Much needed update

My dear dedicated readers,

I apologize for slacking on my blog writing these past few weeks. I'm sure you have seen the pictures from the Eastern region two weekends ago. It was our last CIEE program trip and it was great. The botanical garden and cocoa farm were brief, but beautiful; however my favorite part of the trip was definitely the waterfall/hike. Unfortunately they forgot to mention to us that the hike was going to be something we would have difficulty doing in sandals. Most people did not have proper footwear, but we all survived.

Last weekend I spent around Accra. I splurged and went out to dinner twice (the food here is literally killing people which I'll get to later). The Italian restaurant we went to was great and was some of the best pizza I've ever had! This week was the last full week of classes for me. I still have a few next week, but we get this Friday and Monday off for Easter. Pretty soon I'm going to have to hit the books for the first time here...I'm a little nervous about having all of my grades be decided by a final, but I'm sure it will all work out. There's really only one class besides Twi that will be difficult, and that's mostly because I have to learn all of Ghana's political history. The foreign students are definitely at a disadvantage in this class because it's a lot of stuff the Ghanaian students probably learned in grade school. Last Sunday our program organized Olympics for us. They took us to a beautiful beach and we played soccer, volleyball, tug-of-war, and scrabble for those not so athletically inclined. I was assigned to the red team and we ended up winning the Olympics, so that was fun.

The past few days have been rough for a lot of kids in our program. On Tuesday my friend was taken to the hospital because she had been throwing up about every half hour for the whole night. A few of us visited her and sat with her in the hospital for the past few days, which was an experience in and of itself.

First of all, there is no privacy in hospitals. She was kept in the "Emergency Room" (a small room with two beds) for about 4 or 5 hours until she was finally admitted and put in a room. All the while my friend and I were fighting for her to get her labs back, have her fluid bags changed, and get the basic care she needed. During this time a woman came into our room carrying a convulsing toddler. We were asked to stand outside until they tended to him. After this happened the nurse asked me if I could go get my friend's lab results from the lab since she got the call that they were ready. She was obviously too busy doing her word find to get them herself. I'm not kidding about the word find either. So my friend and I went and got the lab results, tried to make sense of them, but couldn't, so we gave them to the nurse. She told me to put them on her desk and give her a few minutes because of the emergency with the little boy. That would of been fine had she actually been helping the little boy. She wasn't. She just sat down in a chair and watched them tend to him while my friend's lab results (that we had been waiting for 5 hours for) sat on her desk. I wanted to scream. Yesterday I went back and we waited all day for a doctor to see her (which never ended up happening). She had given samples to be tested that morning and never got the results...after a full day. She was feeling a lot better and had kept over three meals down. In my not so expert opinion she probably could have been released after they got the results. She ended up having to stay another night and is coming home today. I'm still not sure what they think it was. I'm guessing either Cholera, a parasite or food poisoning. There has been at least one other person in our program who has gotten Cholera. He actually had malaria simultaneously. What a trooper. Additionally there have been probably at least 15-20 cases of malaria. Three unfortunate people have actually gotten it twice. I don't know what I'm doing right, but I have definitely been fortunate so far.

This weekend I'll probably hang out around the hostel and maybe even start organizing my notes to prepare for the month of finals that lies ahead. I'll try to keep you posted if anything new or exciting happens, but right now I'm just anticipating a whole lot of studying!

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

Monkeys and Waterfalls

The Volta Region of Ghana was this weekend’s destination. It is by far the most beautiful region and was also my favorite traveling experience so far. We started off by going to Tafi Atome monkey sanctuary. We took a tro-tro for three hours to the main road by the village and then took a motor taxi (motorcycle) three miles to the village itself. Tafi Atome is a village that was developed into a monkey sanctuary with the help of US Peace Corps volunteers and the Ghana Tourism board. It is home to one species of monkey, which before Christianity took over the country, was thought of as a link to the idol the villagers worshipped. 

We arrived in the village in time for dinner and were put up in a guest house. One of the village women cooked white rice and spicy stew for us for dinner. The next morning we woke up for our six am walk through the forest to see the monkeys. Along the way we stopped to feed them bananas. My friend Josh even got some of them to sit on his arm. They were mostly friendly, although one of them did throw a banana at my head! After the walk we packed up and left for Wli falls. We went back to the main road, but due to a large funeral there were no tro-tros available to take us to Hohoe (pronounced like hohoy). We chartered a taxi and all six of us crammed in. I was actually straddling the clutch which was not a fun experience. 

When we finally arrived at the Wli waterfall lodge, we had almost eaten almost nothing(I couldn’t stomach the porridge for breakfast.) Luckily I had bought some bananas at the village before we got to the lodge, which turned out to be decent fuel for the hike. Seven of us set off on the hike, but only five finished. Two turned back because of how tough it was. It was definitely the most strenuous physical activity that I have ever completed. We started off on relatively flat ground, crossed a few bridges then reached a point where our guide handed us walking sticks. After that we knew it was going to be difficult. I am by no means an experienced hiker, but one of my friends on the trip who has hiked through various parts of the North East said it was the hardest trail (I can barely call it a trail) he had ever hiked. In America a path like the one we were on would have needed to be completely revamped to be considered safe to climb. I started off thinking I was on a hike, but when we finished we realized we had climbed a mountain. It took us just under two hours to get to the waterfall, which was incredible. It was like a tropical paradise. The water was almost too powerful to stand under but was so refreshing after we had just hiked almost straight up a mountain. There were points where we were stepping on rocks, roots, and using trees to pull ourselves up onto the next level spot during our climb. Almost everyone fell at least once, especially on the way back down. Miraculously no one was injured although there were a few close calls. Today I am sorer than I have been in a very long time, but it was worth the pain and more. I wish I could do the waterfall more justice, but it was too beautiful to describe. There will be pictures on facebook as soon as possible! 

On a semi-negative side note the company outside of our group on the hike was pretty terrible. First were the two German men we met at the Monkey Sanctuary. They also came to the falls with us. To be fair, the one was decent, but the other was terrible. He kept telling us that we weren’t close to the falls and we were going too slowly. We left the falls to head back before they did someone said “OK we’ll see you back at the hotel.” The nasty German replied “Well we’ll probably pass you in a few minutes.” What a jerk. Secondly our Ghanaian guide was also terrible. Obviously we were a bunch of Obrunis who had little to no hiking experience. He would get so annoyed when we would ask to stop for breaks or ask him to slow down from the pace he was setting. He said the hike would take 2 hours and we did it in an hour and fifty minutes. There was no need to rush. When we were about twenty minutes from the waterfall he said that we weren’t even half way. When we got there and called him out on his blatant lie he said he was trying to get us to go faster. We told him we could find our own way back down the mountain and let him leave. We made it down the mountain in about 45 minutes to an hour. (I think it was the absence of negative energy.)

After the hike, three of us crawled back in a tro-tro and headed back to Accra. 

This weekend as I said was my favorite in Ghana. I didn’t think that the Safaris at Mole could be topped, but the experience in Volta was so much more rewarding. I realized I am actually in better shape than I thought I was and it also made our group discuss how easy it is to do something difficult when you set your mind to it, have the support of others, and remain positive. The one thing I was surprised about was that the complaints while going up the mountain were so few. It was nice to be a part of a group that was so positive. We knew going into the hike that it was going to be difficult but about half way through we began like everything had been understated. It was so rewarding to push through and see one of the most beautiful things I have ever laid eyes on.

Next weekend we are going to the Eastern Region as a whole program so there will be more updates to come! Also look out for a blog post in the near future about the African brain drain and why it can be so frustrating to “study” and live here for four months!