Tradeoffs

We returned from the weekend in the village and I promptly went to bed. Not much happened during that week that is worth noting. I went to class, slept, ate Ghanaian food, and would come home to hang out in my hall or at the girls' dorm talking or watching a movie before bed. On one night, though, a few of the girls came over and we played a game of monopoly starting with the intention of taking a break to go to our open air night market to get food in the middle of the game. Jessica and I played on a team and promptly lost, (convincing ourselves that winning monopoly means you must be a ruthless and evil human being, so in the end we were the real winners), but in the middle of the game it started to rain outside. It quickly transitioned from light pitter-patter to a thousand-jackhammers-striking-the-ground-at-once sounding rain. Then on came the lightning. It struck twice in a row with such a dazzling flash, and the third strike was perfectly timed to coincide with a power outage- our first one of the semester. We lit candles and continued playing. Instead of actual dinner, we survived on pastries and ice cream sold at a small stand right by the door of our building instead of going out. It was such a seamless transition. And the flip side of the rain: we got running water all week (well, for about an hour each morning, but that's enough to fill up the toilet tank, the real drain on our water supply. Ooo, that might have been an overshare). I never thought that I would be weighing the pros and cons of water and electricity, two of the most stable utilities in the US (think about how pissed we get when the electricity blacks out for an hour or two, and I don't think I've ever in my life turned the tap and had no water come out until now). It was nice to realize a lower level of dependence, to continue playing monopoly and eating ice cream until bed time.

Also, to go back to the weather metaphor, the haze that has been so far omnipresent has began to fade away. We can start actually seeing the sun rise and set and there are discernible large puffy clouds and occasional bright blue skies. This is matching my transition from feeling completely boxed into a confusing new place to an up and down state of mind thinking in a single day how great it is to be in a new place experiencing black outs and water shortages and later cursing the world for the lack of the advanced infrastructure I'm used to in the US. Mood swings are just part of the process, but it's good to have glimmers of loving the place that you are.

A few more pictures

I stole these pictures from Elaine of our first lunch with Mary.

Elaine helping stir the banku (fermented corn and cassava dough served with stew)




The finished banku (we had to eat all of it, and it was very good but quite filling)





Mary, showing us old photographs of her family

Adidopke (continued)

I am sorry to have cut off the rest of the story in the middle, but my internet time ran out. I'll pick up where I left off and I'm going to try to be fully caught up to the present moment with the blog by tomorrow so get ready for a whirlwind of blog posts (hopefully).

Elaine and I woke up and saw in the day light what the village looked like. This was Madame's house, made of cement and painted a cheerful yellow color. It was definitely the nicest house around, as they ranged down to mud and thatch huts, which also looked quite comfortable. Still, when the rainy season comes, it must be nice to know that you have a tin roof over your head and your house isn't going to melt around you.

We spent Friday touring around the village, and Senam showed us around one half of it. He knew everybody! It was crazy. He hasn't been here in years and everybody who we saw happily acknowledged us and talked to him. Elaine and I don't speak Ewe (the local language) so the typical routine went something like this: we would come up on a new place, the people would greet us in Ewe (Senam taught us how to say "How are you?" ("Ef oah"), "I'm fine" ("Ehhh" just like Fonzi would say it :-) ), and "thank you" ("Yo" with an extended "o") the only three phrases you really need in any community in Ghana), they would offer us a place to sit and they would talk to Senam in Ewe for some time while Elaine and I sat in silence or compared observations of the chickens and children running around or thinking about what it would be like to grow up in such a small community where the children in gangs are really mostly taking care of themselves.
At one point we stopped by the house that Senam used to live in, and I took out my camera. I was spotted by a small group of kids and one of them, clearly under peer pressure, bravely stepped forward and asked if I would take a picture of him. I agreed, and he sat down. Right after, swarms of kids came from out of the woodwork and crowded into the shot. It was really cute, and, if you can't tell, Elaine joined them for a group shot.
We moved then down to the riverside, the source of life for the people here. When the government built the dam at Akosombo, they had to flood the upstream and downstream areas, which left Adidopke under water for some years. The villagers all moved up the hills abandoning everything because of the promise that they would have clean piped water and electricity (promises which have yet to be kept after over forty years). They have managed to survive because of the water that flows down the Volta and the seafood that lives in it. We went for a swim and a short canoe ride upstream, and sat by the bank before we returned home for lunch- rice with pepper sauce and little crawdads (we ate the shells and everything). Various cats and chickens squabbled at my feet looking for scraps.




