Welcome to Africa: 5 Days in Ghana

My first time in Africa! Without a doubt, I think this has been the
most culturally shocking and different place I've ever been to. I
decided to do a homestay through Can Do Land Tours, and I'm so glad I
decided to do that. It was a truly amazing and unique experience.

DAY 1
For the first day, we woke up bright and early to get breakfast.
Immigrations wouldn't be cleared until around 10, so at 9 we went to a
special event featuring a US ambassador in Ghana and Sheriff Ghale,
the visiting Ghanian musician. The ambassador was pretty interesting,
he was also an SAS alum. However, the real highlight was Sheriff. He
had performed a couple times between Brazil and Ghana, and this
performance was just as good as all his other ones. He's really an
incredible musician - his music is on iTunes, so I encourage everyone
to check it out.
Our plan for the day was to just walk around Accra, the capital city.
On the shuttle ride, one of the first things I noticed was the
incredible amount of stuff everyone was carrying on their heads! It
really is an amazing talent. People were carrying basins of water,
huge piles of clothes, food, and pretty much anything else you can
imagine - all on their heads. It was very impressive!
Accra was a little... overwhelming! As soon as we got off the
shuttle, we were immediately bombarded by a ton of people trying to
sell things. Before I knew what was happening, someone had put a
bracelet on me, asked for my name, and when I gave it said he would
make another bracelet with my name on it. He wouldn't stop when I
told him I didn't want it! Another guy put a necklace on my head, and
when I told him I didn't want it and wouldn't pay for any necklace, he
insisted it was free. There are so many people selling things on the
streets, and they are all really pushy. It's pretty overwhelming, so
that was the first culture shock. However, as soon as you asked
someone for directions they were more than ready to help. We wanted
to get lunch, and so we asked a seller where a good place to get lunch
was. He led us to Buka, a really good Ghanaian restaurant. I had
fufu in ground nut stew. It was pretty good - but spicy! After
lunch, we spent the rest of the day walking around and shopping. We
ended the day by going to Makola Market. This was an extremely
crowded outdoor market, where you could literally buy anything. I
found the whole fish sold everywhere to be a little gross, but I
bought some nice fabric. Once we were finished at the market, tired
from all the walking, people and heat, we headed back to the ship to
call it a day. I had to be ready to be picked up for my homestay at 7
am the next morning...

DAY 2
Or did I have to wake up at 7? I met my friend Lexi for breakfast.
We had heard that most people had gotten an itinerary for our homestay
emailed to them, with the original pickup time of 9 changed to 7.
Everyone (there was about 30 of us) got off the ship bright and early
to meet the tour guides at the port gate at 7. We had been warned
about "African time" - things in Africa tend to run slower and later
than Americans are used to. So, when it was 7:30 and we hadn't been
picked up, we attributed the lateness to African time. But when it
got to be 8, people started to grumble. Some people even started
giving up and leaving at that point, assuming that the tour people
would never come. But then we wondered if the second itinerary with
the 7 leaving time had been a typo... So we decided to wait until
9:30. At 9:45, we finally got picked up! The leaving time was always
supposed to be 9. A rough start to the homestay, but it was all
uphill from there. Our tour guide was named Emmanuel, and he was a
very adorable, nice man. We started the trip by getting lunch at a
big lake, Lake Volta. The lake was very beautiful and peaceful. I
had heard that the tilapia in Ghana was really good, so that's what I
ordered. Perhaps I should have expected it, but needless to say I was
a little surprised when a whole fish was brought out to me - including
the head and the tail! I don't think I've ever been served an entire
fish before. The tilapia did taste good though, and that wasn't the
weirdest at lunch. Some people ordered banku, a native Ghanaian
dish. Banku was essentially uncooked dough that tasted like sourdough
bread. It was really strange!
After lunch, we headed to our first village, Amedzofe, where we would
spend the night. It was a very cute little village, with a lot of cute
little kids and goats! Baby goats ran all around the village. All of
the people in the village were really nice, and the kids could melt
anyone's heart. The kids really liked to dance, and they were
fascinated by the camera. They could be amused for hours, just taking
pictures. We had a delicious home-cooked meal for dinner. After
dinner a small group of us went to a local bar. At first, we thought
no one was working there, despite its loud music and lights. No
adults were there, just three small kids. However, we quickly learned
we were wrong: The oldest girl, who was only 10 years old, was our
bartender! It was one of the strangest sights I've ever seen. We
weren't there too late though. Our guide Emmanuel came and told us we
had to wake up at 6:15, and be ready to leave at 7 tomorrow morning.
He seemed worried we wouldn't be able to wake up, so we went to bed.

