John’s Crawlspace

So at the end of my last Ghana post, we had just left Big Milly’s at Kokrobite. We travelled via tro-tro from Kokrobite back to Accra, and then got a cab to Old Tema Station. From there we got on another tro-tro headed to Hohoe. Sound confusing? It was. On the way to Hohoe (which was a good 3 hours or so) I saw a vendor at one of the stops selling washcloths… And then I realized that one of the black washcloths had the Anthrax logo on it! I got pretty excited but I didn’t have a chance to buy it - By the time I had noticed, the tro-tro was already moving again. Just like the kid I saw in the Slayer shirt upon my arrival in Ghana, I’m sure that this vendor had no idea who/what Anthrax was, but either way, it’s definitely amusing at the least.

On the way to Hohoe, we approached a police blockade area. I’ve been on tro-tros that passed through this many times (every time I’ve traveled to Hohoe), and every other time, we’ve slowed down a bit to allow an officer to quickly walk around the tro-tro and look inside, and then nod to another officer who then opens the gate and allows the tro-tro to pass through. This time, though, there seemed to be a problem. The cop made the driver get off of the tro-tro. Obviously they were speaking Ewe, so I had no idea what was going on. Another passenger told us that the driver didn’t have his license, so he’d have to bribe the cops. They walked around the side of a building, and they were back there for a good 20 minutes or so. He finally came back and got on the tro-tro, and we were allowed to pass through, but I’m sure he just had to bribe the cops to allow him to continue driving. This was the first time we experienced this, but wouldn’t be the last.

Earlier I mentioned an acquaintance of mine from the states (Kelly) who was born in Togo - his family still lives there. I’ve obviously never met his family before, but he told me to call them when I arrived, and that they’d be delighted to have us come and stay with them for a few days. Well, I decided to call while we were in Hohoe. I was able to get in touch with his father, and he told me to call him back the next day (Monday, the 26th of November) after 9:30 am - I guess he was busy. We went and had dinner and some drinks, and then it started to pour, so we found a tro-tro and headed back to the orphanage as quickly as possible. When we got off the tro-tro at the stop closest to the orphanage, 3 of the older boys were there waiting for us. They had done this before when we went to Hohoe, even though we had told them not to, since we never know when we’ll be able to get back - The tro-tros aren’t dependable since they don’t really run on any type of schedule. So they were sitting there for like 2+ hours waiting for us in the rain.

The next day, we had egg sandwiches for breakfast - This was typical breakfast fare, but it was exciting this time, because I had some “contraband” - Ketchup that I purchased while in Accra that I snuck into the commons area. I guess it wasn’t really contraband, but I feel that Madame might have been upset had she seen it. I didn’t have class until 1:00 that afternoon, so Cortney and I went for a walk. We went to check out the kente weavers again, and then decided to head back. On the way back, we saw 3 kids from the orphanage (Simon, Peter, and Makafui) carrying a goat. I asked them what they were doing, and they explained to me that the goat had run away from the village, and they were taking it back. I thought it was pretty funny, the goat was young and made some obnoxious noises. I have a video of that, you can check it out here. I have videos of lots of other stuff too, but most of them need to be edited before I post them anywhere.

The kids at the orphanage are constantly outdoors doing something, and if it’s not straight-up manual labor, they’re usually playing soccer. They only had one soccer ball at the orphanage, and it was pretty crappy - I always saw them trying to fill it up with the air pump, but I guess it had a leak in it or something, so Cortney and I decided that we’d buy them a new one.

Anyway, I taught my class, and then Cortney and I headed to Hohoe again to call Kelly’s parents in Togo. I got in touch with him from the payphone again, and this time he told me to call him back in one hour. It was also very hard to hear him, since the payphones are right on the side of the main road in Hohoe, and this particularly day happened to be “market day”, so the streets were very busy. So we walked around for an hour or so, and then came back. This time when I called him, in addition to it being hard to understand him, it sounded like he was on speaker phone. He kept trying to tell me something but I could barely hear what it was, and it was obvious that he was getting frustrated with me. Basically what I got out of the conversation was him giving me the number of a relative of his who lived in Accra, and that I should call this relative of his if I needed anything. This wasn’t at all what I expected to hear - My understanding was that they wanted us to come stay with them in Togo, and Cortney and I were looking forward to doing that. And why did it take three separate phone calls (and an additional trip to Hohoe) just for him to give me someone’s phone number? So I went back to the internet cafe and sent an email to Kelly (back in the states) and told him what his father had told me. At this point I sort of figured that the whole Togo thing wasn’t going to happen after all, so we decided to be on our way. We bought a soccer ball for the kids from a street vendor for like $5. Then we went into a random restaurant hoping to try something new, and we settled on fufu, which actually wasn’t all that bad. It was getting dark out, and the power went out right after they took our order, so we ate by the light of a lantern, which was… Different, but cool. We spent too much time in the restaurant though, so catching a tro-tro back to Ve Deme Junction was difficult - Apparently they pretty much stop running after 7 pm or so. Taxi drivers kept harassing us, telling us that no more tro-tros would be coming, and that if we didn’t take a taxi, we’d be stuck in Hohoe all night. There was one main guy who wouldn’t leave us alone, he really wanted to drive us to Ve Deme, which would have been about a $20 ride since we’re white - Although at one point we did have to take a taxi to Ve Deme, and we had a Ghanaian do the negotiations for us, and because of that it only cost us $6 - but the funny part about this taxi driver that wouldn’t leave us alone was the fact that he was visibly intoxicated. He was swaggering back and forth while trying to convince us to come to his cab with him. The roads in Ghana are so bad as it is, and the drivers drive like it is their last day on earth, so adding alcohol into that mix is a wonderful idea. Anyway, we finally got a tro-tro after about 45 minutes of waiting, and when we got back, their were people waiting for us at the tro-tro stop as usual, even though we told them not to do that. It’s a good thing that they did this time though, because I didn’t have my flashlight (”torch”) with me, and there definitely aren’t any streetlights to speak of on the quarter mile (or so) walk from the junction to the orphanage.

