And the work continues!  Today we left for an area called Agoxoe.  It is virtually directly opposite the Fodome area that we went to yesterday and on the road to  Kpando.  Well, the road you were to take if you were taking the scenic route haha, as this road is a deep red dirt road rather than the paved alternative to Kpando.  But even when the roads are paved here they are full of dodgy pot holes.  I’m not sure how they don’t get more flat tires!  I hit one curb in Los Angeles and get a flat!  They hit 100 deep and very rough potholes and still nothing.  Maybe we need to start importing their tires, wherever they’re getting them from, although I’m sure they’re probably from the US or China and in that case, I just don’t understand.

Ok, BESIDES the tires ha ha.  The first village we went to I spoke with a few men to get their input.  These villagers seemed to make slightly more than Fodome Kordjeto (similar in size, proximity to other villages, etc) but yet acted just as poor.  One man was a trained carpenter but since there is no work in the village for carpentry, has resulted to farming.  There is a primary school but the children have to walk nearly one hour to get to a secondary school down the road.  I have yet to ask if they still attend if it’s raining or if they miss out on school.  Add that to the list of questions.  When riding down the roads to these villages it’s lucky to see even one vehicle pass by in your excursion there and back, that’s how rural they are.  I walked to the primary school to see the status of their school and meet the headmaster.  It was there I also met a teacher named Bless and though I didn’t have much time to speak with her, I could tell she was very happy to see me and seemed to have that gleam in her eye that true teachers who love their careers have.  She was very happy to give whatever input she could.  One classroom block was virtually finished (in it’s crumbling state) and another was half finished.  When it rains, they have to spend nearly 3 hours cleaning out the mud and water, cleaning the desks, etc before they can even resume classes.  The kindergarden block is currently in non working order.  It’s simply two rooms and only made of mud/clay with a roof and support beams.  It still needs cement and plaster and proper metal support beams.  The structure itself at the current state, although shabby, still only cost around $175 in materials and considering that part is done, I’m guessing would cost less than $500 to finish the entire block.

The next village was where I sent Emmanuel off to talk to some of the people in the village while I went straight to the school to talk to the teachers first hand.  I spoke with Patience and Daniel I think.  Patience teaches sewing and religious studies while the other teaches mostly English.  This JSS (middle) school has only three classrooms for all the students.  There are about 10-20 students per class that have to stand and it is extremely crowded.  The primary and JSS schools have become free thanks to Ghana Education Services (I can’t imagine what it was like before!) but secondary school still costs money.  Though they do have toilets at this school, they are KVIP which I suppose is better than nothing.  As for textbooks, there is only one textbook for every 4-6 students so they mostly learn from notes.  There aren’t enough desks or chairs and there is no staff room (which is very important in Ghana…more important than toilets). 

We went to Kpando to give some bread to Emmanuel’s mother and I stopped into the internet café to get Sarah’s phone number.  Sarah is friend’s with Shital who is the coordinator for Global Brigades medical program.  She put me into contact with Sarah before my trip and we agreed to meet.  Sarah is running a physical therapy program at the hospital in Kpando and has been here for 4 months now.  As I arrived at the internet café, there were two Obrunis (white people) there.  I wondered if one of them was actually her but I didn’t ask until they were about to leave.  Sure enough, one was Sarah and the other girl Morgan happens to be from Los Angeles as well!  Oh how good it was to see some white people, how brief it was.  Sometimes the Ghanaians have a very cocky way of being and they laugh at almost everything we say or do which is fun most of the time but sometimes gets very annoying.  On this particular day, I was being driven crazy by it!  So we spoke and agreed that this Saturday I’ll stay in Kpando with her at the house she is staying and spend Sunday there as well.

Speaking of which, Friday is a national holiday…Farmer’s Day so there is no school.  Also on Sunday it is election day in Ghana!  Supposedly it is just like in the US this year…the president has been in office for 2 terms and could not run again so there is a big change about to happen.  There are trucks driving all over the country with names plastered on them and speakers blasting loud obnoxious music/speeches from the favored party.  There are parades throughout the street with people sporting t-shirts from their party as well.  In Accra, there were men basically wearing diapers in FULL BODY paint just posing in the middle of the street with sunglasses on.  They looked like the biggest football fans but instead of supporting a team, supporting their party with donation boxes on their head.  Haha.  I wanted to get a picture but we were driving too fast.  Maybe I’ll see more of them after a winner is chosen?  Supposedly there are going to be lots of parties on Sunday and the whole country goes into mass celebration.  I’m anxious to see what happens!

Unfortunately there weren’t many encounters with cute little babies today =(  That is my favorite part of them all…getting to play with the little kids and take their pictures.  They get so happy to see white people and just wave at you all day long.  Well, except for some babies.  Some babies cry when they see you haha.  I heard last year actually that sometimes the parents joke when their kids are being bad that if they don’t behave that the obrunis (white people) are going to come take them away while they’re sleeping so no wonder they cry when they see us!  Haha.

