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Published: April 24th 2008
Once again I have gone forever without updating, and once again I am vowing to not do this to myself again! my excuse for not writing originally was because I hadn’t been around the university for what seemed like weeks, and when I was there I was either completely exhausted and/or really sick. It has taken me about 2-3 weeks of a little bit at a time to complete this massive blog.
Overview of the events of the past month and a half
Thurs. March 13th - This day was an intense preparation day, first in finding a bus/tro-tro station that we could leave from the following day to get to Kpandu, and secondly in traveling over all ends of creation looking at hotels for my parents to stay in when they come (from April 27th - May 4th). In addition to our hotel search we also sought We had a general idea of where the tro-tro station was in Accra, but it took quite a while to finally locate it. After we spent a majority of the morning searching for the specific tro-tro to Kpandu and finally found it, we ended up running into one of our friends who has been a student here since last semester and is always an excellent source of advice. she told us that although we spent a few solid hours locating a tro-tro leaving from Accra, it would actually be a better idea to get a tro-tro leaving from Medina because the intense traffic in Accra would add at least an hour to travel time. Soooo, although we had been so excited to figure it out how to get to Kpandu all on our own, we ended up not taking that tro-tro anyway. Oh well. lol. So after that ordeal was settled, we began looking at hotels. Not many places here have websites, so it is necessary to physically go to each place to see the price of a room and the general establishment. We looked at 5 hotels in all, which may not sound like much, but to get to 5 hotels, that means 5 tro-tros/taxis/walks to get to and from each hotel and then finally back to campus. It got pretty tiring after a while, but all in all wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t been running around in 95 degree temperatures all day lol.
Fri. 14th to Mon. 17th - These days Shane and I went to an amazing little village up north on the edge of the Lake Volta called Kpandu.
Our adventures there mainly included Tafi Atome Monkey sanctuary, and Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine. The monkey sanctuary was amazing, I absolutely loved it. The town there is so tiny, there are no roads, and 95% of the buildings are mud huts. The monkey sanctuary functions as eco-tourism, such that everything is very environmentally friendly, and all money brought in through tourism goes to running the village and improving the primary school there. We stayed in a little one room hut there that had nothing more in it than two small beds and mosquito nets. When we first got there we walked around in the forested jungle area a little bit, and then walked around in the village. The people there were so friendly, and kept calling after us, “you’re welcome!,” (meaning literally ‘you are welcome here,’ not like how we use it, which was a little confusing at first). One elderly man stopped us at one point while we were walking around to ask us where we were from. He said he was very interested to hear that we were students because he was a retired teacher. In the course of the conversation, I told him that there was a Ghanaian student studying back at my home university in the States. He almost didn’t believe me, and then was so overwhelmed he almost seemed moved to tears to hear that a Ghanaian student was welcome to study in the United States. As we continued to walk around little kids all over the village kept peaking out of the doorways of the huts or wherever they were to see us. At one point we kind of had a little parade behind us as they were following us around, but whenever we’d turn to talk to them, they’d giggle and run away. A couple brave ones came up to hold our hands as we walked around. One little boy came up in-between Shane and I and lifted up his feet so that we had to swing him back and forth between us. They were all soooo cute! We headed back to our hut to get ready for our tour of the forest to go and see the monkeys, but when we got back to the hut, there were monkeys everywhere!! It was almost surreal! They were on the roof of our hut, on the roof of the out house, hanging off of the toilet stall’s door, in the tree right next to our hut, and all around the ground. It was awesome. One of the workers of the reserve was there feeding them bananas and gave Shane a banana, which Shane fed to a monkey right out of his hand. To feed a monkey, you hold out the unpeeled banana, and then one of the brave monkeys comes up and peels it while you hold it in your hand and then breaks the banana off bit by bit and eats it. I learned that you have to hold it firmly though, because they will just make off with the whole thing and run away with it. That’s what happened to me the first time because I was so startled at how forcefully they pull on it! lol We would break off the banana and throw it to some of the shyer ones, but we found that they don’t like it when its touched the ground and gets dirty because they pick it up and brush it off for almost a whole minute. It was really cool to have them so close though.. and that you have to be legitimately scared that a monkey was going to climb in the shower stall while you were showering!!
