Bojo, Bojo, Bojo...

We had possibly the most relaxing weekend in history. Early on Saturday morning, I met with Kevin, Amanda (a new American chick in the same home-stay as Kevin) and Joanne (a Canadian chick Kevin and I work with at WAAF) to head to Bojo. Bojo Beach Resort seems to be the most awesome place in Ghana that is not listed in a guide book. Joanne heard about it through the grapevine, and, as this is her last weekend in Ghana, she decided we should all get there and relax!

Sidenote: walking through the market to the trotro station was amazing, and possibly slightly scary. As in all markets, everyone was hissing at us to buy their goods, there was a man with the loudest speakers possible shouting about Jesus, and finally there were many interesting treats for a bed-time snack, including pig’s feet and ears and dried fish, sitting on tables in the open air. Mmmm.

At Bojo, we were taken by canoe across to an island covered with white sand and shady huts. It stretched on for ages, so we had peace and quiet even once more people turned up. We sat on chairs under a shady umbrella, and we also hired beds so we could lay in the sun. The place is simply amazing. You’re sitting on this beautiful beach, watching boats and people go by, and you get food and drinks brought to you on the sand. It was fantastic. There was even a good mix of Ghanaians and tourists, so it wasn’t a major tourist trap. The riptides in the ocean all along the coast of Ghana are incredibly strong. I’ve never felt anything like that before, and I can now understand why my host dad always begs me not to go in the ocean.

After 4 hours of relaxing, drinking, eating and burning, Kevin, Amanda and I headed on to Kokrobite, while Joanne headed back to Accra. At Kokrobite, we stayed at a cool hotel for too much money. At least we got a personal bathroom! We had wanted to stay at Big Milly’s Backyard, possibly the coolest backpacker’s place in Ghana, but the only option they had for us was sleeping in the open loft under a mosquito net. After we had settled into our room at the other place, we headed to Milly’s for drinks and dinner. We ordered our food at 5:50 and got it at about 8. This is usually the case, unfortunately! I think our favourite thing about Big Milly’s was the food. For dinner I ate a vegetable curry with rice and salad, and for breakfast the next morning I ate banana pancake, cinnamon toast, a cheese and tomato omelette, tea and FRESH pineapple juice. I’m sure you’re all reading that thinking, yeah it sounds good but so what, but all 3 of us were in absolute heaven. Since I arrived in Ghana, every morning’s breakfast has been bread, egg, tea and water, so you can imagine that a bit of excitement goes a long way!

Since we were in Kokrobite on a Saturday night, Big Milly’s had a live reggae band. They were really good, and it’s always awesome watching Ghanaians dancing! We sat in some chairs near the bar, drinking some cheap booze, bitching about the white girl flaunting herself in her short dress to all the Ghanaians, listening to groovy music and doing some people-watching. It was a very pleasant night for all involved.

1. Me, Joanne, Kevin - the strip of white sand right at the back in the Bojo Beach Resort
2. Rather a romantic picture
3. Joanne, Amanda, Kevin
4. Reeling in the catch
5. Us in our hotel, Kokrobite. We had 3 beds side-by-side!
6. Fresh PJ
7. Hilarious warning near the beach
8. And then we remembered we were in Ghana..

We're off to see Hohoe, and the wonderful Wli Falls!

Sorry it’s been so long since my last entry… Things to do, people to see, you know?

A weekend or two ago I headed to Hohoe (pronounced ho-ho-we) with my new American volunteer friend, Kevin. I was on my way to the bus station to head off by myself and I got a call from him asking me to buy him a ticket! I was pretty stoked to have some company. The station we left from was a tiny one behind a market, one which noone seemed to know existed. I had gone there before to buy my ticket, but on the day of departure, my trotro dropped me in a different area so I got slightly lost. One problem with asking a Ghanaian for directions is that they will give you an answer even if they don’t know! It had rained the day before so the whole place was a pile of mud and grey slush, which, as you can imagine is a bunch of fun walking through in thongs and shorts! I was covered. Before I reached the station I needed to be at, I had already walked through the market 3 times, walked through 2 trotro stations, and even been taken by a lady to the main bus station in Accra – 20mins away by trotro! I’m sure you can feel the frustration I was feeling at the time!