I woke up the next morning and taught my class, even though there was a bat swooping around the classroom the whole time. I think this was the first day that I started to feel legitimately sick. I felt totally drained, as if I had ran a marathon or hadn’t slept for several days. I had a consistent pounding headache, and the worst diarrhea I’ve had in a long time. The part that really sucked about all of this was that I just wanted to lay down, but since I didn’t have a fan in my room, it was just entirely too hot to be in there during the day. There was a fan in the commons area, so I spent most of the day sitting in there, trying to get comfortable in the wooden chairs. I hated to ignore the kids, but due to the way I felt I just wanted nothing to do with them. I didn’t eat lunch or dinner (had absolutely no appetite) and I went to my room around 7, and laid in my bed sweating for an hour or so until I fell asleep. I remember waking up several times over the course of the night, and each time I was totally drenched in sweat - But it got cold that night, so it definitely had nothing to do with the heat. It was this that made me start to worry that I was really sick, because I don’t think that has ever happened to me before. Needless to say, I didn’t really get a good night’s sleep.

The next morning, father asked me how I was feeling, and I told him it hadn’t gotten any better. When I told him my symptoms, he immediately said “malaria”. He asked if I wanted to go to a doctor, but I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions or overreact, so I decided to give it another day or two. Cortney and Margie were heading to Hohoe, but I had a class to teach that day, so I stayed at the orphanage. I decided I couldn’t stand not having a fan anymore, so I gave them some money to buy me one. They ended up getting me one for 13,500 cedi ($13.50), but when I went to plug it in, I noticed that one of the prongs on the plug was broken. I told Isaac about this, and he found an old plug and some electrical tape and fixed it for me.

Since I was sitting around most of the day, I was flipping through Lonely Planet’s West Africa guide (which is a great book, by the way). I came across a blurb about “kola nuts“, and it definitely caught my attention. Apparently people chew these up, and they cause them to hallucinate! The book said that they were very popular in the Muslim north of Ghana, because Muslims don’t drink alcohol… I guess the rationale behind that is if you can’t drink, you might as well trip all day instead, right? The book also said that these nuts can be found almost everywhere, and that they’re even used as currency in some areas. That’s kind of awesome. I asked Madame about these nuts, and she laughed and picked up a baggy - There were two of them right there on the dining room table! Isaac broke one of them in half and tossed it into his mouth, and told me “when you eat these, you cannot sleep!” It’s my understanding that sleeping is difficult when you’re tripping, too, so that makes sense. Interesting stuff. Madame told me that they grow everywhere, so I asked two of the younger kids to show me. The tree that they grow on was about a 5 minute walk from the orphanage. There were no nuts to be found though; apparently they only grow in the Spring months, or so I was later told.

Also in the Lonely Planet guide was some information on malaria, and considering how crappy I was feeling I decided I should probably read up on the infectious disease that may have taken occupancy in my body. Some of the info really surprised me, and I actually copied the following excerpt into my journal… “Malaria is the world’s most deadly tropical parasitic disease, killing one child every 30 seconds and killing more people than any other communicable disease except tuberculosis … malaria deaths are estimated to be between 1.5 and 2.7 million per year … 3000 children under five years of age die of malaria each day“. I knew malaria was serious, especially because it usually goes untreated in 3rd world countries, but I had no idea to what extent. The book also said that malaria far exceeds the mortality rate from AIDS. I don’t mean to get all serious on you with those statistics, but I thought that was pretty incredible, to say the least.

