2 months down...

I have now been here a full 8 weeks (and 3 days?). Wow. Where has the time gone? I hear Seattle is cold and raining again, although you did have a few nice days, as well as San Francisco. It apparently is snowing in Montana and I am still sweating profusely each day. As you can see, I am back earlier than planed from my trip to northern Ghana. Originally my friends and I had planned to be gone for 10 days, this became 8 days and ended up being just 5 days. Why were our travels cut short? The main reason was due to the lack or organized transportation available in Ghana. For one thing, nothing and no one operates on an short of schedule. For practically any American, especially me (who is my father’s daughter) would be frustrated with the nonexistent need to be on time.
Here is the run down of my trip: Wednesday went according to plan. We boarded the STC “luxury” bus at 5 (well I guess we actually left about 5:40, so that was 40 minutes behind schedule but still pretty good according to Ghana) and were on our way. Luckily and very fortunately, the bus was fairly empty and my 4 travel companions and I were able to have our own set of seats each. To remind you my travel companions were Emily (Arkansas) Ross (Canada), Christina (Denmark) and Monica (Austria). After more than enough random stops on the way to buy things from various roadside vendors; things meaning a variety of crackers, water, juice, small dried fish if you so choose, yams etc, we finally arrived in Tamale a little after midnight. We were aggressively approached by many taxi drivers before we all of us even got off the bus and finally got to the first hotel we had gotten through to when we called from the bus. It was about one am when we finally settled into our room with two double beds, Ross had to sleep on the floor. All in all, not a bad first day, we were tired and the beds were firm but welcoming.
Early the next day we were off. We first had to argue with the hotel staff who tried to make us pay for two rooms after we were told on the phone that we only had to reserve one room. I think the hotel was virtually empty so the woman who owned the hotel was trying to get more money out of the obruni’s. By now we know when we are being taken advantage of and we politely told her no and paid the 17 cedis for the room. From there we headed to the bus station in Tamale to find out when we had to catch the bus to Larabunga, our next stop. We had a few hours to kill so we walked to the cultural center. There were many beautiful paintings and after much consideration I bought one oil painting. We also ate fried egg sandwiches on the side of the road for 40 pesewa each. We boarded the bus at 2:30 (though we of course didn’t depart until after 3) but first we met another friend at the bus station. Clara from Denmark had joined us since she could not leave on Wednesday. This time we were not taking an STC bus (similar to a greyhound), this time we had metro transit which is like a basic bus but will twice as many seats and this bus will not leave until each seat is full. Thankfully this ride was about 4 hours long, not 7 like the day before. We were forewarned about the overly bumpy road but still it was difficult to do much reading during those 4 hours.
The bus driver selected random radio stations (with the volume cranked high so you had no choice if you wanted to hear it or not), usually settling on various Ghanaian speaking stations but every once in while we would hear Celine Dion, Elton John or even the occasional backstreet boys song. I still smile thinking about riding a crowded, bumpy bus to northern Ghana singing to “I want it that way,” a popular boy band song from my middle school years.
We arrived at Larabunga (just 15 kilometers or so from Mole National Park) just before 6 I believe and we met one of the Salia brothers. Every guide book about Western Africa in the past 20 years has written fondly of the two identical Salia brother twins who run a guest house each. Much of northern Ghana is of the Muslim religion, as is significantly poorer than the lower half of the country. Thankfully however Mr. Salia’s savannah guest house was very homey. We stayed in little mud huts with grass roof’s and one double bed with mosquito net in each. There was a pit toilet and a place for bucket showers and a large area with a few picnic tables. The one thing missing (though I know the guest house was more authentic without it) was electricity. There was a generator used at night to provide few lights and a t.v. to watch movies at night for Mr. Salia’s children but no fans in the rooms. Therefore it was a bit difficult to sleep in the heat. We enjoyed delicious rice with vegetable stew and played cards before turning in for the night. We were up bright and early to a breakfast of bread with peanut butter and honey and were off to Mole National Park. We arrived at the hotel and tried to check in but learned that they would not know about any available rooms until noon. We found a place to store our backpacks and went to the canopy overlooking the waterhole where about 15 elephants were bathing themselves. This made all the crazy traveling well worth it. We sat and watched them and the random razorback hogs (or Pumba’s to our Disney generation) eating grass while enjoying an ice cold coke. Around 10:30 we gathered at the information lodge to sign up for a jeep safari tour. There were many other whites hanging around as well and I found myself quickly talking to others from the U.S., Canada, France, England and Holland. We joined with three other girls and the 9 of us went off with our guide in the land cruiser to find some more elephants. Our guide had a large (and very old) shot gun with him for protection, I know this is a good thing but it still made me a bit nervous while in the car. This did not stop me from getting a cool picture of me posing with the large weapon as the end of the tour.