We took a short walk through the other side of our village. One of the consequences of the river flood was the deposition of brilliantly white seashells in the ground everywhere. They are reminiscent of the shell mounds in California. Some townspeople were working to sift the sand and literally mine the shells, which are crushed and used to produce paint and white wash in bigger towns. We asked what the working conditions were like and got no answer, then asked a supervising man what the working hours were. He told us 7am-4pm, and when Elaine pointed out that it was almost 5 he muttered something about overtime. We lounged around and met more people of the village before we returned home and found out they had put a gas-powered generator on to make us more comfortable. The noise was so loud you couldn't hear anything, but groups of kids came from all over the place to see what could merit such an occasion. I was reading and Elaine was writing in her journal as the kids stared at us, but one brave one followed by others climbed up and started talking to us. I gave him and his friend my book to practice reading English. I then promptly remembered that the book was "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" written in southern slang, and I tried to get it back before I ruined the literacy rate of the village, but they were attached to it, looking at the cover and the maps of the US inside. Elaine started drawing in her journal and ripped out paper for the kids to do the same. Eventually the gas ran out and we went back to sleep.

***

The next day we walked to the next village (very similar) and caught a boat back across the river (Elaine occasionally bailed out the boat). We took a taxi to the town of Bator, the largest town around. Senam kept saying "Theo, this is Bator. Have you seen it? Yeah." He has a lot of little expressions that make us all smile. On the way we passed this tro-tro. They always have something written on the back, but I particularly liked this one: "Pray until something happens".

When we got to Bator, we met an old friend of Senam's named Fortune (some Ghanaians pick their own Western names so while many call themselves biblical names like Isaac or Mary, some have more creative names like Precious). She was very sweet, gave us water (a good sign in a host) and walked with us until we got to the bank where she works. We then continued on until we got to the river side and saw people just carrying sand in baskets on their heads. It was here we met Simple, another of Senam's friends who owns about half of the land in Bator.
He brought us a bunch of bananas and we ate them outside next to this rack of pig jaws that he has saved from the pigs he has hunted and eaten.
We sat by the river for a little while talking before Simply decided he would just take off from work.



We walked to a bar in town and were treated to quite a lot of drinks and snacks. It is considered rude to turn down food or drink in Ghana, but right when we finished something another drink would come out, so we ended up nursing drinks until it was time to go. Simple had hired a private photographer to come and take a picture of all of us together (which was odd, and made both of us feel a little like a fancy decoration to be shown off later). It also made me extremely uncomfortable to spend the afternoon with somebody who has so much and managed an operation of laborers carrying really heavy sand to trucks for construction in Accra in the hot sun all day. We eventually left and returned
to Adidopke by boat, but this one had a cool sail made out of old flour sacks. Reduce, reuse, recycle. It looked like it really helped a lot too.

That night we had a fire outside with some of Senam's friends like Zach and really focused on his cats. There are three kittens by the momma cat, and Elaine and I ended up telling cat stories to each other. We then all crashed and spent our last night in the village.



When we woke up the next morning, we had our traditional breakfast of bread with peanut butter (called "groundnut paste" here, and we see people actually mashing the nuts. It looks tough, but the result is amazingly delicious for peanut butter), tea, cream and sugar. We said goodbye to Madame, to her helper in this photo with Elaine who refused to tell us her name out of shyness, and to Madame's church group (called the Amens by the townspeople because they say "Amen" so often). We gathered in a group to pour a libation of local gin to the gods to pray for a safe journey home, which involved each of us taking a shot at 9:30am. We got a taxi to a junction and tried to hail a tro-tro there, but it took a long time because they were mainly filled up. We eventually got back to Tema, had another lunch with Mary who was very kind to us and noticed my watch band was broken so she had it stitched up. We then were instructed to have another lunch time shot of gin to express gratitude for our safe arrival, and then Senam found us a tro-tro back to Legon while he boarded a different one to his university. Elaine and I rode home mostly in silence absorbing what it felt like to live for a few days in a really small village with no electricity where very little changes, but where the people all knew each other and where they lived so well. It was really an amazing sight. But in some ways, it was nice to be back in Legon where each day is different and new things happen.