DAY 3
This morning, we experienced African time again. Emmanuel had
emphasized multiple times that we had to leave by 7. We had breakfast
at 6:30, and we were ready to go. But 7 came and went, and then
around 7:45 we actually left! We went on a hike up a small mountain,
where a big cross had been put up by German missionaries. We had
beautiful views of the village and the countryside. We stayed there
for awhile, just enjoying the scenery. After we hiked down, we rested
at a small prayer center at the base of the hike. It was a very cute
and peaceful place, just some benches set up between trees. After
that, we took a long bus ride to our next destination: lunch! While
on the bus ride, I noticed that the majority of businesses in all the
villages had religious names: like God is Good Electronics. It was
pretty clear that people are very religious! I had also met a local
named Daniel, and he was very excited to tell us the Christian story
of Daniel and the lion's den, It was just very interesting to notice
all the misplaced religious names everywhere. We drove to another
village for lunch, but we had to stop at a couple of places before we
found a restaurant willing to cook for all of us. Lunch was really
good, I had jollof rice with chicken. Jollof rice is a Ghanaian rice
with spices. It was one of my favorite Ghanaian dishes. .
Next, we went on a short hike to the Wli Waterfall, the tallest
waterfall in Ghana. This waterfall was amazingly beautiful. It was
incredibly tall, and there was a little pool you could go in and stand
right under the waterfall. However, for me, the most incredible part
of the waterfall was the bats! There were hundreds of bats sleeping
and flying all around the rocks by the top half of the waterfall. I
don't think I've ever seen so many bats in my entire life!
After the waterfall, it was another long bus ride to the Tafi Atome
monkey village, where we would spend the night. As soon as we got
there we had dinner. Our tour guide Emmanuel is from Tafi Atome, and
we could tell he was very excited to be back home. He was really
excited for us to participate in the drumming and dancing performance
the village put on for us. It was very cool: We were told two
stories by the storyteller of the village, with Emmanuel translating.
Then we were treated to several different performances by the drummers
and dancers. The last song was meant for everyone to participate, so
we all got up, danced, and tried not to make complete fools of
ourselves. After the dancing, Emmanuel was very excited to have us
all go to the local bar and socialize with each other and the local
villagers. It was a pretty fun evening. We once again had a lot of
kids at the bar, which was a little weird! They kept asking every SAS
kid to buy them Fanta and malt. We stayed at the bar for awhile, but
Emmanuel warned us that we had another early morning ahead of us, so
we didn't stay out too late.

