“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

I apologize to all those who regularly read my blog. It's been a while since the last time I posted. I had big plans to do all of these top 10 lists related to my favorite things in Ghana. But alas, I opened up my laptop a week or two ago and about half of the keys on the top row of letters on my keyboard had stopped working. Which is unfortunate to happen right before finals, but I'm glad it at least waited until the end of the semester to break on me rather than it happening earlier.

So due to the inconvenience of posting from other people's computers, this may be one of my last posts. I may add more when I get back to the US, because I'm sure the readjustment to American life will be somewhat interesting.

Anyway, I have only two weeks left in Ghana to the day. And I can't tell you how weird I feel about leaving. There are so many things that I'm going to miss, yet so many things I'm excited to return to at home. Get ready for a mushy, sentimental post.

I may not have expressed many of my deeper emotions when I posted about arriving in Ghana, but now that I'm reflecting on my experience I feel okay sharing them now. Before I left for Ghana I had surprisingly few strong emotions about coming. I was excited of course, and I was sad to be leaving my family and friends for so long, but I didn't really feel all that much fear or anxiety about coming. But when I arrived, went through orientation and was dumped on campus with a week or two before school started and was trying to adjust to so much change at once, I initially felt really lost and homesick. Now, it's so hard to imagine leaving. What is it going to feel like being able to walk down the street again without sticking out like a sore thumb? Having access to all the drinkable tap water I want instead of drinking from plastic bags, and be able to even get hot water straight from the faucet? Having air conditioning and bathrooms in most buildings? (And soap and toilet paper included!) Being cold in 70 degree weather? Will I accidentally use phrases like “oh chale!” and “it is finished” and “you are invited” or accidentally throw in some twi phrases as well, and get strange looks? Are the African print clothes I had made here normal for every day wear in the US? (Even if they’re not, it won’t stop me from wearing them.) Will I accidentally snap my fingers after I shake hands with people? Will I forget to wear my seatbelt? Will I still feel that moment of panic that arises whenever I don't have exact change? And as my mom’s been joking about to me lately, will I try to bargain at the taco bell drive-thru? (I wish I could! How great would that be?!)

These are all things I'll need to figure out how to deal with when I get back. Just little things. It’ll just feel strange, but won’t actually be a problem. Also, I’m not going to know how to answer the question, “How was Ghana?” …I'll probably just refer people to this blog because it's hard to sum up four and a half months by being asked just that one question. Of course it was wonderful, but it was also extremely challenging at times, and experiencing life in a developing country just kind of changes the way you view the world. I've purposefully avoided that subject on this blog and just focused on my cultural and travel experiences, but taking classes on development and hearing the African perspective has been one of the most interesting aspects of being here. I'll definitely take that perspective back with me, because it's made me think about and reevaluate aspects of the way I live life in the US.

I also can't tell you how much I'll miss the people here. I've made really great friends, which of course makes it even harder to leave. Both my Ghanaian friends and the people I've had amazing travel experiences with have made this all the more unforgettable. And just the everyday kindness you receive from people you don't know. I've had wonderful conversations with taxi drivers, made friends with vendors (my favorites, of course, being Maame Louise and my favorite little girl named Rahina that sells me apples and bananas at the night market), and just been shown so much kindness from complete strangers.

One of my favorite views--the mountainous Volta region

I’m going to miss how beautiful it is here as well. Ghana has no shortage of breathtaking ocean views, beaches, country-sides, forests, mountains and valleys. Even the cities, though not quite as beautiful, have their certain charming qualities. (And the best/cheapest street food I’ve ever had.)

And since I’m being completely honest here, there are of course things that I won't miss. Mainly the oburoni comments (only when I'm in a bad mood), creepy guys asking for your number/asking to marry you, people asking me about my religious beliefs on almost a daily basis, people trying to rip me off because I'm a foreigner, and never knowing what time I need to be somewhere because the one day I happen to be on Ghana-time, everyone else decides to be punctual. But those were all part of the experience, and are only slight annoyances when overall, I've been extremely happy here. I’ve learned that it’s easier to deal with frustrations if you just shrug it off or laugh, and I think because of that I’m a little more relaxed and perhaps a little more patient than I was before.

I'm getting more and more emotional about leaving with every passing day. I’m feeling both sadness to leave and excitement to get back to the amazing people at home that I've had to do without for the past few months. But I have two weeks left here, and I plan on making the most of it. Turns out I will be able to go to the north after all, so I'll be able to go see some elephants at Mole National Park, as well as see the oldest mosque in West Africa, the Larabanga mosque. I also have two finals to take before that, but I'm much less excited about those…

And then on May 27th, I'm heading home. Back in Madison by June 4th so I can start a summer class and two jobs. Goodbye relaxing slow-paced Ghana, hello busy, stressful life back home.

Thanks to everyone who read this while I've been away. I really appreciate the love and support you all have shown me while I've been here, through facebook, phone calls, texts, letters, emails, etc. I can't tell you how good it feels to know that people back home haven't forgotten about me. :)

I love and miss everyone, and I'll see you back in the US! So-long from Ghana! Yɛbɛhyia bio.

It's a little late, but here you go....FOOD

I think since the semester's winding down and I don't have any more trips planned out anymore (I was going to go to Mole national park, but that fell through), I might just write some top tens for y'all. Starting with what I should have done a long time ago, which is the food in Ghana. Here we go.

Favorite foods. (In no particular order of preference).

Fufu and chicken with light soup

1. Fufu. This has to be first. Because it's so popular here and as so many people have told me, you can't say you've been to Ghana without having tried Fufu. It's really good! Though it doesn't sound as appetizing as it actually is. It's a ball of pounded cassava and plantain, and tastes kind of bland by itself, but it's meant to be served with either light soup (tomato-based with either fish, chicken, goat, or bush meat) or groundnut soup (peanut based soup with fish). Personally, I prefer light soup with goat or chicken. I don't like groundnut soup unless it's made without the fish. Also, another thing about fufu is you can't use utensils. I mean you can, but you wouldn't want to be caught dead trying to eat fufu with a fork or spoon. (Although I realize there is a spoon in the picture of the fufu...that's for when you've finished the fufu and are drinking the soup.) Everyone eats it with their hands. It can get messy, but it really is the best way to eat it!

Jollof with spaghetti, egg, and
sausage

2. Jollof rice. I ate this all the time when I first got here because I loved it so much. It's still really good, but I think I got all jollof'ed out after a while. But jollof rice is just this kind of spicy tomato-ey rice that's often served with chicken. You can mostly get it at these things called "chop bars" where they have giant bowls of rice and spaghetti and salad and stuff, and you ask for maybe 50 pesawas worth of rice, 30 pesawas worth of spaghetti, etc. And maybe a hard boiled egg and a sausage or piece of chicken. It's a cheap meal, and really good.

