with my time. Without classes and finals most of my time has been spent sitting on my pretty behind. I've gotten some productive things done I did an outline for my thesis got some shopping done before coming home and enjoyed some leisurely reading. The days have been hot and long and I ge http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Elmina/blog-350365.html Oops. So I have just realized that it ihas been 75 days since I last wrote in my blog I have had email correspondence with some of you...sorry to the rest There is obviously alot to fill you in on but I will give a summary of what I have been upto if I can remember it all The days seem to pass by so quickly as I leave the house I have moved from Dansoman living with the family to http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-346201.html FRI. OCT. 10 2008 Resided for 2 nights at the One Africa Beachfront Lodge. The lodge had a very Afrocentric and Rasta themed design throughout the place. Each room was an individualy thatched roof hut named after outstanding people of color. My roommate M. Pilcher chose hut 6 named in honor of Queen Mother Moore. The place was clean and tidy...no air a nonworking fan but lots of breez http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Elmina/blog-333696.html Although the last few weeks and months have not been totally filled with problems and challenges they have included a rather disproportionately high number I had not shared with readers the 2 earlier sightings in our yard of snakes for fear of deterring visitors especially as we all lived to tell the tale notably Jess who survived the slithering of one across her feet during her visit http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-332931.html Greetings after several busy and moveabout days.TUES City of Kumasi Capital of the Ashanti RegionWe visited Manhyiah Plalace seat of the Ashanti Kingdom and the Kumasi Cultural lCentre. Our group heard a lot of tradition and history. In the Ashanti Regionl the Royal family bloodline is traced through the maternal uncle line. In the Akan speaking areas women are very powerful. The current http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-332836.html I'm back. I went to Cape Coast for the weekend with Michael Eddie Katie and Maya so I couldn't access the internet. We took a metro bus from Kumasi which was four hours of bumpy and extremely sweaty travel. The Metro is a coach with leather seats and they cram as much people as they can into one. Itrsquos very packed and therersquos no leg room at all. I was stuck between a big man called http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-324719.html I have returned from my Cape Coast adventure and I can say I had another funfilled and enlightening experience.Like I said before we went to Cape Coast Castle on Friday which was a very enriching trip but one that was deeply disturbing. The castle was a major point in the TransAtlantic Slave Trade and just seeing it makes you think of white imperialism. Its a very impressive structure consideri http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-321319.html Greetings from Cape CoastI'm hungry so I am going to try and keep this brief and elaborate later.We left yesterday morning for a few hour drive over here. Our first stop of the day was at Cape Coast Castle...a fort originally built by the Portugese but eventually overseen by the British. We took a tour of the place and while very interesting I can honestly say that it was one of the more depres http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-320615.html I have just finished week two at our project. We arrived in Achiase on Saturday 23rd August. I call Achiase a village but itrsquos more like a town it owes its name to the large tree in the centre that the village has been built around. The tree is the main meeting place. The house Irsquom staying in belongs to a woman called May. Her husband is a driver who is currently in Togo. I have four http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/blog-320514.html This internet is very unreliable and frustrating but I must be thankful for what little I do have. That being said I shall give a recap of what I've been up to the past few days.Last week all of my classes met but one. I was supposed to go to the orphanage but in true Ghanaian form those plans did not happen. We are still in rainy season here so that has been interesting. We have massive downpo http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Elmina/blog-318753.html During my recent visit home to the UK I was shocked when a number of people asked me why I had stopped writing my blog. ldquoHad I stopped writing my blogrdquo I asked myself. It was true that it had been 6 weeks or so since I had last made an entry but had I consciously decided to stop communicating with folks this way The answer was ldquonordquo and I realised that there were a number http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-305141.html After a somber day at Cape Coast this morning was much more pleasant in Elmina a neighboring town that is smaller and centers around a crazy fishing industry. I don't think I will ever lose my fascination with the long sleek wooden fishing boats you see across the world in small fishing towns. I love the angles the simplicitybut sturdiness of the construction the colors painted bright and ran http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Elmina/blog-305138.html The Cape Coast Castle. Better known as the major slave trading fort on the Ghanaian Coast and African Coast for that matter.I wasn't sure if i was going to be disappointed like I was in Mole last week. Matter of fact the emotional and historic weight of this tourism trip meant I didn't know at all how I would feel after. The result somewhere in the middle between an average tour and total e http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-304834.html I always enjoyed coming back to Royal Seed after sending the weekend away. The children are delighted when I return but this time their happy faces turned to frowns when they asked what day I was leaving. They all told me to remember them. How could I forget an adorable 90 children who had been looking after for almost 2 months There is so much more I would like to do for them that I even have http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/blog-289932.html Some of you have been asking me to tell more about the Orphanage I'm working at. There is soo much to say Where to begin... well it is in better condition than what you can see on youtube. The place has developed a lot since the last year when the videos were taken. Anna Smith an English girl had raised a lot of money for the place. It was her and another volunteer who made the videos. Her boy http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/blog-284682.html lsquoAll the Knowledge in the