Ghana

Our trip to Ghana was great! We were sad to leave the land of mountains, beaches, and indoor plumbing. Our trip was based around three main themes: hiking, watching World Cup games, and drinking Castle Milk Stout.

Part 1: The Beach
With these themes in mind, we started our trip at the coast in a small fishing village called Butre. Butre was recommended to us because it was a beautiful and peaceful place where you can relax without any hassle. This was all true. We actually found it a bit too secluded and relaxing (dare I say boring) so after two days of sitting on a nice beach with nothing else to do, we hiked 3km to another beach town called Busua that had a little more action. The great thing about Africa is that you can be in the smallest village in the bush with no running water or electricity but if there’s a good soccer game on, somebody will pull out a tv. Ghana is pretty developed comparatively so we had no problems catching World Cup games and had to narrow our prospective eating spots based on whether or not they carried Castle. I had romantic notions that I would go for relaxing runs on the beach every morning while we were at Busua. This presupposes that running on the beach is actually relaxing…it isn’t. At least not on the beaches in Ghana. I had to run by the water in order to avoid the deep sand, but running by the water has its own hazard of the occasional uphill sprint to avoid a big wave. After three days of returning with soggy shoes and sore calves, I went back to the dry comfort of pavement.

Part 2: Cape Coast
After a few days of hanging out in Busua, we decided to continue to the larger town of Cape Coast. Cape Coast is famous for the Cape Coast Castle, an old fort used during the slave trade. If you take the tour, the guide will start by showing you a new plaque on the door to the men’s cells that Barak Obama donated during his visit (2009?). I thought the plaque was somewhat disappointing since all it essentially says is that “on this date, _____, Barack Obama donated a plaque” with no explanation as to why. From talking with other volunteers, it sounds like there are two types of tour experiences you can have depending on your fellow tourists: 1. the loud, somewhat disrespectful tour. These are normally accompanied by Ivorians or Ghanaian students who prefer to work on their movie star poses instead of listening to the information; or 2. the very solemn Jesus tour. This tour is normally with some kind of mission group and you can expect to be treated to spontaneous renditions of “Amazing Grace” with an optional sermon from the pastor(s) leading the group. We had the latter.

We took a day trip to Kakum National Park to see some animals and go on their suspended canopy walk. Unfortunately, our guide informed us right away that after years of loud student groups visiting, all of the animals had moved to other parts of the park but the canopy walk was still fun and the forest was really pretty. Somewhere in the beginning of the hike, our guide stopped a little ahead of us and began searching in the bush next to the trail because he has just stumbled on a black cobra before it disappeared into the bush. I have a feeling that the cobra barely escapes his boot on every tour just to get the group excited.

Part 3: Accra
Before heading east, we decided to spend a few days in Accra. I know this statement might sound obsolete in a month when we’re back in America, but Accra is a legitimate city! Nice restaurants, stores, bus systems, and paved roads everywhere. There isn’t a whole lot of touristy stuff to do there but we spent our two days in Accra just walking around (with stops for Castle and World Cup games of course) and saw a lot of the city.

Part 4: Hohoe
After a week, we decided it was time to leave the coast and head to the mountains east of the Volta River. This area isn’t as frequented by tourists but I would definitely recommend visiting it. We used a town called Hohoe as our base for day trips to local mountains and waterfalls. Unfortunately, our first full day in the east was a Sunday. Sundays are effectively national holidays in Ghana. Everything is closed and it’s tough to get buses or bush taxis. We went to the bush taxi station with a list of places we’d like to see and made our plans based on what taxis, if any, were going that day. There was a car that would take us by Tsatsadu waterfalls, about 25km away, so we decided to go there. In order to visit the falls, you first have to stop by the village chief’s house and pay a fee. Luckily, his house was easy to find so we signed in, paid our fee, and spent the next few hours climbing and relaxing by the falls. When we decided to head back, it was already past lunch time and we were told there was nowhere to eat in the village and it wasn’t sure if another bush taxi would be coming through towards Hohoe. We decided to walk towards the next village where there was supposedly a restaurant and we could spot any bush taxis going by. After an hour of walking, there was no food and no bush taxi, but there was a nice guy with a truck who gave us a free lift back to Hohoe (just in time to watch the next game).

The next day, we were hoping to see Wli Wli falls, the largest in Ghana, and climb Mt. Afadjato, the tallest in Ghana. As it turns out, despite the fact that these are both east of Hohoe, there is no direct transportation between them so we chose to climb the mountain. As usual, bush taxis don’t leave until all the seats have been sold so by the time our car filled up and we got to the village of Liate Wote to start the climb it was already noon. I was a little surprised when I heard that it only took 2 hours to climb the highest mountain in Ghana, but once we started the hike I realized that lots of extra time has been saved by making the trail straight up to the top. Aaron is part mountain goat and had no problem. I hadn’t seen a hill in over a year and this one just about killed me. The funny thing about getting to the summit of the “tallest mountain in Ghana” is that immediately to your right, there is another, taller mountain. I guess we climbed the “tallest mountain in Ghana (that has a trail to the summit)”. In any case, the mountain and the waterfall were really beautiful and we had a great time walking around in the forest and eating fruits from the cacao plants.

