My boyfriend, Matt was here for two weeks and it was one heck of an adventure. Where to start:
After it seemed like forever for him to get off the plane we headed back to my campus. Of course because Matt had suitcases we were courted by every Ghanaian offering their services (I.e. helping us find a taxi, carrying our bags, opening the taxi doors) and of course they think it was only necessary for their “hard work”, to get paid. I told Matt they wanted to be paid and he handed one of them an American $1.00 bill and they then proceeded to ask me where my part of the payment was. I refused because they didn’t do anything for me. I found the taxi, I had no bags and to top it off one of the guys was telling me I was a “Big Lady.” Oh life in Ghana!
It is not uncommon here in Ghana if you are bigger to have multiple comments about it. It isn’t an insult like it is back home but more of an ordinary comment. In fact, bigger women here are given more attention and liked more than the skinny ones.
Our first trip was to Mole National Park where you get to see wild animals, with the most popular being the elephant. We took an STC air-conditioned bus which is a very nice way of traveling in Ghana. We had to stay overnight in a town called Tamale that we didn’t exactly plan on staying in. We had hoped to go straight to Mole in one day but by the time we got there it was too dark and too late for any other transportation. So, we found a hotel that was like all the hotels we stayed at… four walls, two beds and a door that locked. However, this one by far was the HOTTEST hotel I had ever slept in, we sweat all night long.
Being nervous about the conditions of our hotel, we left a heavy bag by the door in case anyone tried to break-in, there would be more of a commotion. We had to get up at 3 am to get a taxi in order to get to the bus station by 4 am for the next bus to Mole. I was organizing all of our bags and was thirsty so I reached in one of our bags and grabbed a water bottle out. I did not have my contacts in at that point and I was pretty out of it. I am about to take a drink when I feel things crawling all over my hand. I squint closely and see there about 15 ants on my hand. I freak out because I am not one to enjoy bugs much less them crawling all over me. Matt then proceeds to look into the bag that I got the water out of, which was the one we put on the ground by the door. Yes … sure enough the ants had found all the food we had brought. There were about a hundred or so ants that were thoroughly enjoying the crackers and cookies. YUCK!
Next step of the adventure was the Metro Bus station. It was incredibly dark outside when our taxi dropped us off at this bus station. We then proceeded to lug our bags through the station asking all the “approachable” people where we could go to purchase a ticket to Mole. After getting a couple “I have no idea” and “The bus is full” responses we looked for a place to sit. So we sat down in the only available spot that was lighted but located right next to a dark alley. I left Matt with the bags and went to look for SOMEONE that could give me a real answer to where I could buy a ticket.
I went into the main room where the employees were and had to wait for 10 minutes before a guy told me to follow him and I could purchase tickets. I begin to follow him and motion for Matt to follow. Suddenly, Matt throws his hands up in a fluster. I backtrack to him to find out what is going on. He proceeds to ask me if I have one of the bags with me. I don’t because I left them all with Matt minus my purse. He looks at me and then says ONE OF OUR BAGS IS GONE! The man who was helping me get a ticket followed me to where Matt was. He soon finds out what happened and proceeds to go around asking and telling lots of people that one of our bags was stolen. A younger Ghanaian lady comes up to us and tells us that she saw a man in camouflage pants come up to where Matt was sitting, put on a bag and walk away. She didn’t say anything to us because that bag wasn’t touching our other bags so she thought it was his bag that he had left. Another lady came up and was shocked to hear the news. Matt was a bit more relieved to hear what the lady had to say. She informed us that stealing was uncommon in Tamale and if you even got caught for stealing a cell phone that you would get beat to death.
In the end they wouldn’t let us leave for about 20 minutes until they tried to locate the thief. With no luck, the man took us to where we needed to buy our ticket.
Unfortunately or not, there were NOT too many important items in that bag. We had all our money on us and cameras in my purse. However, we did lose our malaria medication, bug spray and cosmetics. The saddest and sweetest thing that we lost was an engraved locket that Matt had brought as a surprise gift. I never even got to see it. But moral of the story is that there are angels and thieves all over the world, it doesn’t matter where you are.
