Happy New Year everyone!
The end of 2013 and beginning of 2014 for me has been full
of adventure and stories to share, so I’ll get right to it.
As I mentioned in my last blog post, Brent came over the
Christmas holiday to visit me. It was his first time ever leaving the States
and what an induction into the realm of international travel he had.
His flight on Ethiopian Airways was scheduled to leave from
Dulles on Friday, December 20th around 10:15 in the morning, arrive
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he would have a 45 minute layover and hop on a
flight to Accra, which would land the following morning around 11:20 Ghana
time. Before I continue on with the story, I must make it known that when Brent
was booking his flight over Christmas break, he was a bit nervous about having
only 45 minutes in Ethiopia to make his flight to Ghana; I assured him it
should be fine- that it was probably a small airport and that he was likely to
arrive before the scheduled time anyway so his layover would likely be longer.
Probably should have looked into other tickets…
Brent gets to Dulles with plenty of time before his flight
is supposed to leave so he can check in and everything. After going through
security, he is told that his flight has been delayed by two hours, meaning
that he would miss his connecting flight in Addis to Accra. The attendant at
the check-in counter said that he would get to Ethiopia and the airline would probably book him a hotel for the night
and put him on a flight to Accra the following day. I just want to note again
the probably part of that sentence
because I feel like that’s something the airline check-in attendant should definitely know, but I digress. The good
news is that Brent was able to tell my dad that his flight was going to be
delayed and my dad sent me a text saying he wouldn’t be in the following day, so
at least I knew not to go to the airport. That’s a luxury Brent later told me
that a lot of other people on his flight to Ethiopia didn’t know. Apparently
the airline told people that the airport in Addis would hold their flights for
them since the flight from Dulles was delayed.
So Brent boards the plane, not knowing exactly when he will
get to Ghana, and arrives in Ethiopia. That’s where the real fun began. Five
hours after his flight landed in Addis, Brent facebook messaged me saying that
he finally arrived to his hotel, where he would be staying for the night. When
he arrived at the airport in Addis, he and everyone on his flight were
corralled into a room in the airport, where two uniformed airport workers, who
spoke scant English, collected everyone’s passports then proceeded to leave the
room. After an hour, the workers came back, randomly started handed passports
back to select people, then left the room again. This process continued for the
next four hours. Finally, Brent got his passport back with a ticket to Accra
for the next day. Two days after leaving the US on what should have been a
20-ish hour journey, Brent was in Ghana.
From the airport, we checked into our hotel, the Rising
Phoenix, in Accra and relaxed until dinnertime. We decided to venture to Asylum
Down, a nearby neighborhood known for its plethora of chop bars (small
restaurants). I’ll just put it this way: we got close to Asylum Down, but never
really made it there. In any case, we found a great little food place, called
the Honest Chef, which a friend had recommended to me, and ate there. After
dinner, we made our way to the station to catch a tro-tro back to the hotel. I
had never been to this particular station before, so after asking multiple
people, a quaint man named Kofi led us to what we thought was a tro-tro to Tema
Station, where we needed go in order to get back to our hotel. I’ll just let
the cat out of the bag now: it was not the right tro-tro. The price of the tro
was higher and the size larger than any I’ve taken before to travel around
Accra, which should have been a red flag to me, but I just went with it. As we
left the station and began our trek into the chaos of the highways of Accra,
each mile seemed to take us further and further away from the city and closer into
the ‘hinterland.’ About twenty minutes into the ride, Brent turned to me and
asked if any of this looked familiar, which it did not, so I asked the guy in
front of us if the tro was going to Tema Station, to which he replied yes.
Then, we passed a sign saying, “Welcome to Tema” and it all made sense: we had
indeed gotten on a tro-tro going to Tema station, in the town of Tema, roughly
45 minutes East of Accra. I laughed to myself as I realized that we were going
an hour in the opposite direction of our destination. I then asked the guy in
front of us again, “Are we going to Tema Station?” Him: “Yes, Tema Station.”
Me: “The Tema Station near Jamestown.” Him: “Nooo!! You are on the wrong bus.”
Apparently, I should have said Accra Tema
Station, not just Tema Station. Who knew? Lesson learned.