Overall it was a good shift from surveys to talking with the teachers today.  After two days I realized that I need to spend more time in the communities and though the surveys are important, really getting to know different people in the community is even more important.  Initially I had wanted to survey 30 different communities but since they are virtually all the same in their needs I’m shifting focus on really identifying the problems.  I’ll try this approach tomorrow and see what happens.  For now, it’s late and I’m exhausted.  A good day, but fairly uneventful.

Ho Hoe/Fodome Kordjeto

Last year my stay in the Volta region was brief but nearly perfect.  I met my travel buddy Kate in Ho Hoe (where I’m now staying doing research), went and stood under the most amazing waterfall I’ve ever seen, tried cocoa for the first, had the sickest day of my stay and decided to go home, saw Kate’s orphanage for all but five minutes and wanted to take home 8 babies…it was bliss.  Nothing terrible could’ve happened.  But come to think of it, nothing terrible happened in Ghana period, so what am I talking about?

Everyday I’m here, no matter where I am, I’m reminded every ten minutes of how FRIENDLY people are!  I really can not get over it.  It’s amazing that something as simple as someone greeting you truly does brighten your day!  There were three German girls at a hotel today and I introduced myself and asked them a few questions and they were less than pleasant.  They weren’t terrible but you can really see the difference between our western worlds and places like Ghana.  Even when we were in Kakum…we met the minister of finance for China and his translator.  Before we even knew who this guy was (we assumed they were just two Chinese tourists), they were buying us coconuts and sharing their cocoa they were trying without even knowing our names.  It seems the rest of the world operates on the theme of community and in the US it seems to only really kick in when there’s a disaster.  Now I’m not saying that we don’t have that sense of community within us, but I am saying it’s quickly disappearing.  We still care about friends and family but often times it seems a hassle to even go visit someone who is 10 minutes away, nevertheless greet them.  When you ask a child how many brothers and sisters they have they will often come up with a number such as 8 or 14.  Why?  Because they include their cousins as their brothers and sisters because it’s not just your immediate family but rather your whole family.  The family operates as a nuclear family, not a species of it’s own.

Today we went to two rural villages to do research for Global Brigades.  Only 6 miles out of Ho Hoe, it is a world apart from the somewhat developed area of Ho Hoe.  By car it takes 30-45 minutes depending on which village and if you were to walk, 45 minutes to an hour and fifteen minutes.  The road is a dirt road in shockingly good condition for dirt roads in Ghana, but still full of dodgy potholes and dips that seem impossible to pass if you don’t want your bumper ripped off.

The first village we came to, Fodome Kordjeto, is a village of 500 people.  There isn’t a single toilet, pit latrine, or KVIP toilet in the entire community.  When I asked the community leader why they wanted toilets (they identified this as their greatest need), the response was that they wanted to avoid snake bites and getting poked in the butt by sticks (they currently just go in the bush aka forest/brush/etc).  It’s funny but it’s also sad because I dug as hard as I could and they did not make one mention reasoning sanitation and health.  Orion would have a field day with his water program here as the two villages only have a simple bore hole which I wonder the safety of it or whether the community is getting their water somewhere else and not saying because typhoid, cholera and parasites are still common illnesses.  They do have a primary school with a population of 52 students and 4 teachers, only one of which they feel is actually knowledgeable.  The primary school is not even an enclosed building but rather an open space, divided by 4 walls to form 4 classrooms, and a roof.  There are no sides to the building or even shelves to store the textbooks on.  To top it off, the Ghana Education Service sector built this for them!  It’s basically a wall with a chalkboard and a roof and some simple desks that are rotting and need to be repaired.  When I asked the community leader if he knew what dehydration or malnutrition was, he had no idea.  Further on, they identified malaria as the number one cause of illness stating each family member gets malaria generally at least twice per month!  And even still there are no mosquito nets because the family brings in just 20 Cedis per month ($18 US) and a mosquito net costs $10.  The community works as farmers and because there is no transportation, the women will put a 50-75 pound bag of vegetables on their heads and walk an hour or more to the market in Ho Hoe to bring in an income of just 5 cedis per week ($4.50) for the whole families hard work.  Their homes were made of crumbling clay and the kitchens were outdoors.  But yet, they were still such happy people and so welcoming, offering whatever they could.  It’s so strange that just a thirty minute car ride away, the world is developing while they only glimpse this act for one day a week and even then they are in the market all day and do not really see the way of life in Ho Hoe.

The next village, Fodome Henu, is just a ten minute drive up the road and has a population of 1,500 people.  For this village, there is just one KVIP toilet at the primary school.  The rest of the population uses the bush as well.  This was shockingly one of the cleaner places I’ve seen in Ghana and the chiefs even mentioned that cleaning and sweeping the village would be one of the ways they would help to prevent illness.  They have a school for each level but the older you get, the greater the enrollment rates drop.  The government built the school in 1949 and has made no renovations since.  There is only one textbook for every 4-6 children and not all the children have uniforms which makes the poor kids stand out from the better off kids and adds to personal embarrassments at school that they can’t be like the rest of their classmates.  We spent a good hour and a half speaking with the village chiefs and they were very concerned and grateful for me to be there.  But again, they had no idea what things like malnutrition and dehydration were.  They said they one day hope to have mosquito nets for the whole village to reduce the rates of malaria.  They are also short on teachers (again the government doesn’t provide the necessary amount) so they are extremely open to the idea of volunteers which I think would really add to their economy in helping to assist in buying necessary tools for farming equipment and a truck so that they could take more goods to the market and bring in a greater profit.  I think I’ll go back to this village and spend a day at the school and speaking with the local women.  I’m not sure they’ve seen many white people there…there is only one other NGO to ever have worked there and it’s not exactly a “passing through” town.

