...and a few pictures!

Midsummer Retreat and Project: Pumbaa, the four of us at the guesthouse in Larabanga, the endless expanse of the market at Kumasi, the refining process of palm oil extraction, the unbelievable view of two watering holes and the savannah at Mole, one of many majestic elephants, Curious George munching on some leaves. 

Windsheild wipers, elephants, starry skies, and reports

So much has happened since my last post that I could write five separate posts and not run out of things to talk about. I wish I could do that, but I don’t have that much energy and you probably don’t have the time to read them.

If I could, I would do one on our last week in Accra before we left – special mention would go to Joys and Eddie, our friends at the YMCA who took us out for a wonderful kenkey dinner.

Another would be all about our second trip to the Eastern region with our project officers from KITE. We did a second round of studies in a second rural village to look at what they would need to be able to make productive use of electricity, when they obtain access (if all goes well) within the next four years. This time, Josh and I were asked to conduct surveys on our own (with major help from our Twi translators). This was challenging, but also an incredible experience. Our translators, Philip and Aikins, were a lot of fun and helped us to learn so much. They were not much older than us, and were both cocoa farmers – I got to try some raw cocoa beans! My favourite part of the project has been learning about the farming small-scale industries in place in the communities, namely palm oil and gari processing. Especially from an engineering perspective, these activities are so intriguing. As I’ve said before, being in the more rural areas is like night and day from Accra, which offers a refreshing but also difficult change. Mention should be given to the wonderful KITE staff who put up with us in the tiny truck cab for several hours every day.

Next, I would talk in great detail of our wonderful midsummer retreat. We met Lindsey & Amy in the city of Kumasi, where we spent four days. It was great to be able to see the other two again and get fully updated on all their experiences. The best part of Kumasi was visiting the biggest open-air market in West Africa. There were aisles upon aisles of gorgeous material, then raw fish and pig’s feet and snails, then Ghanaian beads, then mountains of groundnut paste, then shoes, then vegetables, then hair products…we got ourselves lost there for an entire day and still didn’t see most of it.

We next moved north to Mole National Park. Let me say here that if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that the four of us will return as the most effective and patient travelers on the face of the earth. It seems every trip is characterized by hopping to different bus stations more than twice to find a bus, confusing bartering antics, broken-down buses which will be fixed “soon”, things falling out of tro-tros, lost wallets or electronic devices, tro-tros missing windshield wipers in thunderstorms, spilling water all over myself, and sharing single beds. This trip was no exception.

That said, it was phenomenal. I was glued to the window the entire time, watching the scenery change from the south to the north of the country. Jungle becomes savannah, palm trees become rice fields, square cement homes become round mud homes, churches become mosques.

Elements of tourism in Ghana can often be frustrating, but on the whole Mole was good to us – I saw dozens of elephants, baboons, warthogs, buffalo, antelope, and a few crocodiles. The elephants and baboons were often within 10 or 20 feet! One morning, Amy and I had to change spots three times as the elephants were eying our omelettes a little too closely.

I would most like to talk about the last night of our retreat - we moved to Larabanga, a nearby village to Mole. The guest house there is run by an incredible set of twins – the Salia brothers – who have had a huge hand in developing their remote village. As an example, they are an integral part of running the school which relies on volunteers for teachers. We were privileged to be served a delicious meal of tuo zafi (the northern, less sticky version of banku) and groundnut soup around a glowing fire in the main hut with Hussein, one of the brothers. Hussein stayed and talked with us for hours – we talked about everything from education to solar lighting to Ghanaians leaving for Western countries to ignorance, knowledge, and happiness to trade policies and democracy. He was so knowledgeable and insightful; it is a discussion I will not forget for a long time to come. Later, we went outside to a clear sky full of more stars than I have ever, ever seen. I guess that’s what you get when you don’t have electricity.

Lastly, Josh and I are back in Accra. Over the last week and weekend we have at last finished our contribution to the lengthy feasibility study report for the project in which we are involved – it was quite the process, but with the help of the staff at KITE in the end we are quite proud of our work. We hope to soon hear what our next endeavours will be.