When we arrived at Tema Station, the man who I had kept
asking if we were on right bus, whose name we learned was Bright, kindly led me
and Brent to the correct bus to Accra Tema
Station. Brent and I eventually made it back to the hotel thanks to Bright’s
help. Though unplanned and slightly inconvenient, the trip to Tema definitely
made for a great laugh, a good story, and I think an appropriate introduction
to Ghana for Brent because it highlighted the #1 travel rule: the importance of
being flexible and patient in situations when plans don’t go accordingly.
The following morning, we checked out of the Rising Phoenix
and made our way to Kineshie Station, without any accidental trips to a
different part of town I’d like to add, to catch a bus to Elmina, a town along
the coast. The bus was full, so it was a bit of a tight squeeze, but it was air
conditioned at least. As soon as we left the station to begin the roughly 4
hour trek, a man stood up in the front of the bus, which was roughly the size
of a Chevy Astro van with a higher ceiling, so really less a bus than a tro-tro
on steroids, and began preaching, very loudly, in Twi. That made for an
interesting first two hours of the trip. When we arrived in Elmina, we took a
taxi to an eco-lodge called Stumble Inn to meet up with my friend Brianan, who
works for Community Water Solutions, and her friends Courtney and Sylvie who
work for different NGOs in Tamale. We also met a guy named Peter from Denmark
who has been traveling through Africa. We had a relaxing afternoon on the beach
and had a great evening swapping stories and getting to know one another over
dinner and drinks.
The next day, on Christmas Eve, Brent and I left Stumble Inn
to head to Cape Coast to drop our stuff off at Sammo Guesthouse, where we would
stay for Christmas, then went to Elmina Castle. Build in 1482 by the
Portuguese, Elmina Castle was the first trading post established in the Gulf of
Guinea and is the oldest existing European building below the Sahara. Following
its inception as a center of trade, the Castle eventually became one of the
most infamous centers of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Though I had been to
the castle last year when I was studying in Ghana, the reality of its history is
still surreal and emotionally jarring to me. Part of the tour took our group to
a courtyard that was overlooked by a balcony off of the governor’s room. The
tour guide explained how whenever he was feeling ‘lonely,’ the governor would
have his workers corral women who were enslaved at the castle into this
courtyard; from his balcony, the governor would then proceed to select a woman
who he wanted to sleep with. If the woman refused, she was chained to a
cannonball, which anchored her in place, and deprived of food and water as
punishment. There were two guys in our tour group who mocked this, acting as
though they were selecting women from the balcony and laughing about it, which
I found to be disrespectful and immature and frankly pissed me off. I was, and
thinking recounting it through this post, still am dumbfounded at how one could
be so insensitive as to mock a tragedy as the slave trade. There are just some
people that I will never understand.
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| View of the courtyard and the governor's balcony |
After the tour of Elmina, we went back to Cape Coast,
roughly a twenty-minute drive, to get a tro-tro to Kakum National Park, where
we would be spending the night in the rainforest. This was definitely an
experience. When we got there, Abraham, with whom I had made the arrangements,
met us at the gate. He requested that we first pay because the park was about
to close. The price he requested was more than what he had quoted to me on the
phone when I had called previously, but the prices were posted at the entrance
of the park, so I paid and we entered the park. Abraham then left to change and
returned an hour later with his son. I’ll admit I was having a problem trusting
this guy completely, but after getting over the miscommunications regarding the
price and once he came back from collecting his things that he would need, he
turned out to be really friendly and enjoyable company. He took us first to the
canopy walk, which is a rope bridge with wooden planks for the floor that
overlooks the rainforest below.
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| Brent and I on the canopy walk |
Once we finished the
walk, he led us further into the forest to the tree house where we would be
spending the night. Part of the package deal of staying the night in the tree
house was a guided hour-long night walking tour. Around 9:00PM, we set off for
the tour and Abraham and his son took us to see a 350-year-old Baobab tree. It
was absolutely huge and it was quite amazing to see something living that was
that old. Abraham’s son also pointed out a scorpion spider on the tree, which
was like nothing I had ever seen before. The spider was roughly the size of a
golf ball and in addition to eight legs, it had two arms like scorpion
pinchers, as well as long antennas. Not something you want to mess with. The
walk was a bit difficult because Brent and I were sharing a single headlamp. I
still have no clue why I didn’t even think to buy a second flashlight to bring
on the trip. But in a way, I am glad I didn’t because I know there were insects
and other creatures on the ground below my feet that I was glad I couldn’t see-
that is, until Brent and I were attacked by carpenter ants on our way back to
the tree house. We were walking, then all the sudden we felt a stinging
sensation on our legs and feet. In the light of the headlamp, I saw that it was
ants with huge pinchers that dug into the skin, which sucked particularly bad
because no amount of swatting detached them from our bodies. We tried to stop
to get them off of our skin, but our tour guide told us to keep moving or more
would get on us. [Once we returned to the tree house, Brent, who at that point
was in charge of wearing the headlamp, told me that when we stopped and he
looked down with the light, the whole floor of the trail was black because it
was covered with ants. I was so glad he had waited to tell me that until after
the fact.] The next twenty minutes of the walk home was pretty miserable and
filled with a bunch of swatting my legs and feet, accompanied by cursing. I was
absolutely elated when we finally got to the tree house and went immediately
inside after removing all of the ants from my legs and feet.
