Sorry for the long delay in blog posting. I’ve been realizing more and more lately how little time I have left here and I’ve been trying to make the most of it!
Last Thursday was Thanksgiving! The majority of the day was spent trying not to think about all of the delicious foods / activities we were missing. Michael and Matt went to the Accra Mall and came back with the ingredients for a thoroughly ghetto Thanksgiving dinner. Craftily utilizing the only cooking equipment in our hostel (an ancient hot plate) we prepared spiced turkey legs, bacon flavored mac n’ cheese, frozen stir fried veggies and pasta salad. It was a pitiful attempt at an American Thanksgiving dinner, but we enjoyed preparing the meal and of course eating it. Later Catherine and I made pseudo banana pudding using Fanice, milk cookies and bananas. It was pretty tasty and we served it to other Yankees from PennState.
I spent Friday at my internship at CHRI working on the annual report and the domestic violence workshop. I’ve truly enjoyed working with all of the people there. It’s refreshing to work with people who share common passions. Later Friday night a group of international students and I went to the bush canteen, a small market area on campus which doubles as a bar / hang out area during the evening. We stayed until closing time and when we left the gate had been locked so we had so scale a 10ft wall and jump over the side. Woo Africa!
Sunday morning Catherine, Michael, Matt, Greta, Lauren and I left at 6 am to get to the Accra bus station to catch an STC bus for Takoradi, a beach town in the Western most coast of Ghana. We entered the bus and grabbed our seats, only to be shooed out a few minutes later so the entire interior of the bus could be covered in Raid to kill the mosquitoes. I guess it was nice not being bitten up during the ride, but I’m pretty sure I inhaled a few lbs of toxic chemicals. The ride was about four hours long. I always enjoy watching the scenery go by on the bus rides, the bush is beautiful and I love people watching from the window.
We arrived in Takoradi around 10 am and grabbed a cab for the Green Turtle Lodge, a beach resort about one hour away. All six of us crammed in the cab and Catherine and I spent the next hour sharing the passenger seat, laughing at our soon-numb bottoms and listening to Girl Talk on my iPod while dancing.
Green Turtle Lodge is beautiful! It’s a completely eco friendly resort. All of the electricity was provided by solar power and the toilets were self-composting. We stayed the first night in a clay bungalow, complete with comfy mattresses and mosquito nets. The beach the resort rests on is known as being arguably the best and most beautiful in West Africa. We spent the next few days laying on straw mats under wooden umbrellas in the sand. I somewhat lessened my farmer’s tan, but it still looks like I’m permanently wearing clothes. The restaurant at the resort was excellent, serving items ranging from bruschetta, falafel, sandwiches, salads and delicious chicken entrees for dinner. The resort also had a book swap, board games and gift shop with cool t-shirts. Everyday from 5pm -7pm was happy hour with delicious cocktails! My favorite was the black star; brandy, a dark chocolate liquor, rum and lime. Another of my favorite things about the resort was its proximity to Paco’s Tacos, a beachside taco stand. There was no cheese : (, but there was delicious salsa, fresh chicken and veggies.
We were all sad to leave the resort on Tuesday afternoon. Our bus left at 4 pm and Catherine, Michael and I were set to meet up with our British friend, Oliver, for dinner and drinks to celebrate his last night in Ghana. Our bus arrived late in Accra and our taxi was stuck in such horrible traffic we had to go straight to Monsoon to meet Oliver. We all looked rough having spent the whole day travelling and had our luggage with us. Dinner was delicious as always and we went to Epo afterwards to hang out.
Nothing too interesting happened the rest of the week. I had an exam, I worked more at CHRI.
Last night a group of us went to Champs for karaoke, per usual.
Tonight we ate Ethiopian food, which was interesting / kind of gross.
It’s my last week here!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
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!
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!
Sunday, November 15, 2009
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!
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!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
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!
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!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Cape Coast / Elmina
Last Tuesday Michael’s father, Perry, and Perry’s sister, Karen came to visit!
They stayed at the illustrious Hotel Obama, which was complete with giant, cheesy portraits of Obama and his family in the lobby. Each room had a different name. Among the room names were: 1865, Chicago, Hawaii and Biden. Perry and Karen spent Tuesday through Thursday touring various sights around Accra and of course absorbing the culture. Tuesday night we ate dinner at Monsoon, an upscale restaurant in Osu, Accra’s nightlife district. The food was delicious! Perry ordered crocodile tail, which tasted like a meaty lobster.
Friday morning Michael, Catherine, Katy and I accompanied Karen and Perry to Cape Coast. We arrived at the guest house in the early afternoon (we had air conditioning in the rooms!!) and we walked into the city to find lunch. We were directed to a restaurant next door to the Cape Coast Castle and dined overlooking the rocky ocean front. Following dinner we scrambled up the rocky ridge next to the ocean, watched waves and of course took pictures. Later that night we caught the tail end of the U 20 Ghana vs. Brazil World Cup final in the lobby of the guest house. Everyone watching the game was extremely animated and cheering wildly. Ghana upset powerhouse Brazil in penalty kicks and as soon as the winning goal was scored, the town erupted. I can only compare the noise to campus / Franklin St. when we won the national championship. We walked out of the guest house and could hear everyone in the town screaming. We decided to head into town to grab dinner and caught cabs. Immediately upon exiting the guest house, we were engulfed in a crowd of Ghanaians cheering, singing and running in the streets. Perry loved the excitement and spent a considerable amount of time hanging out of the window yelling “Obrouni Party!!” (white person party). We stopped at a bar / restaurant in the center of the city and as soon as we exited the cabs, realized we would not be eating a quiet dinner. We watched the town explode for a while, attempting to snap pictures of the madness. A girl who was about eight years old thought Katy had taken a picture of her and told Katy she would “sock her” and bore her tiny fist at us. Inside the bar, people were going crazy. Music was blaring and people waved Ghana flags and soccer balls. We stayed for a while and danced and hung out with all of the locals.
