Charle, Wote North! (Lets go to the North!)

I think it hasn’t hit me yet that I leave Ghana in a week. I have my days all planned out - when I will write my last paper, study for my last exam, beach days and touristy shopping days - but I'm still waiting to fully realize that I am leaving this place that has been my home for the past 4 months. Maybe it will never sink in. But I guess all I can do is go with it and make sure I am taking in the fleeting moments I have left. 

I came back yesterday morning from a whirlwind four days in the Northern and Upper West regions. The trip, I have to admit, was not all good. It was amazing in so many ways, but it was much more difficult to navigate, to negotiate and to avoid being scammed that I have ever experienced in Ghana. I felt like every other turn we were getting ripped off or received wrong information. I have developed a happy medium between weary and trusting, in which I feel I can gauge when I am being treated differently or unfairly, but this trip blew that out of the water. One example is that on our bus ride from Tamale to Mole we were told 1. that we needed to give the conductor a "tip" to make sure we would have a seat on the bus (this is something I have had to do on route to the Jewish community, so I knew it was a valid practice), and that we had to pay the full fare even though our stop was halfway through the ride. Once we got onto the bus it was half full so we didn’t need to “tip”, but the driver informed us that we actually only had to pay 5GHC, not 13GHC, and once he had change he would give us each our 8GHC: 40GHC in total. When we were getting off the bus at our stop, the bus driver gives me 10GHC - 30GHC short of what he owed us. We started arguing with him and it turned into a screaming match between us and local passerbys on our behalf, and the driver. It ended with the driver speeding away and me left with a measly 10GHC in my hand. This was one of many similar instances where I felt that because I was a foreigner, white, a woman, who knows why, I was being treated differently and it was a huge disadvantage. However, we made a conscious effort to not let these inconveniences damper our experience. 

After 20 hours of traveling from Accra to Tamale, we arrived in Larambanga, a small village outside of Mole National Park. We stayed at the Salia Brothers Safari Lodge. The Salia brothers (twins) and their "nephew" Inusah were amazing and so hospitable. We got a tour of the village and the local mosque, which is rumored to be the oldest building in Ghana. 

Mosque of Larambanga

Of course the tour included hoards of screaming children wanting to take photos and asking for goodies. We then went to Mole National Park to go on SAFARI! Unfortunately we did not see elephants, which they warned us about, but we did see plenty of warthogs, kobs, bushbacks (in the antelope family) and even some monkeys. So we decided to come back the next morning to see elephants and OH did we see them! They were so beautiful and HUGE! It made the already amazing time in Mole even better. 

We then waited for a tro-tro to Wa in the Upper West region, but none were passing. So, after an hour or so of waiting we had no choice but to go by pick up truck. It was a bumpy ride but resulted in a very nice tan, so I can't complain. Wa is a neat town - lots of motorcycles, no cabs and oodles of mosques. However, our hotel was atrocious, never go to the Kunetah Lodge, the room was infested with bugs and manned by idiot brothers that were inconsistent, inhospitable and rude. I normally would not speak so bluntly, but they were really awful - thankfully we were only there for one night. However, Wa itself was really cool. On Wednesday we got up early, jumped on a tro tro to Wechiau and went on a river safari to see HIPPOS. 

Hippos wading in the water

I think we were pretty worn out and sunburnt by this point so the group energy was low, but it was still really cool! We saw hippos wading in the river - they are so much bigger than I imagined. You cant see them on land because they are nocturnal and apparently really really dangerous! The river safari was in the Black Volta river, which happens to be the border between Ghana and Burkina Faso, so after seeing some hippos we hopped over to Burkina Faso to take a photo

The rest of the day we hung out in Wa and toured a beautiful mosque near the bus station. We got   the tour from this funny old man who knew no English but kept saying “Wow” every other sentence (definitely making fun of me), and his grand daughter who translated and lead us around. 

Then it was time to head back to Accra. I feel that we rushed through our trip a bit, but considering I only have a few days in Ghana I wanted to get back. We had to take an overnight bus  to Accra because there are no other options, but it was nice because we thought the ride would be 22 hours and it was actually 12, so we got back to Accra Thursday morning and had the day to sleep off the trip. The bus was the nicest bus I’ve ever been on, but that was cancelled out by the AC blasting (I got a cold!), the music blaring from midnight on and that the driver only stopped twice in 12 hours for less than 10 minutes.  

Now I only have a week to do everything I want to do and study/write papers. I did a bunch of shopping yesterday and I almost have all my clothing made (I’ll post photos later)! Since I am leaving early to meet Mommy in Europe, a bunch of friends and I are going to the beach for two days! It should be fun, and a good motivation for me to get my work done before Wednesday so I can enjoy the beach!