The following morning we woke up at 6:00 AM to leave and head
back to the main entrance of the park. The original plan was to go to the
monkey sanctuary that was 2 miles from Kakum on our way back to Cape Coast, but
Brent and I were just so ready to get to the beach and civilization (which may
sound a bit dramatic, but whatever)- the night before we hadn’t slept well
because it was very cold, which we hadn’t anticipated (it is Ghana after all),
and we hadn’t brought anything to cover up with besides a towel- that we both
decided it was just best to head straight back to the hotel.
We spent Christmas midmorning/early afternoon on the beach.
There was a boy around the age of 12 or 13 years who decided to sit near where we
were laying, so I talked with him for a bit. He ended up asking me to buy him a
bicycle, which I told him I couldn’t do. It reminded me of the point in Wedding
Crashers where the young boy goes up to Vince Vaughn’s character at the wedding
and screams at him to make him a bicycle when he is making balloon animals for
the children there. I never thought I’d be able to draw such an appropriate
comparison with an experience here and a movie like Wedding Crashers. If I’ve
said it once, I’ve said it a million times: there really is never a dull moment
in Ghana. We ended up moving further
down the beach near some other obrunis because the boy wouldn’t leave when we
wanted to go swimming and, unfortunately, I didn’t feel as though I could leave
my things without worrying that he would take them since he had also asked me
for my watch and money prior to his request for a bicycle.
After the beach, we went to tour Cape Coast Castle. As with
Elmina, Cape Coast Castle was originally a trading post for timber and gold
later used as a focal point of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. It was
constructed in 1653 by the Swedes and transferred hands a number of times,
first being overtaken by the Danes and then conquered by the British. Following
its use in the slave trade, it became the seat of the British colonial
Government in 1844. Just like Elmina, visiting Cape Coast Castle is always an
uncanny, solemn experience. We then went out to dinner before going to Elmina
to meet Rebecca and Florida, my youngest host sisters from Accra who were
visiting their father in Elmina.
I have to admit, it was such an odd feeling to be on a beach
in a foreign country away from my family during the holidays. It didn’t really
feel like Christmas to me because for one, I was on a beach in 90°F+ weather, which is
just so different from the cold weather during this time of year at home, which
I’ve come to associate the holidays with. I also missed being with my family because
to me, holidays are meant for spending time with the people that mean the most
to you in life. I was thankful though that Brent was there at least and also
that telecommunications are so developed in Ghana because it was great to get
to call home and talk to everyone. Being away definitely has made me appreciate
the people and the relationships I have with everyone at home.
The day after Christmas, Brent and I leisurely made our way
to Kumasi after a great breakfast near the beach. On the bus, there was a young
boy, probably around the age of 2 or 3, that got diarrhea, which was so sad to
watch because once the bus starts, it doesn’t stop unless it is doing so to let
people off. The mother held her son steady as he squatted into a plastic bag. I
felt for not only her son, but her as well because she didn’t have anything to
really thoroughly clean herself or her son with once he was finished. I gave
her the toilet paper I had and she had some drinking water to rinse her hands,
but no soap. Anyway, we made it to Kumasi and just had a relaxing night.
The following day, I showed Brent around the KNUST campus
and then took him to meet my host family in Kumasi, which was really great. We
then made our way to the STC bus station to head to Tamale. Originally we were
going to go to Techiman, a town about two hours from Kumasi and on the way to
Tamale, to see the caves there, but decided against it because since we didn’t
leave early that morning, we wouldn’t have much time to figure out the
logistics of making it to the caves before the sun went down. It just seemed
pointless to go if we weren’t going to be able to see the caves or any other
attractions highlighted in the guidebook.