The next morning we headed to the Cape Coast Castle. The castle is an imposing structure, a white stone fortress used during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to house up to thousands of slaves, sometimes for up to a year, to be placed on ships. The tour began with an explanation of slavery in pre-colonial Africa. Prisoners of war and criminals were often taken as slaves in various villages. However, unlike the treatment of slaves in the Americas, slaves in Africa lived in the community, were able to work off their debts and often married into the community and had fairly normal lives. Later during the tour we were led into the holding cells where native Africans were kept. The dungeons were haunting and I can’t possibly imagine living in the squalid conditions. The huge cells were pitch dark with one tiny window per cell providing the only light. It was chilling thinking about all of the people who had died in the cells, and I can’t imagine the trauma experienced by those who survived. Hundreds of people were forced into each cell, left to live for months in these rooms with stone floors, hardly any light and no sanitation facilities to speak of. I know I can never imagine even a fraction of what these people went through, but even standing in the cells was an unforgettable and disturbing experience.
Post Cape Coast Castle tour we returned to the guest house to collect our things and caught cabs to Elmina, another coastal town. Elmina is a fishing town and is home to West Africa’s largest fish market. Immediately upon entering the town, the fish smell was perhaps the strongest and most repugnant smell I’ve ever experienced. The main road was stuffed with row after row of seemingly unending supplies of fish. I can only imagine how the smell of fish must permanently permeate the pores of the townspeople and how immune the locals must be to the stench. We finally arrived at the resort in the afternoon. Pulling into the resort illustrated to me how much I’ve changed since being here. The lush, manicured lawns of the resort, spacious rooms with air conditioning and clean pool seemed like luxuries reserved for celebrities. It was hard for me to believe that I could take a shower with hot water or even have an extra towel to use. Needless to say, Catherine, Katy, Michael and I were overcome with excitement at our living quarters. After settling in we reluctantly left the air conditioning and hung out poolside for a few hours. It felt great to swim in the “bath tub warm” pool water as my mother would refer to it, and to be able to walk on the beach without stepping on trash / feces. We spent the rest of the night enjoying various commodities at the resort, including the restaurant (they had mac n’ cheese and grilled cheese!!!).
The next morning we travelled to Kakum National Park to complete the canopy walk. The park was beautiful, covered in giant, ancient trees and teeming with the noises of various birds and insects. We hiked a few minutes to the beginning of the canopy walk. The canopy walk consisted of huge, swinging rope bridges suspended between huge poles over the canopy of trees. We were up so high and could see literally thousands of trees beneath us! Walking across the bridges was nerve racking, as we were literally only held up by rope, and also there was a large group of obese businessmen from South Africa shaking the bridges behind us with their weight.
On the taxi ride home from the canopy walk, I spotted a sign for an ostrich farm, and insisted to everyone that we pull over to check it out. We drove up to two pens filled with about twenty ostriches total. I’ve decided that ostriches are some of the strangest animals. We originally asked if we could ride the ostriches (apparently they ride / race them in AZ) but the owner of the farm said we would need to give him “small time to train them” before we could ride them. We instead grabbed leafy greens and fed the ostriches out of our hands. We were only separated by a small fence, and a few times I was pretty sure I was about to have my hand bitten. We took some pictures and the ostriches tried to eat Michael and I’s hair (I guess it looks like straw to them?).
When we returned to the resort, we went to check out the crocodile pond which was located about 30 yards away from the club house and contained by a holey wooden fence (so safe!). We tried to lure the crocs out with gifts of leftover chicken, but we only saw a few babies.
Later in the evening, Catherine and I watched the sun set on wooden swings situated just feet from the ocean. It was beautiful. I love the sky here. No matter what time of the day it is, the clouds and sky are a constant source of amazement for me. The clouds consistently look like giant tufts of cotton and almost close enough to touch.
Sunday morning we left early to tour the Elmina Castle, another point used to house slaves before they were loaded onto ships. The castle was similar to the Cape Coast Castle, with the addition of a “death room”, complete with skull and crossbones carved above the entrance way. The small cell was were slaves who were inciting rebellion / resisting were placed. The slaves were then left in the cell to slowly die without food or water. I can’t imagine the mindset of the European forces in charge of the castle. I suppose human rights abuses as horrible as this can never be justified or explained. It’s sometimes unbelievable what humans have been / are capable of. While we in retrospect claim that instances such as slavery and genocide will never happen again, I believe the banality of evil will always allow for normal humans to commit horrendous acts (look at Darfur!).
Another interesting point of our tour of Elmina Castle was a man from Pittsburg who was completing a return to Africa trip. After we heard the man’s story, I completely supported his cultural and spiritual journey back to the place his ancestors has been forcefully taken. However, during the tour of the castle he became increasingly rude. While touring a cell used to punish European soldiers, the man, once he heard it was for Europeans, muttered derogatory comments under his breathe, pushed past everyone in the group and the tour guide and ran out of the cell. Later, when Karen offered to take a picture of him with his camera, he told her rudely that she didn’t know him and that he wouldn’t allow her to take his picture. I’m not sure if this particular man was just naturally abrasive, but considering our surroundings, his actions came across with different implied meanings.
After touring the castle, we headed back to Legon. Along the way we saw a tro-tro stuck in one of the sewage ditches along the roads. Without tow trucks, I can only imagine how it will be removed.
Upon returning to our hostel, we learned we were again without water, but also this time without electricity. Wooo! I hadn’t even thought about this possibility. It was kind of fun using flashlights for a while, until we realized that no electricity = no fans. Boo. Luckily the electricity came back on the next day and hasn’t been off since then for more than a few hours at a time!
Anyway, sorry I’m behind on these entries. Lexi, one of my good friends from UNC came to visit on Thursday! I have things to report from this past weekend. I’ll try to do it before this weekend!!
They stayed at the illustrious Hotel Obama, which was complete with giant, cheesy portraits of Obama and his family in the lobby. Each room had a different name. Among the room names were: 1865, Chicago, Hawaii and Biden. Perry and Karen spent Tuesday through Thursday touring various sights around Accra and of course absorbing the culture. Tuesday night we ate dinner at Monsoon, an upscale restaurant in Osu, Accra’s nightlife district. The food was delicious! Perry ordered crocodile tail, which tasted like a meaty lobster.