As a post-script, I finally got a good picture of the crazy lizards that are everywhere here. This is what they look like :-)

The Longest Independence Day

The next day, I had been told to meet Senam (who you may remember from a couple posts ago) at the main gate of campus to go into Accra to celebrate Ghana's Independence Day on March 6 and then continue on to a small village Senam had taught English in for 10 years. I am a little jaded on Independence Days because in the US they generally mean barbecues, beaches and fireworks, all of which I like but none of which are actually connected to the idea of independence. I had hoped that celebrating such a day in a country to which Independence was hard fought, well deserved, and relatively recent that my feelings would change. They partly did and partly didn't.

We rode the tro tro in and walked towards Independence Square, which looks like this from a distance

This is a group photo of the early risers. From left to right: Natalie, Alicia, Elaine, Senam, Katie. You will notice the guards behind them. Any other day of the year, it is illegal to take a picture of a person in uniform, so I took advantage. More later
This is what the Square looked like at the beginning of the celebration. It's a wide area of empty space, but the seats are all painted red, yellow black, and green, the national colors of Ghana.
We grabbed some breakfast (bread and Laughing Cow cheese spread and some snacks as the day went on like peanut brittle that almost resulted in a trip to the dentist for Katie who was knawing desperately on a corner before it budged). We then took our seats and watched the uniformed men, women and children march out:
The white is the marching band, the blue are the police, the red are the army, the light blue are the navy, the yellow are the prison guards, and the green are the immigration officers. In addition to government workers, children in school uniforms marched out and held banners. They walked around a lot and ended up standing for a long time in the sunshine. Every so often one of the students would just fall over and two men on the side would run into the middle of the crowd with a stretcher. Nobody batted an eyelash at it. Senam said he remembered passing out as a student in the march. It's just not seen as at all alarming.
The presence of snipers on the marker for Independence indicated the arrival of the President. The monument has the date of Independence (March 6, 1957) and the slogan "Freedom and Justice"
Kufuor arrived too far away to see to much applause from the crowd. He staked out his area in the Presidential stand, and the moved off to examine the troops and school kids:

There are guards running on either side of the car because Kufuor was recently involved in a side-collison. He was just fine, but many believe it was an assassination attempt. The whole story blew over really quickly.Kufuor's car weaved through the troops and made its way to the base of a statue of "The Unknown Soldier" commemorating the nameless soldiers who died for Ghana's independence. He lit the "Perpetual Flame" at the base of the soldier before driving back to the elaborate podium to deliver his speech. The speakers had some timing issues so there was about a 1 second delay between his speech booming from the speakers at the front and our small speaker in our section. That combined with his accent meant sadly that I could not understand a single word he said.

The speech was followed by a procession of the large armed vehicles. This tank was my favorite reading "Ghana Armed Forces: Partners for Development". It also included several missile launchers, a helicopter and an airplane. Also, horses:
Shortly after that we decided to leave. We made a stop at the Art and Cultural Center (where vendors love seeing white tourists- we were surrounded within moments looking at all sorts of crafts, but moved on rather quickly). We walked up to Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park (Senam was upset that we had never seen it). Kwame Nkrumah was the first president of the First Republic of Ghana (there have been Four Republics because of three intervening military coups). Some people want to erase Nkrumah's face from the memory of the country because he designed a one-party system and did not tolerate political opposition fearing (rightly) that he would be overthrown. It's always interesting to talk to people about it. But nonetheless, he is buried in this mausoleum at a park in Accra:

On the way to the park, we passed a group of Ghanaians rollerblading and skateboarding. I realized that I had not seen these activities since leaving the Bay Area, and was happy to be reminded of them.