Once I finally found the station and met up with Kevin, I was much happier. He had had a hard time finding the place too, so we vented our frustrations before buying some bananas and relaxing. The bus was only an hour late and then we were on our way to Hohoe! The bus ride was interesting, between everyone screaming at the driver to stop so they could pee on the side of the road and the bus suddenly braking and swerving just as we had dozed off. We met 2 Danish girls on the bus who wanted to stay at the same place we did, so we ended up sharing a taxi and eating dinner with them. They had some crazy stories about traveling through Africa!

The next morning, we headed off early for the Wli Falls, the main attraction near Hohoe. It’s a pleasant 45 minute walk through a forest, and then in front of you are the magnificent waterfalls! They certainly were majestic. There are a huge number of bats that live there so the sound of the place was a wonderful mix of rushing water, bats squeaking and forest noises. We were there so early that we had the whole place to ourselves for a good hour. It was lovely and relaxing. We were even happier about it when we walked back to base and passed about 2 busloads of tourists that we missed!

On the trotro ride back to Accra, we sat next to one of ‘our people’, a guy from Wales. We had some heated political discussions which made the ride much faster! Overall, a fantastic weekend was had by all.

1. Me and Kevin on the bus to Hohoe, looking excited
2. Street sellers trying to sell us bread on our way there
3. The road from Hohoe to the Wli Falls
4. Kevin looking slightly less excited, squished into the share taxi with 2 other people in the back
5. The majestic falls
6. Women and children washing in the river in the forest
7. Good picture

Ghana is 50? No way!

So once you get over the smell of open drains and burning rubbish, the sight of people spitting and urinating everywhere, and the sound of people hissing at you to get your attention, you’ll find that Ghana is a great place to be! First I wanted to say, girls, if you are after a bit of eye-candy, come to Ghana! The men here seem to be sculpted perfectly, and it helps their bodies that everyone does manual labour here : )

I went on a weekend trip to Cape Coast, the small beach-side village that was once the port for slave-trading. Slaves from all over Ghana and some parts of Burkina Faso were transported to the castle that I visited. Once they were there, they were inspected by the officials to determine where they would go and what they would be doing – construction in the UK, working tobacco or sugar cane plantations in Central America, etc. If they were lucky/unlucky (depending how you look at it), there would be a ship ready at the port that would take them to their new land straight away. If not, they were shoved into the dungeons with the hundreds of other slaves to wait for a ship, maybe for a week, maybe 2 months. During this time, they were given food and water, but weren’t given the facilities to bathe or go to the toilet. They did their business in a small bucket in the corner of the packed dungeon, to be cleaned the next day. If the bucket was full, then anywhere in the dungeon would have to do. Noone bathed in the entire time they were held there, so you can imagine the spread of disease, and the number of deaths. People that died were just thrown into the ocean… I can never believe that our world has such a terrible history. Thankfully we’ve grown and adapted to become more mature and humane in the way we treat other humans and our Earth. Hang on a second………..

While I was out there, I also visited Kakum National Park. The place is pretty amazing. They have a 350m long canopy walkway that’s strung between the trees 30m above the ground. I thought I’d be petrified but it was just a lot of fun! It’s only wide enough for your feet to stand side-by-side, and people walk across one-by-one to avoid too much swaying and swinging. The guide also assured us that the walkway could hold the weight of 2 elephants, but I’m not so sure about that. Every now and then I would step too far to the right or left and it felt like the whole thing would flip over! I met 3 guys from The Netherlands who were hilarious. They looked after me for the day and protected me from the loud group of 40 or so Americans who were on the guided tour with us. :p

I took a trotro to a tiny fishing village called Elmina, which was beautiful. Lonely Planet guidebooks seem to get their descriptions perfectly right every time! Some Australians must have been there before, because when people found out I was Australian they all said ‘G’day mate!’ It was so funny hearing all these Ghanaians saying it, and they were saying it wrong, and they didn’t know what it meant, which made it all the more hilarious! By the time I got there I was so tired after walking through Kakum for a few hours so I didn’t visit any of the sites.

While I was in the Cape Coast area, I ate a the Castle Beach Restaurant 3 times because it was so incredibly good! The place overlooks the ocean and it’s all open so there’s a fantastic breeze. They serve amazing food – banana smoothies, banana pancakes, fried chicken with rice, ‘Chicken in hawii’ which was a wrongly spelled dish sort of like a chicken stirfry with pineapple in it and rice. One sort of worrying thing was that there was a litter of kittens running around your feet! They were incredibly adorable, but I’m sure totally unhygienic.