Friday morning Michael, Catherine, Katy and I accompanied Karen and Perry to Cape Coast. We arrived at the guest house in the early afternoon (we had air conditioning in the rooms!!) and we walked into the city to find lunch. We were directed to a restaurant next door to the Cape Coast Castle and dined overlooking the rocky ocean front. Following dinner we scrambled up the rocky ridge next to the ocean, watched waves and of course took pictures. Later that night we caught the tail end of the U 20 Ghana vs. Brazil World Cup final in the lobby of the guest house. Everyone watching the game was extremely animated and cheering wildly. Ghana upset powerhouse Brazil in penalty kicks and as soon as the winning goal was scored, the town erupted. I can only compare the noise to campus / Franklin St. when we won the national championship. We walked out of the guest house and could hear everyone in the town screaming. We decided to head into town to grab dinner and caught cabs. Immediately upon exiting the guest house, we were engulfed in a crowd of Ghanaians cheering, singing and running in the streets. Perry loved the excitement and spent a considerable amount of time hanging out of the window yelling “Obrouni Party!!” (white person party). We stopped at a bar / restaurant in the center of the city and as soon as we exited the cabs, realized we would not be eating a quiet dinner. We watched the town explode for a while, attempting to snap pictures of the madness. A girl who was about eight years old thought Katy had taken a picture of her and told Katy she would “sock her” and bore her tiny fist at us. Inside the bar, people were going crazy. Music was blaring and people waved Ghana flags and soccer balls. We stayed for a while and danced and hung out with all of the locals.
The next morning we headed to the Cape Coast Castle. The castle is an imposing structure, a white stone fortress used during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to house up to thousands of slaves, sometimes for up to a year, to be placed on ships. The tour began with an explanation of slavery in pre-colonial Africa. Prisoners of war and criminals were often taken as slaves in various villages. However, unlike the treatment of slaves in the Americas, slaves in Africa lived in the community, were able to work off their debts and often married into the community and had fairly normal lives. Later during the tour we were led into the holding cells where native Africans were kept. The dungeons were haunting and I can’t possibly imagine living in the squalid conditions. The huge cells were pitch dark with one tiny window per cell providing the only light. It was chilling thinking about all of the people who had died in the cells, and I can’t imagine the trauma experienced by those who survived. Hundreds of people were forced into each cell, left to live for months in these rooms with stone floors, hardly any light and no sanitation facilities to speak of. I know I can never imagine even a fraction of what these people went through, but even standing in the cells was an unforgettable and disturbing experience.
Post Cape Coast Castle tour we returned to the guest house to collect our things and caught cabs to Elmina, another coastal town. Elmina is a fishing town and is home to West Africa’s largest fish market. Immediately upon entering the town, the fish smell was perhaps the strongest and most repugnant smell I’ve ever experienced. The main road was stuffed with row after row of seemingly unending supplies of fish. I can only imagine how the smell of fish must permanently permeate the pores of the townspeople and how immune the locals must be to the stench. We finally arrived at the resort in the afternoon. Pulling into the resort illustrated to me how much I’ve changed since being here. The lush, manicured lawns of the resort, spacious rooms with air conditioning and clean pool seemed like luxuries reserved for celebrities. It was hard for me to believe that I could take a shower with hot water or even have an extra towel to use. Needless to say, Catherine, Katy, Michael and I were overcome with excitement at our living quarters. After settling in we reluctantly left the air conditioning and hung out poolside for a few hours. It felt great to swim in the “bath tub warm” pool water as my mother would refer to it, and to be able to walk on the beach without stepping on trash / feces. We spent the rest of the night enjoying various commodities at the resort, including the restaurant (they had mac n’ cheese and grilled cheese!!!).
The next morning we travelled to Kakum National Park to complete the canopy walk. The park was beautiful, covered in giant, ancient trees and teeming with the noises of various birds and insects. We hiked a few minutes to the beginning of the canopy walk. The canopy walk consisted of huge, swinging rope bridges suspended between huge poles over the canopy of trees. We were up so high and could see literally thousands of trees beneath us! Walking across the bridges was nerve racking, as we were literally only held up by rope, and also there was a large group of obese businessmen from South Africa shaking the bridges behind us with their weight.
On the taxi ride home from the canopy walk, I spotted a sign for an ostrich farm, and insisted to everyone that we pull over to check it out. We drove up to two pens filled with about twenty ostriches total. I’ve decided that ostriches are some of the strangest animals. We originally asked if we could ride the ostriches (apparently they ride / race them in AZ) but the owner of the farm said we would need to give him “small time to train them” before we could ride them. We instead grabbed leafy greens and fed the ostriches out of our hands. We were only separated by a small fence, and a few times I was pretty sure I was about to have my hand bitten. We took some pictures and the ostriches tried to eat Michael and I’s hair (I guess it looks like straw to them?).
When we returned to the resort, we went to check out the crocodile pond which was located about 30 yards away from the club house and contained by a holey wooden fence (so safe!). We tried to lure the crocs out with gifts of leftover chicken, but we only saw a few babies.
Later in the evening, Catherine and I watched the sun set on wooden swings situated just feet from the ocean. It was beautiful. I love the sky here. No matter what time of the day it is, the clouds and sky are a constant source of amazement for me. The clouds consistently look like giant tufts of cotton and almost close enough to touch.
Sunday morning we left early to tour the Elmina Castle, another point used to house slaves before they were loaded onto ships. The castle was similar to the Cape Coast Castle, with the addition of a “death room”, complete with skull and crossbones carved above the entrance way. The small cell was were slaves who were inciting rebellion / resisting were placed. The slaves were then left in the cell to slowly die without food or water. I can’t imagine the mindset of the European forces in charge of the castle. I suppose human rights abuses as horrible as this can never be justified or explained. It’s sometimes unbelievable what humans have been / are capable of. While we in retrospect claim that instances such as slavery and genocide will never happen again, I believe the banality of evil will always allow for normal humans to commit horrendous acts (look at Darfur!).
Another interesting point of our tour of Elmina Castle was a man from Pittsburg who was completing a return to Africa trip. After we heard the man’s story, I completely supported his cultural and spiritual journey back to the place his ancestors has been forcefully taken. However, during the tour of the castle he became increasingly rude. While touring a cell used to punish European soldiers, the man, once he heard it was for Europeans, muttered derogatory comments under his breathe, pushed past everyone in the group and the tour guide and ran out of the cell. Later, when Karen offered to take a picture of him with his camera, he told her rudely that she didn’t know him and that he wouldn’t allow her to take his picture. I’m not sure if this particular man was just naturally abrasive, but considering our surroundings, his actions came across with different implied meanings.