3. Fried rice. Self-explanatory. It's just normal fried rice with vegetables like you'd get at a chinese restaurant at home, but it's really really good here.

4. Egg sandwiches. Fried egg with vegetables on bread. I don't know why it's sooo good, but it is.

5. Meat Pies. I NEED to learn how to make these. I basically just eat it for the crust, because it's like the best crust I've ever had on anything. It's like a little semi-circular pie crust filled with a little bit of ground beef and some onions, but the pie crust is like maybe a little eggier than normal crust I've had...? I can't really figure out what makes it so good, but like I said, I'm going to find out, because I can't live without these things.

6. Fan Ice. I described these in the last post I wrote. It's like soft-serve vanilla ice cream in a bag. Fan-choco and fan-yogo are really good too. There are these men in blue shirts that walk around with carts and a little bike horn selling these things along with meat pies and spring rolls and I'm usually always listening for that little horn on really hot days. They're amazing. I need to write a letter to the fan-milk company telling them to export to the US because I don't understand why we don't have these at home.

7. Dough balls. These have some sort of Ghanaian name, but I can't figure out what it is. It sounds something like bowl-fruit, but I know that's not right. Anyway, it's literally just like a big ball of sweet, fried dough. And it's like the best breakfast ever. Though I'm sure they're terrible for you. But a lot of food here is terrible for you.

8. Hard boiled eggs with pepper. Women just sell these on the street everywhere. You buy an egg, and they peel the shell off and cut it in half and then spread this really spicy red pepper and onion spread in the middle and then you eat it just like that. It makes my nose run from how spicy it is, but it's so tasty.

9. Golden tree chocolate. Also mentioned in a previous post, but has to be mentioned again. It's not like typical chocolate in the US. I actually didn't like it at first because I bought the milk chocolate kind and expected it to taste like chocolate I was used to, but it's made with less sugar and more cocoa. I still don't really like the milk chocolate they make, but I LOVE the dark chocolate and lemon and orange chocolate. And of course, the chocolate spread.

10. Anything from Maame Louise. This woman makes my favorite food I've eaten here so far. She makes groundnut soup, but a vegetarian version that's really tasty, and vegetable sauce, rice, mashed potatoes, boiled yams, and she even makes muffins and cookies, and sometimes mango or pineapple bread. I get her food for dinner all the time. It's incredible.


Least Favorite Foods


1. Kenkey. Kind of like fufu, but made with maize instead, and it's fermented and really sour. Most Ghanaians, when you tell them you don't like Kenkey, tell you that you just haven't tried good Kenkey yet, but I don't see how there can be all that much variation...I just think they've all been eating it pretty much since birth, and are just very used to it. I haven't met a single foreigner who actually enjoys it.

2. Banku. I have no idea what it's made with, but to me it looks and tastes exactly like Kenkey. Maybe a tad less sour, but not much.

3. Fish. For some reason, I have disliked every type of fish I've tried since being in Ghana. I'm not a huge fish person to begin with, and the fish here just usually smells and tastes extra fishy. I usually avoid it.

4. Plaintains. I may be the only person on my entire program and maybe in all of Ghana who just can't stand plantains. I actually think they're fine when they're raw because they just taste like bananas, but I can't stand fried plantains. They're just really heavy and starchy and too sweet and sticky for me, but everyone else seems to love them.

5. Waakye. It's some odd combination of mashed beans and rice that I just don't care for all that much.

6. Shito. Fish sauce. (See #3.)

And I'm going to stop there because I can't think of anything else I really don't like. For the most part the food here took a lot of getting used to in the beginning, but I've learned to really like it over the course of the semester! So there you have it. What I have and haven't really been eating over the past 3 and a half months.

The Adventures of Akosua and Rasta

I wish I spoke French. New goal. I should master my German first, but I feel like if I ever want to come back to West Africa, French would be super useful to know. Not that we were lost the whole time in Togo, because it was surprisingly easy to get around, but I think I would just feel like less of a jackass walking around speaking English in an area where they mostly speak French and Ewe.

Anyway, our adventure began on Friday morning, when we caught a trotro to Aflao, which is the city on the border of Ghana and Togo. It should have only taken about 3 hours to get there, but it took more like five. About halfway into the ride, one of the back tires blew out. It was completely shredded. And it was quite alarming just driving along listening to music, then I just hear a loud CLUNK and we're all of a sudden lopsided and smelling burning rubber. Mmm. So we all get out so the driver can change the tire, which took about 20 minutes because there was some problem with the car jack or something, and then we all pile back in and we're on our way.

15 minutes later:

Spare tire blows out. The first time it happened, I honestly didn't mind at all, considering I had to pee really badly and it gave me an opportunity to relieve myself without asking the driver to pull over. This second time however, I was much less eager to get out. Because we happened to be fresh out of spare tires and the driver hopped on another trotro going the opposite direction to head somewhere to get another tire and left us in the middle of nowhere on the highway. And about half of the other passengers ditched and got on another one headed to Aflao. Chekwube and I opted out, considering they were charging an extra 5 cedis that we didn't feel like paying. So we waited, and hoped the driver would actually come back. (He did.)

Basket fail.

In the mean time, we had arts and crafts time and made baskets out of dead plants, because there was nothing else to do in the hour we had to wait for the driver to come back. And I walked down the street to buy a mango. Instead of buying one, the little girl who was at the stand gave me NINE for free! She refused to take my money, I think because she saw we were stranded, bless her little heart. I was so thrilled, so I went back and offered everybody a mango who was stranded with us. No one wanted any so I was like, okay great, what the hell do I do with nine mangos? So I ate two and Chekwube had one and I gave away the rest at the Togo border to this guy who wouldn't leave us alone and was offering unsolicited help and then asking us for money. So I handed him a bag of mangos instead. He seemed quite satisfied with that, so problem solved.

Anyway, so we got through the border just fine. I thought we were going to have problems, because there always seems to be frustrations when crossing borders, but it went smoothly. We got ripped off REALLY badly by a cab driver though when we got to the other side because he was clever enough to know that a couple of Americans are probably really confused by having to convert cedis to sifas. We were. And felt really stupid about it. But by the end I think we kind of had it figured out.

Our hotel was adorable. It was this cute little hotel down a side street off of the main road, which runs along the beach. So we were about a block away from the ocean. The rooms were tiny. Literally just a bed in a tiny room with a little bathroom, which we paid a little extra for because not all the rooms had bathrooms. It wasn't bad at all though, just small.

