More travel adventures

Last weekend (which really started on Wednesday) Froukje and I went Southwest. We began at Kakum National Park, swinging like monkeys along the canopy walk. I was hoping for a bit more of an adrenaline rush from it, since many people step out or get to the first platform and must crawl back, but it was simply fun for us.

The next night we made it out to Nzulezo, a stilt village WAY off the beaten track. Nobody knows exactly why this village was built on stilts in a lagoon an hour canoe ride from shore, but it happened over 400 years ago and people still live there (nobody knows why that is, either). They have a population of about 500 and I think very little has changed for them over the last 4 centuries. The most peculiar part, however, is that their main means of survival is farming. No, I didn't say fishing- Farming. A 3-hour canoe ride takes them to their farms, where most men in the village work. I will let the picture tell the rest of the story; it is too much to describe on a blog.

We slept in their guest house and headed back towards civilization the next morning. 1 canoe ride, 3 tro-tros, and 7 hours later, we were lying on the beach in the touristy Cape Coast resort area. It is a beautiful beach, as long as you don't look too closely, as it's actually covered in trash. And the water is pleasant, as long as you don't go in past your knees, as the brutal undertow will sweep you away...

When we arrived back in Mampong Sunday night, our new outfits had arrived! This is one of two outfits I had made of the same fabric. With the hair and the clothes, all I need is a little darker tan and I will be truly Ghanian!

And now to answer a few miscillaneous questions I have gotten.

The new baby has a name, though I can't pronounce it and haven't found somebody to spell it for me. Apparently she has a father, who named her. Her mother died in childbirth.

I absolutely feel like Richmond is a fictitious place, it doesn't seem possible from this perspective. At times this is daunting, but I enjoy the idea of "home" being transient, and being forced to create a new association or definition for it.

It took about a month for my body to get used to the food, but now I absolutely love it. We have gotten more adventurous (and are learning what will be spicy and what won't), so I will try just about anything on the street. Yesterday, while we waited for 6 hours for a bus that wouldn't leave, we ate rice with chicken and stew, something that resembled peanut brittle, fried egg on delicious bread (they fry it right there on the street), roasted plantains, oranges, and a home made cake-type thing women frequently sell. It covered 3 meals and total cost each of us about 2 cedis. So no need to worry about Becca being hungry any more!

I have not yet talked about music here, which a few of you have noticed and asked about. I haven't talked about it, because I haven't found anything worth talking about. The music I hear on a daily basis is so loud it constantly bases out the speakers, and is usually bad 90's rap music from the states. I have heard the best place to hear traditional music is at funerals and festivals, neither of which I have been able to attend yet. As soon as something worth talking about comes up, I will post it immediately! I know there is a traditional drumming group at Tafi Atome, so hopefully I will hear it and, even better, learn it, when I am out there.

I am off to Burkina Faso tomorrow- I won't be able to post pictures again until we are back in Mampong November 11th (ish) but I will try to post again soon.

The Price is Right.

So here is the rundown of "what stuff costs". For the mathematicaly-inclined among you, the exact exchange rate right now is $1 USD = .932 New Ghana Cedi (pronounced seedy). I'm going to use the new currency because it is very similar to ours, but I'll do the first few with the old currency in parenthesis.

1 loaf of bread: .50 (5,000 old cedis)
1 bottle of Fanta: .35 (3,500)
(the bottles are 300mL glass and you are always asked to drink it and return the empty
bottle so they can get their money back for it)
1 liter of Petrol: .93 (9,300)
1 hour on the internet: .60 (6,000)
a plate of chicken and rice at a restaurant: 2.00 (20,000)
1 orange: .05
(they sell them everywhere with the outermost skin peeled. To eat them, you cut off the top,
squeeze the juice into your mouth, then rip it apart and eat the inside. No utensils, no mess,
so great!)
3 bananas: .10
3 apples: .50
1 pineapple: .60
1.5-liter bottle of water: .70
.5-liter satchet (bag) of water: .04
a hand-sewn outfit: 7.00
(this includes a traditional top, skirt/pants, head piece, and 'baby wrap'. I should have mine
by the time I post next...)
a 15- minute phone call to the US: 4.00
1 snickers bar: .90
1 disgusting spicy peanut butter thing: .10
a night in a hostel in a city: 6.00
overnight bus from Kumasi to Accra: 4.50
(about 5-6 hours)
a 1-hour tro-tro ride: .90