After touring the castle, we headed back to Legon. Along the way we saw a tro-tro stuck in one of the sewage ditches along the roads. Without tow trucks, I can only imagine how it will be removed.
Upon returning to our hostel, we learned we were again without water, but also this time without electricity. Wooo! I hadn’t even thought about this possibility. It was kind of fun using flashlights for a while, until we realized that no electricity = no fans. Boo. Luckily the electricity came back on the next day and hasn’t been off since then for more than a few hours at a time!
Anyway, sorry I’m behind on these entries. Lexi, one of my good friends from UNC came to visit on Thursday! I have things to report from this past weekend. I’ll try to do it before this weekend!!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Benin
The weekend before last we travelled though Togo to Benin!
We left campus around 12:30pm in a private car we’d chartered to take us to Lome. Upon arriving in Lome in the late afternoon, we ate again at Akeif (the delicious restaurant we discovered the previous weekend) and ate hummus, chicken chawrama and burgers. After dinner we hailed a cab to bring us across the border and into Benin. The drive took longer than we expected and we found ourselves driving in the middle of nowhere searching for a hotel to stay the night. After a few hours in the taxi, we finally found a hotel and were dropped off. The hotel was pretty sketchy, with hourly prices and a board in the lobby indicating which rooms had their “mood lights” on. Ew.
The next morning we left around 6am and headed to Ouidah. Upon arriving in Ouidah, we dropped our things at a hotel (which was way more legit than the previous one) and walked around the city. One of the best things about being in a French colonized country is the availability of cheap and delicious baguettes! They are sold on just about every street corner and are flakey and fresh. I’m fairly sure we each ate at least three baguettes that day. Our first destination in the city was the old fort used by the Portuguese in the 17-1800s. The fort had been turned into a historical museum dedicated to the arrival of the Portuguese and the slave trade. In the museum were various interesting artifacts about tribal life as well as some shocking objects used to shackle and transport slaves. Learning about the relationships between the Portuguese slave exporters and local tribal leaders was fascinating. The slave trade consisted of tribes being paid by the Portuguese to capture rival tribes to be exported.
After leaving the fort, we went to the sacred python temple. The temple is pretty nondescript from the outside, and appears to be a clearing with a few small voodoo huts in various places. We entered and paid 1000 CFA each (about 3 cedi, or $2.5) as an offering. A guide led us into the clearing and disappeared for a few minutes, bringing a medium sized python with him. He put the python around each of our necks and we took pictures. Katy and I were a little disappointed and asked the guide where the rest of the pythons were. He then led us to a larger hut and opened the door for us to look in. We peered in to see around fifty pythons covering the floor of the hut. It was wild! It looked exactly like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie! The snakes were climbing up the walls and slithering across the floor. Strangely enough, my initial reaction wasn’t one of fear, but rather one of excitement and fondness for the snakes. I think this is most likely because my sister Alex has a ball python whom everyone loves and is a very sweet snake. Don’t worry, we took plenty of pictures of us in the room.
After leaving the temple, we searched for food for a long time. We had a difficult time finding restaurants and when we would find one, they would all be out of food. Eventually we gave up and ate more baguettes. After stuffing ourselves with carbs, we headed to the sacred forest. We paid to enter the sacred forest, and then were asked to also pay for a guide and to take photos. None of us wanted to pay more, so we wandered around by ourselves and sneakily snapped photos when no one was looking. The forest was filled with the biggest trees I’ve ever seen. The trunks must have been at least 40 ft around and the span of the branches and leaves was enormous! The hippie in me wondered what stories the trees could tell and how much they’ve seen. I found myself lost in the natural beauty of the forest, wishing I could know how many generations of people had found shade under the same tree I was sitting under. Near the end of our forest visit, we were approached by a boy and a girl who were selling batik cloth and wood carvings. They looked to be around ten years old and were both adorable! They only spoke French, but we used basic French phrases to introduce ourselves. We ended up hanging out with the children for a while and the little girl taught and played hand games with me.
Later in the afternoon we walked the route des esclaves, the route slaves were marched down to be shipped in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The route was dotted with occasional statues to tribute the slaves and traditional shrines. About halfway through the route a group of about twenty school children spotted us and started chanting “Yovo, yovo!” (white person, white person). They ran up to us, amazed at our white skin and hair and accompanied us for about half a mile. During this time we were swarmed by the children who insisted on clutching our hands and speaking unknown phrases to us in French. We reached the end point of the route, the Door of No Return, around 6pm. The monument was an archway on the beach depicting images of slaves walking toward ships. As we looked at the monument, the sun began to sink and we sat on the beach and witnessed the most incredible sunset I’ve ever seen. The sun blazed red as it slowly crept beneath the palm trees and pirogues dotting the shore. Amazing! After taking about a million pictures of the sunset, we rode zimmy johns (motorcycles) back to our hotel. The ride back was pretty scary at first, considering we weren’t wearing helmets and were speeding along down an unpaved road littered with potholes, but once I got used to it, it was really cool.
Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to head to Cotonou. After dropping our things at a hotel, we left to visit Ganvie, a stilt village. On the way we stopped and ate at a road side stand. We were served a light pink soup-ish substance which was made of maize and sugar. This was accompanied by what I can only describe as soft onion hush puppies. It was probably the strangest breakfast I’ve ever eaten. We took a taxi to the launching point to the stilt village. At the launching point, we joined a French couple on a motorized pirogue. The area surrounding the launching point was extremely dirty and overcrowded. There were tiny wooden sheds where people sold food and goods (and probably also lived) surrounded by a giant open air garbage dump where small children were pooping in plain sight. I can’t imagine sharing these living conditions and I was again reminded of the huge disparity between my way of life and that of these people. We took off from the launching point and were soon in the stilt village. It was so crazy how the village was organized. Literally everything was built directly on the water; homes, shops, a fresh water dispensary, a mosque. We saw a giant floating market where women displayed brightly colored fruits and vegetables, as well as handicrafts on wooden boats. We visited shops along the way which sold jewelry (they have so much ivory! I thought this was illegal!), quilts made of colorful fabrics as well as wooden carvings.
