Ghana!

Ghana!



During our logistal pre-port the night before we got to Ghana (a
mandatory meeting where we learn the important logistical things we
need to know for each country) The entire ship sang Happy Birthday to
Archbishop Desmond Tutu (sang over a video message)! He was supposed
to be on our voyage (he has a long history with Semester at Sea) but
he is accepting an award during our voyage so he had to cancel. He
wrote to our ship saying how sad he is that he cannot come on our
voyage.



Day 1: The first day I had a field lab with my Psychology class to
the Department of Social Welfare of Ghana. We met a woman named Helena
who talked to us about the Care Reform Initiative and how there are a
ton of orphanages that don't abide by any guidelines (foreigners come
start orphanages to save the world and then just fail) so now they
have laws and rules and all have to be registered. The Care Reform
Initiative started in 2008 and they have a long way to go but they
have made tremendous progress. After we left the DSW we ate lunch at
Buka- A Fine African restaurant. We ate real Ghanaian food like Fufu,
but most of it was really spicy and it was already really hot and
humid outside so we were all sweating bullets. Helena wanted to take
us to a registered home so after the lunch we went to Kinder Paradise.
Kinder Paradise was chosen for us to visit because it was always
consistently ahead of all other orphanages and basically had it
together from the beginning. Kinder Paradise was started by a German
woman who 1998 (pretty sure 1998…give or take a year or two maybe).
The owner/founder lady talked to us about her life and work. Daniel
(15 years old) toured us around the whole place, he wants to be an
architect and has lived in the home for 7 years. Then we showed us
some African drumming and some girls danced and then 5 of us went up
and attempted to dance with them. We were all terrible dancers
compared to them; it was very entertaining. Then we headed back to the
ship, and we had just enough time to catch the end of dinner on the
ship so I ate dinner and chatted with some friends on Deck 7, then
headed off to bed because I was exhausted.

Day 2: I woke up early and scarfed down some breakfast. I had an
overnight trip leaving at 8 and I had to be on the bus by 730. After
my quick breakfast I had to run back to my room for my ankle braces
and my water bottle, two very important things I'm so glad I didn't
forget. I got on a bus and we drove for over 4 hours to this village.
This is where our 'medium' hike was to take place. Two local boys (in
flipflops…) were 'hired' to take us up to the top of the mountain.
This hike was not medium…it was extreme. It was straight uphill the
entire way (if you tripped…you were going down) not to mention it was
so hot and soooo humid out. Another girl on my trip and I ended up
sticking together because we were about the same pace. We were
5minutes from the top of the mountain, on the edge of death, when
another local boy walked up behind us, grabbed our hands and quite
literally dragged us up the mountain. The girl I was with was
struggling hard to keep hiking, so the local boy let go of her and
dragged just me up the rest of the way. When I got to the top I
realized it was definitely worth the ridiculous hike. The view from
the top was amazing. So proud I made it, we sat at the top for a long
while waiting for the last people to come up, one girl didn't make it
but everyone else eventually did. The local boy that dragged me up
the mountain had a bag full for ice creams for us which we were all
very excited about something cold because most of us had finished out
water. Then we hiked back down the mountain, which was just as
treacherous (if not more..) than the hike up. When we got to the
bottom the local boys were really angry that no one had paid them for
the ice creams…because we had no idea they were for sale. So our tour
guide starting yelling at the boys in their language about how they
didn't tell us they weren't for free so we shouldn't have to pay and
all of this nonsense. Eventually everyone on my trip decided we would
pay for them because we were so grateful to have these little ice
cream things. Then we got back on the bus and drove another hour to a
waterfall. Camera fee of 1 Cedi or $1…but I didn't have any money so I
just decided to leave my camera. We had a 45min walk in to he forest
until we came to the HUGE falls. It was amazing. I'm glad I didn't
bring my camera because it would have gotten soaked. It felt like a
shower, which was good because we all desperately needed one from our
hike. I was standing easily 100ft away and could still feel the spray
of the waterfall. We all stood near the falls for quite a while, and
then the sun was about to start setting so we had to get out of the
forest. I was feeling great and got a little cocky so I didn't wear my
ankle braces on the walk back…I tried my best to be careful until
(yup, you guessed it) I rolled my ankle. It hurt so bad but I didn't
fall and I played it off like it was all good (telling myself in my
head to just walk it off) It's a little swollen but not too bad. Then
we got back on the bus and drove to the Tafi Atome village. We ate
dinner once we got there(rice and tomato sauce with eggs in it) then
the village put on a little show with singing/drum-playing/dancing for
us around a fire. Then we got up and danced with them, furthered the
stereotype that white people can't dance but it was really fun. Then
we were all walking to the bus to get our bags and one kid on my trip
fell in a ditch and sprained his ankle, which ended the fun vibe real
quick. He wanted to cab it 3 hours back to the ship…but we were in the
middle of nowhere and we doubted a cab would be easy to find. Luckily
he got talked out of it and just went to sleep with it elevated. Went
all slept in 3 different guesthouses because there was 20 of us. All
but 2 kids in my house stayed up and talked and played cards til late
which was fun because I had never met any of them before. Went to bed,
had to share a bed with a girl who snored and yelled casual
conversations in her sleep…it was sleep talking taken to a whole new
level…so I did not sleep much. Also it was really hot, but I had been
sweating consistently for 12 hours at this point so it really didn't
bother be too much.