The next day we went to Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto, which is said to be the third largest Christian grotto in the world. It was amazing, there was a statue of Mary that was at least 5 stories high halfway up a mountain, and then around here were life sized stations of the cross. When we first went there on Saturday evening, there were so many flies that it was literally unbearable. You couldn’t open your eyes wide enough to see anyting before you had to squint again because of the bugs. So we decided to come back early the following morning, Palm Sunday consequently, and it was much better with a lot less flies. Shane and I brought a book with meditations on the stations of the cross, and spent a very nice morning that way. The whole time we were at the shrine, both days, we saw a total of 2 other people, so it was incredibly peaceful and beautiful. We got back late Monday night, dropped our stuff off at the hostel and then had to go immediately to a group meeting at mercy’s house (completely exhausted).
Tues. 18th to Thurs. 20th - These days absolutely whizzed by.
They basically consisted of classes, a lot of sleep. During these few days, luckily no debilitating sicknesses made themselves present at this point (although I will add that there aren’t many days where nausea doesn’t make itself known at some point, but its so routine its barely noteworthy). Also, a lot a lot a lot of reading was done at this point. Shane and I are taking an African literature class in which we have to read one assigned book a week, so there is always something that we are supposed to be reading (as I write right now Shane is sitting next to me reading our book for next week). I guess now is a good time to mention, finding books for classes here is possibly one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever encountered in my life. Unlike our universities in the States, there is no one main bookshop that has all your books in it. So to get a book for one of your classes first you should go to the main bookshop. If they don’t have it (which they usually don’t), try one of the two smaller bookshops. If they don’t have it, go to the departmental library. if they have the book (which they might) ask if you are allowed to take it to a copy machine (because that is very common here, copying entire books, and stapling them together like a big packet. I honestly didn’t believe it until I saw it, but that’s what they do. copy 100, 200, 300 page books.) After asking this question, the lady/man at the department library desk will most likely snatch it from your hand, tell you that there is no copy machine on site, and the book is not allowed to leave the library, then they will advise you to go to the university bookshop to get it. When you explain that the university bookshops do not have it, they will tell you to seek it elsewhere (aka. off campus.) Due to the sheer size of campus, and the massive distances between the bookshops and department libraries, it can take several days to go through this entire process… and still have absolutely nothing to show for it (other than clothes completely wringing with sweat.) So far, in taking a lit class that goes through a book a week, we have 3 books that have yet to be found on campus, and likewise, 3 books yet to be located anywhere. The few bookshops we’ve stumbled upon in the city have been one very small room, usually with one table and one bookcase. As you can imagine, the odds of finding the book you need are slim to none.
Fri. 21st to Sun. 23rd (Easter!) - These days were our SUNY sponsored group trip to Kumasi and Environs.
Shane and I literally had to unpack our bags from Kpandu and immediately repack them for the Kumasi trip. Although we were still tired and recovering from the previous weekend, it was nice that transportation was provided everywhere via the group van, and our itinerary and meals were all planned for us. I can imagine to someone reading this from the comforts of home, it must sound strange to still be exhausted from a long weekend trip three days later, but the “rest” you get here never really lives up to the “rest” get at home. Being away on a trip, you are walking infinitely more, bottled water is sometimes hard to come by in the rural areas, so you have to decide whether you want to risk drinking the little bags of water the locals drink (which consequently gave my roommate a stomach infection last week). Your body is constantly adjusting to different, sometimes questionable, food because it is not served hot, which means it has been sitting out all day, open to whatever flies or bacteria will of it, etc. So your body is constantly fighting to keep itself going, and the consistent heat and humidity don’t help. We can go weeks without ever being in an air-conditioned temperature controlled environment, so the constant sweating and constant loss of fluids makes it incredibly difficult to stay hydrated. I’m constantly in a battle to make myself drink fluids because A.) the water always has some strange taste to it because of the purifying chemicals and iodine in it. if you have a water bottle for a few days, sometimes it seems to begin to spoil, and smell really strange when you open it… which is upsetting because water is not supposed to smell lol and B.) drinking water makes you have to go the bathroom. bathrooms here a few and far between. and when you do find one, public bathrooms here never have toilet paper or soap, and 9 times out of 10, there is no running water, which means no flushing toilets and no water to wash your hands with. Sometimes the stalls have toilets in them, and sometimes they don’t. Many times there is just a small whole in the corner of the stall, and a cement floor… so things just sort of pile up. Even when there is a stall, the pipes many times do not function, so if you flush the toilet, it just ends up on the floor beneath you. So, as you can see, when given the choice to drink or not drink, it’s always easy to just not want to drink. (I think I sound like I’m complaining a lot, but I really don’t intend to sound so pessimistic. I just want to portray the conditions here, and make you appreciate, as much as I now do, the conditions we live in at home.)
