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Published: March 30th 2009
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Let's Go See Some Hippos!!!
....Apparently, I was really excited...totally out of character ^__^ With half of our trip completed we decided to make our way our next destination the Wachiau (pronounced Wa-chow) Community Hippo Sanctuary. Our only problem was figuring out how to get there.
Transportation up north is limited at best, so our options were few. We could either hope to catch the bus going to Wa as it passed through Larabanga and maybe get a seat if it wasn’t already full. And then get transport from Wa to Wachiau… or we could catch some other random truck passing through the area and hope that he was going in our direction, and hope that he didn’t charge us an arm and a leg… or the option we went with, renting out a Tro Tro to take us straight to the Hippo Sanctuary. The price was steep, 180 cedis, so to lessen our cost we partnered with five other American girls we met at Mole who were also interested in going to the Sanctuary.
The honeymoon of our marriage of convenience ended quickly however. As these traveling companions were…well…kinda talkative and loud with a few ethnocentric tendencies…I guess just overtly American… Am I being too harsh? Probably… At any rate I’m sure
Abandoned in Sawla!!
The faces are priceless... glad I can look back on this and laugh! I’m over exaggerating the situation, as being stuck in the back of a truck with these five girls for six hours has a way of chipping away at your patience. Rest assured though, we all played nice.
We had a little scare at the village of Sawla, where we thought we had been abandoned by our driver, Kofi. Apparently there was a fluid leak or something that he wanted to go get fixed…Sure! No problem, be back in twenty minutes? Sounds good! Yeah, I have this bad habit of taking people at their word without really properly assessing the situation and planning ahead. That being said, I wasn’t really worried about it when he didn’t come back for about forty minutes. But then the girls reminded me that all of our stuff was in the truck… and that I didn’t have his phone number… and that I didn’t even know where the “shop” was that he had taken the truck to… my anxiety levels reached new heights that afternoon.
If I had been alone, I wouldn’t have been so worried, but the fact of the matter was I wasn’t alone. I had eight other girls with me. I
Flat Tire!!
The hits just kept on coming... definitely felt so irresponsible for blindly trusting this perfect stranger and not taking the time to evaluate the situation. It was definitely one of the rashest things I had ever done, and was not only a great learning moment but it was also another time where I had no other option but to pray. Which is just one of the big lessons I’m continuing to learn on this trip. So many conflicts and issues are beyond my control or out of my power here. And I’m finding that that is the time when God shines. When I’m at the end of my rope, he’s always been there. All too often I’ve become comfortable and confident in my own abilities and strength. This trip abroad has continually reminded me of my faults and shortcomings that are only conquerable because of the power and sovereignty of God. But I digress… an hour and twenty minutes later Kofi returned; apparently the problem was bigger than he realized. So it was good that he caught this at the village…and not on the side of the road…Thank you Jesus!
The remainder of the trip up was uneventful…until we got a flat tire thirty kilometers outside
The Tree Platform
One of the coolest places I've ever slept! of Wachiau…sweet…but it just another opportunity for me to see true Ghanaian hospitality. The truck broke down right in front of a group of seven or eight farmers and their giant truck, on an otherwise deserted dirt road. They not only helped us change the tire but also lent us the usage of their jack, because ours wasn’t working. We were only held up for maybe an hour, so it really wasn’t a big deal at all. It was just another time for all of us to just sit back and laugh. It could have been so much worse but it wasn’t.
When we finally arrived at the village of Wechiau we paid the fees and hired a tro tro for the Wednesday morning to take us to Wa after our river safari. The actual sanctuary is about a thirty minute drive from the village, and is composed of a couple of mud huts and tree house…platform…thing. We definitely opted to sleep on the tree platform. It was an incredible experience. It was tons of fun! But it wasn’t without its lumps. It was pretty cold…and it rained, but just a little… oh and Loren had a beetle crawl
into her ear... which is a novel in itself!
Long story short, three in the morning, bug falls into Loren’s ear and then proceeded to crawl further in. Poor Loren is freaking out, in tons of pain, and had been pushed to tears, all understandably so. This is Africa. There is nothing on this continent that I would be okay with going into my ear and attacking my eardrum. At any rate Bethany, Melissa and I are all powerless, as we have no idea what to do or how to help. I eventually run back to the huts and bring one of the staff workers up to the platform. He tips her head slightly down, takes the flashlight and shines it in her ear. The beetle then proceeded to crawl back out, apparently attracted to the light……Crisis averted and situation resolved we all went back to bed, every one of us wrapping our heads up in any kind of sheet or shirt we could find!
The next morning we had our canoe safari on the Black Volta River. It was really sweet because the river forms the natural boundary between Ghana and Burkina Faso. That morning we saw about three hippos, though not too much as they were playing hard to get, dunking in and out of the water. Still it was a great experience and a really tranquil setting. We returned back to camp and jumped onto on Tro Tro…us and the five other girls we came with…plus five more girls from Europe, that were already staying at the sanctuary…plus two more guys from Europe that we picked up in Wachiau…good times. Before leaving the village though I picked a sweet new straw hat…not really sure why I decided to mention that…whatever, you guys needed to know…it’s just that amazing.
Any way, it was a cramped ride to Wa, but we arrived without a hitch. We hopped onto a bus heading to Kumasi, and waited for four hours for it to fill up…ugh… eventually leaving Wa at five o’clock in the evening Wednesday. We made it to Kumasi at midnight and switched buses to Accra. Getting back to the capital at around five o’clock Thursday morning, and jumping back into my own bed back at ISH at around five thirty.
Wow, what a ride! It was a fantastic adventure to be sure. Man, that was a lot of writing…hope you grabbed that snack…wish I had…any way, just so you all know, in case you aren’t sure, your prayers mean tons and they work. I cannot attribute the blessings I’ve experienced to anything else but that. So thank you all! For your warm wishes, thoughts, comments, emails, and prayers. They are very much appreciated!
So until we meet again…
Stay frosty
Jonathan
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MoM
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Hey Jon
Wow! A bug in the ear! Amazing... love you much,