Ole, Mole and Kumasi!

I apologize for the infrequency of these entries, I’ve never kept a blog, journal or diary before this trip and it’s a hard habit to form.

Last week, Wednesday evening, Catherine, Michael and I set off for Mole National Park, a protected area in the north of Ghana.

To start the journey we took a series of tro-tros to the bus station in Accra. There, we found a bus headed to Kumasi, a large city to the northeast of Accra.

The bus was large and charter style (except with tiny seats). When you find a bus, you purchase your ticket and then wait for the entire bus to fill up. We arrived at the bus around 6 pm, and ended up waiting for about two hours until every possible seat had been taken.

At 8 pm, as the bus rolled out of the station, we were beginning a long, arduous journey of uncomfortable bus rides. The a/c was blasting (which you think would be a nice change of pace, except we were all wearing shorts and t-shirts), the seats were cramped and it was impossible to sleep. This was probably due to the Ghanaian movie blaring over the speaker system. I’ve encountered a few Ghanaian movies since I’ve been here, and have been able to identify a strong pattern of plot: someone gets possessed by a spirit / devil, they try different things to make the demons go away, someone dies or gets married. Due to all the above factors, I spent the 6 hour bus ride curled up with my iPod attempting to drone out the sound.

We arrived in Kumasi around 2 am. Kumasi is a better planned and more westernized city than Accra. There were marked parking spaces and paved sidewalks and streets! We crept around the city until we found a hotel that was open /not full. We finally found rooms at the Hotel De Kingsway and settled down for a glorious 3 hours of sleep. We woke up around 5:30 am to head to the bus station to catch a 7 am bus for Tamale, the next city stop on the way to Mole. None of us had slept well on the basically rock hard mattresses with pillows probably stuffed with sticks and cotton, so we opted to spend the day in Kumasi and take the 5 pm bus. We slept for a few more hours, woke up and checked out of the hotel. We went to the bus station to buy our tickets for the bus in advance, where we were informed that the last bus heading to Tamale left at 10 am. We grabbed egg sandwiches and fantas at a small road side stand and headed back to the hotel to decide what to do. We decided to take our chances and head to Kumasi’s informal bus station to try to see if any were headed to Tamale. We found a bus leaving for Tamale at 6 pm and purchased our tickets. It was about 2 pm and we had all of our bags with us, but didn’t want to sit at the bus station, so we decided to walk to Kumasi’s huge open air market. It was the hottest time of the day, and the sun bore down on us as we trekked a few miles to the market. We finally found the market and entered a swirling labyrinth of stalls selling anything from plastic tea pots to live chickens. We were subjected to the usual cat calls and arm grabbing, but the heat, our exhaustion from walking carrying all of our things and our lack of water made us leave the market after only a few minutes. We all felt as though we might pass out so we hailed a cab to bring us to a restaurant in the center of the city.

We all entered the taxi, took our backpacks off for the first time in hours and realized we’d probably sweated out all possible moisture in our bodies. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever sweat that much in my entire life. It was gross. We drove around the city for a while trying to find Vic Baboo’s (the restaurant we were headed for), and got to see some of the sights of Kumasi.
Vic Baboo’s had air conditioning! It was awesome. We got mac n’ cheese and veggie pizza, which were both delicious. We ended up staying at the restaurant for over two hours enjoying the cool air and seating.

Around 5:30 pm we headed back to the bus station to claim our seats on the bus. We were the first ones on the bus and we staked out the best seats (aka the ones with leg room) and waited for the other passengers to board. After a while we were booted out of our perfect seats (the bus tickets had assigned seats, who knew?). We waited for a long time for everyone to file onto the bus, and around 7 pm we still hadn’t left. When we finally left around 8 pm, the bus was packed and crammed with people, luggage and various items. The bus driver had over sold the tickets and there were children sitting in the aisles on boxes and whatever else had been stuffed into the vehicle.

The bus didn’t have air conditioning, which was a blessing in disguise, or so we thought. A few hours into the seven hour ride, the emergency exit latch on the roof of the bus flung open, creating a sort of wind vortex with of course directly blew at Catherine and I. We spent the rest of the trip huddled together for warmth and covering our legs and arms with whatever we could find around us. I never knew I could be that cold in Africa.