Back to what we actually did in Kumasi, my favorite part of this trip was go to a kente weaving village. Kente is the traditional colorful woven fabric of Ghana, and is known worldwide. The people weave it on looms that are made entirely of, what looks like, bamboo. The people in the village let us each sit down and teach us how to weave, which is a rather complex combination of moving your hands and feet. The people were so nice there, and really seemed to enjoy teaching us and laughing at how slow we were going, because they are able to move so quickly. The guy that was teaching Shane just kept saying, “now go faster… ok. go faster…” which was pretty funny. We also went to a large general market, and then a craft market. It takes a lot of energy to go through the markets here because they are just so intense and there are so many people everywhere. It sounds silly but you really kind of have to be on your guard all the time because when you turn a corner, you never know what you are going to see. One time we turned a corner and stumbled on the meat market section. You see women carrying live chickens that are flapping around inside plastic grocery bags, or worse, beheaded chickens, and it is not at all un-common to actually see the chicken beheading happen... which, let me say, is enough to make you want to go vegetarian for the rest of your life, or if that doesn’t do it, the gutters that run completely red full of various animal blood definitely will. lol
Mon. 24th - This day being the day after Easter, was a no school day.
Shane and I decided to really relax for the day and go to one of the pools at a nice hotel in Accra (all the hotels here will let anyone swim in their pool for the day for a fee, many even offer weekly children’s swim lessons because besides these pools there really are no other public pools.) Our original plan had been to go the beach that day, but the beach here is not as relaxing as the beaches at home are. the local people are constantly coming up to you to get you buy something, asking you to marry them or for your phone number, asking you for money, etc. Also, if you leave your things alone for just one second, it is most certain they won’t be there when you get back, so it is difficult to go to the beach in a group with just two people. So we opted for the pool last minute, and although it was slightly more expensive than the beach, it was worth it.
Tues. 25th to Wed. 26th - classes, reading, trying to look at scheduling of classes for next semester at Duquesne (which is proving quite difficult because scheduling is all online and the internet here is expensive and paaaainfully slow).
Thurs. 26th to Fri. 28th - really really sick.
It’s upsetting to be sick here because, in short, you never know what you have, and there are soooo many possibilities. You don’t know why you are sick, if something specific made you sick, if it is potentially life threatening, if it requires medicine, if a bug bit you, if you have food poisoning, etc... the sickness possibilities here are absolutely endless. everytime you are sick here it is something completely new and strange, because the causes of sickness here are different than the causes of sickness at home. this time for instance, I was getting pain in my stomach, somewhat like spasms, every 10 minutes or so. It was the most unusual and intense sickness ive ever had. At one point as I was coming out of the bathroom I passed out (still not really sure why) and banged my chin on the doorknob of the bathroom. Although it sounds bad, I think if I hadn’t hit my chin I would have hit my head, which could potentially have been extremely worse than just the bump I am now sporting on my chin. I never did find out what it was specifically that caused my sickness, and didn’t go to the doctor even to be tested for malaria, because I just hoped that if I slept enough, it would go away… and luckily it did. I have been so amazed here at the body’s ability to heal itself. At home I don’t think we are as aware of it because there are thousands of different medicines and doctors that are so readily accessible at a moments notice. But here, where such amenities are not as easy to get to, I am so aware of how our bodies are able to heal themselves. Stomach bugs ranging from mild to severe, bruised and swollen fingers (Shane smashed his finger quite nicely during a game of basketball), headaches, pulled muscles, cuts and bruises, etc. all just take care of themselves. It’s really quite remarkable when you think about it.
Sat. 29th - Day trip to Togo.