Well, that’s our month in a page and a half. Love and hugs and all the best to everyone at home/wherever their summer adventures have taken them. We really love knowing that people are following the blog from time to time - leave us a comment when you!

L.wig

Finally a few visual highlights of our trip thus far

The road to Adoteiman. About a 45 minute walk from the trotro station to home. Absolutely beautiful view! You can see the Akuapm (not sure of spelling) Escarpment, or 'mountains' as they were called in town in the distance. At the top is where we went for our bike ride.








On our bike trip through the rain forest. So difficult to capture the beauty on camera!













This is the dump in Medina (a town close to Adoteiman). Do it make you want to eat beef?












In Adoteiman, our sister Maame taught us to prepare a few great Ghanaian meals. Here, they are cutting the onions and about to grind them in the mortar and pestal to make tomato stew. You can see to the right the pot on the charcoal fire that is boiling yams (bairre ampesi - my favourite).











This was a shot of around town in Bawjiase (the second town we stayed in).













A view of Elmina harbour taken on our weekend trip to west.










The town we most recently stayed in, called Mpeseduadze (mmm-PEH-say-doo-AH-jey).

We are sorry-oh!

On Monday, we finished in Adoteiman and decided to move to Bawjiase, a town about an hour drive from Accra. I must echo Lindsay's comments about people here being so friendly; trotros and trotro drivers are some of my favourite people in Ghana! They'll ask you where you are going and even if you aren't taking their trotro they will make sure you get to the right one, escort you to it and let that driver know your destination. All you have to do is tell everyone your name and say Medasi (thank you in Twi) and they like you. And trotros are so great to travel in, I could sit in one the whole day. I love looking out the window to see all the sites. Every time we pass a new town I think "This is Ghana", like a farming town with mangos everywhere, but then we pass a totally different place with mud huts and fire pits, and then we pass apartment buildings while beautiful stone porches. So things here are varied, everything is such a contrast.

I am in a small Internet cafe that is very slow and I have a 5 guys behind me reading everything I am typing so I will keep it short but I must tell the story of our trotro ride on Monday. While we were sitting enjoying the views on the highway, I heard a snap, and then felt wind behind me. We I turned around, the trunk, or the "boot" of the trotro had opened and my bag, my huge backpacking pack with all of my possessions was about 100 metres behind us! After a few seconds, the driver stopped and we ran back to check out the damage. Luckily, only one pocket had ripped open. The contents of the pocket, namely suncreen, bug spray and all of my feminine hygiene products were then sprawled all over the highway, and the driver and mate (the person in the trotro that collects the money) were running around collecting them all. We eventually got the bag back in the boot and this time, I made them tie the trunk shut so that it couldn't fly open again! The guys felt very badly and the people on the trotro were pretty mad at them but Linds and I thought it was pretty funny. At least it makes for a good story!

I'll have to leave now, but I love hearing from you and miss you all!
Hope things are great in Canada!

Love Amy

Cape Coast Castle, Cape Coast from above, Josh and I on the Canopy Walk at Kakum National Park...

The Legend of Assae Paa

After a second solid week in the office, Josh and I decided to take a weekend trip to Cape Coast, an oceanside city about 150 km west of Accra.  There are several touristy things to see in Cape Coast, so we decided to take advantage of another free weekend and make the trip.  Our experience, to steal the words of Josh, was a unique combination of blatant Obruni-ness and some of the old “Team Guyana” luck.  Overall a solid weekend, and there are inevitably some good stories to tell.

We decided to take a State-Transit bus there on Saturday morning (because it’s supposedly more comfortable and more reliable – more on that later).  So, high on our newly found tro-tro savvyness, we hopped on a tro-tro to Tema station at 6am.  At Tema, we discovered the STC buses don’t run from there.  We were sent to the Metro Mas station – also no STC.  One of the men there pointed us toward a tro-tro which would take us to Kaneshie where there’s another station (on completely the other side of the city).  This man would be the first of many to help the silly kids with their bags and sunglasses (no one else here wears sunglasses). 