Today was really just an eye opener.  Global Brigades could easily start any one of their programs here and it would launch with great success.  Certain things seem so much like common sense and I realized that these problems exist in the world because much of the world simply hasn’t heard about the developments in the world such as health and sanitation.  Things are simply a way of life and there is nothing more to it.  They thoroughly enjoy farming and wouldn’t change what they do.  I think my laptop may have been the first computer that they had ever seen yet they have heard of the benefits of such things because they both said they would rather have a computer lab over a library.  The first village said a library would be of no use to them while the second said they would be overjoyed to have a library. 

Global Brigades impact here I believe would be overwhelming.  The community leaders are in full support of any help that should come and though they can’t offer much help financially they freely offer land and help in the construction process of anything we might like to build.  They lack so much basic knowledge that I think it would be very easy to teach them as they all stated they would love to learn more by either taking workshops on health and sanitation, water, first aid, and even adult education classes assuming it was free of course because their 20 dollars a month doesn’t stretch that far especially when you have five children.  They have little to no water resources.  Their structures are made from crumbling clay.  Not a single person has seen a dentist (even most of the people in Accra).  Their schools are not fully built or are falling apart, poorly stocked, and have teachers that skip out on class.  The chiefs I spoke with said they believe this is a divine intervention and that I was sent there for a reason, to save them from their extreme poverty and even if we could not assist, it was a blessing that I came to their village.  What happens when 20-60 students come?!  I really hope that we can help this community but there will still be much work to do. 

I think I might start my own organization in Ghana doing volunteer placement and may add volunteers to these areas to give volunteers a truly influential experience and to help raise awareness and funding for the community.  Global Brigades can bring in all these programs but there is such a lack of funding in the community I’m afraid some of the programs might flounder afterwards unless we can come up with a good source of funding hopefully from the community.  They have a sort of program set up with certain things where it’s not for profit but for the community benefit but I’m not sure that would be enough for some ideas I have, but you never know.  Having just one volunteer per month could bring in enough money to pay 4-6 teachers at the school plus offer one free teacher (the volunteer).  I think it may be worth a shot.  Plus, there are two waterfalls, the highest mountain in Ghana, and many kente weaving places in the area for personal recreation.

How amazing is it that there are so many different cultures, languages and ways of life in this world and yet so few of us yearn to experience it?  I can’t comprehend how people don’t have this desire that I have.  To see is the most powerful education you could ever receive.  To understand and empathize not sympathize is the strongest quality a person could possess.  And to smile…now THAT is a beautiful thing.  And in Ghana, I smile all day long.

Emmanuel is out and about speaking with the people in the community to figure out what other communities are in need that we might visit tomorrow.  I want to go back to Fodome Henu by myself at least for a few hours to really understand.  I realized that I like being on my own while traveling or with other people who have no idea what they’re doing because it forces you to talk to people, to learn the area, the language, etc.  Emmanuel is truly wonderful and a blessing to have met with powerful connections and he is saving me a LOT of time especially acting as a translator, but I don’t get a chance to get to know the people as he does most of the talking.  Again, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing but the biggest thing I love about travelling is this part of it.  And if we’re going to be bringing Global Brigades here, I want to KNOW the people not just know OF the people.

I know Ghana is not for everyone but it’s the only place I’ve ever been able to just relax.  Though it’s dirty and often times smelly from car exhaust, open sewers and fish, the color of the red dirt roads, the somehow pearly white, straight smiling teeth beaming across the faces of the people here and the glimmer that seems to fill every child’s eyes, is enough to spin me into euphoria.  While Los Angeles is getting ready for their fancy dinners at places like Beso, I’m here in a shabby hotel room with dim lights ready for a peaceful sleep.  And when I wake, the sun will be shining as it always is, the humidity will start to creep under my skin and when I step outside I’ll be greeted with a number of “Good Morning, How are you’s?”  I’ll take a deep sigh as a giant smile will soon beam across my face and it will be yet another day in Ghana.

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After running around Accra all day (again) and making the crazy drive all day, I'm now in Ho Hoe and will be visiting Ho Hoe and Kpando areas.  They
are pretty decent sized towns surrounded by rural villages in the Volta region.  Emmanuel (my driver and new friend I met through Hannah at the Ghana Literacy Project)
is proving to be single handedly the greatest resource yet.  He's from
this area and especially Kpando and knows many of the local people
everywhere we go.  As we speak, he's out talking to people he knows in
Ho Hoe to find out which villages we'll go to tomorrow.  He also plans
on going one day ahead of me to villages to speak with them about GB
and what we do so that when I arrive they are ready and have thought
about what they need to answer and don't jump to conclusions about
what we might do there.  I'll be surveying people from chiefs to taxi driver, traders to farmers to really get a feel for the needs of the communities here before trying to work on developing some sort of program.

