John’s Crawlspace

The night following the day that we went to Wli stands out to me because I remember I was just beginning to get comfortable my room and the sleeping situation in general… And that very same night I was woken out of a sound sleep by some animals fighting outside of my room. It really scared the crap out of me, and I have no idea what kind of animals they were, but it was loud as hell. My guess was that it was two dogs killing something, but whatever it was, it put up quite a fight. It definitely freaked me out a little bit, and I had a hard time getting back to sleep afterward. Once again, thank god for that iPod. The following day I told the village father what I had heard, and he laughed and told me that it was just some cats. I don’t believe that for a second… I have heard cats make some ridiculous, evil noises before, but nothing that loud or frightening.

The village father seemed like a pretty knowledgeable guy. A lot of times we’d sit down and talk with him for hours about all sorts of things. I remember that the day after we went to Wli Falls (November 19th), he was talking to us about all the different animals he has seen. He spent a good part of his life hunting in different parts of Africa, and has seen lots of different things. Anyway, he was telling us about a “mudfish” that can crawl out of water and hunt for mice and frogs – and that it could also climb trees. I’m sure that sounds ridiculous taken out of context, but most of the stuff this guy would talk to us about (minus the religious stuff, which was also nonetheless very interesting, at least in my opinion) seemed pretty legit.

I remember I spent most of my morning sitting outside writing the following day’s lesson plans. There was an orange tree right outside my room that I sat underneath to avoid the scorching sun, and the kids would always come over and knock oranges out of the tree with a makeshift tool that they had for this specific purpose. I only mentioned this because, in Ghana (and probably most of Africa) oranges aren’t orange like the ones I’ve grown accustomed to in the US; they’re either green or yellow. They don’t peel them there either – They use a knife to hack off the outer layer of skin, but leave the thick white skin on the orange. Then they chop the top of the orange off, exposing some pulp. You take the orange and squeeze the juice out of the top. This way there is still something between your hand and the fruit itself, so you don’t get sticky juice all over your hands. The fruit there was absolutely amazing by the way (namely oranges and bananas) and tasted much better than it does here.

Later that day, Cortney and I went for a walk. After walking for a bit, we saw some children weaving kente cloth. The “machines” (they call each machine a “loom”) that they sit at while they weave are made out of wood, and are sort of built into the ground. I had my camera with me, and we decided to go over and ask them if we could take a closer look. As is normally the case with Ghanaians, the lady who was obviously in charge of the weaving operation said we were welcome to watch. I had read about kente weavers before coming to the country – these hand-woven cloths that they create are traditionally used for ceremonial purposes, and they come in all kinds of colors and patterns (with a variety of corresponding meanings, I’m sure). Anyway, watching the kids do this up close was pretty cool – They are ridiculously quick with their hands. I have some pretty good video of this (and a lot of other things as well) that I’ll hopefully get around to putting on Youtube at some point. Later on, I bought a few of these cloths and brought them back as gifts for people.

For lunch that day we had “red red“ – Fried plantain with a goat meat and black-eyed peas mixture on top. It was definitely the best thing I had eaten at the orphanage by far. I told madame (the village mother) that this was my favorite too, and she made it for me again on my birthday.

That night, I remember I had a hard time falling asleep because there was loud drumming coming from the jungle. I guess different parts of the village go to sleep at different times – Everyone in the orphanage was usually asleep (or in their respective sleeping areas) not much later than 9 pm.

The following day, the orphanage burnt their trash. I don’t know if they do this on a certain day every week, or when it starts to pile up, or what. They put it in piles and just set it on fire. A lot of the trash is plastic – Purified water is delivered by truck everyday, and it comes in small, sealed plastic bags that you bite open and drink, so you can imagine how many of those pile up over time. The burning plastic actually made it hard to breathe, and I took shelter in my room for an hour or two until it cleared up. I didn’t have a fan in my room (and actually didn’t end up buying one until the 3rd week we were there) so staying in there during the day was pretty tough.