When we finally got on the bus it was the craziest, bumpiest, un-paved, road we have ever been on. We got off at a town 10 minutes from Mole because the bus did NOT go to Mole. The town we were in was called Larabanga and is most famous for a 600 year old mosque. I was given a number by a friend of a guy that helped accommodate her through her visit to Mole. When we got off the bus we were ambushed by locals asking us where we were going and could they help. A guy named Abraham (same name as the number I had in my phone from my friend) was insisting on helping us. After trying to call Mole hotel and not getting through Matt and I talked and said well we will see what they can do to help us. I was hesitant at first because often when you get help you are always asked to reimburse them with money for their help. After he said his name was Abraham I decided to see if it was the same Abraham and give the number in my phone a call. When the phone in his hand started ringing, I relaxed a bit and knew we would get where we needed to. He was happy to hear that our friend gave out his number and gladly assisted us.
We walked back to his village where his house was. We entered his one room “house”, taking off our shoes and seeing only a mattress on the floor with a curtain draped around his bed. Next, he talked about the school that he teaches with 50 students and showed pictures and school blueprints of the school he wants to build because they don’t have one. Also, he proudly showed us a framed certificate from his work in the Peace Corps in 2007. They then agreed to give us a walking tour of the mosque and take us by “motor-bike” (aka motorcycle) to Mole National Park where we would be staying the rest of time in Mole.
The motorbikes were the most terrifying and most amazing thing I had done in Africa. I had only ridden a motorcycle once before but to ride one in Africa where you are constantly swerving giant pot holes on the unpaved ground was definitely something to remember. A lot of the locals were laughing at me and speaking in a native tongue. I asked Abraham what they were saying and he said that I looked like I was scared for my life.
Unfortunately, to go along with Murphy’s Law of "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong," Matt got his leg severely burned on the muffler of the bike. This especially sucked because all my medical supplies had been in the bag that was stolen.
We got to Mole Motel and were suppose to have reservations already made by a friend of my coordinator. I should’ve double checked before we left but thought that since it was my coordinator that watches over 50 students that we would be fine. We got there and there were NO rooms! So we had to beg them to let us sleep somewhere. They finally agreed, Matt got to sleep in the guys dorm and I in the female dorm. It wasn’t the best conditions and after our traumatic experience we would’ve rather had a room to ourselves to insure no more lost luggage. Instead, I slept with my arm the tightest around my purse all night long for the next two days.
Our day started to get better when we finally went on an afternoon hike. We saw antelope, baboons, birds, monkeys and warthogs. Unfortunately, we didn’t see ANY elephants that day. When we were back from our hike we wanted to go and cool off in the pool. However, we found out that a couple hours before some Ghanaian men had been drinking and relaxing in the pool. They did NOT know how to swim and in the process 2 of them had drowned and died. The strange part was that they happened in two separate incidents. While they were helping the one Ghanaian by putting him in a vehicle to transport him to the clinic, they heard screaming as they noticed that his friend was also on the bottom of the pool. So this friend didn’t get out of the pool after seeing his friend drown, and then he drowned too.
As gross as it may have seemed it was a hot day and we still went swimming.
After that full out day of craziness, we were ready for whatever life through at us next. So we got up early to go on the morning hike. We had just started our walk when our guide stopped. On the hike down the hill there was a HUGE elephant and then looking a bit closer we saw there were two more on the bottom of the hill. That was when we knew that this whole trip was worth it, just to see live, wild elephants. After that point, we did not see anymore elephants and Matt said he was content after the first ones that he wishes we could’ve just turned around instead of hiking for another hour and half to see very little.
People, even the foreigners here, are incredibly sweet and tend to go out of their way more than you think they would. We made a new friend named Fazrock from the Netherlands that had extra Malarone (anti-malaria medicine) that he gave us and refused to be reimbursed. We enjoyed his company and learned a lot and had interesting conversation the rest of the trip with him. Then another guy saw Matt’s burn wound and said he was a doctor and proceeded to clean and bandage it for him. It is just amazing the generosity people can have.
The last highlight of our trip was when we were talking to our new friend Fazrock in his room when people outside started making a commotion and were motioning for us to come outside. So we went outside our hotel room only to find an ELEPHANT 5 meters from our room enjoying some fresh leaves off the trees near our room.