So after we checked in we headed out to just go walk around. We didn't know it at the time, but we walked through La Grande Marche (the grand market) and just kind of explored Lome a little bit. I love it there. They sell baguettes on the street! With this delicious avocado salad that they spread on the inside of it and it was incredible. Easy to make too, I think it was just avocado, tomato, onion, lettuce, oil and a little mayo. On a baguette. That was my dinner. Along with 4 fan-milk products. I don't know if I've talked about fan-ice, but it's one of the best things that's ever happened to me. In Ghana they have fan-ice (vanilla ice cream), fan-choco (frozen chocolate milk), and strawberry fan-yogo (frozen yogurt). But in Togo, they have fan-ice, fan-choco, VANILLA fan-yogo, fan-vanille (frozen vanilla milk), fan-lait (a slightly different tasting vanilla milk), and fan-cocktail and fan-joy, which are both fruity things. So with all these new flavors to try, we went a little overboard and bought a ton of them. I have no shame.

But it's not just street food that makes Lome awesome. It's a beautiful city, right on the ocean with so many palm trees everywhere. It was so tropical and pretty. It's also just a really interesting mix of people. There's a ton of Ewe people, because that ethnic group is split halfway between Ghana and Togo, and then most people speak French as well. And then there's also a few Twi speakers here and there since it's right on the border with Ghana. And then a lot of people spoke English as well, thankfully. Otherwise we would have been quite lost. But walking down the street in the market, people were yelling at us what I could only assume were the same things people yell at us in Accra, but we just couldn't tell what language it was in half the time.

Also, I have two more names to add to the list of things I now respond to. Afi, which is the Ewe version of Afia, and Yo Vo, which apparently means "white person" in Ewe. I don't know if that's how it's spelled but that's what it sounded like.

And the city was also cool because the preferred mode of transportation is motorcycles. They were EVERYWHERE. Like fleets of them. Being a pedestrian is terrifying because I think I almost got hit by one about 15 times. But they're fun to ride. I know what you're thinking…haven't I had enough? What with the infected burn from the exhaust pipe and whatnot? Well, I guess the answer to that would be no.

Dead monkeys :(

On Saturday morning we caught a motorcycle taxi (which the guidebook says they call "zemi-johns") to the fetish market. It was a traditional African voodoo market, and it was SO COOL. But also a little gross. We got lucky too, because my motorcycle driver, Ange, said he knew someone there so he came with us, and then ended up being our translator for the tour of the market because the guy giving us the tour didn't speak much English.

But there were all kinds of smelly dead animals there. Used for all sorts of things. For example, apparently dead owls are used to keep away bad dreams, and snake vertebrae are used for rheumatism, and dead chameleons are for people in love. Romantic, right? There were also dead porcupines, monkeys, crocodiles, hippos, horses, you name it.

And then the tour guide introduced us to the chief of the market, and they took us back into this little room where there was this voodoo spirit shrine thing set up. And the chief asked us for our names and asked each of the spirits to bless us with a long life. And then they told us a little more about the rituals they do and showed us more of the objects they use for the rituals. I just love that kind of stuff. Like cool rituals and whatnot. It was so great.

Then Ange took us to the Musee International (museum), but it's apparently closed until next month, so they let us look around the lawn at these statues instead and we could only peer inside the windows of the museum. Kind of a bummer, but oh well.

BFFs

Then we parted ways with Ange, who had hung out with us for like 2 hours acting as our personal tour guide, and from there we just walked along the beach for a while with some more fan-milk products. After a while we called it a day and headed back to the border. It was a short stay, but worth it just to see the city. It's one of those places where you don't have to do much. You can just walk around enjoying the view, so that's what we did.

We got back successfully without more tire blowouts, so that was good as well. And I managed to get one last avocado baguette sandwich at the trotro station before we left Aflao. Success.

Merekɔ Kumase

CIEE definitely knows how to spoil us on these little trips they take us on. Even though we've technically paid for it already, but it still feels like we're being spoiled. This past weekend in Kumasi, I took my first hot shower in 3 months. And I would have taken another hot shower before we left but both the power and the water went out right before I was going to. The hotel also had air conditioning in all the rooms, which made the hot shower that much better. I haven't felt that clean in such a long time.

Anyway, so Kumasi: we went from Friday morning to Sunday night. It's about a 6 hour drive to the Asante region (on a pretty rough road. In the US, the same distance would probably take about 2 hours by car).  Friday, we spent the day visiting another Kente village called Bonwire. Personally, I liked the Kente place in the Volta region much better, but this one was fine too. It was just that you could tell this one was frequented by tourists because we were swarmed by people selling stuff from the moment we got there to when we left. Even after we left actually, because some guy trying to sell us key chains actually ran after the bus while it was leaving. The one in the Volta region was much more informative about the tradition of making Kente, and there was barely anyone pressuring us to buy things. The one in Kumasi stressed me out.

Then we went to another village (that I can't remember the name of) where they make Adinkra cloth. It's basically just Kente cloth that they stamp Adinkra symbols on in a special dye that they make out of a certain kind of tree bark. Adinkra symbols are special symbols that were used by the Asante people back in the day that all have different specific meanings. The Adinkra cloth they make is traditionally worn at funerals, but it's been becoming more common to see it worn at other special events as well. The symbols are everywhere around Ghana though. Especially this symbol, "gye nyame" which means "except for God" which is a symbol of God being the supreme being or something along those lines. It's just one of those things you see everywhere, painted on the sides of buildings, or whatever:

And here's my personal favorite symbol, "Sankofa", which symbolizes the importance of learning from the past:

So that place was cool. They showed us how they make the dye and stamp the cloth, and we all did some stamping, and some people even designed their own cloths and picked out the symbols they wanted to use.

Yaa Asantewaa

On Saturday we went to see an Asante traditional home, which was really cool because it was actually the home of Yaa Asantewaa, who was the Queen Mother of the Asante people during the time when they were resisting colonialism. She led a lot of people to fight against the Europeans, and just seems like she was a really brave, smart, kick-ass woman in general. Unfortunately, she was captured and sent into exile, the Asante people lost the war and most of the traditional homes were destroyed, and now the one we saw is one of ten that are left. They're now protected by the UN.

The house was really interesting though. There were reliefs of adinkra symbols carved into the walls, and drums they used for communication with other villages, and there were some turtles just chilling in the little courtyard in the middle. And we got to try on this skirt thing, that apparently really wealthy people wore back in the day. Check me out, wearing a rich Asante person's outfit:

Me and my boyfriend.

So that was really interesting. And then later we went to the palace of the current King of the Asante people. According to my program director, the Asante king probably still has more power and influence than the president of Ghana. And they still have a Queen Mother as well, who is even more powerful than the king. She's over 100 years old though. But that's the one thing I really like about the Asante people. It's a matrilineal society, so women have more control as far as traditions go, and the Queen Mother is the most powerful person in the society.