Because student visas to Ghana are only allowable for two months at a time, our whole group, and all international students for that matter, needed to leave the country before our two-month time period was up. When we exited the country and re-entered, we were renewed with two more months (meaning that we will have to leave the country once again before the end of May.) Togo is the country bordering Ghana to the East. It took approximately 3.5 hours to get from the university to our destination in Togo. In addition to this travel time though, we added on another half hour during which we got out of the van, walked into the Ghanaian customs office, filled out a paper, waited in line to have it initialed, moved to another line to have it stamped, physically walked across the border, filled out the same paper in the Togo customs office, had it initialed, stamped, and then got back in the van. This was then repeated, in reverse order, on the way back into Ghana. Our actual destination in Togo was literally nothing more than a restaurant, due to travel time reasons. We ate at a French restaurant where a burger was the same price as filet mignon, so we all ate well that day. It was soooo nice to have a change from the same old Ghanaian food everyday, and really nice to have actual potatoes instead of plantains (which are basically like yams). Although we were the only people in the entire restaurant, it took them two hours to bring us our food and another 45 minutes for the waiter to bring us the check after we asked for it, but that is not at all unusual for African restaurants. In fact, at a hotel restaurant it is common practice to order your dinner in the morning before you go out for the day, and order your breakfast/lunch for the next morning before you go to bed at night. If you try to order dinner at dinnertime, your options of what is available will be extremely limited, or many times they will just refuse to serve you. Likewise, at restaurants in general here, although the menu may say they have something, it is completely foolish to assume that they actually have it. So if the menu says they have chicken, fish, fried rice, white rice, jollof (a type of spiced rice), French fries, and boiled plantain, a naïve person says, “I’ll have chicken and white rice,” to get the response, “We don’t have that, we have fish with jollof.” Whereas a wiser person simply says, “What do you have? I’ll take it.” Its really kind of humorous to see the looks that you get when you order things that say, “you ‘orbrunis’ (‘white foreigners’) are ridiculous. We haven’t served that here since… never.” We keep laughing at what would happen if you went to a place like McDonalds and ordered a burger and their response was, “We don’t have that. We have fish sandwiches.” or better yet, one time I got excited because I saw a club sandwich on a menu with the description “chicken, lettuce, tomato and bacon,” and was told that it was actually being served. But when it was brought to me it looked, smelled, and tasted remarkably like a hamburger. When I asked about it, I was told, “Oh yeah. We don’t have that. So we brought you a burger.” I also wasn’t refunded the 50cents extra that I paid for the club sandwich over the burger. Likewise, we had a good time laughing about the outrage that would certainly ensue back home if the same thing happened at a place like Ruby Tuesdays, etc. But back to the Togo trip, pretty much all we did that day was drive to Togo, eat at the restaurant, walk around a small market for 20 minutes, and drive back to Ghana.
Mon. 31st - Package pickup.
This was the second package my parents sent me, so this time around we had a better idea of how the whole package pick-up procedure went. The package takes roughly a month, to a month and a few weeks to get from the U.S. to Ghana. It arrives at the main post office in an area called Circle, who then sends a package slip to the International Students Hostel, where the lady at the desk gives you your slip. Then you have to take a tro-tro to Circle, and then as Shane and I have become accustomed to doing, get lost down three of the four main roads there for at least an hour before finding the post office is actually on the fourth road. You then go into the post office, which is barely recognizable as a post office like we think of back home, and give the lady your slip and ID card (or as I forgot my ID card until I was standing in line, give them Shane’s ID card… which was readily accepted, even though his name was no where to be found anywhere on the package or the package slip. lol) The lady at the desk then rummages through the items in your box, and discerns a seemingly completely random price to tax you for the contents. I say “completely random” because you can see the list that she is clearly supposed to be looking off of for prices that she is supposed to charge for certain items (i.e. “cds/dvds - $1, books - $2” etc.), but you can see from what she writes on the package slip that she doesn’t follow the chart at all… honestly when you get a package here though, after you actually see the package, and see your parents’ handwriting on the address label, you tend not to care about such things. My first package $10 to receive and the second one cost $7, and at that point your really not inclined to jeopardize the state and well-being of your package. Then once you get the package, you have to find a tro-tro home, which is not an easy task. Both times we went to Circle, we ended up having to leave during rush-hour traffic, which is absolutely unbearable here to the point where a majority of the drivers just shut their car engines off and wait for the traffic to start moving to start up again. All in all, picking up a package is always an all day thing. Both times we left the university around 1:00, and didn’t return until 6:00/6:30 (which means after dark, because the sun sets incredibly quickly here and it is always dark by 6:20pm.)