This was only the first 4 days of our 14 day journey. A lot happened good and bad but Matt and I stuck through it and really learned to appreciate the good moments and let the bad pass quickly. We figured if we could make it through these 14 days and have everything stolen from us that it would still be okay because we would be healthy, but most importantly together.
More of our journey to come!
~Stacie~
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
A weekend trip to Kumasi
Wow, I am awful at updating this …
We just arrived back from a five and half hour drive back from the weekend spent in Kumasi, a town outside of the capitol Accra. This was the last paid trip that our program will take us on. The trip consisted of a visit to a museum of a palace, touring a kente cloth making village, a symbol fabric stamping village (on the kente cloth), and my favorite a wood-carving village.
The process of making kente cloth was really amazing work and very labor intensive. I am going to attempt to explain the process but it is very difficult to do so… So here goes my attempt:
A guy sits in this very small wooden bench with a bar that fits right on top of his legs that is connected to a huge loom. I had the opportunity to sit on this large loom. Once seated you have to take off your scandals and place between your big toes a metal disk connected to a string. Then, in your hand you hold a spool of thread. Next, you pull down on one of the metal disk with your foot which allows the loom to open at a certain angle for you to thread the string though. Once the string is threaded, you pull down a comb pushing all the thread closer and tighter together. Then you proceed to do the same process, this time pushing down the metal disk in your other foot that opens a different side of the loom. This system is repeated over and over again each time alternating the pulling of the string with opposite feet.
The end product is a long skinny strip of cloth that can either have a single, double or triple pattern. Also, depending on the pattern and colors each cloth has its own meaning. I bought a yellow, black and orange cloth that means peace & unity, and never-give up.
Then we went on to a print making village. This is where you took the kente cloth and were able to stamp symbols on them. There were over 50 different African symbols each with their own different meaning. I had one guy named Daniel that instantly became my “friend” and helped me design all my fabrics. At the end after I paid him he stood outside our tour bus motioning for me to come outside. It is common here to have the men be quiet pestering and I figured he just wanted me to come out so I could give him my number or so he could con me into giving him more money. Surprisingly, out of my disbelief he actually came onto the bus and gave me a strip of kente cloth and said “for free” and he turned and walked off the bus. It is just amazing how genuine the people here are.
Lastly, we went to a wood-carving village. It was here that men spent all day carving anything u can name. They had beautiful sculptures of African woman, kings and queens, masks, animals, plaques, drums even huge tables and chairs. There were sooo many things that I would’ve loved to buy but would have no idea how to bring them home. We were very rushed with time here so most of our group felt as though we didn’t get adequate time. However, there is a wood-making village in the outskirts of Accra near the Aburi Gardens that can be easily traveled to as a one day trip. I am hoping to go there soon.
We stayed two nights in a very nice hotel called Treasure land hotel. The best parts of the hotel were the amazing room air-conditioning, hot water for showers, and pool. The un-lucky part was that every night they played music by the pool and our room was located right above the sound system. One night we could actually feel our beds vibrating to the music. I guess that was sort of relaxing.
The last day before the return home we went and visited the Kumasi market. This is the largest market in all of West Africa. I had no idea how large it was until we were actually in the market. There were people everywhere and it was one stall after another. The market itself was not any different than any other market I have went to. There were fish accompanied with the lovely smell throughout the entire market, pig’s feet, men chopping raw meat on whatever surface they can find, live crabs and slugs, beautiful fabrics and any other home essential you could possibly need.
Overall it was an incredibly packed weekend and I am very rest-less due to the fact that we just got back from sitting all day on an almost 6 hour bus ride. I think I am off to go get some food in the night market and go for a walk.
Until the next time!
~Stacie~
We just arrived back from a five and half hour drive back from the weekend spent in Kumasi, a town outside of the capitol Accra. This was the last paid trip that our program will take us on. The trip consisted of a visit to a museum of a palace, touring a kente cloth making village, a symbol fabric stamping village (on the kente cloth), and my favorite a wood-carving village.