a bowl of Fufuo: .10

(a traditional dish made of pounded plantains- a dough-like substance- eaten with a soup.

There's no chewing, you just kind of slurp it down. And there's no utensils, you use only your

right hand.)

a medium cheese pizza: 5.20
(only in international restaurants in big cities)

Prices can certainly vary depending on what city or town I am in and if I am in a market or a store (there is a lot of bartering in the markets but prices are usually fixed in the stores) but that gives you a good idea of the things I buy and what they cost. I eat LOTS of fruit and bread and water. I have only had the pizza once. We always travel by tro-tro and stay in cheap hostels. I am also getting a pretty good connection-basis so frequently when we travel we are able to stay for free. All of this puts my weekly spending at a very low average.

I have some pretty big plans coming up. This weekend we are going to Cape Coast to walk on "Africa's only canopy walk", spend the night in a stilt village, and go to a reggae party on the beach. Next week, Froukje (who we all call Mo) and I are packing up from Mampong and traveling north...All the way north...into Burkina Faso for two weeks. (Note: for those who were in Maine with RRCB last year, Padgett gave me the award: "most likely to live in Ougadougou, Burkina Faso". Well, I'm going there. Good work, Padge!)

We will return in November to recieve a friend from home who will travel with us back to the volta region. The three of us are planning on living and volunteering at Tafi Atome, the monkey sanctuary, until Christmas. Then I will return to Mampong and the babies.

Hopefully I will be able to post again before we take off on this big adventure!

Storytime!

Every day is an adventure in Ghana. Here is a small sampling of the funny stories and crazy things we have done or witnessed.

-Every tro-tro ride is different and inevitably something exciting happes. My favorite so far was on an hour-long tro-tro ride in the Volta region. About 10 minutes into the trip, we rolled to a stop on the side of the road. The mate (someone who rides along colelcting money, telling the driver when to stop, and shouting out the window to try to fill the bus) got out, took the front passenger seat completely out, pulled up the floor, and stuck his head into the opening. He came up, spit something out, returned the seat, and we continued. About 7 minutes later, he did the whole thing again. It turns out there was something wrong with the fuel pipe and the mate had to periodically syphon the dirt out -with his mouth- until the fuel ran smoothly again. The poor guy0 He did not look especially excited to be sucking on a pipe filled with gasoline and dirt every few minutes.

-One of the toughest adjustments for me has been the food. Much of what they eat (including most meat and all sauces) is very spicy. When I buy a new food, therefore, I always first ask if it is spicy. So we had seen what looked like a peanut-butter fudge ball being sold on the street. We were curious, so we asked what it was made of. She responded, "groundnut (that's peanuts to us), corn, and sugar". So we bought one, without asking if it was spicy (it's made of peanut butter, how hot could it be- right Dad??). If I could make one taste-combination illegal, it would be peanut butter and spicy. I took one bite which, classically, stuck to the top of my mouth. It simultaneously made me gag and my eyes water, and I couldn't knock the taste no matter how much bread and water I washed down. The locals got a good laugh out of that one. Needless to say, there is Nothing that I buy now without asking if it is spicy first!