World is of no use to Foolsrsquo The EaglesLong Road Out Of EdenI have put some thought into my next offering. I was toying with some different titlesrsquo Taxi Driverrsquo Al Pacino or was it Robert de Niro There I go again does anybody else mix those two up Then I thought of lsquoGloriarsquo Them or even lsquoSome pigs are more equal than ot http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-281160.html Emelie Linda another English volunteer and myself spent the 17th and 18th weekend at Cape Coast. It took us about 2 hours from Kasoa to Cape Coast by tro tro and only cost us GHcedi3 That's about 1.50 pounds lol. There were lots of white people in the city. I think it's the old Western style castles and the palmfringed beaches that attracts them. However many of the beaches here in Ghana are http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-280753.html The new week didn't start off that positive with Holly my fellow English vegetarian volunteer feeling very sick. On Monday us 3 volunteers Naomi and 2 more Royal Seed workers went to Winneba Hospital to pick up one of our little orphaned boys who had been ill. Holly was checked in and lay in a hospital bed most of the day. All the hospital fees and medication came to about GHcedi 70 That's a http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/blog-277563.html So all of us volunteers from SYTO have moved on to our different placements around Ghana. We all enjoyed each other's company and felt we would miss each other. There was a kind of secure feeling us Europeans being together learning about Ghana but now we are placed in the middle of cultureIn our Orientation week we learned a bit of Ghanian cooking fried plantains bit like bananas beans an http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/blog-274753.html The Hill Stanley BakerThe Hill in this film was an instrument of torture used in the main by a sadistic Sergeant in the British Armed Forces. He had it constructed out of sand. If he had lived in Cape Coast he could have had his pick of many naturally formed such instruments. As it turned out our permanent or not as the case may be home for the next two years provided us with our very own hill http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-269668.html Wow. My last week in Ghana is here. It's so hard to believe that eight months have passed so quickly. I remember the first three weeks went so slowly that I didn't imagine I would ever make it to the end. But it's here. Of course my emotions are all over the place...I am feeling so happy and excited to be going home but at the same time it will be difficult to leave the friends I have made and http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-268883.html At the insistence of several avid readers of the blog I have concluded that I am long over due for my next entry so here it is Since I last wrote I have had the privilege of having my lovely Mum come to visit me She arrived just before Easter weekend to kick off her 8 day visit to Ghana. The reunion at the airport was sight to behold with both of us waving frantically at each other over the c http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Elmina/blog-267678.html ldquoSmall smallrdquo is the Ghanaian way of saying ldquodonrsquot rushrdquo or ldquoit will happen slowlyrdquo and although it is intended to be reassuring as well as accurate most of you will understand that in the workplace this is quite frustrating for me.Some days I count myself lucky if someone I had previously made an appointment to see actually turns up This is not a http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-266027.html When I was student teaching 4th grade in Bellingham at the end of the week each student would get a stapled packet of all the work they had completed that week. It was graded and compiled by their teacher or me and there was a pretty little cover sheet that said A Week's Worth of Work on top. As I look back on the past week in Ghana let me see if I can compile and staple all of my work in http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-265067.html Our weekend in Cape Coast got off to a rocky start. When we finally arrived in Kumasi we went to the OA Station buses very similar to the Greyhound only to find out that they were not running to Cape Coast that night very unusual. We then called the STC another bus company to see if they were making the trip which the usually do but they weren't until the following morning. Our only opt http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-261621.html Five more weeks to go the countdown is on My excitement about returning home is growing each day and each day I think of another reason why I am happy to come home. While I do have mixed feelings about leaving Ghana I am sure that I am looking forward to returning to Seattle.Thanks to all who have donated money to the education funds of Mahadev Oppong Jamila and Babangida. So far I have c http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-260102.html Dave has found a good male companion in Eddie fellow volunteer as he too enjoys his beer and footballhellip so a few times per week we have been meeting up trying out different ldquospotsrdquo and hunting for live football on a TV. As we have also been provided with a TV in our house football and other sport has become far too accessible again and Dave is watching Golf whilst I am wr http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-257395.html Toad clearly did not see the Land Rover that took us to Cape Coast from Accra. Believe me I am not anti British in any way when it comes to buying goods. My dad spent over forty years in factories making cars tractors and other vehicles and I was brought up on his wages. It would be churlish of me not to respect the British engineering tradition but really why would anybody buy a Land Rover unles http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-255801.html Denzil Washington is not a good policeman indeed he is really quite a nasty piece of work in the film lsquoTraining Daysrsquo. It may therefore seem strange that I have chosen it for the title of this bit of my chronicle. There was certainly nobody unpleasant in any way amongst our seeking of volunteers or the VSO staff brought together for our week long incountry training. No the reason is http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Cape-Coast/blog-255795.html AdventureAdventure awaits usAnd misadventure tooDaily life debates usChallenging us to doThat which we cannot bearThat is unless we dareTo cross over bordersTranscending disordersDefying our own pastTo find the now at lastAdventure awaits usAnd misadventure tooBut destiny fates usTo do what we must doTo get from here to thereAnd where is there To beWithin the now and freeSteven Curtis LanceThis http://www.travelblog.org//Africa/Ghana/Central/Winneba/blog-255790.html