March 6 was Ghana’s 50th Independence Day. It was THE day I have been hearing about for weeks - on the radio, on the TV, on the streets. I had such a big Ghanaian day – watching the official ceremony on TV in the morning, eating banku, hanging out with the family all day, then heading to Oxford Street in Osu with Nadia for the crazy street party! There were so many people there. They’d blocked off the street with a big stage, and the DJs were playing hiplife and hip hop all night. They did play My Love by Jussy T so I was happy. Ghanaians sure can dance! Tiko was chilling out at his friend’s place which was right near the street party, so Nadia and I kept going there throughout the night. They kept giving us food, chocolates, vodka, Malibu and peach schnapps, so we had a pretty good night overall!

Some other things I have to tell you…

The goods that guys sell are even more funny than what the women sell! Guys carry around camera cases, lamps, phone chargers, Ghanaian flags, belts, toilet paper… Why would you just happen to need a lamp while you’re driving? This morning though I saw a woman selling bottles of hydrogen peroxide!! What the..?

The way that you get anyone’s attention is by hissing at them. You can’t imagine how rude it feels hissing at a waiter to get them to serve you, but everyone does it!
Imagine this: you’re walking along the road, minding your own business when you hear ‘hello..hello..how are you?...please, what’s your name?’ You look around and there’s some random guy following you. This happens about a million times each day. If you actually stop and talk to them and ask what they want it’s usually just to talk/get your number so they can call you when they get to Australia. Every day I get a variety of ‘ssssssss’, ‘obroni! Come come!’, and ‘hello…hello…’ I’ve figured out that the word for ‘black man’ is obibini so from now on anyone that says ‘obroni!’ is gonna get ‘obibini!’ right back at them! Ha! Take that!

1. The view from the castle in Cape Coast
2. Outside the 'door of no return' was this crazy colourful fishing scene
3. The cool little hut I stayed in
4. Hanging on for dear life
5. Looking awesome
6. Drinkin coconut milk. From a coconut. In Ghana.
7. Elmina and its cool boats
8. A sunglasses seller. They'll just stand there hissing at you until you physically say 'no' or shake your head. Ignoring them just won't do

Some observations

I'm always forgetting to include things on my blog, so here's a list of the things I keep forgetting:

You can buy anything you want from the top of a woman or child's head - boiled eggs, handkerchiefs, pineapples, peeled oranges, kebabs, popcorn, sachet water, PK, Mentos, plantain chips, frozen (or not so frozen) milk! Most women carry everything in this way. I even saw one walking along with a gas bottle on her head!

Some trotros play music, while others don't. I like the ones that do! Usually it's just the radio, which means fuzzy reggae or hiplife, but sometimes they'll be playing their own tapes. One was playing Justin Timberlake and Beyonce!! Ahhh...

There hasn't been enough rain here lately, which means the dam hasn't got enough water going through it. Ghana powers not only its own country, but also its neighbouring countries, which means that sometimes we have to make sacrifices - every 5 days the electricity will go off from 6pm til 6am the next morning to save electricity. Man it's hot trying to sleep on those days! Sarah says that the other countries always have electricity, so she finds it really annoying that we have to give it up. Last night it was off so I went to bed at about 7, bored. It's almost Ghana's 50th anniversary of independence, so now it won't go off until the 14th March. So good!

Every morning, Tiko washes his car at about 5am! Everyone wakes up early here. It's also really dirty, which is why everyone's always washing their cars. I get woken at about 5:40 every morning by the family giving their morning devotion. It's about 5 minutes of singing then praying. One morning I had just started brushing my teeth in the basin in the hallway, when they started doing it! I had to stand there for the whole thing and I felt terrible haha.

There's an awesome place in Osu called Smoothy's which makes amazing smoothies!!! I've been there twice now. They cost 25000cedis (about $3.40), they're made with soya milk and you can choose any wacky combo of fruits and juices that you want - my personal favourite is peach, banana and mixed berry! You can also choose whack things like peanut butter, avocado or coconut, but I'm not sure. Maybe next time.

