Ghana!

Oh where, oh where do I begin to tell the tales of West Africa?! I guess I could start with sharing the list of advised things/places to avoid that SAS provided us at pre-port:

1. Females should travel with males

2.  Do not ride a Tro-Tro (local bus) after dark

3. Do not go to the beaches after dark

4. Avoid falling in open sewers

5. Only take rides from taxi's

6. Don't play with Monkeys

7. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD ONE DRINK AKPETESHIE (tanslation: kill me quickly)

Now, follow along and see how well I do at following the rules…

Day one: We come from Obama Country 

            Brittany, Lana, Mike, Joe and I all cram into a Taxi to head towards Oxford ST. in Accra. This street is famous for little markets filled with trinkets and African attire! After a long and sweaty drive into town we get out and immediately begin getting hassled for our money! Luckily, I was brought up right so I know how to handle myself while getting hounded for my money. But the girls where having a bit of a problem shaking the venders off so after being followed for about twenty minutes the boys split and we are left to fend for ourselves… Eventually I take the jewelry that Lana is trying to be sold and deal with the vendor (we shall call him "sweater-vest"), he was very persistent and did not enjoy my firm way of saying no. After telling him we have no money and will not buy this from he still wont take it from me so I give him till the count of five & place it at his feet. Imagine how that goes over, not so well. He looks at me as if I am Satan & tells me to pick it up. This is when I stick the deal that if I pick up his items he will peacefully take them from me and leave us alone. Well, he breaks the deal which results in me placing them on his shoulder and grabbing the girls and ducking into a local hospital. We wait about five minutes until Sweater-vest man leaves! Success! We continue to shop in peace and look for Joe and Mike, but they are no where to be found so…. After about an hour or so of wandering around Accra I find myself in the shop next to Brit and Lana when all of a sudden Sweater-vest man appears! He approaches me slowly points his fingers in the shape of a gun to my face and says " your gunna get shot in other Countries" and shoots me…Pshh last time I try to help someone else!

            The day goes on and we shop around and search for some food. Surprisingly it was extremely hard to find a place to get food in this part of town. But we eventually find a little café, that reminds me a lot of karma juice and get some fresh smoothies and burgers. But, apparently what Ghanaians mean by Bacon Cheeseburger is BLT on a burger bun. Lana eventually has some locals make her theses odd bracelet things that take forever so we end up befriending the brothers that are making them! Hector and Francis shoo the other vendors away so we have some peace until the bracelets are done. Its about late afternoon and we have no game plan so we stop and a place to hydrate and hang out for a little to make our game plan. Eventually Hector and Francis show up out of nowhere and join us, In pre-port we told that Ghanaians are some of the nicest people in the world. And besides sweater vest man, its been pretty true so we are not worried. We eventually decide we want to go the backpackers heaven called Big Millies in Cocoa beach. Our friends explain that it's a tad far but they are headed that way and would love to show us the way. And the adventure starts! Before we head out we ask where we can find a bathroom and no joke we are taken to a outdoor stall with a hole in the ground… Oh my Ghana! The sun is about to set as we hop in the taxi and head out. Traffic in Ghana is ten times worse than LA traffic so what should of taken 15 minutes into about 45 minutes. We find ourselves getting out of the taxi in an area that no longer seemed tourist friendly and instead was invested with locals selling the strangest things (see picture #1)! The next part of our journey involves the Tro-tro! Tro-tro's are local buses that are maybe the size of moms' creeper van and are packed to the gills! It costs one Cedi, which is about equal to .60 American cents. This bus ride takes us the next two hours. The journey slowly turns from industrialized villages to more and more run down villages, eventually resulting in Mud huts lit by candles. This is when we start to wonder where the world we are headed. We were sure in the beginning that we were actually headed to cocoa beach, were not idiots (or at least complete idiots) we double and triple checked with every person also boarding the tro-tro was in fact headed to cocoa beach. By this point it had been hours since we've eaten or let alone seen another white person. But by now, we have no other choice but to trust Hector and Francis. Eventually we are forced out of the tro-tro in an area that looks abandoned, we begin following a windey road to know where, asking ever person we see if it ends at Big Milles backpacking resort. Every person nods yes but we are still not convinced this is the greatest idea, but the chance to turn around has long passed. I eventually hear the crash of waves on a shoreline and am instantly calmed and get the sense that everything will be all right! About five minutes after hearing the ocean we spot an SASer!! Im not a fan of being surrounded by tons of other students while in port, but boy were they a sight for sore eyes!! We jump in joy and embrace our fellow students, we thank our Ghanaian friends for getting us there alive and this is when they no longer become our friends… and they turn into every other hustling Ghanaian. They start claiming that we owe them tons of money for getting us there and that we promised we would cough up money. Its funny because the story I knew involved nothing of this sort & they just happened to be going the same way. Well lesson learned, apparently nothing in life is really free. Since Brittany and Lana love avoiding contact they scurried off to the bar and I was left to fight them off. After a lot of bickering and quarreling I forked over 10 cedi and told them to get lost!