I just wish you'd see that kind of respect for women in modern Ghanaian society, but unfortunately there are still a lot of problems with the status of women. I won't get into that too much, but it's been one of those things that upsets me about Ghanaian culture. But there's still a lot of different traditions practiced in Ghana, and gender roles play a very large part in those traditions, so I guess that's where that stems from. But anyway, it was refreshing to learn that the Asante people of Ghana honor women as more important members of society.

So after all that culture and traditional stuff, we headed to the central market in Kumasi to do some shopping. It's the largest open market in West Africa. And it was intense. Markets are always intense though.

Kumasi Central Market

First of all, as an oburoni, you quickly learn what names you're expected to respond to. My name isn't always oburoni. It can also be Akosua, Amma, Afia, Abena, Akua, or Adwoa. It's actually gotten to the point where I will automatically turn my head whenever I hear any of those names shouted in my immediate vicinity. And about 90% of the time they are, in fact, talking to whatever oburoni happens to be in the area. They yell out any one of those names randomly because those are the day names--people in Ghana are often named based on what day of the week you were born on, so those names happen to be the ones for women (minus Yaa, which is the name for Thursday). The male names are: Kwasi, Kwabena, Kweku, Kwame, Yaw, Kofi, and Kojo. None of those are in order, because I forgot which days and which names go together. But I know Akua is for Wednesday, because that's my day name. :) I even introduce myself as Akua sometimes, when I don't feel like telling people my real name. And people usually just think it's really funny that you're calling yourself by a Ghanaian name.

Anyway, so the market was basically your typical crazy market experience that I've described here before. People shouting at me, grabbing my arms, etc. I even got slapped on the butt really hard while I was standing and waiting for a friend to finish shopping at one of the stands. I was offended, expecting to turn around and see some creepy old guy or something behind me, but no. It was some woman in her 20s or 30s. The strangest part though was when I turned around to look at her after she slapped me, neither of us said anything. I just gave her a puzzled look and she just stared right back, and then I slowly walked away to the next shop. Awkward, yes? And I got a marriage proposal by some creepy guy who wouldn't leave me alone for a good 10 minutes, spoke German with a Ghanaian because I told him I was from Germany, and made a new friend with a woman because her day name was also Akua. I don't know why that was a big deal but I just went with it.

Also, I practiced my Twi with a ton of sellers. A lot of people get really excited when they ask you something in Twi and you're actually able to answer them. I think most of the time they expect blank stares, because when you answer them they start laughing a ton and tell everyone in the area that the oburoni speaks Twi. And then they ask you more questions you can't answer, and that's when the blank stares start.

But I was surprised at how much I can sort of guess what people are talking about when I'm listening to conversations now. Like I definitely cannot understand a majority of it, but I can pick out words here and there and figure out what they might be saying. Like I was trying on shoes at the market, and this woman didn't have any shoes in my size, and when I was walking away, I heard her telling another shoe seller about how Americans have big feet. And that's about all I could understand.

I did eventually find big enough shoes for my massive American feet though, and I bought them. They were like 5 cedis, which I think is less than $3. And I think I maybe could have even gotten them for less, but I stopped at 5. Everything's such a bargain. I'm currently getting a skirt made for myself that will cost me 8 cedis. Not including fabric, but even then it'll only have cost me about 10 US dollars in total. For a custom-made skirt. And she's going to have it ready for me by Wednesday. I'm so jazzed. I'm going to go buy more fabric and get a dress or something made as well, because how could I not? It's custom made and super cheap!

Also, today was a good day because I finally found what I've been looking for for weeks now--Golden tree chocolate spread. Golden tree is a brand of chocolate produced in Ghana, but you can't find it anywhere else because they can't export it because it apparently can't compete with Swiss and American chocolate. But it's really, really good! It's just made with a little more cocoa powder and a little less milk, or something. And the chocolate spread tastes like Nutella, but because it's made in Ghana, a big tub of it costs about half the price of a tiny jar of Nutella. So it's basically my dream come true. I'm only talking about this because I'm actually really excited about finding it because for some reason it's been really hard to find.

I will stop boring you with my thoughts for today. But that does remind me I haven't talked about food yet, so maybe I'll do that soon.

Until then, yɛbɛhyia bio, me adamfo! [We will meet again, my friends.]

:)

Koforidua and Agomanya

Did some more spontaneous traveling this past weekend. I honestly wasn't planning on taking very many weekend trips while I'm here, but I'm glad that I've been taking advantage of the opportunity. I always have so much fun when I'm out finding new places to go instead of sitting around ISH for the weekend and going to Accra all the time. My friends Zoe, Chekwube, and I decided on Thursday night to head to the eastern region on Friday morning. So we took a trotro to Koforidua, a small city about 2 hours north of Accra. From there we took another trotro to a place called Boti falls. Only to find out that the falls were dried up. But we decided that since we had gone all that way, we just went on a hike instead. (It was much less intense than the one at Wli, so no worries.) We hiked up to a place called Umbrella Rock, which was this big rock perched precariously on this smaller rock. I didn't get a good picture of it, but here's me standing on top of it:

And then there was a weird palm tree about a three minute walk from there. It had three trunks coming out of one, and legend was that any woman who could climb up to the top would have twins someday. Needless to say, I did not partake...neither did Zoe or Chekwube, as both of them are one half of a set of twins and didn't care to start new family traditions.

So then we hiked back down. this is where things got a little weird. We had this guide named John. Quite the interesting fellow. I really don't mean this as an insult, but the truth is that his English was terrible and we could only just nod and smile while 75% of what he was saying went right over our heads. Also, he seemed to really like Chekwube, because I don't think he directly spoke to me or Zoe for the entire hike. Which was pretty funny, actually.

So anyway, we found out on the hike back that this guy was bat-shit insane. We had a suspicion on the hike up. Just because he was kind of irritating us by repeatedly saying for the entire hike that he wasn't going to pressure us to go fast, because we are ladies and ladies should be careful and go slow. And that was fine and all the first couple times he said it. But by the 500th time he told us to take it easy because we were ladies, I was about ready to slap him. So instead of slowing down, we went a little faster than I think we would have otherwise. But on the way down, instead of telling us there was no pressure to go quickly, he saw the tour group that was behind us pass us on the path, and that's when he completely lost it. Apparently they get paid per tour, so the more you get in one day, the more money you get. He didn't want his coworker to get the money that was his, but unfortunately Chekwube had a twisted ankle from an injury that happened a few weeks ago, and she had to go really slow while climbing down the rocks because it was really bothering her. For John, this was no excuse for going slow because he told us on the way up that we should be careful because we were ladies, and now one of us is hurt, and he told us this would happen if we didn't be careful.

