Togo/ Benin

I went to Togo.. the place to go.

We left on Friday morning for Togo! It took about four hours to get to Aflao, the border town. We had no problems crossing the borders. They stamped our passports, we bought our visas, and on we went into the land of moto-taxis. I say this because it really is. There are motocycles everywhere. And if the man is wearing a yellow shirt he is a taxi and will give you a ride. So the first thing I did in Togo was ride on a moto-taxi to our hotel. I had a moment where I couldn't believe what I was doing- riding on the back of a motorcyle along the coast of Africa! It was a "Wow!" moment for sure.

Nap-time

We walked around Lome and made our way to the Grande Marche, which means big market in French. Both Togo and Benin where colonized by the French, so therefore most people speak French. I was glad to have my two friends, Emma and Kelly, along and their amazing French speaking skills. One thing is for sure, the food in countries colonized by the French is a lot better. There was french bread everywhere! We had avacodo sandwhiches on french bread for almost every meal.

We only spent one night in Togo, and left early the next morning for Benin. We took a bush taxi, which is basically a trotro, to Cotonue. It was surprisinly fast to the border, Togo is such an enlongated country.

While waiting for our bush taxi to fill up, Brett Farve walked by :) Can you see him?

I've been in Benin.

I had a little more trouble crossing the border into Benin. They stamped our passports, we bought our visas, but then they checked for our yellow fever vacination forms. When I came into Ghana no one cared about the yellow fever vacination form so I was under the impression that it was only needed to get back into the United States. Well, my impression was wrong. Luckily things work like they do in West Africa, because I gave the guy 200 CFA, which is less than an American dollar, and I walked right on through. This is when I would say Oh Ghana... but its not just Ghana, its West Africa.

Once we got to Cotonue, we found our hotel and then set out to explore. We went to the Grande Marche in Cotonue. These markets were very similar to the markets in Ghana- people everywhere, bad smells, piles of clothes, etc. I do have to say that I feel as though both Togo and Benin had a little bit of a cleaner feel than that of Accra. 

We made our way to the stilt village called Ganvie. It was a beautiful boat ride to the village. The village was really something to see. It has a population of about 3,000. There were young children, I would guess to be as young at four years old, canoeing around the village. There was a “market”, which consisted of a few ladies sitting in their canoes loaded with vegetables and bread. There was also a hospital and a couple of restaurants. It was all so interesting.

Jamie comes to Ghana

I picked Jamie up from the airport around noon on Friday. I think he was pretty astonished by everything- the hawkers, the driving, the heat, all the trash, the small shacks along every road.

We had lunch and just relaxed for the rest of day on Friday. He didn’t get any sleep on the plane and was really tired. Saturday we had a Ghanaian wedding to go to. Susan, our resident assistant through ISEP, got married. It was really interesting to see a Ghanaian wedding.... and hot!

Sunday we set off on our trip. We went to Cape Coast and it started with a trotro ride. Jamie didn’t fit very well, and needless to say we only took two trotros the entire time he was here.

We had lunch on the beach in Cape Coast. Jamie made some friends—there were these boys on the beach that put a little show on for us. They were learning acrobatics and were pretty great to watch.

After lunch we went to Elmina Castle, it has a lot of history and a gorgeous view.

We then had dinner at Hans Cottage Botel and ate with crocodiles. We even got to touch one!

 

We spent the night at Kakum National Park and got up early in the morning on Monday to do the canopy walk. It was incredible—Jamie’s favorite part of the trip.

After Kakum, we stopped at a Monkey Sanctuary. It was owned by this amusing Dutch couple. There we lots of exotic animals there; white spotted noise monkey, rock python, and other animals that I wish I could remember the names of.

We then went to Kokrobite beach on our way back to Accra. We spent two nights there. We ate delectable pizza made by an Italian couple, got caught in a rain storm, and searched for sea shells. It was really relaxing and exactly what we needed.

We then came back to Accra on Wednesday morning. We took a taxi to the Arts Centre to buy souvenirs. Jamie got to experience the intense salesmen in the markets, and did a little bargaining. It was quite the experience.