The bus dropped us off in Tamale around 3 am. There were no lights on in the city and the bus station was filled with sleeping people. The next bus for Mole didn’t leave until 6 am so we sat on a curb by the station to wait. Sitting in the dark at the bus station was pretty surreal. The only noise was from a stall blasting Chris Brown where a lone Ghanaian was dancing wildly to the music in the street. We hadn’t eaten in about eight hours and all felt pretty bad. I would say the high point of the night was vomiting from motion sickness on an abandoned street. Woo. Around 4:30 am people started to wake up and bus station officials turned on lights and began to start the buses. Soon after people awoke, the Muslim call to prayer began echoing from the city’s mosques. I’ve never heard the call to prayer before and it was fascinating listening to the Arabic and watching people prepare for prayer. We were soon informed that the only bus for Mole that day was completely sold out. We met Oliver, a twenty two year old Brit teaching math and science in a nearby village, who was also trying to get to Mole. Michael and I decided to try to talk to a pack of taxi drivers near the station to see if we could get a fair price.

We started to talk to the pack of about fifteen taxi drivers, asking them if they could take us to Mole. We knew the price should be around 60 cedi, but the lowest the drivers were willing to take was 170 cedi. We quickly grew agitated that they were ripping us off, and Michael and I began arguing with them. We pointed out to the leader of the taxi drivers that they would never charge a Ghanaian this price, and that he was changing the price because we were white. The leader laughed, pointed at his skin and said, “see this? I am black, I am better than you”. Michael and the leader exchanged a few choice words, things escalated and soon the taxi driver (who was over six feet tall and two hundred lbs.) was pushing Michael and tapping him on the face. I didn’t see things ending well so I grabbed Michael and pulled him away from the pack. Sheesh.

After our failed taxi-getting attempt, we sat on a curb with Oliver and two girls from Germany waiting for a tro-tro which supposedly was going to Mole. We waited for about an hour until it was apparent that no such tro-tro would be coming. We eventually found a taxi driver who was willing to drive us to Mole for a decent price and Catherine, Michael, Oliver, Oliver’s Ghanaian guide and I all piled into the tiny sedan for a four hour ride.

The views from the taxi were amazing. Northern Ghana is overwhelmingly Muslim and rural. We passed by villages that looked like something straight out of National Geographic. We saw little girls in traditional clothing fetching water from pumps, people emerging from mud and stick huts, and chickens, goats and other animals running around the village centers. The one road linking Tamale to Mole was unpaved and made of red dirt. Basically the entire time we were in the taxi, the red dust was literally pouring in through the windows and floor. By the time we got to Mole, I could wipe about ¼ of an inch of red dust from my skin. We were a completely different color and I got a few pictures to prove it!

We arrived at the Mole Motel around 9:45 am, checked in and attempted to shower off the dust. I couldn’t believe the color of the shampoo I was washing out of my hair, it looked like red hair dye. Post shower we headed to restaurant to eat breakfast (cheese omelet and French toast!) poolside. After eating we were all exhausted and went back to our room and passed out cold for a few hours. We woke back up just in time for our walking safari!

Somehow, neither Catherine, Michael nor I thought we would need closed toe shoes for the safari, so we had to rent rubber boots from the guides. After donning the boots we met our guide, who was carrying a rifle on this back that looked like it was made in 1900. So safe.
We spent the next few hours hiking through the wilderness of the park. We climbed across stick bridges, over rocks and through beautiful grassy fields. We saw antelope jumping in packs through the grasses and warthogs sniffing the ground looking for food. We spotted some baboons climbing trees as well. We all loved seeing the antelope, warthogs and baboons, but all REALLY wanted to see an elephant. I talked to the guide, who said unfortunately the elephants are rare and that none had been seen that day. I jokingly told him we needed to track one down.

The guide must have taken me seriously because about fifteen minutes later he found elephant tracks and we all got really excited and basically sprinted down the path created by the elephant to try to find it. After following the trail for a few minutes we entered a clearing. Then, we saw it! A beautiful, HUGE African elephant in all of its majestic glory. Seriously, it was amazing to see an animal like that in its natural habitat. There were about ten white cranes walking underneath the elephant also. We followed the elephant around for a while, snapped many photos and watching it eat leaves using its trunk. So cool!