-On our way to the Babies Home one morning, we passed a police officer on the side of the street. He yelled "Abruni!" and told us to come see him. So we walked over and he asked all of the normal questions: our names, where we were going, how long we are in Ghana, where we are from. He said he wanted to have a white friend and told me to give him my address. THen he asked if I was married. I said 'yes' (Always recommended in Ghana, ladies). He immediately said "oh, oh nevermind" and without another word, shooed us on our way. This is just one form of the same conversation that I have at least 2 or 3 times a day. Sometimes the conversation is as short as "Abruni! Hello! What is your name? I love you. You will marry me?" It's flattering, I suppose, but it sure does get old after a while. My response is usually to tell them what number husband they will be- "well, you are the 23rd person to ask me, so after I go through my first 22 husbands, I will marry you". Yesterday Froukje and I counted 42 calls of "Abruni" in the hour we were in town. We are certainly celebrities around here.

-I mentioned in an earlier post that Ghana is primarily Christian. To add to that, Ghanians are certainly not afraid of announcing their faith.

These are just two of hundreds of shop signs we pass each day. Tro-tros, taxis, bikes, and shirts also uniquely proclaim the driver or wearer's faith. It is certainly a very interesting form of witnessing.

-Last weekend we travelled to the Volta region- a gorgeous and rarely-touristed area. We stayed in a monkey sanctuary and got to feed bananas to the sacred Mona monkeys.

Then we hiked to the Amedzofe waterfalles. The hike was only about 45 minutes, but the terrain was, well, straight down. Some eco-tourism volunteers installed a rope railing a few years ago, which I basically clung to with both hands and slipped down the hill. Then we had to clamor back up. But it was well worth it.

-And lastly, I am doing my best to fit into the African way, so when little Gloria wouldn't stop crying, I just strapped her to my back (which immediately calmed her down) and continued to work. She was so content, she took a nap until feeding time.

I haven't mastered carrying things on my head yet, but I am working on it. Soon I will be able to carry all my shopping and a baby and still have my hands free..

When in Rome...

...So we got our hair braided. Our host mom took us into town and we bought hair- about 6 dollars worth- and took it home. Two days later, 8 women came to our house and braided the fake hair into our real hair. The whole process took about 3 hours, 4 girls on each of us, and cost about $5 (the $11 total makes it about the most expensive thing I have done since being in Ghana- not too shabby). It was one of the more painful things I have willingly sat through. For 3 hours, they scraped, pulled, dug, yanked, and tugged at my scalp, then burned, cooked, and cut my hair. The rest of the day my head ached, that night sleeping was slightly more difficult, but by the next day I started getting used to it. Now I love it. I don't have to wash it, it never gets in my face, and it should look good for a month or two. What do you think Katie--should I keep it for the wedding??

Equally exciting, a new baby arrived at the orphanage this week. I met her when she was two days old (not yet named) and got to bathe her, feed her, change her, and put her down. Incredible. So here is a picture of me with this gorgeous new baby.

I am sorry for the infrequent posts- about 3 weeks ago, we stopped by the internet cafe in Mampong and they said the internet was down, but to "check back this afternoon". It still doesn't work... So we must find internet when we travel, which is not always easy (and everything is closed on Sundays). The closest spot is Kumasi, about an hour tro-tro ride away.

I think I am really starting to adjust here. The food still gets me every once in a while, and I find I crave salty things, as everything we eat is rather bland. But I am settling into the daily lifestyle, and just adore travelling around the country. It is always an adventure!

A day in the life...

Each morning I am awakened sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 by roosters, music, yelling, thunder, my host family, or all of the above. Being the great sleeper I am, however, I usually manage to stay in bed until 7:00. Here is my room:

Froukje and I eat breakfast together then head off to the babies home. It is about a 10 minute walk on this road:
On the way home in the afternoon, we stop and buy bread and fruit for lunch (which we eat with peanut butter and jam or honey). After resting (usually waiting for the rain to stop) we walk to town, about a 25 minute walk, or a 20 cent taxi ride. We head back to the Babies home for the afternoon shift between 3:30 and 4:00 and must leave again by 6:00 to make it home by dark. And when I say dark, I mean REALLY dark. Our family provides dinner for us, and we spend the rest of the evening reading, learning Twi and watching TV (if the power is on). I am usually asleep again by 9:30.