Later that day, Cortney and I decided we wanted to go exploring. One of the older kids told us that they’d be going to collect beans from a field soon, and that we should go with them, so we did. I had no idea how far of a walk it was or anything, so I just went in what I was wearing: shorts, a wife beater, and flip-flops.

So we start walking, and after about 15 minutes I start to wonder how far away this places is. We start walking down narrow paths through the bush, and there are all kinds of plants brushing up against my arms and legs. I got a rash from the hike to the upper falls at Wli, and during that hike I wasn’t even that close to too many plants, so I figured I was in for quite a treat here. A little bit later the guy who was leading us says “hurry, there are ants coming”. That definitely caught me off guard. I had already been bitten by some kind of ant, but the thought of actually changing ones plans due to ants showing up somewhere was pretty strange to me. And I have no idea how he knew that “ants were coming” either. Just strange in general. So they start walking a lot faster. After about half an hour of walking we made it to the bean field. We picked beans for a while, and that’s definitely a more difficult task than I would have thought – After about 20 minutes or so I worked up quite a sweat and my back was sore. Everyone over there is in such better shape than we are, and this is why, they are constantly doing manual labor. We stayed until it started to get dark, and then headed back to the orphanage.

The following day, my class was supposed to start at 8 am. Father was preaching to all of the students in the school when I got there, so I stuck around for awhile, and then decided to go walk around for a bit. I checked back at 9 and he was still going. I didn’t end up teaching until like 9:30 or so. Not that this is a big deal or anything, but it’s just an example of how unorganized things are compared to the way they are here. I’m so used to following a schedule and things having a structure to them, but I got used to the complete lack of organization after the first week or so.

Later that day we decided to go to Hohoe – I wanted to check my email and send some postcards, and it was nice to get out of the orphanage every few days, since there wasn’t a whole lot to do there. So we got on a tro-tro.

There are usually 2 people on the tro-tro who are working: the driver and the “mate”. The driver obviously sits up front and drives, while the mate sits in one of the back seats and collects money from people. At one of the stops on the way to Hohoe, someone pulled the mate out of the tro-tro. They had a heated argument (about something, obviously I didn’t understand) and then they started fighting. It was kind of amusing at first, but then a big crowd started to gather around. After a minute or two, someone broke it up, and the mate jumped back on the tro-tro and we were on our way. I thought that was pretty interesting though, he was in a fist fight one minute, and back to work the next.

At this point I still had a little bit of money left, but knew I’d need to get to an ATM soon. I hadn’t used an ATM in Ghana yet: I arrived in the country with some US dollars which I exchanged at a bank in Ho on one of the first days we were here. So I tried an ATM in Hohoe, and the ATM wouldn’t accept Mastercard. They directed me to another bank, Barclays (one of the bigger chains over there) and told me that my card might work there – It didn’t. I didn’t know it yet, but I wouldn’t encounter a single ATM during my entire trip in Ghana that accepted Mastercard. Cortney had a Visa card, so I just started borrowing money from her.

The following day, I walked into my 8 am Science class, and the “chalkboard” was gone – In its place was a big piece of wood on the wall. I went and found another teacher and asked him about this, and he told me to just “go ahead and teach anyway”. As you can imagine, when you write on a piece of wood with chalk, it doesn’t really erase. When I pointed this out to them, they brought in some sort of black paint and put a layer of it on the wood. I then realized that this is what all the chalkboards in the school were – Wood with a few layers of some kind of black primer stuff on them. The layer took about 20 minutes to dry, and they said they’d put the rest of the layers on later. I still couldn’t write on it very well, so I went and found one of the old chalkboards and propped it up on a chair. Needless to say, this wasn’t exactly an ideal classroom setup.

I also remember that day that the kids were pushing my limits more than they ever had before. They wouldn’t stop talking to one another, and at one point, a few of them got up and walked out of the classroom. I actually yelled really loud at them, and they sat down and listened from that point on. I was sort of surprised with myself afterwards, since I didn’t think I’d even care about the class enough to get angry and yell at them, but it worked. From that point on they behaved a little better, but they still talked a lot. They’re just kids though, so I don’t expect them to pay attention as if they were in a college classroom or something.