John, posing next to a tree
right before his hissy fit

He was pissed. And started running way up ahead of us on the path in fits of anger and then screaming to himself about how we should have been more careful and how this is such a waste of time. At first we thought he was talking to someone else ahead of us on the path, until we caught up with him and realized that he was, in fact, screaming to himself. We were just so done with him by that point that we kept telling him that if he wanted to go ahead of us and get another tour group, we could make it back by ourselves. But he wouldn't do that. He eventually calmed down toward the end of the hike. But it was just a really weird experience. And then he asked us for a tip at the end, to which we were all confused by.  So far the only places people have really expected tips in Ghana have been tours. But I don't think that this guy realized that tips usually depend on the level of customer service...and if you're yelling at your group to go faster for half the hike when one of them is hurt, I think you can safely forget about getting a tip.

So then we took a trotro back to Koforidua. At one point in the ride where people had to get off and we shuffled around the seats, I ended up in the middle row, looked down, and to my surprise there was a live chicken on the floor next to my feet. Just tied up and chillin. Scared the shit out of me though. Hadn't made any noise for about 30 minutes, so that was the last thing I was expecting to see on the floor. It really creeped me out though, because I felt like it was just staring up at me with the one eye I could see, and it was just panting from the heat. I really felt bad for it. But I couldn't help but be really freaked out that there was a live chicken on a trotro, 2 inches away from my feet.

So then when we got back to Koforidua, we got a late lunch and headed to our hotel, which was really nice! The water there was actually running, and they gave us each our own bar of soap! And there was a water boiler, and breakfast was included the next morning, and it was cheap, when split between 3 people.

"Bead is everywhere, so bead all you can bead."

Saturday morning, we checked out and went to take a trotro to a place called Agomanya, which was about an hour away from Koforidua. At Agomanya, they have this gigantic market--it was so huge, I think we were probably wandering around for about an hour before we realized we had no idea where we were anymore and had to ask someone to help us find the bead market, which was what we came for. We were led through the market on the most convoluted path that there's no way we would have ever found it on our own. I'm glad we got there though, because it was worth the trip to that market. There were just rows and rows and rows of people selling handmade glass beads and they were all so beautiful. At the time, I thought I was going overboard buying so many beads, but they were so cheap that looking back on it, I honestly think that I maybe should have bought more.

Before we headed back home, we stopped at a place where they make the glass beads from the market. Like I said, they're all hand-made individually so that was really cool to see. They're also all made from recycled glass. They take recycled glass bottles and crush them into powder and add pigment and fire them into beads.

So overall it was a great weekend. Then on Easter Sunday, I bummed around ISH the whole day, which was eerily quiet for hours. It was because all the Ghanaians were most likely at church, and a lot of the other international students were still gone for the weekend, so I felt like I had the whole building to myself. That obviously wasn't the case, but it was so much quieter than I had experienced before. It was a nice change!

On an unrelated note, I register tomorrow for my LAST semester at UW. As in, I'm most likely graduating in December. How crazy is that? I'm freaking out about graduating so much earlier than I had planned, but it'll save some money. And it's pretty exciting! But I really have no idea what I'm doing after I graduate yet, but I've been looking at a bunch of options.
Time really flies. I can't believe college is almost over.
And I can't believe I only have less than 7 weeks left in Ghana! That sounds like a long time, but if you look at it like this: 3 more weeks of classes, 1 revision week before finals, and then I have about a week and a half of finals, and about 2 weeks left free for traveling or doing whatever. Then home. That's going to feel like no time at all. And in that amount of time I'll be going to Kumasi, Togo, and Mole national park, so those will make it go a lot faster too. I'm excited for things at home, but I know that I'm definitely not ready for this to end just yet. I'm afraid it'll go too fast.

I bless the rains down in Aaaafrica!

This morning I awoke to the relaxing sound of rain outside my window. And then when I was awake enough to remember that my laundry was out drying on the balcony, I bolted out of bed to go grab my clothes before they got another unintended rinse cycle, and got tangled in my mosquito net in the process.


My laundry stayed dry, thank goodness, and despite the abrupt awakening, it was a great way to start the morning. (Especially because my next door neighbor, who usually blasts hip hop first thing in the morning, was playing "Samson" by Regina Spektor instead, which was a very nice change. Definitely glad we had a music swap). But I just love it when it rains here. Back when it was still Harmattan season when the air was so hot, dry, and dusty all the time, there was one morning on my way to my internship where it started raining, and I think that was the first time rain had put me in THAT good of a mood. Even though the window on the trotro was leaking and getting me and the guy sitting next to me all wet. I was just glad not to be wet from my own sweat for once.


So it seems we're entering the rainy season now. And though it's still pretty hot and a lot more humid than it was before, it's really nice to not have the sun beating down on you constantly. And the cool breeze and the occasional sprinklings when I'm walking to class are pretty nice for cooling off. I'm really enjoying this weather, since it's a nice change after what feels like weeks and weeks of unrelenting sun and a constant 90 degrees.
Instead, I wore a sweater this morning. It was just delightful.


I had a really good weekend as well. Friday night I stayed in, but Saturday, we had another CIEE outing to a children's home in Haatso near where my internship is. We spent the day sanding and painting the walls, and hanging out with the kids a little bit. It was hard work because we had so many walls to paint, and by the end we were all just covered in dust, paint splatter, and sweat, but it was a really fun day. And later on after we'd showered and relaxed for a while, a few friends and I went out for pizza.


Then on Sunday, my friends Zoe, Tali, Kate, and I decided to do some more exploring of Accra, since we've been here for so long now (over 2.5 months, if you can believe it!) and haven't seen everything there is to see yet. So we went to the National Museum, near an area in Accra called Adabraka. Which I'm always tempted to call "Abracadabra" but unfortunately, that's not quite right.

Pretty cool mask. A rabbit, perhaps?

But the museum was really cool. Someone on our program told us not to go, because he said it sucked but we went anyway and I think it was worth it! Honestly, they had a lot of really cool stuff like old artifacts from all over West Africa and lots of information about old traditional cultures and stuff, which we really don't get much of a chance to learn about every day. I feel like I've been learning so much about modern Ghanaian culture in the cities, but not a whole lot about rural, traditional life in Ghana. So there was a lot of cool stuff that I learned. Like about the importance of puberty rituals, like when girls are initiated into womanhood and one of the things they have to do is swallow an egg whole. Or if a woman has twins and one of them dies, she has a doll made that represents the deceased twin, and cares for the doll as if it's a child until the surviving child is old enough to take care of it him/herself.  I just think stuff like that is so interesting. Here's what it looks like:

So then after the museum we went to go find somewhere to eat, and ended up at a place called White Bell, which was pretty much a place geared towards westerners and was overpriced, but it had a really nice atmosphere. And they had a lovely selection of music from artists like Enya, Elton John, and Dolly Parton. (?)