Ghana is changing its currency in July so that 10000cedis will now become 1cedi. I think it would make more sense to change 1000cedis to 1, because there are SO many things that are worth less than 10000, but that's the way it goes. I think it will make lots of the prices rise as well. The smallest coin they will have will be 5pesewes (currently 500 cedis), and water currently costs only 300cedis!!

Anyway, my point about the changing currency was that there's this HILARIOUS ad on tv about it! There's this wicked song all about the change of currency, explaining the changes and giving examples and it says 'there is no change in value, the value is the saaaaaaame!' Every time I hear it I crack up laughing. It has school children singing, women and men in traditional West African dress dancing, and it's great!

If I remember anything else, I'll let you know :)

1. A woman selling pegs at Kaneshie Market
2. This woman is carrying her suitcase on her head, and in her left hand is a live chicken that was still squarking as she walked along!
3. My family on a lights out night. The generator wouldn't work for some reason so everyone was trying to fix it in candlelight
4. Inside a trotro - down the bottom is one of the seats that fold down. These seats trap everyone in, meaning that when someone wants to get out, everyone plays musical chairs and shuffles around.

Don't worry, God is in control!

Now there’s a comforting thought.. That was just one among many, many signs and stickers with a reference to god that I’ve seen on the trotros and taxis, even in the names of stores! Some others include ‘With God All Things Are Possible’, ‘With God’s Grace Fashion’, ‘Allah is Great’, ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd Chop Bar’ (a chop bar is just a small food place that sells local food), ‘Glory Oil’, all the way up to ‘Repent Enterprises’!

I went to church yesterday for the first time in my life, and I don’t think I’ll be going back in a hurry. Yes, Paul, it was exactly like you thought it might be – the crying, sobbing, shaking, dancing, praying, “PRAISE THE LORD!!!”ing! The sermon was actually really funny, because I went to the youth service, but for the most part I felt like I was mocking them just by being there. The first song they sang had words like ‘I love you, I am desperate for you, I pray that you will control my path today’ – some sentiments I don’t think I’ll be able to share. A lot of the talk was about repenting the sins you have committed against God today so that he can forgive. Two things I’ve never understood about religion – one, why does God need people to pray/thank him everyday, and two, why do people need to give money to the church just for being there? Nadia gave me 5000cedis (about 75cents) to drop into the offering basket. That was fun…

On Saturday night, the family took me to a wedding party. I’m not quite sure what part of the wedding it was, because it was a Ghanaian man marrying a black American woman so it was a sort of jumble of cultures. The man asked the woman to marry him, but she didn’t ask him. He gave her a ring, but she didn’t give him one. When they kissed at the end, everyone cracked up laughing! I had no idea why, but then Nadia told me that Ghanaians do NOT kiss in public. Everyone was laughing throughout the whole night, because of the differences to their usual wedding party. They had a guy (the minister or pastor?) praying that the marriage would be strong enough in God’s eyes to not allow the devil to harm them or their relationship. He kept saying that the devil is everywhere! I’m getting scared of this devil-man… I think he finished every sentence with ‘praise the lord’, to which everyone would say ‘amen’, or ‘amen’, to which everyone would say ‘hallelujah’. Please allow me to apologise if I’m seeming offensive to all the God-lovers out there, but I just haven’t been exposed to such strong religion before! Other than all the godliness, I had a lot of fun - Tiko kept getting me these Gordon’s Spark drinks, which are gin with fruit flavour, and one woman even made me get up and shake my booty!

Now, onto my obroni (white person) life! On Thursday night, a Lithuanian girl called Dalia that I’ve been emailing for months came and picked me up from work to take me out. She took me straight to “Oxford” Street in Osu (the quotation marks because it’s not actually called Oxford Street, but everyone calls it that because it’s possibly the busiest street in Accra and it’s where all the obronis hang out – just like in London). We went to a place called Koala Market (coincidence?), which she says is one of only 2 normal places to shop. We walked inside and I felt myself go ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh – it’s like a normal supermarket!! I saw cake mix, detergent, Red Bull, icecream, fruit and it was all just like home!! So relaxing. After this, and a walk to Independence Square, she took me to Champs Sports Bar at the Paloma Hotel. This place is made especially for obronis. On Thursday nights they hold a quiz night there. They even have half-price margheritas, making them 20000cedis, or about $2.80! Next week I’m bringing a lot of money with me. I met about 14 other trainees who are also here through AIESEC – Romania, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Norway, Mexico! I had such a lot of fun, and we even came 3rd in the quiz! We won 100000cedis to put towards our next bill.