There were 3 really cool looking benches made out of bamboo outside of the common area, with trees covering them. Other than the school, this area was basically the center of activity at the orphanage, because the trees provided shade. I was sitting outside that night writing lesson plans for the following morning’s Science class, when something bit me. It wasn’t as bad as a bee sting, but it was definitely a bite. I felt another one, and then I realized it was these tiny ants that were dropping from the tree and landing on me. I had sat on those benches many times before without that happening, but I thought that was weird… And annoying as hell, too.

When I woke up the following day, I still didn’t feel better. Since this was the 3rd day in a row that I felt lousy, I decided I should probably go see a doctor. Had I been at home with these same symptoms, I probably wouldn’t have done anything about it, but being in Africa where there are all kinds of crazy diseases, I figured it was a good idea, just to be on the safe side. I had a bowl of “rice water” for breakfast, and then Isaac walked with me to Ve Deme Junction, where we caught a taxi. Since he was the one hailing the taxi, it cost us 3,000 cedi (30 cents). If I would have gotten on the taxi alone, the dude would have probably charged me at least $2. I don’t see it as racist or anything, they’re just assuming white people are naive (and taking advantage of said assumed naivety). Anyway, we took the taxi to Golokwati, and from there we caught a tro-tro to Kpando (pronounced pan-dough). After we got off of the tro-tro, we walked for about 10 minutes, until we arrived at “St Patrick Hospital”.

I was sort of hoping that the hospital wouldn’t be the way I pictured it in my head… But it turned out to be exactly as I had pictured it. The waiting room was just a series of benches outside, and they were all filled with old people, most of them very old. Most of them weren’t talking, and besides the occasional cough or sneeze, it was kind of quiet. Some of them looked like they were dying. After I checked in (which involved filling out like 4 fields on a piece of paper, and paying some lady $5), I sat down on a bench. About 20 minutes later, they called me into the lab. This was the part that I was the most scared about… I hate needles to begin with, but I had no idea if they properly sterilized their needles or anything, and I really had no way of knowing…

I’m gonna wrap this up for now, as it’s Friday night and I need to start getting ready to go out. Have a good weekend everybody, and watch out for those Scientologists… They’ll getcha.

Normally I wouldn’t make a post just for one “deal”, but this is a good one: Buy.com has the SanDisk 4GB Cruzer Micro USB 2.0 Flash Drive for $5.99 with free shipping. Grab it here before the deal expires.

What would happen if a bunch of popular websites all showed up to the same party? Watch this video to find out. I thought that was pretty entertaining.

Started typing up a new Ghana post tonight, gimme a day or two to get this one up. Heath Ledger.

So after years of searching, you find the perfect girl. She’s all you ever wanted, and what’s more, she’s into you. Down the line you propose to her, and she accepts. Things couldn’t possibly be going any better than they are. So you finally get married, and it’s wonderful. The honeymoon is absolutely amazing. And then… You find out she’s your twin sister? Say it ain’t so! Seriously though, think about that for a minute. That really, really sucks.

Speaking of things that really, really suck… I honestly can’t believe how bad this song is. It’s the new single by “Soulja Boy”. He had that “Crank Dat” song which was annoying, but this new song is just so incredibly bad, it blows my mind. I really don’t even know what else to say about that, but I’m sitting here listening to it and I’m just in disbelief over how mind-numbingly stupid it is. And I’m sure tens of thousands of people already have it as their ringtones… Thank god.

The new Mars Volta CD, “The Bedlam in Goliath”, leaked a day or two ago. Those of you that want it probably already have it, but if you’re looking for it, you can grab it here. Also, my brother’s band, Still Motion, have recorded four new songs, and I think they sound pretty damn good. You can check them out on their myspace, or download higher quality versions of them here.

If you’re in the Philly area, and you’re looking for something to do this Saturday, this might be worth looking into: “Winter Beach Bash” featuring VHS or Beta. It’s free, and they’re a pretty cool band, too. If I remember correctly, they had some songs in Grandma’s Boy, so maybe you’d recognize them from that. Anyway, I’ll probably be there, if you want to come out and meet a blacked out celebrity. What? I am a celebrity, certainly you’re not questioning that.

So I’m pretty sure I’m gonna go to Langerado this year. I have some friends that are interested in going, and the lineup this year is pretty awesome: Beastie Boys, Gov’t Mule, Ben Folds, Built to Spill, Les Claypool, Umphreys McGee, Keller Williams, STS9, of Montreal, !!!, Minus the Bear, Ghostland Observatory, Blind Melon (minus Shannon, of course), Dr. Dog, Vampire Weekend, Pelican, Bassnectar, Busdriver… And a bunch of others, including some bigger bands that I’m not sure I care about, like REM and 311. It’s in the Florida Everglades, so we’re most likely gonna have to fly down. But the climate there in March will most likely be awesome. Bonnaroo is hot and dry (and was very dusty last year), while Langerado will be warm, sunny, and breezy. So yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ll be heading down there on March 9th.