Fri. (April) 4th - National Museum and Miss Legon Pageant.
We ventured into Accra this day in hopes of finding one of the two or three cultural museums. After taking a tro-tro to Accra, and finally finding a taxi driver who had some sort of an idea of where the museum was, our taxi driver actually ended up driving past it the first time without actually realizing where it was because it is such a small shabby looking building. The museum was really nothing much at all, which is horribly sad considering it was the “national” museum, and how much culture and history Ghana holds. It had a few pictures of tribal customs being performed, and a few artifacts, but I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know. When we got back to the ISH, I told people that asked that it wasn’t really worth the admission fee and not really worth going… which I sad because it’s their “national” museum! That night was quite eventful though. The Miss Legon pageant was being held at the National Theatre, which wasn’t too far from the museum. The tickets we had clearly said that the pageant started at 7pm. We arrived at around 6:15, but the doors outside into the theatre didn’t open until 6:45. The doors into the actual auditorium didn’t open until 8. The pageant itself didn’t start until 9:30!! I guess this is typical because a majority of the people were still arriving at a leisurely pace even by 9:00pm. When we were talking to a Ghanaian person sitting next to us, he said that the previous year, the pageant went until 3 or 4 in the morning!!! Silly us, we had thought the pageant would start at 7pm, and go until around 10 or 11pm, at which time we had planned to eat dinner because we had had a late lunch. Poooor planning! By the time the pageant was just starting we were already hungry lol. We ended up leaving early, but my roommate, who stayed the entire time, didn’t get back to the dorm until 5:00 in the morning!
As far as the pageant though, it was similar to pageants we have at home, but with a definite Ghanaian twist. The pageant motto was “brains with beauty!” It was being shown on tv, and sponsored by the tv station and a couple different advertising sponsors, so the lady who was the MC was constantly spewing out different advertisements. Now, Ghanaian advertisements are just like American advertisements... but severely dated American advertisements. I have been honestly quite fascinated by the advertisements here, because they are just so blunt, and frankly, just ridiculous. One of my favorites is a radio ad for Vita-Milk (a chocolate flavored soy milk drink). In the ad it claims that it is A. the only way to have radiant skin and body, B. the only thing that any decent caring mom would ever let their child drink, C. the “best” drink there is, and then continues on with a string of adjectives like “it’s flavorful, amazing, delicious, thirst quenching, incredible and great!” But at the pageant the advertising lingo didn’t end with the advertisements. In between every interview question or performance (which was approximately every 1-2 minutes), the MC would say “Wow, wasn’t her beauty simply sparkling!? Didn’t I tell you?? These ladies are lovely, dazzling, magnificent AND gorgeous!!” …or something very similar. I think the entire night we were more entertained by the ridiculous script of the MC, and the comments of the audience (who shouted witty comments after everything the MC said, and when the girls performed, and answered questions) than by the actual girls themselves… that is except during the girls’ talent section. That was... unusual. Back in the States beauty pageant talents are normally things like ballet, opera singing, baton twirling, etc. Here, though, it seems as though you can pretty much make a talent out of anything you’d like. A few of my favorites were the girl that came on stage dressed in a business type outfit, and came up to a laptop on stage and played a snippet song, then said something to the effect of, “alright, that was Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River.” Next up is James Blunt with “You’re Beautiful,” and then continued to play that song. In short, her talent was being a radio DJ. She had technical difficulties with the laptop for about the first five minutes of her performance, so the girls sitting behind me kept shouting, “What is her skill? Maybe she has sweet laptop skills!” So although her talent may not have been entertaining, the crowd’s response to her was. Another one of my favorites was a girl that came out dressed up like a soccer fan of the Ghanaian team, and came and sat down on the edge of the stage. She had a microphone in her hand, and her talent was to announce an imaginary soccer game. It would have been a failure had the audience not been so into what she was saying, and yelling as though the soccer game was real. It was in Twi, so we couldn’t really understand the specifics of the imaginary game, but I’m pretty sure it turned out well because of the overwhelming reaction of the crowd, as though it had been a real winning game. My favorite one was a girl that dressed up as a tro-tro mate (the person that takes your money and opens the door of the tro tro). She had on a backwards baseball cap, an old t-shirt, and mismatching flip-flops. She ran around the stage with a few dollars and change in her hand yelling out “circ circ circ circ circ circ circle!!!!” just like the real tro-tro mates. The people in her imaginary tro-tro were acting up, so she’d tell them to be quiet, or she give them incorrect change and then the imaginary person would get mad at her, etc. It was definitely unusual, but she was really good. The last thing we stayed for, because by then it was almost midnight, was the traditional dances. Each girl was assigned a different traditional African dance from a different region across Ghana and had to perform it. It was really neat to see them each come out in different traditional dress and dance to the drums.