Here is my house:

It has both electricity and running water...Sometimes. The power shuts off at least once a day, usually for hours, and sometimes doesn't come back on until the next morning. Running water is even less dependable. When it works, we have a bathroom with a sink, flushing toilet, and a working bathtub. When it doesn't, we have a bathroom with a bowl, a broken toilet, and a bucket of water to bathe. Sometimes it's just easier to shower outside.

This picture (that's Froukje with me, by the way) was taken after we had walked home and got caught in the rain, so we grabbed the soap and showered outside. I think it was the cleanest I've been in a month...

It rains a lot- usually twice a day. When it rains, it pours, and everything floods. This is the street to our house in a daily rainstorm.
Needless to say, my shoes have taken on a pretty serious mud-red tint.

One of the best things about traveling by bus in this country is that you can do all of your daily shopping out of the bus window.
It is possible to buy anything from fruit, bread, corn, and water to toilet paper, toothpaste, belts, and soap. And everything in between. It is incredible to watch these women (almost always women) carry buckets of drinks on their heads and a baby on their backs, making transactions through a window above their heads as the bus pulls away.

Some people have asked about religion in Ghana. It is primarily Christian, with a strong Muslim influence in the north. Mampong is almost entirely Christian, mostly Baptist, Presbyterian, and Charismatic (which is what my family is). I attended part of a Baptist service in Kumasi the first weekend I was here, which was conducted in Twi (so I understood none of it). I have not yet gone to church with my family because we have been traveling every weekend, but I definitely want to do that soon.

Thanks for all the comments!

The Babies Home

While I have internet access, I want to do my best to explain the Babies home and try to post some pictures.

There are 39 children living in the home right now, ranging from 2 months to 4 years old. Unlike a typical orphanage, most of these kids are "half orphans": they have some family to return to when they are 4, but their mother either died, went to jail, went crazy, or doesn't have enough money to care for the child. So the Babies home takes them in and raises them until they are developed and socialized enough to "help instead of hurt the family", as they say.

The kids are loosely divided into three groups: infants (completely dependant), toddlers (walking but not potty trained), and the big kids (everyone else). I work mostly with the infants and toddlers during the day, while the big kids are at "school" (which simply seems to be another empty building in which they play). The schedule for the smaller children is a bit monotonous. When we arrive between 7:30 and 8:00 we change them out of their pajamas and "diapers" and move them from their cribs to a mat covered with a sheet on the floor.

Note: I use the word "diaper" here in the loosest sense possible. It is actually a piece of cloth (by no means soft or specifically designed for this purpose) folded inside a piece of plastic we tie around their waists. Needless to say, this method is almost completely ineffective (bringing a whole new meaning to the word "nappy" for me!). Once the infants are on the mat, we use only a cloth as a diaper (even less effective) and the toddlers run free, using the floor as often as necessary. Luckily the "guy with the mop" comes around about this time....

Then we wait. In the traditional Ghanian way, breakast at 8 frequently means breakfast at 9:30 or even 10. When the food finally arrives, we feed to infants one by one by bottle and the toddlers drink the same stuff out of cups. This, I think, is very impressive. These children can harldy walk and regularly pee on the floor, but they can drink out of an open cup with very little trouble.

We then bathe them one by one in the sink, dress them again in diapers and pajamas, and put them back in bed. Sometimes this takes until 12, so we finish and go for lunch, but usually we are done by 10:30 or 11:00 and are faced with the choice to sit around (as there seems to be nothing to do, even if we ask) or leave and sit at home instead. The afternoon runs similarly to the morning, with a bit more time in the cribs and no baths.