DAY 4
This morning, we actually got started early. Around 6:45 we went to
see the Mona monkeys! They are considered to be sacred monkeys by the
people of the village and they are super cute. They literally live
right next to everyone in the village - we fed the monkeys from the
path the women of the village would take to get water. There were
dozens of monkeys, and they were very friendly: Emmanuel gave us
bananas, and the monkeys would come right up to you, peel the banana
in your hand, and then take a chunk of banana to put in their mouth.
Some would even jump on your arm!
After we'd had our fill of monkeys, we were served breakfast, which
was... pasta? Surprisingly good, but a little strange! After
breakfast we went to the local school in the village to play with the
kids for an hour. The kids were really cute. I had brought a
Colorado wilderness calendar, but a lot of other people brought candy
and coloring pages. I was a little worried none of the kids would
care about the calendar, but they were actually really interested in
it. They were especially fascinated by the December picture of a big
snow field: I don't know if they see many pictures of snow. And, just
like the kids at Amedzofe, these kids loved the camera! I don't think
they see many images of themselves, so they loved taking pictures and
then immediately seeing what it looked like. All of the kids were so
cute. When we had first walked into the classroom we weren't really
sure what to do. The kids all sang a song to welcome us and we just
had a lot of fun playing with them. After an hour, we had to leave
the school to let the kids go back to class.
We had about an hour of free time before we had to leave the village,
so Emmanuel showed us around his home. We saw his kitchen: It really
wasn't much, just a small one room hut with a thatched roof. They had
food, but no kitchen appliances. It was so different from my kitchen,
but Emmanuel showed us it with such pride. Even though none of us
would probably ever be able to get used to a kitchen like that, he
loves it. Then we went to a market near Emmanuel's, where we met a
Peace Corps volunteer from one village over. He was really interesting
to talk to. He had been in Ghana since June 2010, so he had a very
interesting perspective on the country, One of the most shocking
things he told us about were the hospitals in Ghana. Shortly after he
had arrived in the village, he hurt his leg, on the waterfall hike we
did earlier. They took him to the nearest hospital, and he said it
was the scariest experience of his life. Apparently there was blood
all over the walls, the staff didn't seem to know what they were
doing, and the people who couldn't be helped were just left in the
halls to die. He said there was only one decent, clean hospital in
all of Ghana, and that is the hospital in Accra. It's a really scary
thought though: What if something did happen, and you didn't have time
to make it to Accra? Talking with the Peace Corps man reminded me of
how poor Ghana truly is, even if the people do seem really content and
happy. At both of our villages, we had no running water, and it was
common for the electricity to randomly go out. The whole experience
made me so grateful for everything I have back home.
Then, it was time to go back to Accra. We went to Fred's house (Fred
is the head of Can Do Land Tours) for dinner, and we had red red, a
local beans dish, and delicious fried plantains. Everyone from Can Do
Land Tours was really nice again. I'm definitely glad I decided to do
this homestay - I would have had such a different and limited view of
Ghana if I had just stayed around Tema and Accra for the whole time.

DAY 5
For the last day, we just went back to Accra. We walked around the
art market, which had some very cool stuff to buy, but some of the
sellers were very pushy! We also noticed some "Ghanaian" goods had a
tag that said "Made in China". I managed to find some pretty cool
things, and I'm pretty sure they are authentic! To make it back to
the ship on time, we didn't really do anything else in Accra. Accra
is a very bustling city, but it is hard to get used to. I liked many
parts of Accra, but it was also a little stressful in parts,
especially in the markets.

Overall, I really, really enjoyed my time in Ghana. It was truly the
most eye-opening and culturally shocking place I've ever been to.
It's amazing to think that, poor as it is, Ghana is one of the
Africa's most well-off countries. It really made me put my own life
in perspective: i just feel so incredibly lucky for everything in my
life right now.

Seasickness, Super Bowl Sunday and Neptune Day

Between Brazil and Ghana, there are a full nine days at sea - our
longest stretch yet! Luckily, we had some big events to keep things
exciting on the ship.

Super Bowl Sunday was the day we left the Amazon. There were a lot of
Giants and Patriots on the ship - strangely, most of the ship faculty
seemed to be supporting the Patriots. My Marine Biology teacher
warned us we might not have class again if the Giants won, since she
would have jumped off the ship in despair. Also, over the evening's
announcements, the Dean told everyone to get excited to watch the
Patriots beat the Giants. Luckily, the Giants fans had the last
laugh! It was a very intense game, made all the more intense by the
fact we were watching it live in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean! It
was pretty funny to see movie and tv show advertisements for things we
wouldn't be able to watch. It was a lot of fun to watch it with most
of the shipboard community - it was an exciting game that kept
everyone interested until the last second. Go Giants!

The day of the Super Bowl, the waves were starting to get intense.
The next day, at least half the ship seemed to be suffering from
seasickness. I had both my classes cancelled - for World Prayer, my
teacher was seasick, and in my normally 30-person East Meets West
class, only eight people showed up, so the professor just cancelled
class. A bonus reading day! It was fairly enjoyable since I wasn't
one of the seasick ones. The waves were consistently around 10 feet
high. Luckily, the ocean is getting calmer, and everyone on the ship
seems to be back to normal. There could be more seasick days ahead of
us though - apparently we haven't seen the worst seas yet!