Part 5: Crossing the Afram Plains
Next it was time to make our way back to the western city of Kumasi. The easiest way to do this is to take a daily 4-hr bus ride back down to Accra to get around the Volta River and then catch a bus to Kumasi. We opted to go straight west across the Volta and the Afram Plains. This requires two ferries, two to three buses, two days, and a lot of patience. Our first ferry left from the town of Kpando. Based on the guide book and the people in town, the ferry left somewhere between 8:30 and 10:00. Like the foolish optimists we are, we arrived at the dock around 7:45. Once at the dock, our estimated departure time kept getting later as we neared the water. Luckily we found some nice ladies to sit with under the shade by the water. Within an hour of our arrival, our shady spot became a major fish market with more and more women arriving with buckets to buy fish as the men brought them in from their boats. We spent the morning watching and talking with them as they sorted through the fish by size, distributed them between the women, and kept books in their small notebooks stored under their buckets. Around 11, we asked if we could buy one and the lady in charge gave us a big fish for free and another woman cleaned it and made us a fish soup right there on the beach. At 12:30 the ferry finally arrived and around 4, it finally left for the 1-hr trip across the lake. I have to admit, our 8 hours spent hanging out with the fish ladies while we waited for the ferry was probably one of my favorite parts of our trip.

The rest of our journey across the plains was pretty uneventful. Lots of pretty scenery and another, shorter ferry ride before we arrived in Kumasi.

Part 6: Kumasi
Accra might be the country’s capital, but Kumasi is definitely the bustling heart. We got dropped off in some unknown central part of the city. We decided to walk around and find a place where we could watch the U.S. game first, figure out where we were second. It seems that Ghanaians are universally not accustomed to using maps. Throughout our trip when we would ask someone to look at a map and give us directions, they were always at a loss. The nice folks in Kumasi were no different. They couldn’t really tell us where we were, what streets we were near, or where we wanted to go but they were certain that we should down the road and take a right. So we did. After about 30 minutes of wandering around on the bustling downtown streets, we figured out where we were and made our way to a hotel.

Kumasi is a cool city because it is not catered to tourists. There are pharmacies and banks as far as the eye can see but you have to look a little harder to find restaurants or places to shop. We ate lots of fresh coconuts and spent half a day getting lost in what is supposed to be the largest open air market in West Africa (I believe it). When I went to buy our bus tickets back to Ouagadougou two days in advance I was told that the bus was already full and the next bus wouldn’t be for another 2 days. We needed to get back to Burkina on time so I bought tickets to get us to the border where we could find another bus for the remainder of the trip. We arrived at the border town in time to catch the second half of the U.S.-Ghana game at the bus station. Watching that game in Ghana with a bunch of Ghanaians was fun, at first. However, after the U.S. tied up the game, I soon realized that we probably wouldn’t want to be around if Ghana lost. Luckily they won and the town erupted in celebration playing every Bob Marley song in existence. We spent the night at the bus station waiting for the next bus to Ouagadougou that would arrive “around 3 am” but really came around 7. The rest of the trip back was uneventful. We made it back to Ouagadougou, unable to speak French for the first few transitional hours.

Overall, Ghana was great and I hope that we can go back again someday. A lot has happened since we got back that I can’t even begin to explain. Somehow our time here is almost done and we are flying out in 6 days!!! I’ll do my best to get at least one more post up before we leave.

Photos

I finally uploaded some news photos from this year. If you want to check them out, head to:

http://picasaweb.google.com/amynaaron

Also during the opening of our computer lab, a reporter from one of the national newspapers, Sidwaya, came and wrote an article about the lab. It's in French but we found when you use an online translator, you probably won't get the correct translation but you'll get something fun and often awkward to read. You can find the article at:

http://www.sidwaya.bf/spip.php?article4637&lang=fr

School's Out!

With a final scribbled signature across some carbon-copy paper that had become slightly damp from my sweaty arm, I finished my last report card and thus my career as an educator in Burkina last week. It was a good feeling. Maybe I’ll be nostalgic for the old days of teaching later but for now all I’ve had time to feel was “woo hoo!”

Mostly we haven’t had time to realize that school is over and our final months in Burkina are winding down. These last weeks have been really packed. The bike race in Djibo went pretty well. Of course everything changed up until the day of the race. After getting all fired up to race with the men, Emilie and I were told that the women’s race was actually 18km long with real prizes so we decided to enter the women’s race after all. I spent the 4 or 5 days before the race going on long rides to get ready only to find out the day before the race that it was only 5km after all. I’m shamefully terrible at sprinting on a bike and this race was no exception. Out of the 25 girls in the race, I was 9th. Luckily Emilie did a better job of representing the foreigners and won first place. The men’s race was really intense with over 100 people competing. After the first 10, they stopped counting the men, but Aaron came in somewhere between 15th and 20th. The real shocker was the bus that brought about 30 riders at the end who didn’t finish the race. According to Aaron there were some bad crashes in the beginning and some of them looked like they had definitely been through a battle.

As soon as school was over, it was time to start our weeklong computer camp. We did two classes every day for 5 days. In the morning, we had a class of students from 8 to 12 and the evening class was for adults from 5:30 to around 7:30. Overall the camp went really well. We did 3 days of computer theory and basics (how to right click, left click, what’s the desktop…) and then the last two days they made their own PowerPoint presentations and presented at the end. There were the usual hiccups, such as teachers who scheduled final exams during our allotted time so students had to leave early or arrive late. The biggest surprise was a 2-day power outage in town that forced us to cancel one of our evening classes and cut a morning class short once all the batteries were too low. I spent several weeks making nice to the head doctor of the hospital so that we could borrow their projector for the training. Unfortunately, after the first day the projector was nothing more than nice décor thanks to daily power outages that lasted anywhere from an hour to a day. Overall camp was fun and we’ve had lots of requests from both students and people in town to have more but I think any new camps will have to be done by someone else since we don’t have much time left and we’d rather spend it visiting our friends in town and seeing things nearby that we haven’t had a chance to see yet.

Our plans for June? Day to day activities may vary, but I think it will consist mostly of laying on the beach, eating fresh seafood, and speaking English…hello Ghana!