Sat. 12th to Tues. 15th - Takoradi and Busua beach trip!
Busua is said to have the most beautiful beaches in Ghana, and so far I absolutely agree. Our plan was to go to Takoradi (because that is the only place from where you can get a tro-tro to Busua), stay there a night, and then continue on to Busua in the morning. My body had other plans, however, because I decided to get a sinus infection. I kind of knew I was getting sick when we left, but Shane and I decided to go anyways because I could either be sick here in the ISH, or sick in an air-conditioned hotel room with a connecting bathroom that has hot water… so we opted to go on the trip. After spending the majority of Saturday on a bus, we spent most of Sunday and Monday morning in the hotel in Takoradi. We did venture out at one point to find the Takoradi beach, and ended up finding the first golf course we’ve seen in all of Ghana. The beach there was small and fulllll of people, which is difficult because when there are just two of you traveling together, there’s no one to leave your stuff with while you swim. We’ve been pretty good about packing beach bags that we can leave on the sand while we swim, and if stolen, nothing valuable is lost. But the Takoradi beach was completely packed with people that there was slim to none chance that our bag would still be there when we got back. So instead we just walked along the rocks on the beach for a while where there were less people.
Once we finally got to Busua though, the environment was completely different. The town of Busua is so small that there really aren’t any taxis around, and there is no need for them because the town is so small. There was only one main street in Busua, and it runs parallel to the beach, such that the buildings on the beach side of the road have a backyard directly on the beach. I have a feeling in about 10-15 years this place will be overwhelmingly different with a new presence of resorts and hotels. There are a lot of hotels there now, considering how small the town is physically, and there really weren’t that many tourists there while we were, so it appeared that there was a lot of competition to get customers. The hotel we ended up staying in was originally priced at $60, which is an awful lot for a room here, so we walked away but the desk boy chased after us asking us how much we’d be willing to pay. I told him we wouldn’t pay more than $30 (which is still a lot but semi reasonable because it was a really nice hotel), and we ended up on agreeing to $35 and free breakfast. The beach was incredible. There were literally no people anywhere. It was beautiful beautiful beach to the left and right as far as you could see, with green mountains in the distance, and not a person in sight. Occasionally some of the locals would walk by carrying wood or large piles of leaves, but they were few and far between. We had two little boys come and build a sand castle with us, which was fun, but other than that we were completely unbothered. We ate dinner at our hotel on the rooftop bar under some pretty incredible stars, next to the ocean, where once again, there were no other people. It was beautiful. We had a nice chat about Ghanaian politics, education, etc. with the waiter/bar tender that was placed up at the rooftop bar solely to wait on us. It was a really really nice time. The next morning we got up early, ate breakfast and then went to the beach for a few hours until we had to come back and shower and then catch our tro-tro back home. We found out our hotel offered surfing lessons, and wave runners for an additional fee, so we’ve already talked to a few of our friends and are planning to go back to Busua later in the semester to go surfing!!
Fri. 18th to Sun. 20th - Akosombo and Wli waterfalls.