Our bus to Tamale was scheduled to leave at 2:00 PM, but in
true Ghana fashion, didn’t leave the station until 3:40 PM. That in itself was
a bit confusing because they first had everyone going to Tamale board a bus to
go to the other STC station in Kumasi because that’s where the bus for
Bolgatanga, which would drop us in Tamale, was boarding. Trying to decide which
bus to get on was also slightly unclear, but we figured it out and by 4:00 PM
we were on our way to Tamale.
For those of you reading this who haven’t been on a bus in
Ghana, if you are traveling at least 5 hours by bus, then you are guaranteed to
have some sort of cinema experience on board. Typically, there are either
Ghanaian or Nigerian soap operas blaring, but for Brent and I’s trip to Tamale,
our bus played a Nigerian film called Comfort My Soul, which was a trilogy. To
explain the premise of the movie would be too long and a bit confusing, but I
will say it was the best and most entertaining film I have seen on any of my
bus rides in Ghana. What made the experience though is how involved in the plot
and lives of the characters everyone aboard the bus got. There were consistent
comments from the woman sitting behind us. Allow me to illustrate: at one point
in the film, one of the characters was having an asthma attack, but there was no
one around to help her out. The woman behind me says in Twi, “Where is her
medicine?! She needs her medicine!” Then, at a different point in the film, the
past of one of the characters turned her fiancé and her future family in law
against her. The guy across the isle looks at me and says, “I don’t know why
she won’t just tell them the truth about what happened. If she did, then they
would for sure understand and none of this would even be a problem. Ahh!
(Ghanaian expression for something that one cannot understand or doesn’t agree
with)” I usually sleep through movies on the bus because typically I’m not very
interested in the storyline, but admittedly, audience commentary aside, I was
drawn into the drama of this movie and was pretty upset there wasn’t a Comfort
My Soul 4.
Brent and I spent the next two full days in Tamale, which
was one of my personal favorite parts of our travels because Tamale was my
first introduction to Ghana and everyone I know here- Brianan and all the guys
at CWS- are amazing people that I really enjoy spending time with. Our first
day in Tamale, Brent and I slept in which was nice because we had been
traveling so much, which as awesome as it is, can be pretty exhausting. I then
went to buy laundry soap to teach Brent how to hand wash clothes. Finding soap
proved more difficult than anticipated. After being told by the receptionist at
the hotel that there was a stand across the street that sells washing soap, I
crossed the street only to find a food seller where the receptionist had
described the store being. I asked the girl there where I could buy soap. In
Tamale, the local language is Dogbani and I am nowhere near as proficient in
Dogbani as I am in Twi, so the fact that I was looking for laundry soap was not
coming through. I tried saying I am looking for Omo, which is a popular brand
of detergent here. The girl replies, “Oh Omo! You are looking for Omo?” I told
her yes, I was. She then says, “Oh, she is not here. She has traveled.” I must
have had a puzzled look on my face because she followed up with, “You are
looking for Omo, right? The fat girl. She went to school.” I then understood
the confusion and laughing, told her, “No not Omo the girl- Omo the soap,” and
began rubbing my shirt in a hand washing motion so that she could understand
better. She then said, “OH! OMO! You want Omo the soap!” We both began laughing
at our cultural miscommunication as she pointed me in the correct direction to
buy Omo. Brent and I then hand washed our laundry and went to the cultural
center when we were finished.
Luckily, at the cultural center we met up with Amin, one of
the translators that works for CWS. Amin introduced us to his friend Ratty and
we all shared a calabash of Pito, a local beer made of fermented millet.
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| (from left to right) Amin, Brent, me and Ratty sharing some laughs over Pito |
Following our excursion to the cultural center, we went to the
market to buy some candy to take to Sakpalua the next day. At the stall where
we were buying candy, a woman came up and greeted me as I was paying. She said
to me, “Wait here! I am going to bring my son so he can touch you. He likes to
touch Salamingas (the Dogbani word for white person).” She returned quickly
with her son and told him to go up and touch me. I tickled his belly when he
went to touch my hand, which made him laugh. Then, when I told him to go and
touch Brent, the other Salaminga, he suddenly became shy and wouldn’t do it.
Again, there is never a dull moment in Ghana.