I’ve made myself a bit of an itinerary now, so I’ll be doing a trip every weekend until I get home. That way I can keep you and myself interested!

xx

1. As an example..
2. The house-warming party from last week - see the homeowners on the far left and far right.
3. Nadia (front) and Sarah in the car
4. The usual scene - piles of coconuts, women with goods on their heads
5. Me washing for the first time, and lacking the skills

Akwaaba! Welcome to Ghana!

I’ve finally arrived in Ghana! The land where goats, chickens and dogs roam free, women wear loads on their heads and babies on their backs, and Lee sweats!

There was a crazy man on my flight who was running up and down the aisles screaming that the flight attendants thought he was stealing something because he was black. It wasn’t the most settling welcome into a new country! When I arrived though, 2 girls – Nadia and Beryl - met me at the airport with my name on a sign. I was so glad to see two happy faces! The poor girls had to stand out in the heat with a taxi waiting for 2 hours because my flight was late..

Nadia is the girl who’s family I am staying with – her dad, Tiko, her mum, Gladys and her cousin, Sarah. I’m living in a 2-storey house, which is beautiful! On the first night that I was there, the electricity wasn’t working and there was no running water. It was interesting using candles so I could brush my teeth and whatnot. Every morning I have washed myself with 2 buckets, cleaned my teeth with bottled water and eaten breakfast with my hands. Breakfast for me is always tea made with canned evaporated milk, lots of bread with the margarine that the family bought especially for me, and sometimes eggs. Nadia stays at her uni campus from Monday to Friday so I will be mainly staying with her family.

There are two ways to drink water here – bottled water, or water sachets. The sachets are awesome. They are little plastic bags of water that hold 500mL and cost only 300cedis (about 4cents!). You tear off a corner with your teeth and suck the water out. I’m getting used to the local food too – fufu, banku, okro soup and fried plantain with nuts. I get the feeling that I won’t be eating many vegetables while I’m here! Fufu is like a big pile of mush made from crushed fried plantain and cassava (sort of like weird banana and potato), and it is served in okro soup, which I’ve eaten with pig’s feet and fish with the bones still in it. Using your hands, you pull off a piece of the fufu, dip it in the soup and eat it. You only use your right hand because the left is used for private duties. It’s pretty spicy, but my family has started making it less spicy for me because they know I’m soft J Tiko also says that he’s going to buy some pineapple, banana and orange for me!

The local form of transport is the trotro. A trotro is like a minibus that has been decked out to hold about 24 people. Each one has a driver and a ‘mate’ who operates the door and collects the money. The mate will call out the direction in which they are going so that they can pick up more passengers. If someone wants to get on or off, he will bang on the door to let the driver know to stop. If you want to get off while you’re in it, you just call out ‘mate! I will alight here’, and he lets you out! And it’s cheap too! It only costs me about 10000cedis, or $1.30, to travel the hour and 40mins to work using 4 different trotros. Easy.

The family that I’m staying with is being lovely to me. They speak in Ga, so I can’t understand them most of the time, but if they share a joke, or if they’re talking about me, which they usually do, one of them will translate it for me. They’ve already had to pay a carpenter to put up my mosquito net (to which Tiko said ‘now no more malaria!’), they’ve paid an electrician to fix the light in my room (to which Tiko said ‘now Lee has a light too!’), they’ve bought margarine and orange nectar especially for me and they open a new can of evaporated milk for me every morning!

On Saturday night they took me to a house-warming party of one of Tiko’s friends, which was absolutely amazing. The owners of the house wore amazing traditional West African dress, and the guests danced around them with their handkerchiefs waving about in respect. A guy made a speech at the party in Ga, which I couldn’t understand, but all of a sudden everyone was looking at me and laughing, while a guy shoved a camera in my face! I didn’t know what was going on until Nadia explained that he’d just said it must be difficult for the only white girl in our midst!

I’m currently at my second day of work, but I still haven’t done anything but sit on the computer and try to upload this silly blog. I’m supposed to have talked to the CEO to figure out a work plan...but maybe later J

xx

1. The welcome sign at the airport
2. My room for the next 2 months
3. Me eating banku and obviously not enjoying it..
4. The road at the back of the house