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at the motel. Later, we ate dinner with Oliver, his guide and a Dutch couple. The Dutch woman had spent the last three months volunteering at hospitals in Tamale and told us some pretty horrifying stories about the healthcare system in rural areas. She spent a lot of time working in natal care units as well as women’s health centers and I was interested in many of her stories. Apparently it’s common in rural areas for women to have abortions in the seventh and eighth months of pregnancy. She told us that many traditional doctors give the women poison to kill the fetus, which is then extracted in a procedure, but that often the poison has serious and life threatening effects on the woman. Apparently part of the problem is that women here have no access to pregnancy tests and often have no idea how far into their pregnancy they are. She also shared information about contraceptives in rural areas. Apparently the most common method is the “calendar” in which women basically guess when they will and will not be ovulating.

After dinner Catherine, Michael, Oliver and spent the night on a ledge overlooking the park looking up at the sky. I’ve never seen so many stars in my life! The light pollution was at a minimum and I could see thousands of stars reaching all corners of the sky. Beautiful! Oliver shared the British’s opinion of American with us (they do not like us!). He said he, and most Brits, think that Americans are republican, evangelical, conservative and obese. I told Oliver he was in the company of three Americans who were basically the opposite of his stereotype. Oliver has a few more weeks in Ghana, and he is coming to Accra for his last night when we will take him out in the city.

The next morning we woke up early at 3:30 am to board a bus at 4 am to take us to Tamale. On the bus, we watched the sun rise over tall grasses and traditional villages. The ride began peacefully, but around 5 am we stopped to pick up many Ghanaian travelers and soon the bus was filled with people cramming into seats and standing in the aisles. Among the highlights of the trip were a baby who screamed at the top of his lungs for multiple hours and a man who blasted the same Lil’ Wayne song over and over again on his cell phone. I mostly just blasted my iPod and watched picturesque African villages appear in the bush.

Luckily upon reaching Tamale we found a bus headed straight for Accra. I ended up getting to share three seats with one other person, so I had lots of room! Also, I had sneakily swiped a pillow from the Motel, so the ride was almost luxurious. I guess it was Ghana luxurious.

Hmmm what else has happened in the last week. I worked multiple days at CHRI and took my first written exam.

Last night was Thanksgiving and we pan fried turkey legs, had mac n’ cheese, pasta salad and stir fried vegetables. It was delicious by Ghanaian standards but in no way comparable to my normal Thanksgiving fare.

We planned on travelling to Niger this weekend, but after an attempted kidnapping of US Embassy Officials by heavily armed extremists and a harsh travel restriction from the State department, we decided not to go. We settled on Burkina Faso instead, but after our driver’s father passed away last night and no driver in Accra was willing to take us to the border for less than 1,300 cedi (ridiculous!), we’ve decided to go to Green Turtle Resort, a solar powered, eco friendly resort on the supposedly best beach in west Africa. We’ll be sleeping in clay bungalows and watching for sea turtles, hiking / canoeing and relaxing on the beach. I’m bummed I won’t get to go to Burkina, but I’m happy we have a back up.

I come home in less than three weeks! I can’t believe it!

Internship, etc.

Well, we actually didn't go to Kumasi last weekend. We're planning to travel to Mole National Park on Wednesday and Kumasi is conveniently located on the way! So, we decided to save money / time.

The most interesting thing in my life lately has been my internship at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. CHRI is a international NGO dedicated to protecting human rights. Right now the Accra office's main project is the Right to Information Bill, or RTI. The bill, which the CHRI is currently attempting to pass in Ghana's parliament is aimed at increasing the government's accountability to citizens. The bill would revamp the government's current system of record keeping and make all government records public. This would greatly reduce corruption in the government, as well as make officials accountable for human rights violations which have previously occured at their hands. Working at CHRI, I've learned about various cases of horrendous human rights abuses (kidnapping, forced labor, for example) that have been committed by police officials and swept under the rug by government officials. Here's a link to CHRI's website concerning RTI: http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/programs/ai/rti/ghana/ghana.htm.