As you can clearly see, I haven’t done much in the way of this site for the past week or so. My dog has been really sick, and we had to take her to be put to sleep on Monday. Not gonna get into the details of that, but I watched it happen, and it definitely sucked. Needless to say, I wasn’t really in the mood to spend much time on the computer (or do much else, for that matter) for the past couple days. Anyway, I’ll get working on the next “installment” of my Ghana thingy soon.

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 afterwards. 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 naïve 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 so excited over how cheap the drinks were that I got pretty hammered and it 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.

So I hope everyone had a great New Years. I spent mine in Montreal with some friends. I’d never been to Canada before, so it was pretty cool… But Montreal was expensive as hell. Most beers cost at least $8. I was trying to watch my spending so I figured I’d grab a few 40s since typically thats cheap, and it turned out that they were like $7 each. A case of 24 bottles of Molson was like $36! Anyway, it snowed pretty much the entire time we were there. I didn’t mind too much, since that was the first snowfall I’d seen since arriving back from Ghana (and therefore the first snow of the Winter for me), but it was much colder than I had planned for.

I’m not sure if this is an accurate way of describing it or not, but Montreal almost seems like a red light district that gets off without being trashy about it. We were offered drugs countless times, and there are strip clubs all over the place, but they blend in pretty well with the other non-sleazy establishments.

The first night, we went out but no one got too drunk, even though I think each one of us spent around $80-90 at the bars. They’re open til 3 am, which is a nice change from the 2 am closing times we’re used to in the states.

The second day, my friend Joe and I walked around during the day trying to figure out what to do for New Years. We figured we would probably end up spending around $80 for an all-you-can-drink special at one specific bar, as opposed to wandering around aimlessly looking for new bars to check out all night. There were “promotional guys” all over the place with flyers, advertising different specials. After checking out at least 10 of them, we decided on Orchid Nightclub. They were advertising some beach party (called “The Real Cancun”) and said it’d be open bar 9-3, and that they had a manmade beach inside, and all kinds of other far-fetched stuff that didn’t turn out to be true. They wanted $90 per ticket, but I got them down to $75 each since there were 7 of us.

So we got dinner and pregamed in the hotel, and headed out around 8:30 or so. We waited in line outside the club for like half an hour, at which point I realized that almost everyone was dressed much nicer than we were. The guy who I bought the tickets from never said anything about a dress code, he just said “don’t show up in hip-hop gear, because that’s just not cool man” - Not sure what that means, but it was funny hearing a black dude imply that “rap fashion” is low class and/or trashy.

When we got inside we wasted no time making our way to the first bar we saw. We definitely took advantage of the open bar, even though it was limited (no carbombs or shots or anything). At one point some dude reached behind the bar and snagged a bottle of grey goose and passed it around. My memory of the night gets a bit hazy after midnight, but it was a pretty good night overall. Unless you take into account the fact that my cell phone and new digital camera were stolen. That being said, it kind of sucked. That definitely was not the way I wanted to start off my New Year… And it’s even more frustrating because it’s not even close to the first time that has happened. I’ve been through around 10 cell phones, and if I remember correctly, that was my 5th digital camera. I really need to start taking better care of my stuff… Even though I thought I was. I had lots of great pictures on there too, from that trip as well as everything else that has happened since I got back from Ghana. Ugh.

I have heard of tons of crazy things being sold on eBay, but I never came across a list of them before, so this was interesting. Of particular interest to me were the authentic JFK assassination shooters perch window (went for $3,001,501 this past February) and the vampire killing kit. And while we’re at it, here’s another good top 10 list thrown in for good measure: The top 10 unintentionally worst company URLs. My favorite is therapistfinder.com, though it’s hard to choose with classics like molestationnursery.com.

Oh yeah… And it wouldn’t be the end of a year (or, I suppose, the beginning of a new one) without the annual Darwin Awards. If you aren’t familiar with the Darwins (named after evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin) they are given out each year to people who “do a service to humanity by removing themselves from the Gene pool”, usually in ridiculous (and amusing) ways… Check them out if you’re looking for a laugh or two.

If you’re like me and aren’t exactly glued to the TV when it comes to politics, this little guide is helpful for learning what exactly goes on at these caucuses… I suppose it’s only relevant since Iowa’s is tonight… And how often are politics ever touched on at this site? I do remember learning about this stuff in school, but definitely couldn’t have told you what went on there without brushing up.

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to write more about Ghana within the next few days. I have an interview tomorrow morning, but as usual it doesn’t seem like a job I’ll be too interested in. But I’ll give it a shot anyway and see how it goes. Have a good rest-of-the-week and an even better weekend urrbody. And to those of you in climates similar to mine: Don’t let the cold get you down, Summer will be here… Soon?