This schedule implies 2 things: 1. the infants and toddlers only eat twice a day and 2. they never go outside. Their entire world consists of 2 rooms, a hallway, and a bathroom for the toddlers (potty training involves making them sit on small pots on the floor of the bathroom twice a day until they 'do something' then returning them to diapers and their cribs). Whenever possible, I carry the children outside and we are working on being able to put the mat outside in the morning instead of on the floor of the same room.

The women who work at the Babies Home are very harsh with the children, which is frequently very difficult to watch and even harder for me to bite my tongue, but it is simply a cultural difference. There are no toys or books out for the children, either in the home or at the school. They entertain themselves with each other, sticks, and anything they pick up off the floor. The sad thing is that I have seen 2 locked storage rooms full of donated toys. Likewise, their clothes are ripped and dirty, and I have seen boxes of new clothes that aren't being used. There is not much I can do about that, so our solution so far is to take toys with us (bubbles, chalk, stickers), use them, and carry them home again. We are also trying to reorganize their clothes storage system, so hopefully we will be able to incorporate some new clothes into that.

One project I do want to undertake is installing a bookshelf of books in the school and hopefully setting up a story time with the big kids each day. I will let some people know when I am ready for donations of that variety. It is certainly not my place to change the way the Babies Home is run, but I am doing my best to help the children and leave a positive mark.

There is so much more to tell, but that will have to do for now. It takes about 10 minutes to post pictures, but I will post as many as my time allows. First is the market picture I was unable to post lost time, then a few from the Babies Home.

Here are the babies on the mat in the morning.

An adventurous weekend

I am sorry it has been so long since I have been able to post. The internet in Mampong is broken, so we had to wait to travel to the bigger town of Kumasi to find a cafe that works. Thank you all for your comments and emails ( and enormous packages of food...) they mean a whole lot to me down here.

This weekend, Froukje (the Dutch girl I live and work with) and I travelled to the Mole National Park. We left Thursday night intending to take a 6-hour busride to Tamale scheduled to arrive around midnight. The bus left 3 hours late then broke down 2 hours into the trip. We were confidently told that someone had called Kumasi and another bus would be there to pick us up and finish the journey shortly. 8 hours later, we were still sitting on a broken down bus. When the sun came up Friday morning, Froukje and I left the broken bus and grabbed a tro-tro to a nearby town, found a bus going in the right direction, and got to Tamale just in time to catch the bus to Mole (we were supposed to have almost a full day in Tamale first). On the way to Mole (a 4-6 hour drive) our headlights stopped working, so we stopped for about an hour to try to fix them, couldn't, so drove on without lights. On a very dark night, on a very winding and extremely poorly kept dirt road. What an adventure. 32 hours after leaving Mampong (17 waiting and 15 moving) we finally got to the park!

Mole is the most touristed spot in Ghana, and there were not many people there. The tourist industry is very new in Ghana, and they definitly have a long way to go, but there is alot of potential! We took a safari walk and saw lots of babboons, warthogs, guinea fowl, bushbucks, and even a few elephants. Other than that, however, there is not much to do at the only place to stay in the park.

Travelling home was a bit easier- we were lucky enough to meet a group of Americans studying in Accra that had chartered a bus to Mole, so we caught a free ride with them back to Kumasi! It was a good thing too, because after having to pay to get there twice, Froukje and I were VERY clost to running out of cash! It was a great weekend though. I am not home yet, so I don't have pictures to post of this, but I'm afraid the animal pictures won't compare much with the ones we took in Tanzania last summer.

Our adventure this weekend seems to be common travelling practice around here. I have learned that if you really need to be somewhere on a certain day, allow 2 to get there!

Many people have asked about the weather here. So far, it is extremey similar to August in Virignia. It gets very hot during the day, but always rains and the rain usually cools it off for a very pleasant evening and morning. We are in the rainy season right now, in a few months it will get hotter (yikes!) and very dry. The daily thunderstorms are incredible. The thunder rolls for minutes because there is nothing to block the sound! It's beautiful.