After seeing a quite a few antelope and water buck we came across a large group of elephants eating in the bush. We were able to actually get out of the jeep and get closer, always with the guide between us and the elephants themselves. While in South Africa I was able to see a good amount of elephants but never on foot and I don’t believe we were this close either. Two hours later our safari was over and we were sweaty and in need of water. We thanked and paid the guides and went back to the hotel. We happily learned that there was a room available so we put our bags in the fairly nice, three bed plus three extra mattresses on the floor room (accompanied with a large fan!) and a shower, and changed into our swimsuits. The Mole Hotel was complete with a swimming pool overlooking the savannah! The rest of the day we ate lunch (salads and cheese burgers!) and swam. A large group of baboons came near to see if they could swipe any food and actually took off with some girl’s purse. She was able to get it back thankfully but it was quite funny.
Before dinner my group met one of the teachers at the nearby Mole government school and he offered to give us a tour. Being volunteer teachers ourselves, we are always curious to see what other schools look like and were happy for the opportunity. We had to walk a few kilometers though and it was in the middle of the day and was quite hot. This school building served mostly the children of the park employees but was pretty big and the classrooms were in good shape (compared to my school). On the way back from the school (which we really should not have walked to without a guide since it was located within the park itself) we encountered 6 large elephant right on the side of the road. We had to walk past them to get where we were going which was really incredible. I honestly was a bit nervous and kind of wished we had that large shotgun, just in case. We made it but I have the most amazing picture of myself standing just 25 feet from the large, beautiful beasts.
I met many more people from all over the world, travelers, volunteers and students (studying abroad at the University of Ghana in Accra). I so enjoy meeting new friends, and I now have many more contacts for my future travel plans. Friday night I actually enjoyed a round of drinking games with some new friends, all in all a lovely day.
Saturday we watched more elephant at the watering hole and ventured on a short walk then spent the afternoon poolside. After exchanging numbers with many of the new people I met, Mr. Salia picked us up and took us back to the guesthouse. While the Mole Hotel was nice, it was about 8 cedi per person to sleep and another 10 for meals where the guesthouse was just 3 cedi per night and about 6 for meals so it was clear that we should save money. Late Saturday afternoon we went on a walk in the village of Larabunga. Though this village’s economy needs tourism to survive, there is only one attraction drawing them here: the ancient Muslim mosque built in 1420. While we cannot actually go inside since we are not Muslim, we can pay 4 cedi for a detailed history of the mosque and the village. The children here actually look malnourished with large bellies and sunken eyes, yet they are smiling and happily grab our hands and walk with us throughout their home. We had back just before nightfall to eat some dinner (boiled yams and meat stew for me) and to join Salia’s children in watching Disney’s “Cars.” Saturday night was particularly HOT and it was very difficult to sleep. Emily and I actually joined Ross around 1 am to attempt to sleep outside under the stars on the few picnic benches.
On Sunday we had every intention of leaving further north to the city of Wa and then to the Hippo sanctuary but here is where any form of organized travel ended. We waited patiently in the town for the one metro bus to roll through and pick up people on their way to Wa and when it did, a good hour after we were told it would show, it was too crowded for even standing room. We were on a time crunch and really had to leave for Wa on Monday is we were going to make it at all. After waiting for another hour (and being told there would be a bus, and then being told there were no more buses today) we decided on a plan B. While we were deciding, Ross hoped on a motorbike that belonged to the teacher friend of ours from Friday. He and Monica actually hit it off and he had tagged along with our group every since. Ross had driven from Egypt to Italy on a motorcycle years ago and wanted to ride a bit here. I had been on a bike just once so I hopped on to go for a ride with him. Our short cruise was fun and went without any problems but while I was posing for a picture of myself on the bike I forgot about the painfully hot exhaust pipe and proceeded to burn the inside of my right calf. Since I am in Africa I worry about infection but I have more than enough antibacterial ointment and gaze so I should be just fine.