Thursday we made it to Mawuvio’s. We took all the donations that Jamie brought with; thanks everyone! The kids loved them. They were really excited about the soccer balls and Jurassic Park, which we watched with them. The kids asked Jamie lots of questions, and Jamie got to experience just how great these kids are.

I think it was a really enjoyable week- nothing went terribly wrong and Jamie got a great Ghanaian experience.

Jamie’s favorite Ghanaian things:

Star Beer

Push Up Lizards

 

 

Massive Anthills

And then there’s me.

Beautiful Children of Basco

This blog post is a little late… but better late than never, right? A few weekends ago I had the opportunity to visit a small orphanage outside of Koforidua. It is called Baptist School Complex and Orphanage (BASCO). We left Saturday afternoon and got to Koforidua at about 3pm. We were under the impression that the orphanage was really close to Koforidua, but that wasn't the case. It was at least another forty-five minutes away. We took a trotro about thirty minutes out of town. We were dropped off on the side of the road. From there we chartered a taxi all the way down this dirt road. In the middle of nowhere, we finally made it to the orphanage. It was really interesting. It was its own little village set back far from the main road. When we first arrived they gave us a toured and told us about the orphanage. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was a great experience. Not all of the children at this school are orphans, actually only about 25% are. We learned that about two-hundred students attend the school; about one-hundred of them are day students from the surrounding area. Then of those one-hundred students that live at the school, only about half of them do not pay fees and are orphans. I feel that this must make for an interesting environment. Of all the children, the youngest is about six years old. Most of them are teenagers. It was interesting to learn that some of the children will become teachers at the school once they finish. While on the tour, they showed us their farm which had pigs and chickens. They were also raising snails. I was thinking that they used the farm to be self-sufficient, but I learned that they actually sell the snails to raise money for some of the students to attend college. We had dinner there and met some young Germans that were volunteering. They had been there since September and were staying until August. That is such a long time! I was very impressed with them. They don't have all the luxuries that we have living at the University. I thought I had it rough washing my clothes by hand and taking cold showers. They have to take bucket baths. I complain because there isn't much variety in food, they have even less. They don't choose what they want for dinner, they eat what the children eat, which most day is rice and stew. After dinner we watch some of the children play soccer and mingled. We played some hand games with the girls. At one point we sat in a circle, and everyone had to tell a little bit about themselves. It was really great to get to know them. The next day was very similar. We just hung out with the children. We left late on Sunday afternoon to make it back to Accra. It was an interesting weekend, and a great experience.

Sadly, I wasn't allowed to take any picutures. This is the only picture I have of the whole experience. 

A Weekend in the Western Region

I accidently deleted this post:

We left the afternoon of Friday the 30th of March for the Western Region of Ghana. There are ten regions in Ghana, and after this weekend I’ve been to six of them. I am hoping to make it to as many as I can before I leave. It was a great weekend! We took a bus from Kaneshie station to Takoradi, another larger city just past Cape Coast. We took a Metro Mass bus, and it was actually pretty comfortable—a lot better than the trotros. It took us five hours to make it to Takoradi. We got there fairly late at night, and got pizza from a restaurant right next to the hotel we were staying in. It was amazing pizza. We got really lucky. The hotel room was really small, and was only suppose to sleep two people—there was five of us. Four of us slept on the bed, and Lisa, the champ that she is, took the floor. The next morning we got up early and had breakfast. I had the best egg sandwich ever. It was on really good bread and was loaded with veggies. It’s making my mouth water just thinking about it. After breakfast I bought our bus tickets to get us home on Sunday before we left for the small village of Butre. It took us about an hour to get to Butre. We had to take a trotro from Takoradi to Agona, and then a trotro from Agona to Butre. Butre was beautiful. It is located right on the beach. We hike up a bluff to see Fort Batenstein, that is located there. It was a beautiful view of the sea. I took so many pictures.

