Pete in Ghana Week 14

Week 14 – Week of Pete Cont. November 23 - 29

Day 87 – Travelled back to Accra to meet for dinner with a friend of Pete's who is in Peace Corps. We had a few extra hours to walk around Osu, the fancy part of the city where we got ice-cream and the best grilled chicken I have ever eaten. It was a cool Indian dinner talking with a punch of other volunteers and then onto Deluxe, a hidden nightclub that was close to the hotel. We got there around 11 and not much was happening, kind of empty, but by the time we were out on the dance floor an hour later it was packed, there were fireworks on top of bottles for birthdays and if you did not think about it it could have been any club in Chicago. But it was fun to have a night on the town in-between mostly ourdoorsy travelling.



End of a lovely day lounging on the beach in Elmina

 Day 88 – Breakfast in bed, I really liked the hotels in Accra where we stayed. They were both around 100 USD which is totally expensive compared to the rest of Ghana but great compared to the Super 8 at home. Off to Elmina in the worst traffic we experienced. Elmina and Cape Coast is really the first place I have been here where there are total tourism markups. The taxi rides in Accra are expensive, but so is everything else. Here it was just crazy how much taxis charged us for 10 cedis for trips shorter than I take at home all the time for less than one. I just kind of got over it, tried to stop arguing with every taxi and just accepting paying the extra, but still kind of pissed me off. The eco-lodge in Elmina was totally off the beaten path which was nice and peaceful but also inconvenient to do anything besides swim and relax on the beach. This is exactly what we did for the whole afternoon and it was lovely. But the next day we decided to move on and stay in Cape Coast where we could do a few more things.

Canopy tour

Day 89 – Being a Sunday so many things are shut down or transportation not going so we got a private taxi to take us to Kakum to do the canopy walk. It was underwhelming for me but a good time. The big group of super loud guys also detracted from the nature walk, especially after so many days hiking totally alone or with one guide. We stopped at this weird resort with crocodiles on the way back for lunch and went to wander around the town. We assumed we were too late for the castle tour but got in one the last one. There was a family of four Asians, two Ghanaians, Pete who is 100% Polish and first generation America, and me, whose family has been in the US for many generations. I do not know for sure I do, but I was definitely the only person there that had a possibility of being descendant from slave owners. SO the whole tour talking about the Carribean and American slave tour was not exactly awkward, but maybe different for me than a Ghanaian. We saw the male and female holding cells, the chamber they put women accused of having sex, the hole where they put people who tried to escape to slowly die, and the door of no return where they were marched out to the ships. The coolest thing was opening those doors and the beach below is now a totally vibrant harbor and beach for the locals. Still called “white mans beach” there were tons of kids in the water, boogie boarding on pieces of wood, people repairing their nets and selling plantain and other things. Dinner at the hotel after a swim of lobster pizza and grilled lobster. Pete fought more with the spiky lobster, I was happy to eat the pizza, my first in 3 months.  

Mens holding cells

|White man's beach outside the Door of No Return

Day 90 – Pete’s last day we went going to the top of a hill with an abandoned fort which we are pretty sure people are squatting in, who offered to take us on a “tour”. Coffee at a Reggae smoothie shop where they had no smoothies, buying a few last gifts and a last swim in the ocean before heading back to Accra. Got Chinese for a late lunch, which with the past few days of pizza and Indian totally hit all of my non-Ghanaian food cravings. I knew I lived in a small town when people I have never seen before know who I am, I knew it was a small region when I randomly ran into the headmaster on the streets of Ho, the regional capitol. I realized this day it was a small country when in the capitol city, I was sitting in my trotro to head home and as I passed a guy called out “Bishop Forson” (the school I work at)

Day 91 – Back to school so back to short snippets but it was really fun and totally a ego-boost walking back onto campus and having tons of my kids run up yelling “Madam Becca, Madam Becca” grabbing my hands and the older students saying they missed me Even when I feel like these few moths was not enough time to make a huge difference, I feel good knowing that there are a bunch of kids that were able to do new, fun things with me, some can read better, and that unlike many of the teachers here, that I actually liked them and was nice to them.

Day 92 – Was one of the first days that I realized that I am now entering the time where it will be “this may be the last time I eat at Janet’s” instead of the first two months where everything was a first time

Day 93 – The last class with stage 6 and their verbal exam. Overall I was really happy with their progress the past 15 weeks. Some are still frustratingly in the same place that they started.

Day 94 – Reading the kids letters to their sponsors. Most of them were pretty similar, just talking about what is happening at school and thanking them. But some were cute, like Joshua telling about the new kitchen program and drawing the weekly lunch schedule (this is the first time they had ever had that.) or the ones that mentioned me were a nice to see.