This is a statue of Nkrumah taking the first step forward to Independence, and below is his grave inside the mausoleum


We toured the small Nkrumah museum, hit the bathroom and then walked toward Accra main station. As we walked into the station a Legon bound trotro passed us, and Natalie, Katie and Alicia hopped on. That left Senam, Elaine and myself catching a trotro toward the town of Nungua, east of Accra, and the town of Senam's birth. Although he was three when he moved, he knew people all over the place. Elaine and I blindly followed and met gaggles of kids and a few adults. Senam then took us to see his mom, Agnes, called Auntie Aggie, and her daughters. Let me interrupt by saying that any person your age who you know at all is referred to as your brother or sister, anybody who is older than you is an aunt or uncle or grandparent. The definition of family is a lot looser here, so Elaine and I gave up quickly on trying to establish Senam's biological family as distinguished from the people he loves and grew up with. There doesn't seem to be that big a difference. We saw his hometown, had a drink with him and Auntie Didi (wearing all black because her husband died 5 months ago. She was really sweet to us and welcomed us repeatedly). Then we got back to the trotros and continued on toward Tema. When we go tthere we took a taxi right to Senam's sisters' house. We met George, Mary's husband outside listening to the radio. He welcomed us and we walked in to a courtyard full of women joking and playing around as they cooked and made clothes. Mary is the eldest sister and clearly the one in charge. She was so kind. She gave us big hugs, took our bags, and set us down on a bench in the shade. In the US, it would be nice to get up and try to help, but in Ghana it is considered insulting (like saying 'You are not cleaning well enough, so I have to show you how to do it'). We sat nect to Monica, Senam's little sister. She works at a computer store in town, and presented me with my first marriage proposal. I politely declined, but she was fun to talk to anyway. Second oldest was Aba, who was the most feisty and Matilda was making a dress on the side to wear to a funeral that weekend. Aba and Mary were making us banku in okra stew with lobsters (they were small and you're meant to put the whole thing in your mouth and chew and swallow the meat and the shell), tilapia (full of bones but good), wele (cow skin), and vegetables, especially peppers. Elaine and I do not have enough stomach capacity to eat three huge meals because we're both snackers, but we got teased becasue it took us so long to eat and we didn't finish our portions of banku. It was fun to hang around with those girls, they were really a trip. We looked at old pictures of Senam's father and extended family and played with Mary and Aba's daughters. After a while though, we returned to the tro tro station and rode for two hours as the sunset to a town of Sege. From there it was a shared taxi ride to get to another town and when we got out it was pouring rain and lightning was crashing every two seconds to big rumbles

of thunder. We took shelter in a little shack of a bar until the rain stopped and then walked a ways down the road under the lightning bursts. All three of us had woken up early (around 4am for me and Elaine) so we were exhausted by this point. We just stared at the lighting as Senam got on his phone talking to some people from the village. When we got to the end of the road, we stared at the Volta River stretching before us. It was calm considering it had just rained and the tropical trees on the side were occasionally lit up in the huge branching strikes of lightning that were now so far away we could only hear the faintest thunder. Because it's savannah out there though, it still illuminated everything. It was beautiful. Senam's friend Zach soon arrived in a canoe from the other side of the river and we cautiously hopped in, holding our bags on our laps. Zach single-handedly paddled us up the eastern shore and then accross the river. We talked a little but mostly started at the lightning.

It was so quiet and peaceful. Nothing was moving and we could just stare at the black and purple sky. By the time we had arrived on the other side, the lightning had stopped and we were in the dark. We followed Zach and Senam overland between mud huts with thatched roofs, until we arrived at a concrete house painted yellow with a lantern on the porch. Behind the lantern was an old woman whose name, as far as we were ever told, was Madame, the matriarch of the village of about 200 people. She is the mother of Theophilus, who we met at the university in Winneba. She smiled and invited us to eat, but we politely declined because we were still full from Mary's banku. She showed us two rooms that used to belong to Theophilus and his brother and sent somebody to bring us sodas despite our protests. We drank them at a small table but shortly thereafter Elaine left for her room and Senam and I hopped into the bed in the front room and I slept my first night in the small village of Adidopke ("Ah-deed-oh-pweh")

Durbar

A Durbar is defined by the Merriam Webster online dictionary as "A formal reception held by an Indian or African prince or chief". On March 5, the day before Independence Day, the international Programmes Office organized a Welcome Durbar for us, and I think that I will try to use the word as much as possible from now on. Could be a great Balderdash word. The festivities were outdoors behind the library among several fountains and featured a catered dinner (food is the way to win over college students after all) among a program of performances, and dancing, most of which was too far away for me to actually see. A girl from our program named Andrea performed a variation of Over the Rainbow, and did a fantastic job. Other than that, it was a lot of hanging out with people from my program looking warily at the other mostly American students. I have a friend named Raia in another program, so it was good to see her. After dinner though, most of us took off and hung out in the dorms. It was fun, though I do now resent fountains on campus because the water has not run in my dorm since that hour last week, so I'm always a little insulted by watching it shoot out of a giant chicken or other fountain sculpture. But I guess that's why I study water resource management.