After we enjoyed the view for a little while, we decide to make our way to Busua, another village located along the beach. There was a foot path leading between them that we took. It was gorgeous and was only about an hour walk. It led to the beach and we walked along the beach for a little while until we made it to Busua. We had lunch in Busua. I had the best burrito ever. They made the tortilla shell fresh and it was filled with rice, beans, tomatoes, and avocados.

After lunch we took the foot path to Dixcove. It was a much short walk- only about fifteen minutes, but it was just as beautiful. In Dixcove is Fort Metal Cross. We walked around the outside. The view of the sea was nice, but not as beautiful as it was in Butre. Dixcove is also more populated, and when there is more people there is more trash.

After Dixcove we got a taxi to take us to the Green Turtle Lodge. We made it there a lot earlier than we thought we would and had time to relax on the beach. We had dinner by latern, because there was no electricity at this resort. The small room we stayed in didn’t have a fan and we had to sleep on the floor. But we were able to listen to the ocean all night long.

The next morning we woke up early and did a canoe trip through a local lagoon. We walked along the beach to the next town called Akwidda. There we found a tour guide that took us through the Mangrove Swamps in the canoe. It was wonderful. The mangrove trees that grow through the lagoon were really interesting. They grow their roots from the top, they look like branches reaching down.

After our canoe trip we made our way back to Takoradi to catch our bus back to Accra. It was a wonderful weekend and I can’t believe we did so much in so little time.

Covered in Speckles

I woke up covered in speckles from head to toe on Wednesday morning. I noticed them on my legs first, then my arms, and then my belly. At first I brushed it off; I guess it was just easier not to think about it. We were planning to leave for our trip to Togo and Benin that afternoon and getting sick would just complicate everything. I walked over to the ISEP office that afternoon to pick up my passport, but Susan wasn’t back with it yet and called to tell me she would drop it off at our dorm. I walked back to our dorm hoping for a quick nap before Susan came with my passport and we left. I was so weak by the time I made it back to ISH. It was so hard to get out of bed to meet everyone downstairs. I finally lost it. I broke down and started crying. Susan was running late with my passport, everyone was waiting on me, and I was covered in speckles. We made a new plan to leave the next morning in order to give me time to see how I felt. There is a group of Canadian nurses that are staying in ISH and one of them came and looked at my rash. He said he was pretty sure it was just heat rash. The only thing that doesn’t make sense about that is the night it showed up it had stormed and was really cold. It helped ease my mind a little bit, but I was still scared. My skin was really hot and I had a temp of 99.5 at that point. I went upstairs to take a cold shower and lay down for a little while. I didn’t take my temperature again that night, but I wish I would have. My skin was on fire, yet I was still really cold. I laid in bed in a sweatshirt and wrapped in my blanket. I decided to take one more cold shower to help with the temperature before I went to bed. It was a really short shower because I ended up shaking uncontrollably and was so cold. I went right to sleep and woke up at about 1am and my fever had broken. I woke up in the morning to a text message from Emma saying that Kelly got sick in the middle of the night and they went to the hospital. Kelly had tonsillitis and wouldn’t be going to Togo/ Benin. I finally decided I wouldn’t go either, and so we decided to reschedule the trip for another weekend. I decided to go to the Doctor on Thursday afternoon. She prescribed me with cream and allergy pills for an allergic reaction. She also gave me her phone number for over the weekend, which made me wonder if she was a little concerned about it. She also told me I would need to come back in on Tuesday, when they opened after the Easter weekend, if it hadn’t gone away.  I’m not sure if going to the Doctor made me feel better or worse. Either way, it started to go away on Friday morning, and it is nearly nonexistent now- whatever it was. If it was an allergic reaction, I have no idea to what. I’m just glad it’s gone. All and all, once the rash started to disappear, it ended up being a relaxing weekend. I needed a little retail therapy, so we did a little shopping in Accra and I work on my souvenir list. I’m glad Jamie will be here in less than a week, Ghana and all of its excitement is getting to me. I need a little bit of home, for my sanity. My sanity probably took the biggest hit this weekend. Coming from experience, it’s a little scary to be covered in speckles in a developing country where serious illnesses aren’t uncommon.