I've really enjoyed working at the initiative so far. I've been able to help publicize RTI as well as compile evaluations for the workshops held to teach Ghanaians about the bill. I'll also be helping write the initiative's annual report, which is an important publication for any NGO that documents a year's worth of activities, budgets and projects. My favorite project I'm undertaking at the initiative is designing a seminar / workshop for teens about domestic violence and sexual assault. Back at UNC, I work at a rape crisis center where I regularly give presentations to school aged children about sexual assault and violence, and I've been able to use this knowledge in my internship. I've loved working with the people at CHRI, everyone is so dedicated and passionate about their work. I've particularly enjoyed learning from Florence, a human rights lawyer from Uganda. She basically has my dream job, and I've told her I want to sit down with her before I leave to talk about her schooling / career so far.

Other than going to my internship, not much else noteworthy has happened. It's still incredibly hot, I found myself wearing a short dress last night outside and still sweating. Classes have finished and my first exam, traditional African dance, is tomorrow. I'm very tired of the food here and I CANNOT wait to eat my mother's delicious home cooking and Christmas goodies!

I promise I'll write more after Kumasi / Mole!

As of late

Two days after Perry and Karen departed for the U.S., my friend Lexi came to visit!

Lexi arrived at the airport Thursday around 9:30 pm, an hour earlier than expected! Luckily Katy and I had left for the airport early and were there when she got off the plane. We collected her bags and set off for campus. Lexi seemed hardly shaken by the new environment. I guess this shouldn’t have surprised me, she’s travelled extensively and spent all last summer in rural Bolivia working at a medical clinic.

Early Friday morning we grabbed a cab and headed to the Jamestown lighthouse. The lighthouse is in a shabby area of town, and to gain entry you have to walk around asking for the woman with the key. Once we found the key holder, we paid 5 cedi each and were led up an extremely steep and long winding staircase. The last leg of the climb was a wooden ladder that led up to a tiny door to the outlook of the lighthouse. I’m pretty sure the wood was at least fifty years old and I held my breath as I climbed. We climbed out the tiny door and onto the balcony at the top of the lighthouse. Immediately after stepping out, my fear of heights kicked in. I don’t know how to explain it, but as soon as I was looking down I felt dizzy and faint. I guess this is simply genetics kicking in, as my father also dislikes heights. The balcony provided an excellent view of the beach, ocean and the town of Jamestown. After leaving the lighthouse we walked along the beach. The beach was probably the dirtiest I’ve encountered so far. It was littered with feces as well as trash. What we thought would be a short stroll along the shore turned into a trek after we realized there were few places to exit the beach that weren’t covered in litter.

After exiting the dirt beach we hailed a cab to the Art Center. This particular visit we were accompanied by a Ghanaian named Slow who was dressed in the most ridiculous patchwork full body outfit I’ve ever seen. He was entertaining and introduced us to his cat whose name was “No food for lazy cat”. Lexi bought some souvenirs, the coolest of which was a six foot tall chief staff.

Later that Friday night we ate at Monsoon, the upscale restaurant Perry and Karen loved. The food was as delicious as always and the owner, Steve from New Zealand, treated us with complimentary post-dinner shooters. After dinner we headed to Epo, our favorite hangout in Osu.

Saturday morning a group of seven of us grabbed kebabs and took a series of tro-tros to Bojo beach. It took us about two hours to get there from campus. After arriving at the beach, we took a private pirogue across the sound to the main beach. I love the pirogues. Along the sound we saw people wind surfing and jet skiing. The beach was beautiful and by far the cleanest I’ve seen so far. We found a place in the sand to dump our things and immediately headed to water to play. The water was refreshing on the 90+ degree day and we all enjoyed the breeze propelled off the waves . We stayed on the beach sunbathing for a few hours and had food delivered to us beach side. After a spectacular sunset we pulled ourselves off the sand and began to head back. We eventually were picked up a tro-tro and stuffed into a seating area which was already over-crowded without our additional bodies. I literally felt like I was packed in a can of sardines and I found myself wondering anxiously what would happen if everyone needed to evacuate the tro-tro quickly. To make matters worse, the relatively short distance we needed to travel took over an hour in horribly congested traffic. When we finally reached the next tro-tro station we decided to splurge on taxis to bring us the rest of the way back to campus.