Since then, school has been going pretty well for me the past few days. I got my Twi test back and got an A on it, which is absolutely not any sort of indicator of my actual skills in Twi, which are nonexistent. I can deal with Twi just fine when it's written, but I'm kind of hopeless when I try to speak it. Which doesn't help me much since most Ghanaians don't even write Twi anyway. It's mostly just spoken, and English is more commonly used in writing. I'm working at my pronunciation though. It's just so hard to figure out the tonal aspect of it.


Speaking of school though, I'm beginning to realize how spoiled I'm becoming as far as getting work done goes. There isn't much homework here at all compared to the classes I take at UW. I caught myself complaining the other day about having to do my Twi homework, which consisted of writing out a whole six sentences. And I had a paper due last week in my international relations class, which I didn't even know about because I felt sick the day it was assigned and I wasn't in class. So I went up to the professor after class and asked him if we had an assignment due that day and he just said "yes, it's due if you have it, but if not you can turn it in later." Um. What?


Things are clearly much more relaxed here. But I'm taking a summer class like a week after I get back from this trip so I'm a little bit worried about getting back into the more stressful mindset of school in the US. Especially since it's a class that's four days a week for two hours a day and is only a month long but a semester's worth of material. Here, I only have class 3 days a week. And although classes last 2 hours, the dictation style of lecture makes it go at a much slower pace than I'm used to. So hopefully I can handle jumping right back into school when I go back to Madison in June.


Sooo anyway. This coming weekend is Easter, as I'm sure some of you are aware of. And though I'm curious to see what kinds of things they do for Easter around here, I'm almost certain it involves going to church for most of the day and I'm not so sure I want to do that. So since we have Friday through next Monday off, my friends Zoe and Chekwube and I might be going somewhere for a day trip to just get out of Legon for a bit. I don't know what we're doing yet though.


I will leave you with this: in honor of the rainy season, I give you one of my old fav's from the decade I'm kind of glad I missed..."Africa" by Toto :)

(I have no idea what point this video's trying to make. It's kind of bizarre. But you gotta love the song...)

This is Ghana.

My internship is starting to get more and more interesting now that I feel like I'm getting to know the people better.

I'll start with a little intro to everyone. There's my supervisor, Naa, who I never really see because she's so busy that she rarely has time to eat. She's both the CEO of WAAF and the head doctor for the clinic. Then there's Jennifer, who is my other supervisor, and I work with her the most. She just moved back to Ghana from the States, where she went to grad school in Illinois. Her husband actually lives in Madison now, which is pretty cool that she has that connection to where I live. Jennifer's pretty much my favorite, so I hope she can come see me if she's ever visiting the US.

Then there's Eddie, who is super confusing, because he has an extra-british sounding accent, but has lived in the US for a really long time, and the other interns and myself can't figure out whether he's married to Naa or not, but no one wants to be the one to ask. Everything about him is a mystery.

Then there's the miscellaneous other staff, who get yelled at by Eddie every 10 minutes for not getting stuff done.

Eddie's interesting, though. He freaks out constantly, but at the same time he's a pretty nice guy, and very personable when he's in a good mood because he's obsessed with networking and stuff like that. So one minute he's storming into the office ranting about the people in the office next door because they apparently never get any work done (he always blames Ghanaian culture for that. He'll rant on and on about the lack of productivity, and then just angrily conclude, "well, this is Ghana…") and then he'll just apparently forget about it, sit down, and start chatting excitedly about the proposals we're doing to start up some corporate wellness programs around Accra. Today he was dealing with some major crisis in the office and yelling at the accountant really intensely for some mistake he made, and then just plopped down in a chair across from me and got excited about networking again. He definitely has some occasional mood swings, which sort of puts everyone on edge. It's not that he's mean or anything. He's just very, very intense about a lot of things.

Speaking of the "this is ghana" comment…it's been really interesting to be working with Ghanaian people like Eddie and Jennifer who have lived in the US for years and have returned to Ghana. They definitely have a lower tolerance for a lot of things that most Ghanaians just seem to quietly tolerate. For instance, Jennifer just moved back here from the US just a few months ago, and she talks about how hot it is more than anyone I've met here. Today she gave me a ride to the trotro stop because she didn't want me walking that far in the heat. It's only like a 10 minute walk, and I was perfectly fine walking since I'm just kind of used to it now, but she insisted. I really appreciated it though.  She also went on a rant one day about how much she hates all the potholes on the roads here, and that the thing she missed about the US the most was driving on roads without any potholes. She also really misses Red Lobster.

And as I mentioned how Eddie's pretty intense about things, he seems to have a severe lack of patience with Ghana as a whole, and is always comparing it to the US. Today he was talking about how he heard about a little girl who died of malaria because her doctor gave her the wrong medicine, and then that turned into a rant about the medical system here. Which this time, he ended his angry rant with "ugh, but this is Ghana, you can be perfectly fine and then just be dead the next minute."

Well, shit. Ghana may be a developing country, but it's definitely not that bleak.

I hope he doesn't make comments like that to all Ghanaians, because I'm sure he offends people a lot by saying stuff like that. He says ridiculous things like that all the time around the office. I mean, of course it's true that Ghana has a lot of problems. But it still has such a long way to go in the development process and he just has so little patience for it. Which I guess in the long run, maybe it'll be good for WAAF that he won't tolerate any of it, because he's been really pushing people to do certain things like improve the technology they have access to, which can help move the organization along much faster. But anyway, I guess I just find it interesting how differently they feel about Ghana after having lived in the US. I think they both still love living here though. Or at least Jennifer does. Eddie, I have no idea.

But I really like the people who work at WAAF. And I'm really learning a lot from them about non-profit work and healthcare advocacy and outreach. I can't tell you all how happy I am that I switched, because this is exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to learn about with this whole experience.

While I'm on the topic of my internship though, if anyone reading this has any sort of organization or group that would maybe like to help me organize a fundraiser for WAAF, please let me know. It has come to my attention recently that the organization's budget is extremely tight and there's not much extra money to do a lot of the outreach things that they want to do. For instance, we just had a health fair this week that was supposed to be a big thing, like with lots of booths with information about preventative healthcare and free screenings for HIV, but because they didn't have enough money in the budget for promotion of the fair, very few people came and it was kind of a flop. One of my responsibilities has been researching funding opportunities like grants, but from what I can tell, there's really not much of that out there. So if anyone wants to help out in any way, send me an email and let me know! (hcgoodno@gmail.com)

On an unrelated note, I've been feeling so loved today. It's just been such a good day. As far as interactions with people on a day to day basis go, some days can be a little irritating, like if I get called an oburoni one too many times by perfect strangers, or if I'm in crowded areas where salespeople won't stop grabbing my arms or something like that. Other days just warm my heart, like today.

It all started early in the morning on my way to WAAF, when I stopped to buy my favorite dough balls for breakfast and the woman gave me two instead of one. Then, because I ate two I was feeling kind of chunky for a while, until Jennifer told me that I needed to eat more so I can gain weight and then I felt a little bit better. Like I said, she's my favorite. And then she gave me a ride to the trotro stop after work.