After our visit to Ouidah we grabbed a cab to the art center in the center of Cotonou. The cab ride was long and along the way we saw a funeral procession and a taxi with live pigs strapped to the roof. At the art center, we were overwhelmed with the number of shops selling art. We spent about three hours there and probably only visited half of the shops. While Michael and Catherine continued to shop, Katy and I got bored and met some of the artists who were about our age. One of them introduced himself as Lil Wayne and proceeded to rap various Lil Wayne songs and show me all of the pictures of Lil Wayne he’d downloaded onto his phone. We played drums and other various African instruments with them and even played golf on a course they’d created in a large lawn.
Sunday we ate delicious cheese omelets and croissants at a French restaurant across from our hotel and headed to the Benin soccer stadium where the Benin Squirrels (least intimidating mascot ever) and Ghana Black Stars would be facing off. We headed into the stadium way too early and found ourselves sitting with nothing to do for about two hours. We met some friendly fans who spoke English and chatted for a bit about America. The game started with a huge black hummer and charter bus driving into the stadium and around a track multiple times to the intense excitement of the crowd. When the hummer stopped, the star player of the Benin team got out and the crowd went wild. The actual game wasn’t very interesting, but I spent most of my time observing the police guarding the barrier between the stadium and the entrance. Apparently people with fake tickets were trying to get in and the police were fending them off by using their belts and what looked like a metal pipe to hit the fans. It looked fairly brutal and at one point I looked down to see blood splattered across the pavement. The crowd was looking down on the police, screaming insults and occasionally spitting. During the game Catherine and I bought a plastic bag filled with a dark juice, which we determined was pomegranate and we munched on snacks we’d purchased earlier at a Lebanese-run market.
We ended up leaving the game early to beat traffic to head back home to Ghana. We chartered a taxi to Lome, but were soon stuck in the celebration traffic after Benin won in penalty kicks. The drive took a really long time and the driver at one point pulled over to the side of the road, made some type of grunting noise and left the taxi. After about ten minutes Michael went to find the driver and spotted him sitting at a restaurant eating a meal. Later, at about 9:45pm, the driver attempted to drop us off in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Lome. We eventually convinced him to bring us to the border, and we literally sprinted from the Togo officials to the Ghana officials trying to cross the border before it closed at 10pm. On the way out of the Togo border, the guards were listening to a popular Ghanaian pop song we all love and we sang and danced our way out of the office, to much laughter from the guards.
Phew, it was an exciting weekend. Perry (Michael’s father) and Karen (Michael’s Aunt), arrived last Tuesday and we travelled to Cape Coast for the weekend. I am currently working on this blog entry. I will try to have it up by tomorrow!
We left campus around 12:30pm in a private car we’d chartered to take us to Lome. Upon arriving in Lome in the late afternoon, we ate again at Akeif (the delicious restaurant we discovered the previous weekend) and ate hummus, chicken chawrama and burgers. After dinner we hailed a cab to bring us across the border and into Benin. The drive took longer than we expected and we found ourselves driving in the middle of nowhere searching for a hotel to stay the night. After a few hours in the taxi, we finally found a hotel and were dropped off. The hotel was pretty sketchy, with hourly prices and a board in the lobby indicating which rooms had their “mood lights” on. Ew.
The next morning we left around 6am and headed to Ouidah. Upon arriving in Ouidah, we dropped our things at a hotel (which was way more legit than the previous one) and walked around the city. One of the best things about being in a French colonized country is the availability of cheap and delicious baguettes! They are sold on just about every street corner and are flakey and fresh. I’m fairly sure we each ate at least three baguettes that day. Our first destination in the city was the old fort used by the Portuguese in the 17-1800s. The fort had been turned into a historical museum dedicated to the arrival of the Portuguese and the slave trade. In the museum were various interesting artifacts about tribal life as well as some shocking objects used to shackle and transport slaves. Learning about the relationships between the Portuguese slave exporters and local tribal leaders was fascinating. The slave trade consisted of tribes being paid by the Portuguese to capture rival tribes to be exported.
After leaving the fort, we went to the sacred python temple. The temple is pretty nondescript from the outside, and appears to be a clearing with a few small voodoo huts in various places. We entered and paid 1000 CFA each (about 3 cedi, or $2.5) as an offering. A guide led us into the clearing and disappeared for a few minutes, bringing a medium sized python with him. He put the python around each of our necks and we took pictures. Katy and I were a little disappointed and asked the guide where the rest of the pythons were. He then led us to a larger hut and opened the door for us to look in. We peered in to see around fifty pythons covering the floor of the hut. It was wild! It looked exactly like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie! The snakes were climbing up the walls and slithering across the floor. Strangely enough, my initial reaction wasn’t one of fear, but rather one of excitement and fondness for the snakes. I think this is most likely because my sister Alex has a ball python whom everyone loves and is a very sweet snake. Don’t worry, we took plenty of pictures of us in the room.
After leaving the temple, we searched for food for a long time. We had a difficult time finding restaurants and when we would find one, they would all be out of food. Eventually we gave up and ate more baguettes. After stuffing ourselves with carbs, we headed to the sacred forest. We paid to enter the sacred forest, and then were asked to also pay for a guide and to take photos. None of us wanted to pay more, so we wandered around by ourselves and sneakily snapped photos when no one was looking. The forest was filled with the biggest trees I’ve ever seen. The trunks must have been at least 40 ft around and the span of the branches and leaves was enormous! The hippie in me wondered what stories the trees could tell and how much they’ve seen. I found myself lost in the natural beauty of the forest, wishing I could know how many generations of people had found shade under the same tree I was sitting under. Near the end of our forest visit, we were approached by a boy and a girl who were selling batik cloth and wood carvings. They looked to be around ten years old and were both adorable! They only spoke French, but we used basic French phrases to introduce ourselves. We ended up hanging out with the children for a while and the little girl taught and played hand games with me.