            By this time its about nine or ten and we realized that we've got a 3 day trip that leaves from the ship in Tema at 7am the next morning! We didn't really factor in that it would take us this long to get there but now its been way to far of a trek to start to head home to the ship. Some of the others said that they are scheduled to be on that trip as well so we plan on staying the night and leaving around 4 am. And since the hostel had every hut booked "staying the night" means planning to sleep on some benches in the common areas. After exploring the benches and chatting with some Germans that have been volunteering in Ghana for the past few months, some of our friends invited us to squeeze into their hut! Yes, I was hoping someone would find the kindness in their hearts to let us stay with them!

Day Two: An early start to Valentines Day

 My harry potter themed alarm sounds @ 3.50 am… 45 minutes of sleep was just a BAD idea! We all roll out of our squeezed bed and stumble to where the taxi driver had parked his van the night before when he came to negotiate a price. No one assumed "Imagine"- our driver would sleep at Big Millie's, but right then he pops out of the of the bushes in his Rasta colored pajamas! Imagine was no knock off Rasta man, he got right down to business. 3 blunts within the first 15 minutes of our two-hour car drive! Can you imagine a van full of white kids driving through Ghana at sunrise sticking our heads out the window to avoid second hand highs? Well, it's a pretty funny sight! We make it back to the ship by 6 am, but not with out conflict... The car broke down a few times and imagine also managed to drive it into a ditch, but we made it safely! I've got one hour to get some breaky and pack for a two-night home stay in an monkey village. I get to the pick up area by precisely 6:55! & I wait, wait, wait, sleep a little and wait some more. An hour has gone by and the guide still hasn't arrived. It might have been the lack of sleep or the vibes from the surrounding SASholes, but I get the feeling that this is not how I'm suppose to spend my time in Ghana… so I head back to my cabin and call a friend Cody to see what his plans are.  Turns out my gut was right, that afternoon he was planning on heading to Busua Beach, a local surf community a few hours west!

We've got a few hours to kill before heading out, so we go venture around Tema the port town and get ourselves a little lunch. Once David and Thomas get back from their FDP around 4 o'clock we hit the road!  The shuttle driver makes plans for his friend that is a van driver to take us in his spacious AIR CONDITIONED (huge deal while in Africa) Land Rover but somehow after driving around for 30 minutes that backfires and we get dropped back off right were we started. Instead a man named Collins agrees to drive us to Busua! The only catch is now instead of a fancy car we are forced to pay more for a crammed shitty Toyota with no AC. We decide its worth it to get just get on the road and hop on in! First thing Collins says to us is, " Don't be scared, no need to be scared". It was odd because we didn't think we had anything to worry about, but the fact that he kept repeating it made us a tad worried. Soon enough he puts on a tape for us to jam out to, or not. It's a horrible country tape, Google the song "just listen to the radio". Its horrid and could be the soundtrack for a scene from a movie, the scene just before the backpackers get their organs cut out… " Don't be scared, no need to be scared". The 3-hour car drive we were promised quickly doubles. Over the next 6 hours we dodge in and out of traffic making our own lanes, witnessing dozens of car accidents, watching sugar cane farms burn to the ground & singing along to our fabulous country music! Collins wasn't much of a talker but when he occasionally pipe up and wasn't telling us to not be worry he was muttering "My mistake, COLLIN'S MISTAKES". Eventually we stop for about ten minutes and Collins returns telling us that he's gone as far as he can and that he has arranged for another cab to take us the rest of the trip and that he will pay for it. We look at each other shrug and just go with the flow; this is when we realized that Collins' car wasn't even a taxi…

The next driver is even less of a talker than Collins, but that was A-Okay with me! FINALLY we arrived at Alaska beach resort! We walk along the sand until we find our friends Katie and Will asleep in a hammock! We explored the area in the dark before hitting the hay for yet another early wake up call!

Day 3: The waves & the fall

            We wake up at 6:30 to start our day off right! Some locals told us that we absolutely must try "Daniels famous pancakes" and they were absolutely right! As odd at this sounds I had chocolate pineapple pancakes and they were bitchin! We also met frank the fresh juice man! He made us his specialty pineapple mango mix! The only catch is that he doesn't own a juice shop what's so ever, therefore doesn't own cup so you get your juice out of a random water bottle! We were all a little sketched out but the juice was so good we couldn't stop drinking it! Regardless of where the bottles came from! Next we headed down the beach towards the fishing village and watched them throw their fishing nets out. Eventually the chief or "nana" of the village comes up to meet us and ends up giving us a tour of his town! It was so crazy to see how differently people live from us. I'm not kidding when I say their houses were crafted out of mud! Younger generations speak English fluently but the older generations need everything translated for them. The chief introduced us to his mother and gave her our thank yous for inviting us into their village and in return she offered us a drink of Akpeteshie We all looked at each other a little doubtful after recalling the pre-port Do not dos, but then we also remembered that its rude to say no soo…. We tried the moonshine! It wasn't horrible going down but it sure did burn until about noon.