Then, I got home a few hours later and got a call from a customer service representative from the airtel phone company, because I apparently didn't fill out a form correctly for the SIM card for my internet modem. And the lady only took about a minute to get the information she needed from me, but we were on the phone for a good 5-7 minutes because she just kept chatting and asking me about what I'm doing in Ghana and what I'm studying and how school's going and other random stuff. She was super nice.

And then later I went to get dinner from my favorite crazy little lady that sits on the side of the road selling food and calls her little enterprise "tantalizing." Every dish she makes she describes as "tantalizing." And she has t-shirts with her own face printed on them. She does make really good food though, I get dinner from her a few times a week now. So I went to go buy dinner and she asked me if I was the girl she talked to whose mommy was coming to visit tonight. And I just said, "no, I wish! I miss my mommy." She just said "oh no, then I will be your mommy. Then any time you miss your mommy you just come to me, okay?" So I told her I'd call her Maame Louise. And then she threw in an extra bag of salad with my dinner. Win.

It was a pretty good day. Everyone I talked to just made me happy. Except maybe Eddie. But he was in crisis mode so whatever. You can't have it all.

Festering wound update: still kind of festering (?), but I think it might be on its way to healing...I hope. I don't know anything about burns or infections or what it's supposed to look like at this point in the healing process. I know this is a stupid thing to request, but if anyone is a doctor or a nurse or knows someone who is and can look at a picture and tell me whether or not I need a leg amputation, I will pay handsomely. Not really. But I'll take a picture and send it, because I really would like to know if I should go get more antibiotics from the doctor because I ran out yesterday and now I'm nervous about getting a fever again. I would ask the nurses who sometimes change my bandages, but I don't know if I really should trust their judgement sometimes because one of them told me it was fine when it was clearly at its worst and needed medical attention. That was when I had a fever.

Tali and I decided after this whole little ordeal that at some point in the near future we need to take some sort of first aid class or an EMT course or something so that this kind of thing never happens again. If I had known anything whatsoever about first aid, I probably wouldn't have to worry. But unfortunately all I know how to do is put on a bandaid.

I think I've rambled enough for one day. Here's another music video! It's another really popular one called "Lapaz Toyota." Lapaz is a place near Accra. I'm not sure what it has to do with toyotas. But here you go.

Oooh chale...

Since my trip last weekend, I've been having some issues that have prevented me from doing anything fun pretty much all week. After getting my burn checked out and starting a really high dosage of Amoxycillin, I came down with a fever on Tuesday night. I had chills and aches and felt like crap in general, but I decided to wait and see if I felt better the next day. I did feel better on Wednesday, but I still had a fever and was concerned so I went to the hospital yet again to get checked out. I told them I had an infection but they gave me a blood test first to rule out malaria. It wasn't malaria, though I feel like it still could have been serious if I hadn't gotten it checked out. The fever really was from the burn infection so they took me off the amoxycillin and put me on two new antibiotics used to treat staph infections to take several times a day. Now, with all my medicines combined, I'm up to taking around 16 pills a day, which might not be that much for some people, but it's a lot for me to remember to take in one day. It's been a bit of a headache to deal with everything related to this burn, but I think my leg is getting much better (from what I can tell at least) and I haven't had a fever since Wednesday, so that's all that really matters!

The lucky part is, we didn't have class all last week because the professors called a strike. So at least I didn't have any notes to make up due to being sick. I think classes are on again for next week, but I haven't actually heard any news about that lately. I'm just speculating.

In other news, I got a care package from my mommy and daddy on Friday! What's bizarre about getting packages here though is that you have to go to the post office and bargain for them. Bargaining. At the post office. Where (one would think) prices should be fixed. Oh, no sir. Not in Ghana. But I failed at bargaining for it anyway. The woman would not budge, but other people on my program have had varying amounts of luck with bargaining for theirs. Some people can get it down to about 10 cedis, others have had to pay really high amounts, like 30 or 40 or more, but I guess it depends on what the person sent you. But you can bargain it down. I was just unsuccessful.

So I thought that process was odd, but bureaucracy seems to work in strange ways here. It works in strange ways anywhere, I guess, but at least at home we don't have to bargain when using the postal service. It just makes things a wee bit more stressful.

But on the bright side, I redeemed myself and bargained my way to a super cheap cab ride home from downtown Accra afterwards so I was feeling pretty good about that. Until the cab driver turned down the volume of the Nigerian preacher speaking on the radio so he could give me his own intense 20-minute lecture about Christianity on the way home, and about how all the muslims and other various non-believers are going to hell, etc. I just sat quietly. He didn't really care for my input anyway, and it wouldn't have mattered one way or the other to tell him what I thought of his rant, so I just let him talk and talk and talk. And talk. People are very religious here, just in general. And are often very, very outspoken about their beliefs. I can fill an entire blog post about that subject though. I will eventually. I have yet to attend a church service here though, so maybe after I find time to do that I will write about it. It's on my bucket list of things to do here though, because I've heard that church here is quite the experience.

I don't have much else to add this time, and this is kind of random, but since I haven't shared much pop culture in a while I'll leave you with another hit song from Ghana. Possibly soon to be a hit in the US? I have no idea, because I don't actually really like this song all that much, but I heard that Kanye just signed this guy onto his record label. This song is called "Oliver Twist." Which I have heard about as much, if not more, than Azonto. (I apologize for the slightly scandalous music video.)

In addition, if anyone reading is a facebook friend of mine, if you want a good laugh, check out the rap my mom wrote and posted on my wall. (May help to read my previous post, if you haven't already.) That is all. And thanks, Mom, haha :)

Weekend in the Volta Region

Last Friday morning my friend Tali and I left for the Volta region. I don't have class on Fridays, so we left at about 6 in the morning and left to catch a trotro to Hohoe, which is about four hours away from Accra. From what I've described about trotros so far, you'd think it'd be pretty hellish to be on one for that long, but it's actually not that bad. We got on one with a really nice amount of leg room, which is pretty ideal for me. Usually those things don't accommodate my legs, so I have to sit awkwardly sideways, but the one we took was pretty comfortable. So we got off about three hours in to the ride at a village called Tafi Atome, where they have a monkey sanctuary. When we got off we were planning on taking a taxi, but instead we met these two guys who offered to take us on their motorcycles instead for quite a bit cheaper than a taxi. It sounded like fun, and I had never ridden a motorcycle before, and there weren't any taxis around anyway, so we did it. And it was so much fun. The scenery around there was amazing too. My driver's name was Elvis. He was cool, but he failed to warn me about the exhaust pipe, and so when we got to the monkey sanctuary I got off on the wrong side and I hit my calf against the pipe and burned my leg. I wasn't worried about it because it actually didn't hurt at all after that, but it started looking worse and getting more painful in the next couple of days, so I went to the hospital on Sunday night and it turns out that not only is it a second degree burn, but it's also really infected. Yum. It's all good though. They gave me antibiotics and I'm going to go back pretty frequently to get the bandage changed.

