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.