Later in the afternoon we walked the route des esclaves, the route slaves were marched down to be shipped in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. The route was dotted with occasional statues to tribute the slaves and traditional shrines. About halfway through the route a group of about twenty school children spotted us and started chanting “Yovo, yovo!” (white person, white person). They ran up to us, amazed at our white skin and hair and accompanied us for about half a mile. During this time we were swarmed by the children who insisted on clutching our hands and speaking unknown phrases to us in French. We reached the end point of the route, the Door of No Return, around 6pm. The monument was an archway on the beach depicting images of slaves walking toward ships. As we looked at the monument, the sun began to sink and we sat on the beach and witnessed the most incredible sunset I’ve ever seen. The sun blazed red as it slowly crept beneath the palm trees and pirogues dotting the shore. Amazing! After taking about a million pictures of the sunset, we rode zimmy johns (motorcycles) back to our hotel. The ride back was pretty scary at first, considering we weren’t wearing helmets and were speeding along down an unpaved road littered with potholes, but once I got used to it, it was really cool.
Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to head to Cotonou. After dropping our things at a hotel, we left to visit Ganvie, a stilt village. On the way we stopped and ate at a road side stand. We were served a light pink soup-ish substance which was made of maize and sugar. This was accompanied by what I can only describe as soft onion hush puppies. It was probably the strangest breakfast I’ve ever eaten. We took a taxi to the launching point to the stilt village. At the launching point, we joined a French couple on a motorized pirogue. The area surrounding the launching point was extremely dirty and overcrowded. There were tiny wooden sheds where people sold food and goods (and probably also lived) surrounded by a giant open air garbage dump where small children were pooping in plain sight. I can’t imagine sharing these living conditions and I was again reminded of the huge disparity between my way of life and that of these people. We took off from the launching point and were soon in the stilt village. It was so crazy how the village was organized. Literally everything was built directly on the water; homes, shops, a fresh water dispensary, a mosque. We saw a giant floating market where women displayed brightly colored fruits and vegetables, as well as handicrafts on wooden boats. We visited shops along the way which sold jewelry (they have so much ivory! I thought this was illegal!), quilts made of colorful fabrics as well as wooden carvings.
After our visit to Ouidah we grabbed a cab to the art center in the center of Cotonou. The cab ride was long and along the way we saw a funeral procession and a taxi with live pigs strapped to the roof. At the art center, we were overwhelmed with the number of shops selling art. We spent about three hours there and probably only visited half of the shops. While Michael and Catherine continued to shop, Katy and I got bored and met some of the artists who were about our age. One of them introduced himself as Lil Wayne and proceeded to rap various Lil Wayne songs and show me all of the pictures of Lil Wayne he’d downloaded onto his phone. We played drums and other various African instruments with them and even played golf on a course they’d created in a large lawn.
Sunday we ate delicious cheese omelets and croissants at a French restaurant across from our hotel and headed to the Benin soccer stadium where the Benin Squirrels (least intimidating mascot ever) and Ghana Black Stars would be facing off. We headed into the stadium way too early and found ourselves sitting with nothing to do for about two hours. We met some friendly fans who spoke English and chatted for a bit about America. The game started with a huge black hummer and charter bus driving into the stadium and around a track multiple times to the intense excitement of the crowd. When the hummer stopped, the star player of the Benin team got out and the crowd went wild. The actual game wasn’t very interesting, but I spent most of my time observing the police guarding the barrier between the stadium and the entrance. Apparently people with fake tickets were trying to get in and the police were fending them off by using their belts and what looked like a metal pipe to hit the fans. It looked fairly brutal and at one point I looked down to see blood splattered across the pavement. The crowd was looking down on the police, screaming insults and occasionally spitting. During the game Catherine and I bought a plastic bag filled with a dark juice, which we determined was pomegranate and we munched on snacks we’d purchased earlier at a Lebanese-run market.
We ended up leaving the game early to beat traffic to head back home to Ghana. We chartered a taxi to Lome, but were soon stuck in the celebration traffic after Benin won in penalty kicks. The drive took a really long time and the driver at one point pulled over to the side of the road, made some type of grunting noise and left the taxi. After about ten minutes Michael went to find the driver and spotted him sitting at a restaurant eating a meal. Later, at about 9:45pm, the driver attempted to drop us off in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Lome. We eventually convinced him to bring us to the border, and we literally sprinted from the Togo officials to the Ghana officials trying to cross the border before it closed at 10pm. On the way out of the Togo border, the guards were listening to a popular Ghanaian pop song we all love and we sang and danced our way out of the office, to much laughter from the guards.
Phew, it was an exciting weekend. Perry (Michael’s father) and Karen (Michael’s Aunt), arrived last Tuesday and we travelled to Cape Coast for the weekend. I am currently working on this blog entry. I will try to have it up by tomorrow!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Togo
Last Friday, Michael, Katy, Catherine and I attended my roommate’s dance show. My roommate’s name is Ashley and she’s a senior at the University of Montana, studying dance. The dance show was really cool. It was a mix of traditional African dance and contemporary dance. My favorite was a piece where all of the dancers wore crazy masks and climbed on top of each other (kind of like stunting!).
Michael, Katy, Catherine and I left around 6am to travel to Togo on Saturday. Togo is the country to the east of Ghana. It’s a tiny country and was colonized partly by the French. We took a tro-tro to the bus station, and then boarded a bus to Lome, Togo (the capital city). The four hour ride was nice because I had a window seat and watched the scenery go by. We passed through huge fields that looked like the scenery in Lion King. We also passed through multiple villages and saw people dressed in traditional outfits going to funerals and weddings. We arrived at the Ghana / Togo border around 1pm and crossed the border. Immediately upon crossing into Togo, its differences from Ghana were apparent. Everyone was speaking French and driving around on motorcycles. I ended up using the few French phrases I’d learned during a trip to Paris in high school to get us to a hotel. Along the way we met a very helpful woman who directed us to a hotel and even called the hotel a half hour later to make sure we had arrived safely. The eagerness of people to Togo to help was further embodied by the owner of the hotel we stayed at, who went above and beyond to make sure we knew where to eat, how to get to the spots we wanted to visit, etc.