We soon realized we had gone too far.  We had to signal the mate to stop, and try to find our way on foot.  After walking all the way up the road, a taxi driver told us where the STC station was – we had walked past it nearly 10 minutes ago.  

We traipsed back, found the station (behind a bank!), found the counter – tickets sold out!

At the help desk, the woman bent over backwards to find us unwanted tickets on the 9:30 bus to Takoradi – more expensive, but could drop us off in Cape Coast.  We got to be Naana (Josh) and Paa (me) – at least that’s what our tickets said.  Finally, 3 ½ hours into the trip, still in Accra, we boarded the bus.  All was well, until about an hour into the trip.  We stopped for what I thought was a pee break in the bush, but as time went on, I went outside to see what was going on.

The bus broke down.

Around 3:30, after an awkward scene where 3 taxi drivers were fighting over us and we were fighting them all to bring down the fare, we finally dropped our stuff in our Guest House in Cape Coast.  We made it down to Cape Coast Castle for the museum and tour.  The castle was built by the Porteguese in the 1500s, and eventually taken over by the British.  It was really powerful to stand in a pitch-dark smelly dungeon, where thousands of slaves were kept and died, during the colonial slave trade.  I am learning a lot about this part of history and the African-European relations over the last handful of centuries.  The implications this history has for our societies today is mind-boggling and has lead to a lot of new thoughts and discussions.

We decided to wander through the streets after the Castle, to get a feel for a different Ghanaian city.  It really was quite different from Accra – the first thing that struck me was that most buildings had more than one storey, following the old colonial design with balconies and shutters.  In contrast, Accra is incredibly flat and sprawling.  The town was altogether much more quiet and relaxed.  The fishermen down at the water were sewing their nets; several “drinking bars” were blaring some good old reggae.  I liked the feel very much, however it also made me feel significantly more intrusive and out of place.

We were set on trying a vegetarian restaurant (a huge rarity here) that we read about in our travel book.  We tried to direct our wandering toward the guest house because we knew we could more or less find the restaurant from there.  Finally, tired and hungry and pretty much lost, we decided to just grab a cab back to the popular guest house around the corner from ours so that we could get our bearings.  I stopped the next taxi that came by (which didn’t take long) and asked to go to Sammo’s.  The driver looked at me, slowly looked out his window, then looked back at me. 

“You mean that place?” he pointed directly across the road from where I was standing, to the big sign that said Sammo’s.  I sighed.  Oh, silly Obrunis.

For all we would have known, the guy could have let us get in, driven in a complete circle, and charged us 3 cedis for the ride.  But he didn’t.  So we figured while we were at it, we’d ask him to direct us to Assae Paa, the vegetarian restaurant.  He said he thought he knew, indicated down the road and to the right a bit.  He offered us a ride, but we thanked him and headed on.

By the time it was dark, we were still wandering down the road, at a lagoon, with no restaurants in site.  We asked some women but they hadn’t heard of the place.  Soon, another cab pulled up and stopped.  We were sick of being asked for rides all day.

“No thank you, NO THANK YOU!” I said to him.  But he got out of the car and walked towards us.  Who could it be?  The same guy from the Sammo’s cab.  Even though we were too cheap to get a ride, he had followed us out of town to make sure we got there ok.  He pointed us on our way – we were nearly there.  What a guy.

People here just so much want to help you.  While it is always appreciated, it can also get frustrating because even if someone doesn’t know a place, they’ll just point their hand in some direction anyway.  But our trip to Cape Coast was full of genuine, helpful people, and we wouldn’t have gotten out of Accra without them.

At long last, Josh and I arrived at Assae Paa.

It had closed an hour ago.

In the end, we found another great place on the other side of the lagoon.  Despite the loud music and eating in the complete dark (literally, we had to get a flashlight to read the menu), we had a view of the water and the banku and tilapia was fresh and delicious.  We ended our night by finding a stand that sold coffee!  A first for this trip, and a major treat for those of you who know mine and Josh’s coffee habits at home.