He runs an organization called Dream Global Foundation.  He has a
hostel in Accra that is rented to university students at the moment.
He also works placing volunteers and coordinating projects.  We
stopped in Kpando on the way here to try to speak with his friend, the
director of water for Kpando region so I could meet him.  Orion, who runs the water program for GB should
be very happy about that!  I think they did a large water study that I
can try to get the data from and could be VERY helpful!

As for education, the Ghana Education Service has just recently
started opening free schools in the country but they are very basic
and offer no supplies really.  Still many of the children walk over 30
minutes to attend school.  I'll be finding out more about this
starting tomorrow but it still seems that even if there is a school
there is a lack of supplies...even basic textbooks sometimes.  As for
the teacher training, I have yet to speak with anyone and will do some
digging to find out exactly what kind of training, if any, most of the
teachers have had to see how big of a part that is playing on the type
of education being received.

Thus far my best idea is a type of community learning center.  A place
where the school will use during the day and adult education learning
in the evenings.  It could be partially funded if not solely if the computers also
acted as the sole internet cafe in these villages.  MAny of the
villages have to go over an hour to get to internet.  Granted it is
slow, but the people still use it (there are about 10 people in the
one I'm in now), so this could be a great alternative to self fund the
project if that's a route we could go.  It could also then benefit the
entire community and workshops could be held on various things from
technical to science, youth empowerment and community
leadership...this is just an idea...we'll see how well the people here
think of it but Emmanuel thinks it's a great idea.  Not only that, but
he says he can easily have things like land donated should we ever
need it because the people here know him and trust him and as far as
coordinating logistics, he could easily have that covered.  Since he
knows all the people in the area he can likely even get the community
to work on such things at cost prices, for example, transportation to
and from accra, because it has to be a partnership not a for profit
business for the community.  Granted, the community will benefit in
many ways if GB comes, but it is just one way they can contribute he
says.

Anywho, we start tomorrow and I will try to keep you updated but the
internet in this town is slower than dial up.  I didn't even know that
was possible!  I'm in the land of mosquitoes so I'm praying I don't
get bit much!  I didn't get to grab my net before I left and I'm already up to 9 bites for the week...topping my 7 for the entire trip last year!  Sad.  Cross your fingers for me!

We finally made it!  After a treacherous trip over the Southern Coast of Ghana and all over Accra, we’re home!  Free at last!

Kokobrite was everything it was last year, minus a whole lot more people, but still amazing nevertheless.  I think I could call Big Milly’s the Happiest Place on Earth.  They really should get an award for the community they’ve built.  Big Milly’s Backyard is actually a resort that has a good mix of foreigners and locals.  But it operates in such a way that it makes it easy to feel at home. 

When you check in, you get the run down of how the place is run.  Don’t go to the beach with valuables or at dark, when you lock your room, leave your key with the bartender so you don’t have to carry it or lose it, you pay nothing until you check out;  you simply give them your name and they “charge” it to your room per say and you pay for your entire stay when you check out…It’s such a great environment as it forces the staff to know your name and vice versa.  You quickly develop a great relationship with everyone especially the bartenders.  Fridays they have drumming and dancing shows and Saturday, live reggae.  Washington, the man who checked us in last night told us there would be no show as it wasn’t busy due to the elections.  About an hour later, a large tro tro showed up with the drummers and dancers.  I couldn’t have been more ecstatic.  They gave a great show, like always and even pulled me up to dance (the pictures are quite funny).  If only I could dance like those girls! 

In the morning we had breakfast and explored the beach which blows me away everytime.  It’s a small close knit community of true rastafaris, smoking “ganja” and all, playing their Bob Marley music.  They have some of the neatest handicrafts I’ve seen in the area but not a huge selection.  Their earrings are very cheap though, only $1! 

Oh what a weekend!  I love Ghana so much!  Or maybe I just love Kokorbrite and Big Millys?  This could be it too.

Gardenia arrived and I had to wait nearly three hours for her at the airport.  Her plane arrived nearly thirty minutes late and her luggage took over an hour!  Quite expensive when I’m paying a driver $10 per hour to wait and drive us home.  At least for Ghana prices.

We spent the first half of Garci’s first day at the school taking pictures.  She also bought a pure water for every child in the school ($10) for all 200 students, which made lots of the kids excited that they didn’t have to pay for it today.  We then met Emmanuel, the man who works for an NGO and will also be my driver in the Volta region.  He is best friends with a girl named Hannah who runs the Ghana Literacy Program.  Emmanuels’ NGO, Dream Global Foundation and Hannah’s may be great partnerships for Global Brigades.  I’ll be learning more about them later and am hoping that I can possibly steal any data they might already had.  I think Emmanuel had mentioned he had some water surveys done in the Kpando area of the Volta region and if he has any data on them, that could TREMENDOUSLY help our water program!  It was great to meet him before I run off to the rural countryside with a stranger for two and a half weeks =)

After he dropped us at the STC station, we caught a state bus to Cape Coast which was a nice ride.  It’s the only transportation in Ghana that you might actually enjoy and is much safer.  We arrived in Cape Coast in the evening, got a bite to eat at a very quaint little dinner spot with great food actually, and then headed to bed. 