After settling in at the hotel, we ventured out into the city to find some lunch. We started out walking, which was interesting because all of the main roads are covered in sand because it is a beach town. The beaches were beautiful, with palm trees dotting the white sand and colorful fishing boats, called pirogues moving through the waves. We eventually came to a French / Lebanese outdoor restaurant. We ate hummus which was served with delicious, juicy tomato wedges and fresh pita bread. We also got French chicken burgers which had coleslaw on them that tasted like cucumber sauce and French style fries in the burger. We all pigged out and even had leftovers to bring back to the hotel. After leaving lunch we travelled to the marche des feticheurs, to look for fetish items. It was around 5pm when we got there, so most of the vendors were closing up, but we saw lots of herbs / dried fruits and other items used in traditional medicine. We also saw carved fetish dolls used in voodoo rituals. Later in the evening we went to a nicer restaurant / bar that was playing American rap music and ate really good pizza and falafel.
The next morning we left early and grabbed a taxi to take us to the boarding docks. We weren’t really sure that our destination was accurately translated to the driver, and when we started driving through basically a field of tall grass on a dusty path we became skeptical. However, soon we pulled up to a dock with a single pirogue. We took a pirogue to Togoville, a small village across the water. Togoville is very rural and many naked children wearing only waist beads ran around the streets in between goats and chickens. We first visited two massive, sacred trees which are the center points for the village. We also saw a fertility shrine to a spirit known as Mama Fiokpo and a bull that will be sacrificed soon in a village ritual. We then went to the house of priestess where we were instructed to take off all of our clothes and put on traditional clothes given to us. We sneakily managed to keep most of our clothes on underneath and headed to a waiting room where other villagers were waiting to see the priestess. Upon waiting, we were informed that we would be required to pay a large sum to see the priestess so we decided to leave.
We then crossed the main area of the village to visit the Catholic cathedral built by the Germans. The church is a huge, imposing structure on the outside and a beautiful, colorful wonder on the inside. Basically all of the wall space in the structure is covered in detailed depictions of bible stories with the largest picture being the last supper with a giant rainbow over the entire thing. About 20 yards from the cathedral is a large shrine to the virgin Mary who was allegedly seen walking on the lake in the early 1970s. At first I was confused by how Catholicism could coexist so well with the traditional religion of the area, but upon further pondering I realized how similar they are. The shrine of the virgin Mary is very similar to the fertility shrine to Mama Fiokpo and the way the villagers venerated ancestor spirits is almost the same as how Catholics regard saints. These are just a few of the similarities, but I will refrain from rambling about religions.
The last stop on our Togo trip was another village visit to Glidji. We travelled to Glidji by taxi and set out to find the voodoo shrines the village is known for. We were directed to what appeared to be a small house with various doors with names painted across the top. We walked around for a while, trying to figure out what was going on. Soon, an old man with a cane walked towards us and asked us what we were doing. We were relieved that he spoke English, and soon found out that he was from Ghana. He brought us to the house of the high priest of the village and we waited in a courtyard for the priest to greet us. The priest welcomed us and introduced us to two voodoo priestesses. We thought we were going to have a tour of the voodoo shrines, but before we knew it we were buying a bottle of gin for a voodoo ritual. We were lead into a voodoo shrine for a male ancestor (I can’t remember his name). The shrine was more or less a small crawlspace with a sand floor. In the center of the room was a shrine with various candles, bottles and objects (the most interesting of which was a Barbie doll). We were directed to sit on a wooden bench along the wall of the room. The priestesses brought in some type of smoking wood / incense in a kettle that smelled weird / I liked because it kept the mosquitoes away. The priest began chanting and the priestesses sang along and clapped. A few minutes into the ceremony, one of the priestesses took a glass of water and instructed us each to take a sip. The next thing I knew, Michael was having water spit on him. I slowly realized this too was to be my fate and fought back the urge to laugh / cringe when it was my turn. After the spitting water ordeal, the priestess filled up the glass with gin and instructed us to take a sip. I was really really worried that after this the priestess would spit gin on us, but luckily this was not part of the ritual. The voodoo ritual went on with more chanting and clapping , we also had some type of holy oil squirted on us as well as baby powder. To finish, the priest shook a handful of special shells and threw them into a shallow dish. Two of the shells landed face up, and the other two face down, which supposedly meant that we all would be blessed with good luck. After the ceremony was over, the priest and priestesses insisted that we all take a series of photos with each other. It was kind of like voodoo glamour shots.
The voodoo good luck didn’t kick in, however, because we couldn’t find a taxi from Glidji and ended up having to walk a mile or two back to a station. Whenever we walk anywhere, we usually attract a few locals who approach us, talk to us and basically attach themselves to us. We were having casual conversation with them when Catherine broke out her hand sanitizer and started passing it around. It was so funny to watch the locals use the hand sanitizer. They thought the smell was strange and stared obsessively at the bottle trying to figure out what it was.
We eventually made it back to Lome, collected our bags from the hotel and exited to the border. We chartered a private taxi back to Legon, since it was around 8pm and all of the buses had left. On the way back we saw a 4-5ft. ball python crossing the road! (Alex, it was like a huge Baby snake!) I wanted to go back and take pictures of it, but Katy, Catherine and Michael are lame and were too afraid. However, we are going to a python shrine this weekend in Benin so I will have my fill of snakes.
This week so far hasn’t been too crazy, I wrote a paper about the origins of the dance we’ve been learning in one of my classes. Apparently the dance was discovered by a hunter who used magic to conceal himself to observe dwarfs (who supposedly all have one leg that’s longer than the other) perform dances. Good to know? Michael inadvertently agreed to marry the crazy old woman who sells baked goods outside of our hostel. Also, Katy and Michael both received packages so we got to eat cheez-its, cookies and starburst. Delicious!
We’re leaving to travel to Benin tomorrow! Will report more next week!
Michael, Katy, Catherine and I left around 6am to travel to Togo on Saturday. Togo is the country to the east of Ghana. It’s a tiny country and was colonized partly by the French. We took a tro-tro to the bus station, and then boarded a bus to Lome, Togo (the capital city). The four hour ride was nice because I had a window seat and watched the scenery go by. We passed through huge fields that looked like the scenery in Lion King. We also passed through multiple villages and saw people dressed in traditional outfits going to funerals and weddings. We arrived at the Ghana / Togo border around 1pm and crossed the border. Immediately upon crossing into Togo, its differences from Ghana were apparent. Everyone was speaking French and driving around on motorcycles. I ended up using the few French phrases I’d learned during a trip to Paris in high school to get us to a hotel. Along the way we met a very helpful woman who directed us to a hotel and even called the hotel a half hour later to make sure we had arrived safely. The eagerness of people to Togo to help was further embodied by the owner of the hotel we stayed at, who went above and beyond to make sure we knew where to eat, how to get to the spots we wanted to visit, etc.