Finally, today is Neptune Day! Neptune Day is the celebration for
when you cross the equator at sea. We actually crossed the equator
when we went into the Amazon, but we didn't celebrate until today.
Around 7:20 in the morning, the crew came marching down the halls,
banging on pots and pans and pounding on people's doors. The Dean
made an announcement: We needed King Neptune's approval to go through
the Southern seas. Everyone went on the pool deck. We stood by the
pool, as faculty poured some sticky green goo on us. When I went, the
videographer told the people to pour it on us slowly, so he could
capture the best video - that was nice... Immediately after we got
covered in green goo, we jumped into the tiny, salty pool. As soon as
we got out of the pool, we kissed a fish! Yes, it was a real fish.
Dean Bob was covered in green paint, pretending to be King Neptune,
which was pretty funny. After that, all that was left to do was watch
people shave their heads. I couldn't do it - I love my hair way too
much! An impressive amount of people did it, including several
girls. My friends Brynn and Grace shaved their heads, and they looked
good! Even though they said it was worth it, I still felt no
temptation to shave my hair off. However, I have a lot of admiration
for everyone who did!

Going Wild in Brazil: Manaus and the Amazon

When my sister Carrie did SAS when I was eight, her trip to the Amazon
was the one of the stories I was most impressed by. Ever since then,
I've dreamed about going, and the Amazon is one of the things that
made me want to do SAS the most. I can't believe I've really been
there now! My four days in Brazil went by really fast - it was a lot
of fun.

DAY 1:
Day 1 was my day to explore Manaus. Manaus is a huge city (2.5
million people) in the middle of the jungle. There aren't many roads
that go to Manaus, so the only ways to get there are by boat or
plane. Manaus is also fairly divided between its downtown, which is
where our port was, and the nicer part of the city, where more upper-
class people live. As soon as we stepped out of the cruise terminal
we were immersed in a market. There were a ton of street vendors,
ranging from the normal (food, clothes) to the strange (underwear,
tattoos). We walked around downtown to find things to buy and found
some good finds. It was a little overwhelmingly busy. We walked to
the Opera House, which is one of the most well-known landmarks of
Manaus. It was very pretty - it was inspired by Parisian
architecture, and is a beautiful building.
Later that day, we wanted to find a Brazilian steakhouse for dinner.
We had a recommendation for a really good one within walking distance
from the ship, so we set off, hungry for dinner. Unfortunately, we
got a little lost, and asking people for directions with the language
barrier was at times interesting. The people we asked were all really
nice, so we found it eventually - but unfortunately, the restaurant
was closed. Not knowing what to do, we flagged down a taxi, with the
thought that we'd ask the driver for another good steakhouse.
However, the taxi driver we pulled spoke no English, but somehow we
got the idea of restaurant conveyed. She took us to Picanha, and it
was an amazing dinner. The waiter spoke English, which was very
exciting! All the food was so amazing: the roasted cheese, the fruit
juice, the rice, and of course, the meat. The meat was cooked
perfectly, and seemed to melt in my mouth. It was one of the best
dinners I've ever had.

DAY 2:
Time to go to the Eco Park Jungle Lodge for my overnight trip in the
Amazon! I was really, really nervous about the mosquitos in the
Amazon, but it was actually not bad at all. This is because the lodge
is located on the Rio Negro, not the Amazon river. The Amazon is very
muddy and high in sediment, which attracts a lot of bugs. The Rio
Negro is full of black water, and is more acidic, which does not
attract mosquitos. I definitely appreciated that! Before we did
anything, we had time to explore the lodge. It was a nice lodge - it
had a natural sandy beach by the river, where the water was
unexpectedly warm. It had refreshing natural swimming pools, which
were very beautiful to swim in. It also, very randomly, had a
trampoline! As a gymnast, I got very excited about this, and
naturally I took every opportunity I had to get some gymnastics time
in. It wasn't the bounciest trampoline, and a funky-looking spider
had taken residence in part of the net, but it was still a lot of
fun. After exploring, we had lunch: like every other meal at the
lodge, it was a buffet of amazing food. I especially like the fried
plantains and the passionfruit ice cream.
Our first activity was a tour of a local's home. It was very
interesting - we learned how they use the land around them and how
they make the food and products they use and sell. After dinner, we
went caiman searching. We went onto the river in these motorized
canoe boats. It was really cool at night - the jungle really comes
alive then, and there's a symphony of frog, insect and animal noises
that's really beautiful. We saw several caiman eyes - they glow red
in the light the guide shined around the jungle - but we saw none up
close. It was still a lot of fun to just be on the river at night,
even without caimans.