I awoke on Friday with no running water in the hotel (not so great, I really needed a shower!) and waited until the last minute to wake Garci who was still adjusting to the time and heat.  Just as I did, the water came on and I decided to shower first before waking her, even though I was already ready.  We grabbed a bite to eat at the same place where Garci had some AMAZING banana pancakes with Vanilla ice cream while I had a fried egg which probably had a little too much oil on it but was still good.  We headed out to Elmina to explore St. George castle and reminisce about the history we will never know…slavery.  Everytime I go to that castle I can envision what might have happened there and it’s just devastating.  Hearing the stories from the tour guide makes me so happy that I live in America today.  Granted, there is still many forms of “slavery” and I’m unsure the world will ever be where it needs to be…being at Elmina has been the strongest lesson in slavery.  It’s more than I could have ever learned in school.  Even seeing history in the US is nothing compared to seeing a castle where at LEAST 1,000 slaves were held at a time.  It’s devastating.

We headed up to Kakum where we happened to be on tour with two Chinese men, one of whom happens to be a top Chinese diplomat (as in one of the maybe top 20 most important government officials in China?).  They were very friendly and invited us in their vehicle for a ride back to Accra which we gladly welcomed for three reasons; 1) It was free (very important!  We saved $4!), 2) Their vehicle had air conditioning, and 3) They were really friendly people!  They dropped us at our stop to Kokobrite and we were off for our fun at Big Milly’s!  In the U.S., who gets rides from strangers?  Here, it’s so natural for everyone to offer you something…a ride, half of their orange, a slice of bread, you name it.  Why is that the developed countries live their life on materialism and are quickly losing the value of community and family?

I've made it Accra!  After a treacherous 20 hour trip (down from 30 last year) I'm back in Accra where it's hot, muggy, dirty, smelly and full of probably the friendliest and happiest people on earth!  You can't help but step foot off the plane and just go ahhhh.  A big sigh of relief.  I've already ventured out for the day to Barclay's bank to look into setting up a bank account.  Ironically I left the paperwork on the tro tro.  Go figure.  Did you know you have to have a referral to be able to open a bank account?  The person has to have had a bank account there for more than 12 months.  How crazy is that?  So hopefully Mr. Koffie can come with me tomorrow to open the account since I left the paperwork behind. 

Prices have also gone up here pretty drastically since I was here last.  Fuel is still over $5/gallon and cement around $9.50 a bag.  Even the school lunches went from $0.30 to $0.80 in just over a year.  Isn't it crazy?

The kids bombarded me the second i stepped onto the school grounds and even more so when I started to distribute their school photos I took last year and had printed up.  Most of these kids have never seen a photo of themselves minus on the camera screen after we took them last year so they were elated and some of them embarassed but regardless they were all smiling and showing off their photos to one another, laughing and making fun of one another.  Some of the kids were too shy to say hello while some of the little ones ran up to me and thre their arms around my legs. 

It's so good to be back.  Gardenia flies in tomorrow and I realized she's going to have a real culture shock.  But she'll love it just as I do.

Kate came into town this weekend again!  We met in Osu, the "white" part of Accra.  She hadn't eaten at the famous "American" restaurant there so we splurged.  I'd eaten there once but she's staying in the RURAL part of Ghana 4 hours away and had been eating rat and other gross traditional food (I'm not a huge fan of the Ghanaian food).  She had a cheeseburger and really was in paradise!  Kate stayed over at the Aboagye's with me and it was so funny...I felt like I was with my family, just the Ghanaian version.  She met little Kwame, met my "parents" and they loved her.  They welcomed her into their home as much as they did with me.  When I first asked Mr. Aboagye if she could stay (heck there's 3 empty beds in my house), he said of course!  He said since I was away from my parents it was their duty to act in their place and provide the support and love that my parents couldn't directly provide.  It was so much like a father talking to his little girl, it was sooooo cute!  I just adore that family!

Anyways, after cheesburgers, Kate and I trekked alllllll over Accra trying to get tickets to the huge John Legend concert being held in the stadium there the next day.  Everyone had heard about it but apparently buying tickets in advance isn't something people do (even though they advertised on the radio).  We went to where we THOUGHT the tickets were and walked into a computer expo!  Yikes!  Here we are, two backpackers, in the midst of well dressed Ghanaians with high tech equipment.  Haha.  Someone told us to try the television station that was sponsoring the event.  We went there and they had noooo idea and looked at us like we were crazy or something.  We finally gave up and headed to Kokrobite.

