Ghana? Seems so long ago?

I really loved Ghana, but I got the e-coli disease on the last day we were there. We only had four days in Ghana, and so I really only got three, but man… it was a great place. Compared to Casablanca, Accra was “African.” When I say that I mean it was distinctly African versus North African and Arab. The port of Tema, which is where we docked because our ship is just so huge was a really, really industrial port. Tema, as I read on signs, is the “Industrial Capital of Ghana.” Tema is one of two of Ghana’s seaports and most of their imports and exports go through the port of Tema, so the security at the port was higher than any of the ports we’ve been to so far. No “unauthorized” vehicles or people were able to meet our ship. The port itself was huge, so to get just to the port gate, a shuttle was set up for us and ran every 15 minutes, and to get to Accra, the capital of Ghana and the main city, we had to take a bus. Accra was about 20km away, but generally the trip took about an hour. Yeah. Infrastructure in Ghana was… well, under colonization, many African countries, South Africa for example, under Dutch rule was built up considerably more than countries under English rule like Ghana. The roadways while there, were most of the time barely paved, and over packed. In the past ten years or so, Ghanaians have been making more money and most people in the major cities (Tema and Accra) are able to afford a car. The roads just can’t handle all of the volume, and so traffic is unavoidable. As in grid locked just about always. This, as I’m sure you can imagine, really put a damper on our Field Office programs, but man…it was interesting. It was like a drive-thru everywhere! People, mostly ladies, would walk around with baskets of things on their heads that you could buy… bread, sugar cane, nuts, dates, toys, and crafts are just some of the stuff. During one particularly bad traffic jam one night when we were trying to get back to the ship after a trip, we bought some sugar cane out of the window of the back of the bus. The transaction itself was sort of surreal for me. But then we ate the sugar cane. We didn’t really know how so we asked our guide, and basically you take the little bit of sugar cane (which sort of looks about the size of a wine bottle cork), and bite the thing length-wise. All of the water in the sugar cane juices out, and it’s the most delicious sweetness ever. I felt a little like a bee.

So on the first day in port, I went with my music professor and his wife to the city of Tema. DeVeaux, the professor, spent many years back in the 70s in Ghana, and so he met up with a friend of his from then and we all walked around Tema looking for fabric. The plan was that Kujo (DeVeaux’s friend) was going to take us to the best places for fabric and then he was going to set us up with his favorite tailor so we could all get dresses or shirts made. An important piece of information on Ghana: “You are not ON time, you are IN time.” And so, getting anything done, was sort of impossible because we were all on our Western imposed time schedules. Anyway, we ran out of time to get to the tailor, and so we tried to set it up so that the tailor could come by the ship to get our measurements before we all had to leave for the “welcome reception” scheduled for later that night. Remember the security at the port? Anyway, I didn’t get a dress made which is a pretty big bummer, but I do have a wonderful piece of fabric now hanging on my wall. If you didn’t know, I am collecting fabric in each port we visit so that when I get home I can make a Semester at Sea quilt, and with the extra, I’m just going to make … I don’t know, anything. Shower curtains, widow curtains, pillows, table cloths, maybe a skirt. So even though we didn’t get our clothing made, walking around Tema was pretty awesome. The people are just so warm. We had a great day of walking and talking with the locals and learning the secret Ghanaian handshake and looking at shops. Shops in Ghana are nothing like the shops in Morocco by the way. Shops in Tema are dispersed between houses, and so it’s like walking through a neighborhood and sometimes getting to shop. In Morocco, the area known as the shops is nothing but shops, and the shop owners are aggressive. Now, I didn’t get to go to the markets in Accra, but I heard that it was more like Morocco there. The shop owners were more like Morocco with “hello pretty, come into my shop, I’ll give you good price…” sort of thing, the like I said, the people in Ghana are just so warm. If you declined going into one of these shops, you didn’t get sworn at, and if you did go in but didn’t buy anything, the shop owners were still your friends. Everyone in Ghana called each other “brother” and “sister” which I just loved. So, after we got back to the ship that evening, we got ready and then went out to the Welcome Reception. Which is something Semester at Sea sets up in some of the cities we visit with their local university. We get to visit the university and meet and talk with other university students. It’s pretty cool. So I got to meet a few Ghanaian students and I spoke with the principal of a K-9 school and the Chancellor of Education of Ghana. YEAH! It was very neat. It was after this night that I wrote the short little blog post about how I loved Ghana, and it was because of the welcome reception that I decided that America has a lot to learn from Ghana and not the other way around.

The next day, I went to the rainforest! We walked on a canopy walkway that was 40 meters above the forest floor. It was pretty rad. And after we were done, we had the lunch that I’m pretty sure got me sick (ha) and then we got to see a bamboo orchestra. It was amazing! I’m being quick in how I’m describing these things because (I know you probably don’t belive me) I am planning on posting some pictures tomorrow.

The day after that, I went to a village in Ewe Land where we took a drumming and dance workshop. Also incredible. I will explain about that later too.

The next day, I did nothing because I was incredibly dependant on having a bathroom near by, so I stayed on the ship. It was okay though because I had an amazingly wonderful time in Ghana.

Jeez, I’m sorry, everyone, that this blog entry is so bad. I just wanted to get it out there in rough outline form before I go to South Africa, which is tomorrow. Eh. My goal tomorrow is to get to an internet café so I can put up pictures and write a little bit more about Ghana and then I hope each night in South Africa, I’ll put up quick little posts about each day. I think that will be easier, and better for you guys. So, that’s my goal. We’ll see.

I hope everyone is doing well.

Kalista