Plan B was to spend the morning checking out the nearby eco village then get a car to Damungo, an hour away, to try and catch a bus back home. The Moghori eco village is at the edge of Mole National Park and is quite the little community. We went on the hour walking tour of the village where we saw them preparing TZ (a traditional food like fufu), the children playing a traditional game in the group using small holes dug in the ground and small stones and saw the different types of mud houses. Many homes has shrines placed under small trees in their front “yards” which usually included a large, flat stone used to make animal sacrifices (yep!). We also met the village’s medicine man who showed us how he fixes things like menstrual cramps, headaches and broken bones as well as his large amount of Viagra to give to men “who can not go 5 times a day.” 5 times a day? Seriously? Wow.
After using the odorless eco toilet (something I loved), we headed off to Damungo. Mr. Salia was being an overly generous host and offered to drive us to the junction himself. We of course paid for the gas but were very grateful. We arrived at the junction at 12:15 (and were told the bus would leave around 1pm). To our surprise, the driver had actually decided to leave early and we had missed the only bus back to Kumasi! Just our luck (or lack there of). Again, thankfully, Mr. Salia was there and able to take us back to his guesthouse for one more night. Our final plan C was to take the 4am bus from Larabunga to Tamale. Sunday was also hot, and with lack of shade, we became a bit irritable but overall we simply relaxed, listened to my ipod speakers (something I am so very thankful for) and caught up on reading. I am now on my 6th book, which is ‘The Audacity of Hope’ by Mr. Barak Obama. More than once now a Ghanaian man has commented on my book and broke out with a huge smile saying, “I like Obama too.” Salia happily had a discussion about Obama and why he thinks he would be great for the next U.S. president. Ross from Canada is a Clinton fan himself and I very much enjoyed our little political debate while in Ghana. Salia was fortunate himself to have traveled to Europe (and his twin brother to the U.S.) many years ago. The two of them single-handedly started the nearby eco village, private school (with no school fees since the surrounding area is very impoverished) and worked on an NGO for the area. They are both very intelligent men. Sunday I spoke to both my dad in Seattle and mom (who is in Montana) at the moment. That is one thing I still find very interesting: I am in the savannah in northern Ghana with no electricity yet I can still get a perfectly clear signal on my cell phone to talk to loved ones from home. Aww the 20th century.
4am Monday morning we are up and waiting for the bus. We hear the 4am pray call at the close Muslim mosque. At 5am we board the bus in the pitch black dark and attempt to get some more sleep within our the small confines of our seats. We reach Tamale at 8am and by 9 are on another packed metro bus to Kumasi. We are with two Canadian ladies we met at Mole who are doing research for their masters at the university of Alberta. I have their numbers and plan on meeting them for dinner at some point next week. The road was again very bumpy. When I say bumpy, I mean literally flying off your seat! On the way we say two different buses (just like ours) on their sides. The drivers here don’t care about speed, even with a packed bus. Yes, I have started saying a little prayer upon boarding a new bus.
I finally arrived back at Columbus at 3pm yesterday and was greeted by many smiling faces of my children. It was nice to be back. After relaxing a bit, I did some reading with Mamaya (the 16 year old girl that needs a lot of help with her English), took a shower, cleaned my burn and went to sleep very early. I now feel rested and clean! I will be around this week and am off to Accra this Friday. I hope everyone had a great weekend and I wish you all a great week. I am off to check my post box to see if any packages have actually arrived!
Until next time,
Erin

lastly: a friend gave me a cd so I plan on uploading pictures at the school computer and will do my best to get some on a webshots website or something. Keep your fingers crossed!