I played some volleyball later that day. Playing volleyball with other teachers and kids in the village was a lot of fun, but after being in direct sunlight for 20-30 minutes, you just can’t take it anymore. I’ve never had a heat stroke before, but I’m pretty sure I came close a few times while I was over there just from too much physical activity in the sun.

Cortney and I had plans to go to Accra the following day, so we went to bed early that night. Father was going to Accra as well, and we decided we’d go along with him so he could help us find some things in the city, since we had only been there briefly – Accra is where the airport is, so that was the first part of Ghana we saw. Anyway, he had planned on leaving very early in the morning, so we decided to do the same so we could go with him. I woke up at 3:30 am the next day, and got ready to leave. It was kind of neat to be up that early – It was still dark out, and the entire village was deserted. The moon was bright orange, and the stars were shining the brightest I has seen them since I arrived.

Anyway, when I woke up, father was already up, and so were Elvis (one of the older students) and Isaac (another teacher who lives in the village) who helped Father with his bags. Cortney and I followed them down the road to the junction, where the tro-tros pass. We waited about 10 minutes until an Accra-bound tro-tro drove by. We hopped on and I grabbed a window seat in the front row (behind the driver), which was nice for a change, since I had a little bit of leg room, as opposed to the back seats that offer basically just enough room to fit your body in.

This guy drove like a maniac, the same way most of the tro-tro and taxi drivers do. After about a half an hour or so of driving, the engine must have overheated, so we pulled over. Tro-tros are always breaking down for one reason or another, so I was used to this happening by now. The engine was underneath the front bench seat, so the driver and front passenger got out and took a look at it. They then poured something into the engine and hot steam shot out all over the inside of the car, and I was closest to the engine, so I got the worst of it. A heads-up would have been nice. We took that as a sign that we should get out of the car. This happened 2 or 3 more times on the way to Accra, but after that first time we knew to get out of the car when it pulled over. I wish I could say this was the worst part of the trip.

As approached Accra, traffic was pretty backed up. Like I said, these drivers are pretty aggressive. The driver of our tro-tro wanted to get past another tro-tro, and that driver wouldn’t move, so our tro-tro just slammed into his. It definitely did a bit of cosmetic damage too – our driver didn’t seem the slightest bit phased by this, which was funny and slightly disturbing at the same time.

As I said earlier, I was seated in the first row of seats behind the driver. There was a fire extinguished in a metal holster attached to the wall, about a half of a foot above my knee. It wasn’t a traditional fire extinguisher – It was in an aerosol can, so you just push on the top and it sprays out whatever delicious chemicals are inside. For whatever reason, my knee bumped this fire extinguisher, and it pushed up against the top of the holster thing. As luck would have it, this caused the extinguisher to blast said delicious chemicals all over my face. Both of my eyes were open at the time and this stuff burnt like hell. I’ve never had anything in my eyes burn that badly before – But then again, I don’t think I’ve ever really had chemicals in my eyes. So we’re in this cramped tro-tro sitting in traffic in the outskirts of Accra, and I’m freaking out because I’m not even sure what happened. I had a bag of water in my bookbag so I fumbled around for it. I managed to stick my head far enough out the window to try and dump the bag of water in my eyes. It didn’t work too well though, and cars drive so close to each other there that I didn’t keep my head out long for fear that I’d get slammed by a car or mirror.

The burning got increasingly worse after the first few minutes, and I don’t know if I overreacted or not (how are you supposed to respond in a situation like that?) but I honestly thought I was going to have eye damage. Someone else on the tro-tro handed me some “pain killers” – I have no idea what they were, but I swallowed them without a second thought. I don’t think they really did anything though, they were probably Tylenol or something.

I remembered that I had a bottle of Visine in my bag so I found that, and used almost the entire thing to try and wash my eyes out, but that didn’t work too well either. I realized I was just gonna have to man up and wait for the burning to stop on its own. Which it did – About three or four hours later.