The Bradt guide had said that Big Millie's in Kokrobite was a backpacker hang out so we were like, alright, backpackers, yay.  Other wanderers like us hanging out.  This place was AWESOME!  The guy who ran the hotel sat us down in the "Kids, let's talk about sex and drugs" fashion to tell us the rules of the hangout.  It was such a fatherly talk about safety, etc.  It was cool actually, you carried no money the whole time.  Everything was kept as a running tab at the bar and afte ryou locked your room, you left your key with the bartender who was there 24 hours and only you could get it back.  It was great because we really got to know the bartender too.  There were tons of obrunis, many of whom we'd met earlier in different parts of the country but plenty of new ones too.  The place was a bunch of little huts and then basically a platform with a roof and mattresses on the ground.  The first night we slept in a room but the second night was booked so we slept on the platform which was a bit like camping...just lined up next to like 10 other people haha.  And there was only one available so of course Kate and I shared a bed yet again haha.  there was also a surprising amount of locals which was awesome!  Just outside the walls of the place was the beach with full blown rastafaris smoking ganja and loving life.  Never did I expect to see such an amazing lifestyle haha!  I even had one guy make some earrings and a necklace for me out of the shells I found on the beach.  The first night was drumming and dancing which was free for the locals to come watch as well.  Kids were falling asleep everywhere but it was so fun!  Fire dances, traditional costumes....amazing!  Oh yeah and Kate and I even bought some dresses hanging from the trees...I bought a traditional print one and wore it that night and Kate bought one made out of a bag of flour haha.  Only in Africa.

Saturday we attempted to go to the John Legend concert but it apparently got "rained out" even though it was supposed to start at 1 and they had even gotten nearly close to being set up.  They were sitll putting up the giant backdrop of "Souls of Africa" and were only on the U of the 20 foot high sign!  Kate ran into some guy selling CD's who she knew had sold CD's on the streets outside of clubs in London...small world!  We decided to high tail it back to Big Millie's for the reggae concert there.  They hadn't started yet so Kate blasted reggae on her ipod through the speaker systems and the fun began!  Everyone was drinking and dancing and Kate was letting loose like none other haha!  I even video taped her.  The Ghanaians REALLY liked her dancing.  I hung out with some new people and met this couple from LA that lives like 3 blocks from where I lived six months ago.  Again, small world!  I woke up the next morning for breakfast...tired, happy, thinking of reggae music...oh yeah, and then Kate sleeping next to me.  Haha.  I ordered an omelette which for some reason took one hour to make.  Ghanaians have no sense of time and it DRIVES ME CRAZY!  EVERYONE got food, even people who ordered after me and I about gave up but I was too hungry. 

Overall, AMAZING weekend and loved it!  I can't wait to come back here next time.  It was a little piece of heaven and definitely relaxing but not in the over the top I've got luxury relaxing.  Can't wait for next weekend!

We checked out and checked on the STC times first.  Well they only ran two times that day and we'd missed them both.   Great.  So we were tro troing.  They have a HUGE market in Kumasi as well as an actual supermarket which provides some sort of Western items.  I found shampoo yay!  The shampoo there is really strange because it's not exactly made for white people but I found Cantu...which I somehow remember the commercials for but never see it in the US.  We ate breakfast at a 5 star hotel and it was DELICIOUS.  Like I've said before, I don't really like the Ghanaian food so I'm living off of macaroni (aka spaghetti) and omelettes from restaurants.  We went to the market which was nuts and MUCH bigger than Accras.  It was a little overwhelming so we left.  We did however go to the culture center and they were having a celebration of some sorts there.  We did a little shopping...Kate bought a knife and we left.

On the way back to the station we saw the Kumasi Zoo and decided to go in.  It was sooooo sad!  The animal cages were tiny and the animals were so undernourished!  The monkeys had no room to play.  Some locals had caught a bat (there were thousands of fruit bats flying freely...they just went there on their own) and they let this monkey grab at it and pull it.  I got so mad and yelled at them.  Ugh!  We also saw a man that has one of the common malnourish diseases.  His upper body was normal and then his legs were literally bone.  I wanted to cry for him.  He looked fairly happy considering the circumstances and was begging for money.  I gave him 4 cedis and he was really grateful.  I wish I could've done more!  We also saw a stall with what looked like little replica imitations of the devil maybe...and they were bbq'd bats!  It was disgusting!  It looked like a baby fetus charred.  I couldn't even look at them anymore.

We finally headed out but turns out the tro tro we needed wasn't at the main station (imagine our luck).  We had the name of where we needed to go on a piece of paper and showed it to a man who motioned for us to follow.  He was a crazy, quiet, fast-walking, non english speaking guy who led us across Kumasi in 20 minutes time.  Kate and I were sweating like pigs and our legs were killing because he was practically running!  Then we had to wait in the tro tro for a few hours before it actually left.  Another 6 hour ride. 

On the way, Kate saw carrots and got really excited.  We hadn't seen any real vegetables in Ghana.  So she starts to peel it with her new knife and what does she do?  She drops it on my leg and punctures me.  Seriously Kate?  Seriously!  Not just a knife but this thing was like a dagger.  The guy next to me said that if I had a white fowl I'd be ok.  Anyone know what that means?  Haha.  I don't.  We then proceeded to get stopped by the police who wanted to check the inventory of the stuff tied to the roof.  As Kate called her mom to say hi, I went to walk down a very slight hill.  But my plans went to shambles when I hit gravel.  My legs flew out under me, my phone in my hand went flying and I crashed on the hill.  It tore a hole through my cotton pants and I was bleeding.  Great!