Day 3: Woke up at 6am and went and fed Mona Monkeys in the forest.
They are cute little monkeys that live around this village. The
monkeys jump onto your back and steal the bananas out of your hand, so
cute! Then after that we went and ate breakfast and walked around the
village saying hi to everyone. One of the little boys in the village
was super shy (not many kids were really shy) and he was hiding so I
kept waving at him and he would giggle and run behind his mom and she
kept trying to get him to wave at me so I bribed him with a toothbrush
and then after some long staring he walked over and took the
toothbrush. I gave his mom one too and she was very thankful and
funny. I don't think she spoke English but she knew Hello and Thank
You and laughed along with me as I waved to her son. I danced with 3
girls walking to school as well. They didn't have much electricity in
the village, but if they did the first thing they would get is a
really loud stereo system so the one pub-like kind of place was
blasting music that you could hear down the street. It was still so
humid, still sweating from the day before, and my only shower was
standing next to that waterfall, you can bet I smelled greaaatttt.
Then we got on our bus/van at 930 and drove to a beautiful resort and
ate lunch at noon which was delicious. It rained pretty hard but
luckily we were under a solid roof. Then we came back to the ship and
I was smelly and exhausted but I knew if I laid down I would never get
back up so I went back outside to the tents set up right outside the
ship to buy some little gifties. The sellers are SUPER aggressive and
just throw things at you basically and expect you to buy them. But
luckily they take really any currency (the exchange rate is just
awful) so a lot of us spent all of our left over Euros and Pounds.
After like 45-hour out there I was exhausted from being pulled in a
million directions and bargaining (I'm not good at haggling so it took
a lot out of me to haggle) I went back onto the ship, showered a much
needed shower and laid in my cozy bed….soooo happy to be in my
comforts again. I woke up a while later and got a burger cause I slept
through dinner and chatted with some friends about their experiences,
we all pretty much agreed we would love Ghana so much more if we were
constantly being pulled to buy something from every person we passed,
but when I was in the village nobody was aggressive to buy anything,
so that was much more enjoyable. I even walked right up to a stand
selling bottled drinks in the village and the woman just happily said
hello but didn't pressure me into buying anything…which actually made
me want to buy something from her because she was so calm. It was
complete madness in the markets I guess, I never actually went into
one (besides the one outside the ship) which is probably good because
I would have been so overwhelmed.



Day 4: On the last day I signed up to go to Torgorme Village for a
naming ceremony. Dylan signed up for the trip as well so I had a
friend with me. We took a bus ride for about 2 hours (and then a van
ride for the last 10min because our bus couldn't fit over a bridge).
When we got the village everyone that lived there ran us to greet us
and show us to our seats and they played music and danced and were all
so excited. We got to sit in the front row next to all of the school
kids-pretty prime seating if you ask me. Then they showed us a few of
their dances while we waited for the other van full of kids to show
us. I had one little girl (couldn't have been older than 3 or 4) who
latched onto me from the beginning. So I danced with her and then she
sat on my lap through the entire ceremony. Once everyone showed up
they started the naming ceremony where they called everyone up one by
one and told them their new name and what it meant. Just call me Abla
Segbedzi! (Abla-I was born on Tuesday and Segbedzi- means I have the
will to get anything done). We got a handmade pot with our name on it
and a bracelet made from beads made in the village. After the ceremony
was finished we had 20minutes to look around the village, so the kids
instantly grabbed us and gave us a tour. They took us down to the
river where they get all of their water. They all love cameras and
think they are the funniest things so they kept taking pictures of
themselves and then looking and laughing hysterically. Then as we were
walking back up from the river I met the mother of one of the girls
showing me around. She didn't speak much English but one of her
daughters had gotten a Frisbee from the donations and didn't really
know what it was. I was trying to motion how to play with it but they
didn't understand do I grabbed it and threw it into a bush. The woman
just stared at it and said "and its finished..?" The I realized that
was an awful way to teach the game so I picked it up again and threw
it to a little girl and then taught her how to throw it back to me.
Everyone around me started laughing but then they started playing by
themselves, it was pretty funny. Then the little girl with my camera
took a picture of the older woman and showed her and the woman just
laughed some more at the picture. I called her beautiful and she
denied and called her baby beautiful. It was really adorable. Then I
kids grabbed me and we headed back to the van because it was time to
leave. We all squished into the van and headed back to the ship. Ghana
was very fast paced but the people were all so nice. They all had very
interesting stories and I wish I had more time to spend in the
villages (not so much in the markets…too much going on for me). I cant
stress enough how kind the people were, no matter where we went they
were always so nice.



Thing I learned in/about Ghana: They are named by the day of the week
they were born. So there are really only 7 boy names and 7 girl names.
But when the Europeans were in Ghana they forced everyone to adopt a
'Christian name' so they all have 2 names. Like Stephen and/or Koffie
would be both of my tour guides names, and they are interchangeable.
The Ghanaians didn't know for a while that the Christian names they
were all adopting were average Europeans names.

There are about 46 different languages in Ghana, though English is the
official language for business and things. Most of the language are
similar just have different dialects, my tour guide compared it to
American English versus Irish English versus British English.

There are 10 different regions in Ghana. I was in the Greater Accra
region and visited the Volta region for 2 days(where the hike and
waterfall was).

The other countries next to Ghana don't have ports cause they are
landlocked so they drive all the way through Ghana to get their goods
from Ghana's port so Ghana wants to build a rail system to the
surrounding countries so the other countries trucks don't congest
their cities and roads because their roads are crazy. Many kids on the
ship saw multiple car accidents, some of them really graphic!



Things I tried: Fufu, cocoa right off the tree (white and squishy and
weird, but tastes much better than it looks), rice balls, plantains,
Ghanaian bananas (so delicious, way better than any banana I have ever
tried), spicy food in really hot weather-so sweaty