The process of making kente cloth was really amazing work and very labor intensive. I am going to attempt to explain the process but it is very difficult to do so… So here goes my attempt:
A guy sits in this very small wooden bench with a bar that fits right on top of his legs that is connected to a huge loom. I had the opportunity to sit on this large loom. Once seated you have to take off your scandals and place between your big toes a metal disk connected to a string. Then, in your hand you hold a spool of thread. Next, you pull down on one of the metal disk with your foot which allows the loom to open at a certain angle for you to thread the string though. Once the string is threaded, you pull down a comb pushing all the thread closer and tighter together. Then you proceed to do the same process, this time pushing down the metal disk in your other foot that opens a different side of the loom. This system is repeated over and over again each time alternating the pulling of the string with opposite feet.
The end product is a long skinny strip of cloth that can either have a single, double or triple pattern. Also, depending on the pattern and colors each cloth has its own meaning. I bought a yellow, black and orange cloth that means peace & unity, and never-give up.
Then we went on to a print making village. This is where you took the kente cloth and were able to stamp symbols on them. There were over 50 different African symbols each with their own different meaning. I had one guy named Daniel that instantly became my “friend” and helped me design all my fabrics. At the end after I paid him he stood outside our tour bus motioning for me to come outside. It is common here to have the men be quiet pestering and I figured he just wanted me to come out so I could give him my number or so he could con me into giving him more money. Surprisingly, out of my disbelief he actually came onto the bus and gave me a strip of kente cloth and said “for free” and he turned and walked off the bus. It is just amazing how genuine the people here are.
Lastly, we went to a wood-carving village. It was here that men spent all day carving anything u can name. They had beautiful sculptures of African woman, kings and queens, masks, animals, plaques, drums even huge tables and chairs. There were sooo many things that I would’ve loved to buy but would have no idea how to bring them home. We were very rushed with time here so most of our group felt as though we didn’t get adequate time. However, there is a wood-making village in the outskirts of Accra near the Aburi Gardens that can be easily traveled to as a one day trip. I am hoping to go there soon.
We stayed two nights in a very nice hotel called Treasure land hotel. The best parts of the hotel were the amazing room air-conditioning, hot water for showers, and pool. The un-lucky part was that every night they played music by the pool and our room was located right above the sound system. One night we could actually feel our beds vibrating to the music. I guess that was sort of relaxing.
The last day before the return home we went and visited the Kumasi market. This is the largest market in all of West Africa. I had no idea how large it was until we were actually in the market. There were people everywhere and it was one stall after another. The market itself was not any different than any other market I have went to. There were fish accompanied with the lovely smell throughout the entire market, pig’s feet, men chopping raw meat on whatever surface they can find, live crabs and slugs, beautiful fabrics and any other home essential you could possibly need.
Overall it was an incredibly packed weekend and I am very rest-less due to the fact that we just got back from sitting all day on an almost 6 hour bus ride. I think I am off to go get some food in the night market and go for a walk.
Until the next time!
~Stacie~
Yes, I do still attend classes here
Classes …Well for starters I am taking four, African Literature, African Pop Music, Psychology of Religion, and Costume& Make-up. It was a very frustrating process of signing up for classes. There are many restrictions when it comes to choosing to a class. First off in order to classify what year you are in, it goes by level. So instead of Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior, it is level 100, 200, 300 and 400. You are only allowed to pick classes in your level. Also there are certain categories such as Grouping #1: Math, Sociology, French and Linguistics that you can only chose one subject to pick classes out of, you can’t cross courses. So I couldn’t pick a math course and a French course but I could pick two math courses out of. All of the restrictions are set up to make examination period run smoothly with no overlapping examination times. It is very complicated but needless to say I have all my courses settled and got almost all of the ones I wanted.
When you finally decide by looking through the course book on which course you would like to take you have to individually go to each department on campus and check to see the times it is scheduled. The first week and half it would be a toss-up whether or not a time-sheets are up that tell when your classes would be during the week. So when you finally figure out if the classes that you want will work and that they don’t overlap
It took about 2 weeks for classes to actually start compared to their planned start date. Things here in Ghana move quite differently… we like to call it “Ghanaian time.” I think considering I am always kind of late myself that I am fitting in just fine!