Kate had antibiotic cream so I sat on the side of the road with my LED lantern (this thing got great reviews!  Everyone looked at it like it was God!) and I had about 15 people gather around me.  I felt like the nerdy kid at the playground who always got picked on because all the Ghanaians were laughing at me.  It was a small scrape but hello I'm in a foreign country!  I don't want to get sick!  So we cleaned it up and put cream on it...a little boy kindly found my phone and the locals continued to talk about my fall for the next twenty minutes until we finally got back on the bus.  Dagger to the leg and scraped knee, police impound like of our luggage.  ugh!

Kate met up with me in Accra to begin our one week adventure to end our trips there =(  We decided to take the STC bus (State Transporation something).  Actual coach buses though, so much more comfy and they run on schedules (surprising!).  But even more surprising is I ran into my first bathroom where I had to pay to use it!  What?!  No wonder people defecate in the streets.  Who has money for a restroom that's not much better than outside?  It was a six hour ride to Kumasi so what did Kate and I resort to?  CHILDHOOD GAMES!  We remembered how to play Masho and that connect the dots box game.  We played for HOURS and laughed histerically at Masho for who knows why.  It just kept getting funnier and we put ourselves with the worst possible people you could imagine haha.  The people behind us thought we were pyscho.  Maybe we were.  It was a six hour ride...

The bus dropped us at the wrong station because the driver decided he didn't want to drive there.  We asked for directions and apparently in Kumasi there's an Adum and on Odum...notice the A versus O spelling.  Well we were at Adum and needed to go to Odum.  We asked for help and showed our guide book map and about fifteen locals grabbed the book and began arguing that they had spelled it wrong.  They couldn't figure out where we were but thought they knew.  After thirty minutes of bickering and trying ot get the book back, we grabbed it, thanked them and quickly walked away.  It was getting dark and we just wanted to get to our hotel!  We finally arrived at the hotel and asked about the restaurant.  A woman replied "Market, my mother is at the market."  So apparently that meant no food, so we went on the hunt through the dark streets to find a restaurant.  Finally found one that had a HUGE fan blowing that felt great.  No one was there and there was a big open space with hard wood floors...so what did I do?  I danced!  I miss dancing and it reminded me of a dance floor.  And what girl can resist dancing with a giant fan blowing as if you're in a Victoria's Secret photo shoot.  Kate was laughing hysterically and people were peering in through the windows, but who cares!  Dance as if no one is watching right?!

"I dream of grated cheese."

"My spit is dripping into the bucket." -At the Savoy Hotel in Cape Coast where the drain from the sink drips into a bucket that you have to empty.  I realized this while brushing my teeth and hearing the spit of my toothpaste slowly plop into the bucket below.  Haha...not sure of the point.  But the Savoy hotel was REALLY nice....not like super nice but the rooms...real mattresses (no foam! AH! YAY!), branded pillowcases, a good fan, large bathroom, toilet paper and soap actually were provided, all for $12 for a double!

"I've called you a taxi in case you're scared of me."

Kates story: travelling in Italy by train and leaned out the window...got a piece of iron stuck in her eye for three weeks and didn't know until it rusted there.  They had to operate and she had to wear a huge patch.  Note to Kate: you're not a dog, don't lean out windows of fast moving vehicles just to feel the wind in your hair! 

Shop names in Ghana:
See! What god can do
Except God Entertainment (strange spelling here...not sure if they did this on purpose or wanted the word accept?)
Thank you Jesus Fashion (because Jesus tells us what's in style)
He Lives Cold Meat Store (ironic for a butcher shop...?)
God Can do Hair Do (I want God to do my hair!)

Just some random notes in my notebook:

The accountant at the school was sitting at his desk today cutting the hair out of his ears.  haha but what made it so funny, is imagine someone using a regular pair of large scissors to do it hahaha.  Maybe you had to see it but large scissors half obscured because they're halfway down an old mans ear....lol.  Again, only in Ghana.

At the house we have to flush the toilet by pouring a bucket of water in the bowl, and then flushing.  I just realized how inefficiently we really use water in our daily lives back home.  I mean really!  It actually takes a bucket and a half to put in the bowl for one flush.  Think about all the times we flush back home?  No wonder the worlds focusing on water conservation.  Now I will be too.  Kind of a wake up call when it becomes manual labor...sad but true.

