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Published: October 14th 2008
Hello! Well I am back on campus after a fantastic weekend trip four hours west to Takarodi and Busua Beach. I headed over on Friday morning with 4 students I haven't traveled with before, and then met up with some USAC students later in the weekend. The main objective of the trip was to see a World Cup qualifier match between Ghana's national football (soccer) team and Lesotho. The second objective was to enjoy the beautiful beach about an hour away. By some stroke of luck we were successful on both accounts...andddd it was wonderfull.
Where to start:
The game. Completely packed and unorganized. We got to the stadium the day before the game to get our tickets, only to find out that tickets would not be available until the next day. so We got there the next day expecting it to be crazy packed with everyone trying to get a ticket. however, we expected there to be a ticket line or two...silly us. I am still dumbfounded by the state of events that took place in order for us to get into the game. I just found an article saying that the stadium can hold 20,000 people, but that over 30,000 were inside on game day. We got there expecting there to be a ticket line...silly us. We kept asking where we could get tickets while running inside and outside of the stadium for an hour waving our money in the air, being told the tickets were finished, only so see hundreds of people running towards ticket stands that we had just left empty handed. It was looking like a hopeless and confusing journey until I randomly asked a police officer where we could get tickets; lucky us he pointed to a woman behind him sitting on the stairs. she had 3 tickets in her pocket. there were four of us. somehow we all got in with the 3 tickets. to explain the rowdyness of the game, here in an excerpt from a local news paper. The article is titled "No deaths recorded at Esipong stadium":
"Painstaking inquiries conducted at the Effia-Nkwanta Regional Hospital at Sekondi and the Essikado hospital on Sunday indicate that there were no deaths recorded during a stampede at the Essipong stadium when the national team, the Black Stars played their Lesotho counterparts in a World Cup and African Cup of Nations qualifier on Saturday.
"The hospitals are the nearest health facilities where victims of the incidents would be rushed", health officials of the hospitals told the have no knowledge of any such reported deaths as no such incident was recorded in their station diaries.
At the Effia-Nkwanta hospital, Mr. Christopher Dadzie, Officer on duty at the hospital's mortuary where reports said the body of victims were deposited denied that any dead body was deposited at the morgue on the day....Some soccer fans who were eager to enter the stadium were said to have forced their way thus causing the collapse of the West and East gates of the stadium."
To reiterate, there were a lot of people and a lot of running and a lot of excitement to see the game.
And Ghana won! 3-0. our seats were good (we even got seats! many were sitting on the steps,ground etc.), and besides one man who blew a very loud horn in my ear multiple times until I told him "It is too much. It is finished." (funny how i say things here in english, i think because the translation from the Asante languages to English makes the ways things are said here slightly different.) Anyway, the man stopped horning in my ear, and about 20 minutes later my hearing had returned to normal. haha.
ok i have to go to class and have no more time to write about the weekend. but there is more to tell!
love love love
Kristin
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kimi
non-member comment
awkward translations
your awkward translation to english made me laugh. i cant wait to hear you speak twi when you get back! sounds like such a crazy weekend...you silly americans and your silly ticket lines. hahaha. god, i would be so confused.