I am going to post one more time (now that I wrote it I have to!), so look out for my parting thoughts and a list of my favorite things about Ghana

Volta Region

Only 3 weeks left and I'm trying to cram in all that I want to do, plus travel, plus buy gifts, plus take exams too, I guess.



But first, I just got back from an AMAZING trip to the Volta Region, easily the most beautiful region I've been to yet (which I knew could have guessed because my host family is from there, so it must be amazing, but now I know from experience). We started out Saturday morning from Madina station outside of Accra heading to Hohoe in the Volta Region. This seems to be a reoccurring pattern; it was originally supposed to be just three of us, but as we went along people started tagging onto our plans and we ended up being a group of 7, which is always really fun.  Once we got to Hohoe we took a cab to our hotel, quickly checked in and headed to the Wli Water Falls. There are two falls, the Lower and Upper Falls. The lower falls is barely a hike and the upper falls is very challenging, so since were badass we went to the Upper Falls. The hike was definitely challenging, and I grossly underestimated the time it would take, so I kept thinking I was almost there and when I realized I wasn't it was very frustrating. But once we got there it was so worth it. The falls was straight out of Planet Earth or something: a beautiful waterfall, a rainbow, beautiful towering wall of rock and lush greenery.

 We spent some time relaxing, splashing and taking very silly photos, but we had to head back down because it was going to get dark soon. I definitely dislike going back down the most when hiking. Its hard on the ankles and my toes and its not exciting or physically challenged, I just wanted to get down already. On our way out we stopped by the Lower Falls and saw a whole flock of bats, I've never seen so many bats in my life!!

The tour guide made some raquette and they flew everywhere it was kind of terrifying. After the hike we rewarded ourselves with some cookies and a nice dinner at our hotel. Of course the food took forever and I was starving and if you know me you know that I do not handle being hungry with pose in any way, so I was cranky and pathetically picking the bones off my friend's tilapia until my dinner came. But it was delicious after over an hour wait. I passed out almost immediately after dinner, in preparation for our next big adventure on Sunday.




Sunday morning we hiked Mountain Afadjato, which is supposably the highest point in Ghana, even though there was a much taller mountain right next to it, but I'm choosing to believe that one's in Togo.

 After our hike we packed up our stuff and headed to the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary. We had a perplexing issue when paying for the tour. We each paid separately and at the end of all the change exchange the receptionist was short 10 cedi. Of course if this was the states the tour company would chalk it up to their mistake and we would be on our way shortly, but of course it was an hour long conversation which ended with each of us paying an extra cedi and the company paying 3 cedi to make up the difference. I still don't understand what happened or why it needed to be such a big deal, but that's Ghana for you. But the monkey sanctuary itself was AWESOME. The tour guide gave us bananas and all these monkeys jumped on us and were eating the bananas right out of your hands.

 It was so fun I wanted to stay all day and play with the monkeys. It's also really cool that there is such great eco-tourism and animal protection efforts in Ghana, when in Accra everything feels so industrial and detached from nature. After the monkeys and a tour of the surrounding forest and village (a percentage of the profits go to the nearby village) we headed to Ho.




Three of us were going to visit Carrie, an American photographer that Jesse's mom connected me to that has a photography non-profit in Ho. But on meeting her we learned she does much much more than just teaching photography! We spent Monday day with her, visiting her home and her daughter, an orphaned girl she met in Keta (village in Volta Region) and has been living with her and attending school. They had an interesting relationship that resembled the typical Ghanaian mother-daughter relationship in which the daughter is expect to help with household chores and serve the mother, which was strange in juxtaposition with her relationship with her dog, Puppy, who she definitely raised like your typical, pampered American dog. However, I feel like their unorthodox mother-daughter relationship works for them, and probably fits their cultural understandings as a Ghanian daughter and Ex-pat living in Ghanian society. After some coffee and bombarded her with questions, Carrie took us to meet the children she is funding to go to school in the cured leprosy village. That is just one of her projects. She also assists in chief events, works with the New Horizon School of the Bling in Ho, teaches in local schools, and does other side projects like creating a tourist book for Ho, that she would lightly mention. It is really amazing what she is doing for that community, and she is constantly facing obstacles, like the children's cameras being stolen or waiting for funding for children's school fees because the donors are traveling to India. As we tagged along on her daily life I couldn't help wonder if I would be happy living the way she is in Ho. I'm still not sure but it was good to see an alternative lifestyle and career choice that I would have never before been exposed to.




It's so crazy, but I only have one more trip (Tamale and Mole), 3 exams, 2 papers and 3 weeks left in Ghana!! I'm looking forward to everything, but also really freaked out that it's almost over. Hopefully I will be able to do all the last minute things I want to do before my vacation with Mommy in Belgium and the Netherlands, which I am so so so so excited for!! Half of me wants May 20th to never come, the other half of me wants the time to hurry up already so I can see mommy! Regardless, its going to happen whenever it does and I just have to enjoy the time I have.