Let them eat cake

Auntie Sharon and Auntie Lizzie are the women who work at the UC Education Abroad Office, and they take really good care of us. I think we are all going to universally miss them. It's really nice to know when you arrive in a new place that somebody is looking out for you. I passed by Sharon drinking water from a sealed sachet (I'll explain later), and she hit me on the arm and said "Let me see that. I am your mother while you are here. You're drinking that brand!". She's just very endearing. Anyways, on Februrary 29, the two of them ordered cake and ice cream to celebrate all of the February born students. We all arrived and the cake was 2 hours late (Ghana time, they call it), but we all gathered and hung out. In a group of 26 it's easy to lose track of people so it's fun to be brought back together for something like that. We sang and were merry, and then a group of about 10 of us walked out of the study center and off of campus to catch a taxi to Kineshie station. We were 5 to a taxi (legally too many, though everybody fit) and our taxi got a flat tire on the 30 minute ride there. Alicia pulled out her camera and started snapping photos (much to the chagrin of the driver changing the tire, I'm sure), and he fixed it remarkably fast. We sped on, and two of us had to get out as we passed a police barricade, but we met up on the other side at the station. From there, we caught a tro-tro to Swedru junction and got another tro-tro from there to Kokrobite beach. The driver originally dropped us off at Big Milly's, but they said they were full. We were looking at another couple rooms at a place called "The Dream" which was way too expensive for what it was, and once we expresed interest the man there became oddly hostile, demanding that we pay up front and suggesting that he would charge us twice as much if we snuck more than three people into a $30 room. At that point, somebody interjected that we could sleep in tents at Big Milly's for $2 each, so we went for it. The tents wouldn't survive long in Yosemite, and ours had a little opening on the bottom so it wasn't fully bug-proof, but after splashing myself in DEET, I survived the night. Part of the problem was that they were thick rubber tents and the air got so hot and stuffy after a couple of hours that we would wake up clawing at the zipper for air. Still, we made it work, and it was fun.
The 9 girls I was with were instantly attracted to the seamstress there selling fabric, dresses, shirts, and her skill at making alterations to things. here they are in various stages of trying on clothes that night. We continued on to walk up the road to the Kokrobite Garden Restaurant, also an inn, and I would recommend you stay there if you ever get the chance. Secluded and beautiful, the restaurant fulfilled our dreams as we ordered bruschetta, pizza, salads, pesto and red wine. It was such a fun decompressing dinner. Running around campus stressing out about finding classes, being sure that you've gone to all the departments you have to visit, etc in addition to going to lectures and trying to find out where they are hiding the class readings from you can wear you out. It was nice to spend a quiet weekend away.




We got back to Big Millie's and did more sitting before bed. That was a big theme of the trip. The next day, we woke up and had French toast with chocolate sauce at the same restaurant (YUM) and then wandered back to lay our towels on the beach. The sand was so hot that running the thirty feet between our towels and the hotel gave me second degree burns on my foot. Everybody got a little pink sunburn too, despite having re-applied sunscreen five times because we were just too sweaty. But that made swimming in the ocean all the more fun. We saw some fishermen pulling the net out and there were hoards of Ghanaian children swimming naked in the water. one had fashioned a surf board out of a large plank of wood (we stayed away from him), but it felt so good to be in the water. We read and lounged on the beach all afternoon and then put in our orders for dinner at Big Milly's. After much more sitting, we grabbed some raised seats because they were supposedly putting on quite a show for us. The show turned out to be not very impressive. Mostly pseudo-reggae music interspersed with some traditional dancing. The real fun part was sitting in a big circle getting to know each other playing long games of mafia.





Feeling remarkably like these children, I went to bed early when the air in the tent was still breathable.





The next morning was more of the same. A great breakfast and lunch at the Garden Restaurant, some sitting on hammocks (those who didn't fear sunburn played in the ocean again), and then taking some tro-tros back to Accra, and then to Legon. A quiet Sunday evening of dinner and sleep followed, and I felt much less stressed out. I wish there was a tropical beach so close to Berkeley!