            Next, the boys rented some surfboards from a surf shop named black star that was started by a guy named peter from the states! The waves honestly weren't that good but just the fact that we were surfing in WEST AFRICA made them a million times better!! First Katie and I took the go-pro out to snap some pictures of the boys while body surfing, but then the boys let us use the boards for a little! The first wave I took off on was absolutely amazing! The water just swept me up and my top off! Classic Torie move, right? We spent the rest of the day soaking up the sunrays and catching waves! Some of the local fishermen caught some sharks right off shore, WHERE WE WERE SURFING! After lunch and naps in our hammocks the boys went out for another surf sesh while Katie and I played with the most adorable little kids in the sand! The cross cultural differences between Africa's and 'Americas are so intriguing! I mean the fact that 8 year olds are babysitting their two-year-old siblings while selling fruits and trinkets all over town just blows my mind! They taught us all sorts of things from dance moves to local sayings!

            That night was the eve of Katie's birthday so we went to dinner on a rooftop with some red wine! Some of the local surfers promised they would make us a Ghanaian bonfire, which we figured would be like any normal bonfire. NOPE it was at least 15 feet high! It was crazy they had to stand on chairs to light the bamboo! Once it finally caught on fire, some of the little kids from the afternoon wandered back to have a dance off with us! Clearly, we all know who won this one…Not us! Later, we walked around town to different bars or well actually to pretty much the only bar we found called the swingers bar! After hanging around the bar for a little we decided to walk around town some more. And What type of story would this be with out me hitting the earth with a thump!?? We were just walking around all dandy, chatting and what not then AHHHHH SPLISH SPLASH! Yep, I have really out done myself this time. I have just fallen into a filthy, filthy gutter. A gutter filled raw sewer… The number one thing on that list of things not to do that I was praying I wouldn't do!! The sewer system in Ghana, is pretty much non-existent. They are just drop offs on the side of the road, some are small, some are wide, some dry and some are filled with all sorts of goodies. Luckily, the one I fell into wasn't too deep with mysteries. But deep enough for me to feel the consequents of my cut up body! As the locals laugh hysterically at me they also offer the clean me up with some water, which I was beyond grateful for at the time! We all plug our noses to keep the adventuring forward!

Day 4: The long road back

            Yet again our alarms go off at 630 am! Apparently at some point the boys planned to have a local take us to the island that's not too far off shore in his fishing canoe! We stumble down the giggling about the night before! Everything from the dance off to the gutter to the 7 fingered local! Theres literally so many stories I cant even begin to tell them all ( & im already sorry that this post has been so long!)  The task of pushing the oversized canoe into the water took all the manpower we had to offer and some medieval tactics. The island was way smaller than we expected it too but it was still awesome! After the island we attempted to get our friend to show us the other local surf spots but he didn't quite understand and took us back to the mainland instead. The rest of the day we spent packing up our hut and saying goodbye to all of our new friends! The last thing we do before hitting the road is play around the monkeys that roam around the property, they were absolutely adorable and friendly! They would climb up and down you! And yes, with my luck the monkey bites me! Well it was more of a nibble rather than a bite considering it didn't even break the skin but if you ask me that counts for checking it off the list!

            The rest of the day was spent on a really really long bus ride going east towards the ship we call home! Hours of watching a really horribly made Ghanaian film and staring out the window at the world of Ghana reflecting on everything that im seeing and everything that ive gotten to experience in the past month! I don't think I could have ever imagined the world as wonderful and full of surprises as it truly is!

Day 5: Christable

On the last day in Ghana I had a FDP (field directed program) for one of my classes.  I went to the City of Refuge Orphanage, it is an organization that was started a few years ago to rescue children that have been abandoned or trafficked. It was extremely difficult to hear some of the stories these young kids have been through. Many of the children were sold when they were very young because their mothers needed money and couldn't support them. These mothers were told they were going to be giving their child a better life filled with education and opportunity, but instead the boys were forced to work on a fishing lake and the girls were forced to do domestic work or forced into the sex trade. It amazed me that regardless of everything these poor children have been through, they still had the world's largest smile on their faces. Even though their school was just a few classrooms built of brick with dirt on the ground they were still more eager to learn than any kid I've ever seen! Seeing these kids be as happy as they were with their horror stories really gave me a better perspective on life!

            One little girl named Christable chose me to help her with her with some homework. She is ten years old and in the 3^rd grade. All the kids came from different villages and spoke different dialects but now instead of speaking their local dialect they speak English! The orphanage's school was working on getting international recognition giving their kids the ability if they want to go anywhere their hearts desire. Christable attached herself to me for the rest of the day teaching me dance moves and demanding pictures! All of the kids are smarter than one would assume, I swear they could work my camera better than I could!

            By the end of the day I learned way more from these kids than I would of ever guessed I would of.  Everything from their dance moves to having a positive outlook on life regardless of ones past! After a million and a half hugs & waves good bye I was left with the feeling that it wasn't a good-bye, but a see you later. Whether or not I return to this particular orphanage or another, I really do see myself volunteering to actually make a huge difference in someone's life.