When we finally got off the tro-tro, Father led us around Accra for a bit and pointed out some things to us. I honestly have no recollection of anything he showed us or said to us, all I could concentrate on was the fact that it felt like my eyes were on fire. He helped us get a taxi – You have to negotiate hard with the taxi drivers, especially in Accra. They see a white person and assume that they’re naive and will therefore pay a highly inflated rate. Some taxi drivers will start off asking for $20 for a ride that would normally cost less than $1 – I experienced this on a regular basis in Ghana.

We had met a girl named Sunny from London earlier in our trip, and she was supposed to come meet up with us in Accra. She told us to check into a hotel that she had stayed at previously – She didn’t know the name of it, but only that it was located “across from Aqua J field”. We found a taxi driver that understood where this was, and we found the hotel – Lake Bosumtwi Hotel. Notice in the picture that “Bosumtwi” is spelled one way on the sign, and another way on the banner. Inconsistencies in spelling are a common occurrence in Ghana, and they always stood out like a sore thumb to me for some reason.

Anyway, we checked into Lake Bosumtwi Hotel, which turned out to be in a part of Accra called Osu. We got a “double” for $31 a night. Our room was actually much nicer than I had expected it to be. I wouldn’t say it was nice by “American standards”, but after living in an orphanage in a remote village for 2 weeks, it was like paradise. You’ll notice in the photo that our room had a refrigerator; therefore I needed to find beer to stock said refrigerator. So we went out looking for that (as well as a phone booth to call Sunny and let her know we found the hotel) but we got distracted and ended up having a drink at a spot instead. They call bars “spots”, and a spot can be something as small as a tiny kiosk with 2 benches in front of it, which is exactly what we found.

After we left the spot, we passed a “movie theater“, which I had to get a photo of. I wonder what the inside of one of those looks like?

Typically you drink your beer out of the bottle at a spot and then leave the bottle there, so I had a hard time finding a place that would sell me beer to go. I finally found one that would, but I had to pay a deposit for the glass they were in, which was a pain.

Around noon we took a taxi to Makola Market. There are tons of markets in Ghana, but Makola is the most well know, and probably the biggest and busiest one as well. When we arrived, I couldn’t believe how unbelievably packed this place was. They sell all kinds of stuff, from fruits and vegetables, to clothing and home appliances – It’s like a glorified flea market. There were so many people there that I actually didn’t want to stay too long. Normally that type of thing wouldn’t bother me, but it was hard to move around without bumping into people. After walking around for maybe 45 minutes, we decided we had seen enough, and headed back to the hotel to meet up with Sunny.

We went to some vegan place called Sacred Tree for dinner. While we were there, Sunny was rolling a cigarette, and a little girl (the daughter of the owner, who is Rastafarian) came up and said, “what is that, ganja?” I thought this was funny because the girl was like 5 years old, but clearly she had seen her parents rolling joints before. Anyway, the food was really good, and we ended up coming back to that place a few other times later in our trip.

The next day (Saturday, Nov 24th) I tried to use my card at all the bigger banks in the area, but once again, I had no luck. I borrowed some cash from Cortney instead, since her Visa card worked at every ATM that she tried. We walked around for a while and checked out the art/crafts/jewelry that the street vendors were selling. I bought some cool wooden masks to give as gifts to people back home – They sell these masks everywhere, and if you know how to barter you can get a good deal. Some of the vendors can be really aggressive though, they’ll even follow you around and keep asking you to “name a price”, it can be extremely annoying. Some of them remind me of the gypsies in certain parts of Spain – They’ll come up to you and put a necklace around your neck, and then demand money for it.

Later that day, we took a taxi to Kaneshie Motorpark. As soon as we got out of the taxi, 10 dudes crowded around us, asking where we are going. As soon as they see a white person, they jump at the opportunity to make money off of them in any way possible. Some of these guys were taxi drivers, who knows what the other ones wanted. I ignored them but one guy followed us and asked where we were going, so I told him we wanted to catch a tro-tro to Kokrobite. So he told us to follow him.