I apologize for not taking many pictures that weekend. My brain was really fried. If you would like to see more of Kokrobite, I suggest you check out my friends Thien Vinh's and Natalia's blogs for better photos. You can find them under the links section of the blog :-)

Alicia's Birthday

Once again, but I apologize for a lack of a camera at this event. Alicia Sparks had her birthday during that week too, and, being the only student representing UC Santa Barbara, we turned Ben and Wes's room into a hall of drinking games. It seemed appropriate. All you need to know is that some Ghanaians learned how to play beer-pong, there was a lot of hanging out on the balcony, and it became so late that a handful of girls had to walk back at 6am past the preachers in the front. It was a fun celebration, and Alicia greatly appreciated it.

Post-Orientation

I apologize because I didn't bring my camera to our End of Orientation Dinner, but I think it's worth a little description. We found out about it because Auntie Sharon at the EAP office posted a note on the notice board (we are expected to know what goes on the notice board within a day of it being posted by checking it or talking to each other). For the boys, it meant walking back over to the girls dorm where the experience started three weeks ago. I dressed up and arrived early and people slowly came in both from the Spring program and the students who had spent last semester with us as well. We met Auntie Irene there (our program director and the most powerful woman in Ghana. She is a prominent historian and serves on a number of government panels with the president. The mention of her name pretty much anywhere is like an all-access pass). She greeted us all, gave a short speech in her style about how brave we are to be here but how much she loves the country and how much we have to learn. Then they served an elaborate dinner. I had had a late lunch at 4 (it was then 6:30), and still I ate a full plate. The food was amazing- a variety of Ghanaian dishes included a million kinds of rice, yams, chicken, sauces, stews, etc ending with a fruit plate and ice cream. We also drank soda (I never drink soda at home, but somehow have been conned into supporting Coca-Cola at a few events so far). After gorging ourselves on food we sat talking at the tables and were given a few introductory speeches from some of the professors who had given us lectures during orientation. Not long after that we sang happy birthday to Jessica and then, more full than I've been in a long time, we were ushered onto the dance floor to show off what we had learned in those four dance classes we'd had. I don't know that I have adequately described in this blog how much I dislike dancing at home. I have rhythm from drumming, but I have no desire to move when I hear music on the radio in the US. Most people believe that I am just afraid of being judged, which is partly true but I also just don't enjoy dancing. There's something about it that just doesn't appeal to me. The thought of it is enough to make me cringe. But something about getting pushed into a circle of friends who look equally ridiculous and being told to free-form dance for a little while has changed that a little bit. There's something about the music here that makes it a little fun to move to even after a huge meal. Don't try any funny business when I get home though. So there we were on a little patio with Christmas lights for decorations, surrounded by friends of necessity who I have really come to love, tummies more full than ever before, dancing to the drums of West Africa under the full moon. It was like a scene from a movie.
We left from there to go to to Desperados, the bar inside of Commonwealth Hall, the most frat-like of the dorms who consider themselves to be in charge of campus because the hall is located at the top of the hill next to a sign that says "Commonwealth Hall- Vandal City". It was an interesting place by night. We pretty much bee-lined for the bar that was closing soon after our arrival, so we grabbed some beers, sang to Jessica again,a nd then I began the walk home while a couple of non-exhausted adventurers went out to a bar and, when finding it closed, went to La Beach in Accra (shady!). Everyone eventually found their beds that night and fell asleep.

Coming "Home"

It is a weird feeling coming home to a place that, for the last couple of weeks, has been the glaring opposite of my home in a lot of ways. I was anxious to get back because I didn't feel very connected to Legon. I was afraid that I would feel off being back here. I definitely am not as well connected to people on campus as I wish I was, and it's a slow process to settle into such a different place and make good friendships, so it can feel lonely and frustrating. I was surprised to find that I felt really good arriving back on campus. People greeted me (as is customary here- you are right to feel a little down if people pass by you and don't at least make eye contact), and I arrived in my building and had a long conversation with the porters (the men who sit on the ground floor to make sure no crazy people walk through though how they spot them I can't be sure), and just sat on my bed exhausted. I met up with a big group from California for dinner and hung around. It felt good, but also weird because the experience of arriving of course prompted memories of home and what it will be like to really arrive there again. Who knows?