This was our last group trip with our SUNY group, and is officially the end of our orientation. Mercy had to work on Friday, so her husband Kwame, drove us on Friday morning and Mercy met up with us later on Friday evening. It took us about 4 hours to get ther, and our first stop was at the Wli waterfalls. We hiked for about 45 minutes up a mountain ending at the falls. Halfway along the way our guide took us to a spot along the river to see how palm wine was made. He showed us how they cut down the palm trees and hollow out a lower portion of the tree and prop it so that the palm sap drains into the hollow, and then cut a hole in hollow, and allow the sap to fall into a little cup on the ground below. Then they collect all the sap from the cups and pour it into large metal tanks where it sits for a few weeks, then they heat it such that it boils and the escaping steam goes into a tube at the top of the tank. The steam in the tube then is cooled and then condenses in the tube and drips into a container as palm wine. I was going to try a sip of it, but honestly, it smelled like pure gasoline, with a horrible bitterness to it. There was also a palm gin that they were passing around for us to try, but again, I passed based on smell. It was enough watching the faces being made by the other people in the group after trying it for the first time. From what I gathered though, drinking palm wine seems to be an intense experience, and the locals enjoyed watching all the white kids try to look cool while drinking it. Kwame bought some palm wine to take with us, which they gave to him in a gasoline container (which seems to be the typical container of palm wine), fully anticipating that all of us would be eager to drink it once we got back to the hotel. At dinner he kept asking who wanted palm wine, and those that accepted got a huuge tumbler sized glass full.. which I don’t think any one person was able to finish on their own. lol Anyhow, another 20 minutes hike after the palm wine stop we reached the falls. The falls were a good 7 stories high, but the lake below wasn’t any deeper than waist high. It was so much fun swimming around in the freezing cold lake and going under the falls, but because it was so tall the force of the water was incredible, almost to the point where it was a little bit difficult to breathe sometimes. Shane didn’t seem to notice the force of the water at all though, because every time I looked it seemed like he was under the falls. lol
The next day we ate breakfast and went to the Lake Volta dam which gives Ghana 70% of it’s power. The tour was interesting, but it was just impossible to stop looking around at how beautiful the lake and trees and sky were. In Accra, we don’t get too many really blue skies because of pollution, so it was just astonishing how blue the sky seemed. After the dam we went to a bead-making factory. It was unusual that they called it a “factory” because the whole place was outdoors, in little huts that were no more than straw roofs held up by posts at the four corners. Our guide showed us that the popular glass beads that are sold everywhere, in markets all across Ghana, are made from nothing more than melted down glass beer, wine, and coca-cola bottles. Other beads with designs on them are made of colored concrete powder that is poured in the bead mold in various designs. The firing pit looked a little bit like a stout tunnel, that had the bead molds being pushed onto a rack on one side, and long tree trunks that were used to feed the fire coming out the other side. I really enjoyed seeing how the beads were so genuinely hand made, and polished, and the women that sit there and thread them on string to be sold. Everything here is so more real, and more genuine, it’s very refreshing.
The next day we were supposed to go on a boat trip across the Volta that had food and live music. But the boat was broken down, so Mercy found a plan B for us. She was told that the boat would be fixed in 3 weeks, but as Kwame told us “that’s 3 weeks Ghanaian time… that means it’s probably going to be fixed in 3 months at best!” lol So what we did instead was spend Sunday at a little out door lake “resort.” It was a really neat place. There was a small pool, soccer field, beach volleyball, regular trampoline and a water trampoline out on the lake, checkerboards, foosball, ping-pong, picnic tables and a concession stand. For the majority of the time we had the whole place to ourselves, and it wasn’t until late afternoon that more people started arriving. A few of us ventured out into the lake to the water trampoline, but then word of “river blindness” started carrying around, so we got off pretty quickly. I’m still not sure if there were true warnings of river blindness, or if someone just asked “can you get river blindness from this lake?” and then everyone got spooked, but either way, no one was waiting around to find out. Mercy ended up speaking with someone who worked at the resort and found that there was a boat next door large enough to hold our whole group so we did end up going on a nice little boat trip after all. It was such a nice afternoon, and overall a really wonderful trip, so that this trip was definitely my favorite group trip yet.
Ok.. so that’s the lot of it!! For those of you that don’t know, my parents will be coming here on Sunday the 27th and staying until May 4th!! I’m so excited to show them around! While they are here we will be going back out to Cape Coast a few days, and then flying up north to Mole, where we will go on safaris to see elephants, lions, hippos, etc. So hopefully I will update shortly there after and finally learn not to do this late mass blogging again!!
Until then, love and miss you all!!
-lauren =p
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