But in any case, the monkey sanctuary was really awesome. The tour guide brought a bag of bananas and was calling the monkeys out as we were walking through the forest, and it took a while but they eventually showed up. So she had us hold the bananas in one hand really tightly, and they just come right up and jump on you and eat right out of your hand. I was so excited. Except it was kind of scary when two of them started fighting over the banana I was holding when they were on top of my shoulders. I got a scratch on my arm from one of them out of that little tiff. (I immediately thought of that one Hey Arnold episode where Helga gets scratched by a circus monkey or something and starts thinking that she got a rare monkey disease where you turn into a monkey…if anyone knows what I'm talking about…I know Stephie knows.)

And then after that we went to another nearby village where they weave authentic Kente cloth. We learned about the history of it, like how it was one of the first methods of weaving clothing in Africa and how the patterns all mean something. And they gave us a tour of the village and showed us how it's made and then both Tali and I bought a strip of fabric for ourselves. They sell Kente cloth at art markets all around Ghana, but I thought it would be cool to buy it at that village since I met and talked to the guy who made it. His name was Mowli, which I guess is a different name for Emmanuel. Here's a picture of him wearing the kente strip I bought from him:

I thought that village was really cool though. Pretty much everyone who lives there knows how to weave, because they all start learning around age 7, both men and women. And there are steps to the learning process too, like you have to learn how to make the threads into yarn before you can even start learning how to weave, etc. So that's basically how the village makes their living, by just weaving and selling the fabric to the markets in Accra and Kumasi. It was really amazing to watch them make it too, because they can do it so quickly! It was very cool.

So after that we took another hour-long shared taxi ride into Hohoe, where we caught another taxi to Wli, which was the village where the hotel was. It's so beautiful in that village. We were surrounded by mountains and no matter where you looked it was just a fantastic view. The village was really rural and remote, and we couldn't even get cell service where we were. Which wasn't bad, except for the fact that Tali and I were waiting for two of our other friends, Zoe and Rachel, to show up at the hotel that night and we realized after we got to the area without cell service that we had forgotten to tell them the name of the hotel. Whoops. But there were only two hotels in the area within a five minute walk from each other so they found it just fine.

So then on Saturday, Zoe and Rachel went off and did the hike up to the Wli waterfalls, and Tali and I stayed and hung out around the village for the day. On Sunday we did the hike and the other two went to see the monkey sanctuary on the way back to Accra.

I can honestly say without exaggerating that this hike was the most physically challenging thing I have ever done in my entire life. But it was really rewarding. So there are two parts to the hike, the lower falls and the upper falls. It takes about 45 minutes to walk to the lower falls, and it's all just a flat walk. That part was fine. Then we started the hike to the upper falls. And it was insane.

First of all, we had this character of a tour guide named Wisdom Mighty. He was super chatty and had pretty much boundless energy. He did the hike in flip flops and was just trotting along, chatting on his cell phone and making excuses to his friends about why he wasn't at church that morning. He did all this while climbing an effing mountain without even breaking a sweat. Meanwhile Tali and I are trailing about fifty feet behind him, huffing and puffing and "sweating like pregnant fish" as he playfully described it, and begging for water breaks about every ten minutes. It was a hell of a hike. And by that, I mean it was hell. Except there were pretty views the whole way up! So I guess that took my mind off of it for very short periods of time, when I wasn't concentrating on trying not to faint/vomit. And there was one point where Wisdom stopped us, took off his shoes, and disappeared for like five minutes into some tangled bushes up this steep incline and came back with some fruit called Angaa or something like that. It was extremely sweet, and tasted kind of odd. I don't know how to describe it. Maybe like some sort of weird fruity jelly candy. Or maybe like lychee fruit, but even sweeter than that.

Also, here's a picture of me ready to pass out, while Wisdom is chatting away on his phone in the background:

So by the time we got up to the falls, we had been hiking for a little over two hours. (Imagine doing one of those stair climber machines for that long on uneven steps with a walking stick. That's how I felt.) Zoe and Rachel told us that the top would be worth it, and for the entire hike up, I didn't believe them because it was so exhausting. But it really was worth it. I don't know if it was how beautiful the falls were or just the sense of accomplishment, but being up there was just wonderful. Plus we got to sit down and enjoy the mist and eat the crackers and cookies we brought along while Wisdom taught us some Pidgin phrases like "Eyy Chale day break" which means good morning. And he taught us the hand signal that means "one love".  And then we had a little sing along, to the tune of All in One by Bob Marley. (I think we were a little loopy from exhaustion by that point.) But it was fun. Until we had to hike back down. It took less time than the hike up, but it was just as difficult because it took a lot more concentration not to lose my balance. My legs felt like jelly and I almost fell several times, and I was so exhausted and almost to the point of having a two-year-old style temper tantrum because I just wanted a shower and a bed more than anything I've ever wanted in my life. But we got back to the bottom in about an hour and a half or so and headed back to Accra that afternoon. I was fine again once I had rinsed off a little bit at the hotel, had my wound re-dressed, changed into dry clothes, and was safely on a trotro waiting to head back home with a cold sachel water in one hand and ice cream in the other, being entertained by the guy trying to sell these little booklets that seemed to contain all kinds of random information ranging from chinese zodiac signs to premature ejaculation. Don't ask me what that was about, because I have no idea.

But overall I had a really great weekend. It's funny how you can sometimes look back on things like that hike afterwards, and be glad you did it and only concentrating on the really great part and the sense of accomplishment, rather than the fact that getting to the falls was so insanely difficult. Or seeing this festering, infected burn wound as a memory of a really fun day instead of regretting taking that motorcycle. I have no regrets about the weekend whatsoever. Every painful or otherwise difficult moment brought me something else to look back on with great memories. And now I'll probably have some really nasty scar on my leg that will have a bit more of a story behind it. Which, I admit, will be kind of cool because right now the only scars I have are from minor surgery and from when I fell off my scooter in fourth grade. (#firstworldproblems)

I also enjoyed this weekend because I really enjoy being in more remote, less crowded areas. And walking down quieter streets, hearing "Hello, you are welcome!" by the nice people who live there. And the hotel owners took really good care of me with my burn and everything, and everyone around was just very welcoming and friendly. And the little kids were adorable too. One little girl who looked like she was maybe two or three years old just walked up to me, and grabbed onto my pointer finger and just waddled down the street next to me and wouldn't let go for a long time.

It was a really nice place to stay. I loved it there.