I had previously read about people who offer their services as “guides” and then demand some sort of payment afterwards, so I was a bit skeptical, and told the dude several times we didn’t need a guide, but we followed him anyway. Kaneshie Motorpark is enormous, and we had no idea where we needed to go anyway. So after about 10 minutes of following this guy, he points to a tro-tro and tells us that it will take us to Kokrobite. We thank him and get in line to get on the tro-tro – And then he puts his hand out and demands payment. I told him no thank you, and that we didn’t solicit his services, but he wouldn’t go away. When we got onto the tro-tro, he actually followed us on. I was getting pretty aggravated, and I know if I ignored him long enough he would have left, but I decided I’d give him my change from the tro-tro fee, which was equal to 50 cents or so. He looked at me and laughed and was totally ungrateful. Whatever.

It was about a half hour ride to Kokrobite. When we arrived, we found “Big Millys Backyard“, which is the place we were looking for. This place was awesome. It’s more or less a big garden with huts to sleep in, and it leads right to the beach. Actually, it’s on the beach, but it’s fenced in. Our room only cost $15, and it was pretty nice inside. Only one bed for the 3 of us, but we figured we’d be drinking enough that night that it wouldn’t matter anyway.

We decided to swing by the bar first (booze was pretty cheap) and then we went to check out the beach. I wanted to get in the water, but we were advised against this by the locals. If Ghanaians are telling you not to get into the water, there is probably a good reason for it. Apparently, many of the locals use the ocean as a toilet, and there are lots of turds floating around in there. Needless to say, I enjoyed the beach without doing any swimming that weekend. You’re also not supposed to bring anything with you to the beach, because if you stray far enough from the resort (or if it’s dark out) you’ll most likely be robbed. Apparently this is a regular occurrence, and, for the most part, I heeded the warnings.
All over Big Milly’s, and even on the beach, it smelled like weed. This may or may not be due to the fact that the majority of the people there were Rastafarians. They were very friendly, too. As soon as we got there, a bunch of them introduced themselves, and they seemed genuinely interested in us and why were in Ghana.

I was able to sit on the beach and watch the sun set – And I mean this quite literally. I could actually see the sun moving behind the hills. I have never seen anything like this before in my life – But then again, I’ve never seen a sunset while being so close to the equator, so I’m assuming that’s why.

After we came back from the beach, we met up with the 2 other volunteers, Margie and Jerusha, and hung out at the bar for awhile. Usually I’m pretty good with booze and knowing my limits, but I was pretty excited over how cheap the drinks were, so I ended up getting pretty hammered, which caught me off guard. I decided to slow down – And then I decided to order a box of wine, which is the opposite of slowing down. It cost $2.50, and they just handed me the box at the bar, which was awesome.

After dinner, and some more drinking (and lots of tequila shots), a reggae band came on, and everyone was dancing. I’m not crazy about reggae, but it could have been much worse. I’m not too big on dancing, but I still enjoyed myself.

The girls that I was with were being swarmed by guys, so I did my own thing for awhile. One thing that’s different about bars in Ghana is that guys are much friendlier to you than they are in the US. If I was at a bar in the US and some guy came up to me and just started talking to me out of nowhere, I’d think something fishy was going on, but people are just genuinely friendly there. One guy who was talking me asked if I wanted to go smoke on the beach with him, but I decided that was probably not in my best interest, since I’d end up with the spins and probably get robbed, too. I ended up going to bed around 2 or so that night, after the band stopped playing.

I took some pictures on the beach the next day before we left. I was getting some strange/uneasy looks from the locals, so I decided it’d be best to take my camera back to the room. Oh yeah, and you pay for all of your drinks when you check out. Everyone else’s tab was around $15-$20; mine was like $35. Not bragging or anything, I’m just not sure how that happened, since most of the drinks weren’t more than a buck each.

I’m gonna stop now. I thought I’d be able to cover the whole Ghana experience in 4 parts, but it looks like it’s gonna be more than that. I don’t wanna litter these posts with other, non-related things, so that’s all for now.

Related Posts:

1. Ghana (Part Four)...
2. Ghana (Part Nine)...
3. Ghana (Part Seven)...

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