DAY 3:
Today started very early with a 6:30 canopy walk in the jungle. It
was worth waking up early for though. Walking through the jungle at
that height was very beautiful and fun, and we saw our first Amazonian
monkeys! There was a large group of them leaping from tree to tree,
which was really fun to watch. We had breakfast after, which was
unexpectedly entertaining: A small green parrot decided he was hungry
and started to nibble on people's food. Shortly after, a big scarlet
macaw came and stole an entire breakfast roll from someone and flew
off with it. Gotta watch out for those parrots!
Right after breakfast, we went on a two-hour jungle walk. It was a
lot of fun to see the jungle from the ground, but it unfortunately got
very hot and humid. We saw some crazy bugs from this view - a few
people even ate these tiny termites! They said it wasn't all bad,
just had a weird aftertaste. I was not brave enough to try a
termite! We also saw funky spiders and large bullet ants. They're
called bullet ants, because apparently if they bite you, it's as
painful as getting shot. We had downtime after the hike. With our
downtime, people mostly either went swimming or hung out in the
hammocks. I also took advantage of more trampoline time!
That afternoon, we went to my favorite part of the trip: the monkey
village. It was back at the head of the canopy walk, and they set out
fruit for the monkeys. A lot of monkeys came! It was super cool.
There was one red monkey that liked to check people's heads for lice.
There were some monkeys with babies on their backs, which was really
cute. They were mostly just jumping from tree to tree and swinging
upside down by their tail - literally monkeying around! It's crazy
how they jump between trees - it looks like there is no way the branch
will support them, but they never fall!
After the monkeys, it was time to go piranha fishing. We attached a
piece of raw beef to the end of homemade fishing poles.
Unfortunately, there weren't many piranhas. Only a couple people
caught one, and I wasn't one of the lucky ones. We did get to look at
the piranhas before they threw them back in the river, which was
interesting. They were a lot smaller than I expected! They were also
prettier - their scales really shine in the sun.
That night, all the SAS students hung out at the Jungle Lodge at a
dock by the river. It was a lot of fun, and our dock also turned into
a popular spot for bats. After awhile, the bats started freaking
people out, so some went to bed. Three of us (me, Alex and Amanda)
decided to go on the trampoline for awhile, which was lot of fun in
the jungle at night!

DAY 4:
Our last day in the Amazon! We went to the Meeting of the Waters,
which is where the Amazon River and the Rio Negro come together. The
two rivers have different compositions, temperature, and speed, so
instead of mixing together, they flow side by side for a couple of
miles. It's a really cool thing to see. The black Rio Negro waters
contrast greatly with the muddy-brown Amazon, and they really don't
mix at all. After that, we went to a small Amazon village. It
started to pour as soon as we got to the village. We waited to go to
the village until the rain stopped, but it got very muddy! The
village was very small, and it was fun to walk around. There were a
lot of chickens and dogs running around. The coolest part was a
little girl who was carrying a baby sloth! The sloth was one of the
cutest things I've ever seen. We got to pet the sloth, and it was
very soft. It just looked so sleepy in her arms - it made me want a
sloth!

And now we have left Manaus, and are on our way out of the Amazon. I
had a lot of fun in the Amazon! It is a very, very beautiful place.
It's crazy to think that there is so much more to the Amazon than the
small section that I experienced - it's truly amazing. I feel really
special to have been able to experience this rainforest, if only for a
few short days. Now, we're on our way to Africa!