I went with Mr. Aboagye to pay the electric bill for the school because the power got shut off...they had a tv in there that was playing "Secreto de Amor," a Spanish soap that was REALLY bad!  They kept advertising for the Tyra show and Opera and then would go back to spanish soaps.  NO ONE SPEAKS SPANISH IN GHANA!  HAHAHA.  It was so terrible.  I mean BAD ACTING!  I guess they play it because it's cheap to buy...they also showed WWE...strange I thought.  But the men seemed to really love it.  I would've never thought.  Then a Ghanaian soap came on and right away someone got shot and killed, down on his knees.  They were wearing ski masks too.  So much violence right away.  I thought that was a REALLY poor depiction of how he was shot and not to mention, what kind of message are they sending?  If you want to kill someone because they're rich and haven't paid you yet, wear ski masks and murder them while they'r e on their knees with their wife watching and then steal their car?  From what it seemed the man hadn't really even done much wrong to be honest!  Sad.  Really sad.

I was riding a bus to Kaneshie and a man got on board selling medicine for 2 cedi and a book of wisdom for 1 cedi (equivalent to $2 US and $1 US...it's almost dollar for dollar there).  The whole ride he was preaching and yelling it was LOUD AND OBNOXIOUS!  I couldn't take it.  Ghana really is testing my patience!

Kate and I tried to catch a tro to Cape Coast and we were the first ones so we assumed it would take AT LEAST 2 hours to fill up so we went to a restaurant.  We got there and asked for a menu and they said "No menu.  We have Joloff Rice and stew."  Great selection right?  We said "No macaroni?" Which is universal for pasta there.  He said no but left the door and bought us some, brought it back and cooked it to order with tomato paste.  we left him a good tip.  Again, Ghanaians going out of their way....amazing!

List of items on the windshield of a tro tro to Takoradi:
-Cross
-Jamaican Flag x 2
-Plastic Lizard
-Fringe....as in 70s style, love boat style, pimp out your VW bus fringe in Orange
-3 hand sized soccer balls in nets
-Uncle Sam Sticker
-French Flag
-Mini Russia and Mexico soccer gloves
-2 sun looking pendants

And lots more.  Let me remind you these were ON THE WINDSHIELD all over the place.  I can't imagine how he drove!  There were others too but just found those ironic haha.

I met with the Essuman and Oppong families today in their homes.  All I can say is wow, are people inviting and friendly!

The Essumans live in a 2 room home in a compound.  They have a porch which doubles as their kitchen and the whole compound shares the bathroom facilities.  5 people sleep in just one room of the home...most of them on the floor.  The father was so amazing and inspiring.  He was very eager for his kids to excel.  He wants Joseph to study in the US desperately because of how good the education is...not just because it's the US.  Of all the parents there, he wasn't the most successful but he seemed to care the most about the education his kids received, which showed because his kids were picked based off of their grades!

The Oppong family was amazing as well and so exuberant!  The Father is applying to become a certified electrician for the government and then eventually work for himself.  They have a one room home divided solely by a curtain.  The cooking is done outside on an open cement area.  It's definitely rather small but it seems as if they've taken family planning into consideration and only have two children...the least I think I saw of any family.

It's so awe inspiring as well because I feel like I'm treated like royalty, which I don't want any part of!  It just makes me realize how little respect Americans hold for one another and even themselves!  No matter what house I went to I was always presented with something to drink and the best that they could provide.  From one family borrowing a cooler from a neighbor so that they could at least give me somewhat chilled satchets of water, to chilled water satchets presented on plates, to sprite being served in a wine glass.  The girl apologized for the glass saying it was the best they had.  I wasn't at all thirsty but drank each and every one of them out of respect for the families.  It was such a small token but held such high value...there were no words to describe.

So I've been spending my time researching financial needs, grades, etc of the kids here so I can try to get some sponsored when I get back to the states.  I sent out letters to the parents of the kids requesting their permission in addition to possibly getting little mini video interviews to help the cause.  Americans like to know where their money is going so what better way than to show the parents, the kids, and the home if possible?

On Monday, the Ahor and Esuman fathers came to talk to me about the letters.  I never anticipated parents to show up at the school and take time out of their day...a simple response would have been just fine but again, the Ghanaians do things a way I'll never understand.  I mean, I know it's a token of appreciation but still!  They looked so sad and weary...the years had really gotten to them, but they were soooo thankful! 

Tuesday a boy named Emmanuel Bediako Tannor pulled me aside and gave his life story to me.  He has no parents, they've passed away, he lives with a random family who only gives him a roof over his head and nothing else.  He wants to be an author so badly and school is important.  He kept pleading me, saying "Madam, I HAVE to go to school.  I, I...I HAVE to madam.  I can not quit school.  I HAVE to finish."  I'd never heard anyone beg for education!  I told him I couldn't promise him everything and as he walked away I broke down into tears.  I went to the office to ask Mr. Aboagye who he was and when I'd heard his name I knew exactly.  That boy has the highest grades in school but I thought he'd been sacked (kicked out) because I couldn't find him in the books because he went by a different name!  I knew I had to help him.  He touched my heart!  That same day, the Yankey family's mother came and was so grateful.  I also received a letter from Mr. Tawaiah, Nina's father that again was sooooo heartfelt and thankful.

I can't believe how grateful the people are here in Ghana.  Even for the opportunity...with no gaurentees, they give what they can.  Values still survive here and unfortunately I can't say much about that back in the states, especially living in LA where everyone's about materialistic values and how to climb the food chain.  Why can't it be like this everywhere?