That night we met up with Bri for drinks at Giddy Pass, a rooftop
bar in town, then went to Swad, an Indian restaurant for dinner.
The following morning was our last day in Tamale. We left
early with Amin and Smila (our taxi driver) to visit Sakpalua, the community I
worked in to build a water treatment center when I was a fellow with CWS in
2012. This was my second time back since opening the center and I was happy to
see Lydia and Damu, the two women who run the water business, again. I was also
really thrilled for Brent to get to meet everyone and to see the treatment
center because the work I did with CWS and the people I met through my
fellowship are what sparked my passion for water-related development. For
Brent, I think it was a pretty big shock to be in an area where there are various
problems with the most basic of one’s needs being met. But, there is always
more that meets the eye in these situations and I think he learned a lot about
another way of life, as I continue to do each and every day I am in Ghana. Afterwards,
we met Bri for Brunch then just relaxed until dinner.
We flew back to Accra the next morning. Our flight was
delayed (to be expected), but even with the hour delay we experienced, it still
took less time for us to make it to Accra than it would have had we had to take
a bus, which typically takes a minimum of 12 hours because of the state of the
roads here and new security measures along the route. It was so amazing to be
able to make it to Accra within an hour after boarding. That afternoon, I took
Brent to meet my host mother, Magdalene, and the rest of the family that he had
not yet met when we stopped by before going to Elmina. Everyone loved him and
it was definitely an ego boost for Brent: Magdalene, my host sisters, and my
aunt all commented on how handsome he was and how well I’d done and both my
aunt and host sister were claiming them as their husband. It was a great time.
The next day was New Year’s Eve and also the day Brent was
scheduled to leave Ghana. Based on the experience he had getting here, we made
sure to check the status of his flight back to the US the night before and everything
was said to be scheduled on time. After Brent went through check-in and went to
the departure zone to wait for his fight, I went next door to the domestic
departures gate to wait for my flight to Tamale to spend the first week of the
New Year with Bri, Sam and the winter fellowship group. The night, while we
were all out having a great time ringing in the New Year, complete with
cultural dancing at Sparkles, I got a message from Brent saying that he was
spending yet another night in Ethiopia. Apparently, right before his plane went
to take off from Accra, there were two guys who were speaking with each other
and using their cell phones, which they refused to turn off when the plane door
was shut. So the plane had to go back to the gate. The airline removed the two
guys who were being uncooperative and acting suspicious from the flight and
every other passenger had to go back through security and re-board the plane.
All the checked luggage also had to go through security again. So the plane,
which was scheduled to leave at 12:10 PM, ended up leaving around 4:00PM; even
though Brent had a two hour layover in Ethiopia this time, it was useless
because the plane was so delayed that he missed his connecting flight.
Therefore, he was at the hotel in Ethiopia until 10:00PM the following day when
he was booked to take the next flight back to Dulles. Although inconvenient, at
least everyone on the plane was safe and Brent can say he rang in 2014 in a
different country.
My week in Tamale was amazing. It was filled with
relaxation, great food, a lot of laughs, and most importantly, great people. I
always love hanging with the CWS crew and I really enjoyed getting to meet the
new group of fellows. Sam and Michelle, who is also a past fellow helping to
lead the current group, let me go to daily debriefs, where all the fellows, Sam
and Michelle gather together to talk about the progress they are making in the
implementation process and their impressions of their experiences. Listening to
everyone’s highs and lows of the days and hearing their perception of Ghana was
so interesting to me because I have never been able to experience the
fellowship program from the perspective of someone who isn’t going through it.
It caused me to reflect back on my own experience, which was a bit nostalgic,
and there were so many great ideas and questions raised by the fellows that I
found the daily debriefs to be very entertaining, enriching, and stimulating.
As they say, all good things must come to an end: today
marked the official closing of my holiday vacation. I returned to Kumasi this
afternoon (after riding a bus with a driver that would randomly slam on the
breaks and with an air conditioning unit that would screech whenever it was
turned on). Tomorrow I will officially begin the process of trying to get the
fieldwork portion of my project underway. I have a feeling it will be slow
going, as many offices don’t open from the holiday vacation until tomorrow or
Tuesday, but I am confident that before the end of January I will be able to
establish somewhat of a more consistent daily routine and at least visit some
communities of interest.
To the New Year and a new start.
Chelsea
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