All classes are taught in English however some of the heavy African accents are hard to understand. The professors never show up on time and are normally a half hour late. There are about 200 students in my largest class and 20 in my smallest. Obviously, I am a minority in the classroom but all the students are very welcoming and friendly. There are about 10 white students in my class of 200 students and about 1-4 white students in my other classes. I thought maybe because I was a foreigner I wouldn’t get called on often but that is definitely not the case. I have been called on numerous times sometimes I think it’s BECAUSE I am foreign.
Also, I have yet to catch on to Ghanaian humor. Sometimes the professor will say something and I will completely understand and the whole class will burst a gut laughing and I didn’t think it was funny at all. Sometimes I try to laugh along anyways until the one time the professor said… “You know what’s a good thing about foreigners?” “They will laugh at joke even when they don’t understand.” …. so maybe with time, ill get the humor. hahaha
My favorite class is African Pop Music. We have a British professor, John Collins, that I would assume is in his late 40s and is soooo full of life. The purpose of the class is to learn about how music came to be in different parts of Africa. Some of the music is really ancient and he brings in samples of the music. It’s like going back in time listening to these ancestors chant and sing their songs. Everything he teaches is full of rich history and not the boring stuff either … It is the really exciting stuff of why things are the way they are.
My other classes are nice. They definitely don’t have the work load that I do when I am back home. You take notes when the professor is lecturing. Sometimes the professor will read what feels like a page or two of a quote that you will have to write down that address some point/topic in class. These classes are very lecture based and not very interactive or discussion-based.
As for homework, I haven’t gotten much until this week. I have two 4-page papers I have to write and a bunch of reading to do. It is hard to get books here so instead you have to pay 3-8 cedi a week for class readings that have been photocopied.
Right now I think I am going to use to rest of my Sunday and relax, only 3 days until my boyfriend Matt comes and visits and we go off on our own adventures!! I can’t wait!!
~Stacie~
When you finally decide by looking through the course book on which course you would like to take you have to individually go to each department on campus and check to see the times it is scheduled. The first week and half it would be a toss-up whether or not a time-sheets are up that tell when your classes would be during the week. So when you finally figure out if the classes that you want will work and that they don’t overlap
It took about 2 weeks for classes to actually start compared to their planned start date. Things here in Ghana move quite differently… we like to call it “Ghanaian time.” I think considering I am always kind of late myself that I am fitting in just fine!
All classes are taught in English however some of the heavy African accents are hard to understand. The professors never show up on time and are normally a half hour late. There are about 200 students in my largest class and 20 in my smallest. Obviously, I am a minority in the classroom but all the students are very welcoming and friendly. There are about 10 white students in my class of 200 students and about 1-4 white students in my other classes. I thought maybe because I was a foreigner I wouldn’t get called on often but that is definitely not the case. I have been called on numerous times sometimes I think it’s BECAUSE I am foreign.
Also, I have yet to catch on to Ghanaian humor. Sometimes the professor will say something and I will completely understand and the whole class will burst a gut laughing and I didn’t think it was funny at all. Sometimes I try to laugh along anyways until the one time the professor said… “You know what’s a good thing about foreigners?” “They will laugh at joke even when they don’t understand.” …. so maybe with time, ill get the humor. hahaha
My favorite class is African Pop Music. We have a British professor, John Collins, that I would assume is in his late 40s and is soooo full of life. The purpose of the class is to learn about how music came to be in different parts of Africa. Some of the music is really ancient and he brings in samples of the music. It’s like going back in time listening to these ancestors chant and sing their songs. Everything he teaches is full of rich history and not the boring stuff either … It is the really exciting stuff of why things are the way they are.
My other classes are nice. They definitely don’t have the work load that I do when I am back home. You take notes when the professor is lecturing. Sometimes the professor will read what feels like a page or two of a quote that you will have to write down that address some point/topic in class. These classes are very lecture based and not very interactive or discussion-based.
As for homework, I haven’t gotten much until this week. I have two 4-page papers I have to write and a bunch of reading to do. It is hard to get books here so instead you have to pay 3-8 cedi a week for class readings that have been photocopied.
Right now I think I am going to use to rest of my Sunday and relax, only 3 days until my boyfriend Matt comes and visits and we go off on our own adventures!! I can’t wait!!
~Stacie~
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