Aburi

We left Kelli at Kineshie station where she had some of her own adventures (taking pictures of a field of dust with a sign in the middle that says "keep off the grass" and buying childrens' stories such as "The Wicked Barber" and "The Man Killer 2: Return of the Man Killer"). Mac, Elaine and I continued on by tro-tro to the town of Aburi, which is a story to itself. Aburi is most famous for a large botanical garden that was out of bloom because it was the end of the dry season when we went. The land had been cleared by the British as a military outpost but when Ghana gained independence the British government funded the creation of a botanical garden as an act of good faith for the new republic. However, because that was in the 50s and nobody knew anything about environmentalism, the garden contains exactly 1 tree species native to Ghana with the hundred or so others imported from the vast collection of plants in the British botanical garden. Ah, ironic twists in history.
We got off the tro-tro and stoped at Edna's place where Elaine and I split banku (fermented corn dough that tastes a little like unbaked sourdough bread if you squint your eyes twist your tongue just right). From there we walked up the road about 5 minutes and arrived at the gate of the gardens. The haze was still present, but they say that on a good day you can see the coastline and the city of Accra, about an hour away. Impressive. While some of the trees were bare, some were really cool.


Here is Elaine standing next to a very large tree that with fern-like leaves









This is the single tree species native to Ghana that is planted at Aburi. I do not remember what it was called but it was overgrown with ivy and grew these large pods that were full of cotton-like material. People use it here to stuff pillows and mattresses because it's cheaper to get than cotton. It had a number of medicinal properties too. Plus, it was huge!




Here are Mac and Elaine peering from the shell of a tree. A tree used to grow on that spot, but a parasitic plant grew around it, sucking up its nutrients. The original tree died and disintegrated over time leaving only the sinewy outline of its parasite. It was so pretty though. Check out the inside of it looking up



We also saw a huge group of uniformed children attending a school tour at the gardens. They really enjoyed seeing the plants and a couple of white people walking around were an added spectacle. They rushed by and we slowly walked on. We met up with a bunch of other people from our program who had come up to Aburi for the day and were leaving as we met them to go to some carving stands just outside of the gardens and then to take a tro-tro home. That left me and Mac, who promptly checked into the Botanical Garden resthouse. We dropped our bags and went to a shop just outside of the gardens that had designed a number of hiking trails in the area. and took a walk at dusk.


This was a farm landscape we saw on the hillside as we mosied our way down the 6km hike. Part of the fun of the trip was that instead of being given a map or directed to follow markers on the "trail" (and I use the term loosely), we were given a packet of photos with a man walking the right way who we were meant to follow in a nightmarish version of "Where's Waldo". This became quite a challenge in the middle of the tropical jungle (where every banana plant looks more or less the same, so figuring out if you are at the right place to turn or not is not possible). We also realized that we'd met quite a lot of confusion because a dirt road that appeared several times on our set of pictures had been paved betwen when the pictures were taken and our hike. Needless to say we got pretty lost, but generally knew the direction of town, so we just meandered along through the woods.

Here is Mac carefully examining the pods of a cocoa tree where all of your chocolate comes from (Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire together produce more than half of the worlds raw cocoa).








This is a very tall tree we saw at dusk






Then we got back to our room and crashed. I read the guide book for a while and we at dinner at the only restaurant around. I ordered rice and chicken and was told there was no rice. My response was to stare blankly at the waiter for what felt like 5 minutes because I honestly didn't understand the concept of not having rice around. I realized that I eat it with almost every meal.
The next morning, I returned to the hike shop to go on an excursion.
Mac didn't feel like it so I went solo on a mountain bike ride. I was homesick and thought that being on a bike was the closest I was going to get to Berkeley in a while. I had a helmet and functioning brakes, which was good becasue the trail was not made for biking on. There were several dry creekbeds full of jagged rocks with steep banks that were allegedly part of the route. I got off and did a lot of walking. Plus, following the Where's Waldo picture set was hard enough on foot, never mind when your main focus is to not die on a bike. Still, it was a fun way to spend the morning (it is, of course, so hot here the thought of riding more then 6km is very unappealing). I was sweating bullets up the last hill in town attracting quite a lot of attention. When I got to the shop and droped off the bike, the men there gave me a chair, some water and some refrigerated pineapple (so good!). I walked back to the resthouse and took a shower before joining Mac for a big breakfast of oats, toast, eggs and tea. Then we caught the first tro-tro we saw because we didn't want to be stranded there on a Sunday