I’m completely hogging all the good stories, so I think I’ll cut this blog off and let Josh talk about day 2. 

I’m happy to be able to say all four of us have been staying relatively healthy; we’ll hope that blessing stays.  Of course, I'm not always so cheerful as when I write the blog; but overall doing well.  We're just SO lucky to be here and be experiencing all these amazing things.  We heard from Lindsey and Amy yesterday, who arrived safely at their second host family and third eCARE centre in the Central Region.  We didn’t get many details, but we understand that it is different from their first place, but good.  

I LOVE hearing from all of you.  I miss you all, and it’s nice to be able to picture what you’re up to. 

Love Lindsay 

Also, to answer a question that was asked of me: Chop bars are not like cafes.  Much more like your average hot dog stand, but instead of tube meat, they sell all sorts of amazing cooked dishes.  No regulations on street food like in Toronto!  If you're getting it to go, they put it in a plastic bag and you eat it with your hand. 

ehy!

Well Amy has done a nice job of filling you in on our week, but I’ll add in a few thoughts.
Village life is quite different from the hustle and bustle we had been getting used to in Accra. The days are quite quiet here with the major activity of the day being people coming and going from the bus stop (which is right outside of the center). We have met many interesting people in the village including the mayor, the traditional tribal Ga chief, a woman who lived in Montréal for many years and of course the family we are staying with!
Staying here with a Ghanaian family, we have been exposed to everyday Ghanaian life. While there are some obvious differences, with the largest one being the delicious Ghanaian meals that are prepared every night, the overall dynamics aren’t so different from what you would find in Canada. For example the kids had a great time poking fun at their father for a failed handy project of making a certain rod. Definitely a scene you may encounter at my house on a Sunday afternoon. We have been welcomed into the family, and are often referred to by our Ghanaian names, which are based on the day of the week which you were born. Amy’s name is Ya (female, Thursday) and mine is Aquia (female, Wednesday). However, at times around the house Amy and I don’t really know what to do with ourselves. We are always trying to offer to help cook or clean (even though we have realized we don’t do either of these things well), but as their guests they say its stranger for us to help than to relax.
Ghanaian hospitality is quite incredible. Everyone is so willing to help you with whatever you may need, or offer to bran di di (come and let’s eat!). We are often trying to refuse people’s offers not wanting to be any trouble but it is really to no avail (For example, one of Mr. Paintsil’s friends is a designer and made us beautiful african wrap skirts that we went and picked up today).
Some of my favorite times here are going to the market and riding in the tro tros. there are so many things to observe and take in. Although the constant "obrunis" yelled at us can get quite tiring, were going to practice our twi so we can have some things to say back and take people by surprise!
Work at the center has been good. The entrepreneur Mr. Paintsil is a very kind man and has lots to share about Ghana but also many questions about Canada. He is a smart man, and I have learned some interesting things from him. We have been working with him teaching him computer basics, and he is learning quite fast. His center is newly opened this week, and with all of the great plans Mr. Painsil has, Amy and I would love to try and make it back to Adoteiman for a day towards the end of the summer to see how everything is going.
One thing I’ve definitely figured out this week is that life in Ghana is not as strictly scheduled as a day would be at home, sometimes a planned meeting can be delayed for hours, and a regular 20 mintue drive needs to be scheduled for at least an hour and a half, but during those quiet times you can have some pretty interesting encounters.
Today we commuted to our next center Dodowa, but are still staying with the same family we were in adoteiman. Actually, they told us if things dotn work out with our project, we can just live with them all summer and travel around as we wish, wayyy too nice. The first day at this center went much smoother than our first day at adoteiman, I guess Amy and i are establishing a successful groove pretty fast. We are returning there tomorrow and saturday and hopefully will have our next center secured by monday.

Hope everyone and everything at home is good, please send me some emails with updates!
Love Lindsey