Later in the evening we headed to Champs for karaoke night. Catherine and I performed the duet “Dilemma” by Nelly, and later in the evening Michael and Lexi gripped the audience’s attention with their rendition of “Come on Eileen”. Needless to say, it was a successful night. I made friends with an Australian man who had lived in Ghana for the last six years. We bonded over our mutual yearning for fast food and he told me that Wendy’s is WAY better in America than in Australia. (Duh)

Sunday we decided to relax for the day and headed to the Living Room. There we rented a private room, complete with projector and couches and watched movies while lounging. The hotel the Living Room is attached to serves excellent Jamaican chicken which was delivered to us while the movies played.

Monday morning Lexi and I arranged for a taxi to drive us to Shai Hills Reserve, a wildlife park about an hour away. A bit of history: Shai Hills was originally a village inhabited by native people. The king and his wives lived in caves hidden in the hills for protection. During colonial rule, the British caught wind of the village and drove the native people out of the hills into the surrounding areas. Our taxi driver ended up becoming a safari vehicle, as a guide jumped in the taxi and instructed him to drive. Driving through the reserve was the closest thing to a traditional safari I’ve experienced so far. We were surrounded by miles of high grasses, dotted with giant trees and mountains in the background. Our first stop on the tour was a compound within the reserve. We walked through the compound and literally two feet away from the houses was a family of baboons. Apparently the baboons in the reserve live alongside the people and often feed on leftover food and garbage. There were five or six baboons total, including a giant male baboon (who would have probably been over five feet tall standing), a female baboon with a baby riding on her back, as well as a few young baboons. Post baboon sighting we drove through more gorgeous grasslands and to the ancient caves used to house the village royalty. I had no idea we’d be trekking through caves and stupidly wore my rainbows and a mini skirt. The next thing I knew we were crouched down climbing an incline of rocks. There was a strong, bad smell and we were soon informed that all of the rocks were covered in bat droppings (ew). We finally climbed to the royal chambers, which consisted of an open room, a small clave used to hide treasure and a lookout spot to watch for invaders. Post royal chambers the tour guide asked if we watched to visit the “bat cave”. We said yes and joked that our tour guide was batman. When we reached the bat cave, we could see and hear hundreds of bats flying all around the cave, so opted not to enter. I was already covered in bat droppings and was not trying to get bitten / pooped on. After leaving the caves we spotted baboons sitting on the branches of giant trees.

Unfortunately Lexi didn’t get to do much more exploring after Shai Hills, because her flight to home left at 11:55 pm Monday night :(.

The weekend post Lexi’s visit was Halloween! Catherine, Katy and I dressed up like trees. This entailed having a seamstress make strapless shorts jumpsuits in brown fabric. We then gathered leaves from plants around the hostel and stuffed them into the tops of our outfits. We looked pretty ridiculous, even more so because no one in Ghana celebrates Halloween. We went to a party on Friday night thrown by international students from California and I think all of the Ghanaians who saw us were thoroughly confused as to why all of the obrounis were dressed so strangely. I tried to explain Halloween to one student and midway through my explanation I realized Halloween must sound so strange to a non-American. “Yes, it’s a sort of holiday where children wear costumes and go to people’s houses and ask for candy”. Hmmm. American customs. On Saturday (actual Halloween) we went out to El Gaucho Steakhouse in Osu. Michael and Matt both ordered steak, which they said was delicious. Catherine and I, who both don’t eat red meat, shared chicken fajitas and pasta. The kitchen ran out of guacamole and so the waiter brought us a complimentary chocolate mousse which was fantastic. Speaking of freebies, they also gave us free bruschetta which was fabulous. After dinner in the spirit of Halloween we watched “The Shining”. I had forgotten how creepy that movie is. It reminded me of Alex and I teaching Thomas to say “redrum” was he was little.

Let’s see what else has happened this week…. I finally got an internship! I’m very excited, as I’ve gone to multiple organizations and spent countless hours searching for volunteer opportunities. I’ll be working at the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative starting Monday. I’m hoping to help organize a conference for teenage girls in the Eastern region about HIV/AIDS, sexual assault and domestic abuse. I’ll blog later when I know more!

This weekend Catherine, Katy, Michael and I are travelling to Kumasi. I’ll have more to report on Monday!