After settling in at the hotel, we ventured out into the city to find some lunch. We started out walking, which was interesting because all of the main roads are covered in sand because it is a beach town. The beaches were beautiful, with palm trees dotting the white sand and colorful fishing boats, called pirogues moving through the waves. We eventually came to a French / Lebanese outdoor restaurant. We ate hummus which was served with delicious, juicy tomato wedges and fresh pita bread. We also got French chicken burgers which had coleslaw on them that tasted like cucumber sauce and French style fries in the burger. We all pigged out and even had leftovers to bring back to the hotel. After leaving lunch we travelled to the marche des feticheurs, to look for fetish items. It was around 5pm when we got there, so most of the vendors were closing up, but we saw lots of herbs / dried fruits and other items used in traditional medicine. We also saw carved fetish dolls used in voodoo rituals. Later in the evening we went to a nicer restaurant / bar that was playing American rap music and ate really good pizza and falafel.
The next morning we left early and grabbed a taxi to take us to the boarding docks. We weren’t really sure that our destination was accurately translated to the driver, and when we started driving through basically a field of tall grass on a dusty path we became skeptical. However, soon we pulled up to a dock with a single pirogue. We took a pirogue to Togoville, a small village across the water. Togoville is very rural and many naked children wearing only waist beads ran around the streets in between goats and chickens. We first visited two massive, sacred trees which are the center points for the village. We also saw a fertility shrine to a spirit known as Mama Fiokpo and a bull that will be sacrificed soon in a village ritual. We then went to the house of priestess where we were instructed to take off all of our clothes and put on traditional clothes given to us. We sneakily managed to keep most of our clothes on underneath and headed to a waiting room where other villagers were waiting to see the priestess. Upon waiting, we were informed that we would be required to pay a large sum to see the priestess so we decided to leave.
We then crossed the main area of the village to visit the Catholic cathedral built by the Germans. The church is a huge, imposing structure on the outside and a beautiful, colorful wonder on the inside. Basically all of the wall space in the structure is covered in detailed depictions of bible stories with the largest picture being the last supper with a giant rainbow over the entire thing. About 20 yards from the cathedral is a large shrine to the virgin Mary who was allegedly seen walking on the lake in the early 1970s. At first I was confused by how Catholicism could coexist so well with the traditional religion of the area, but upon further pondering I realized how similar they are. The shrine of the virgin Mary is very similar to the fertility shrine to Mama Fiokpo and the way the villagers venerated ancestor spirits is almost the same as how Catholics regard saints. These are just a few of the similarities, but I will refrain from rambling about religions.
The last stop on our Togo trip was another village visit to Glidji. We travelled to Glidji by taxi and set out to find the voodoo shrines the village is known for. We were directed to what appeared to be a small house with various doors with names painted across the top. We walked around for a while, trying to figure out what was going on. Soon, an old man with a cane walked towards us and asked us what we were doing. We were relieved that he spoke English, and soon found out that he was from Ghana. He brought us to the house of the high priest of the village and we waited in a courtyard for the priest to greet us. The priest welcomed us and introduced us to two voodoo priestesses. We thought we were going to have a tour of the voodoo shrines, but before we knew it we were buying a bottle of gin for a voodoo ritual. We were lead into a voodoo shrine for a male ancestor (I can’t remember his name). The shrine was more or less a small crawlspace with a sand floor. In the center of the room was a shrine with various candles, bottles and objects (the most interesting of which was a Barbie doll). We were directed to sit on a wooden bench along the wall of the room. The priestesses brought in some type of smoking wood / incense in a kettle that smelled weird / I liked because it kept the mosquitoes away. The priest began chanting and the priestesses sang along and clapped. A few minutes into the ceremony, one of the priestesses took a glass of water and instructed us each to take a sip. The next thing I knew, Michael was having water spit on him. I slowly realized this too was to be my fate and fought back the urge to laugh / cringe when it was my turn. After the spitting water ordeal, the priestess filled up the glass with gin and instructed us to take a sip. I was really really worried that after this the priestess would spit gin on us, but luckily this was not part of the ritual. The voodoo ritual went on with more chanting and clapping , we also had some type of holy oil squirted on us as well as baby powder. To finish, the priest shook a handful of special shells and threw them into a shallow dish. Two of the shells landed face up, and the other two face down, which supposedly meant that we all would be blessed with good luck. After the ceremony was over, the priest and priestesses insisted that we all take a series of photos with each other. It was kind of like voodoo glamour shots.
The voodoo good luck didn’t kick in, however, because we couldn’t find a taxi from Glidji and ended up having to walk a mile or two back to a station. Whenever we walk anywhere, we usually attract a few locals who approach us, talk to us and basically attach themselves to us. We were having casual conversation with them when Catherine broke out her hand sanitizer and started passing it around. It was so funny to watch the locals use the hand sanitizer. They thought the smell was strange and stared obsessively at the bottle trying to figure out what it was.
We eventually made it back to Lome, collected our bags from the hotel and exited to the border. We chartered a private taxi back to Legon, since it was around 8pm and all of the buses had left. On the way back we saw a 4-5ft. ball python crossing the road! (Alex, it was like a huge Baby snake!) I wanted to go back and take pictures of it, but Katy, Catherine and Michael are lame and were too afraid. However, we are going to a python shrine this weekend in Benin so I will have my fill of snakes.
This week so far hasn’t been too crazy, I wrote a paper about the origins of the dance we’ve been learning in one of my classes. Apparently the dance was discovered by a hunter who used magic to conceal himself to observe dwarfs (who supposedly all have one leg that’s longer than the other) perform dances. Good to know? Michael inadvertently agreed to marry the crazy old woman who sells baked goods outside of our hostel. Also, Katy and Michael both received packages so we got to eat cheez-its, cookies and starburst. Delicious!
We’re leaving to travel to Benin tomorrow! Will report more next week!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)