Ghanareia — Accra Ghana 0 comments
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2009-09-25 22:16:00
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Jump to the full entry & travel mapAccra Ghana9/23We had a pretty ridiculous first day here in Ghana yesterday. Here's the situation: we were listed as being in port in Accra which is the capital ...
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Accra Ghana
9/23
We had a pretty ridiculous first day here in Ghana yesterday. Here's the situation: we were listed as being in port in Accra which is the capital. Big city that's where a lot of the trips and tours are through etc. But the ship is actually docked in Tema a smaller industrial city with nothing to do in it 18 miles away from Accra. So we have to take a shuttle into the city which takes about an hour during the day with traffic. And when I say traffic I mean bikes cars buses chickens goats people walking in the street with baskets balanced on their heads people trying to sell you mentos etc. So we originally planned on going into Accra as soon as they cleared the ship and we could get off checking that out around there and then going to see this castle and slave dungeon place and do this canopy walk in some tropical forest which I understood as both being a little ways out of Accra. And SAS does this thing where they bring on "interport" lecturers and students so like someone from Spain would get on the ship in Halifax ride the ship to Spain and either study or teach depending on who they were and get off in Spain. We had one professor and one student from Ghana who got on in Morocco and are now getting off in Ghana. And the student this nice kid named Ni (not sure how to spell it sounds like knee) agreed to come with us yesterday so I thought no problem right? He lives in Accra. Well turns out it takes a while for the ship to clear and we end up not being able to get off until around 11:30 AM. And Ni has to wait until after 12 since he needs to pick up his passport. So some of us get off and we plan on meeting up with him at this food court in Accra where the bus drops us off near. We get on the bus and there's about a thousand of us on this stupid greyhound bus. I'm standing in the aisle with my head basically in the overhead storage bins with people right in front of me and right behind me can't see out the windows since I'm too high up for the hour long ride. And it's really hot and humid. We finally get to Accra an hour later. We get out and go to this bank across the street so people can exchange money. Within the first five minutes this Bob Marley rasta guy comes up to me while we're waiting outside the bank fist bumps me and says "Obammmaaaa" (I think Obama's grandpa is from Ghana or something). So I'm like yeahhh Obama…and then he grabs my arm and puts on this rasta sweatband that says Bob Marley on it onto my wrist. It's drenched in sweat and I probably have AIDS now. Anyways the whole time he's talking to me about rasta stuff and Obama and we're all just laughing. Then he asks for money for the wristband so I give him 5 Ghana cedis which is like 3 bucks. He freaks out gets all happy and thanks me and tells us how happy he is that we are there and then runs away. Anyways we walk around for a little and find the foodcourt and sit down. We end up getting pizza which was actually decent and sit and eat it. I'm dying of heat since we are supposed to cover ourselves since the whole mosquito biting Malaria issue. So I'm wearing jeans and a long sleeve shirt and sweating a ton. So I drink this whole 1.5 liter water bottle while we're waiting for Ni and the other kids we're meeting up with. The 3 girls we're with go shopping in these stores nearby and Tommy and I are waiting for the people. They finally get there around 2 and we meet up with them. They say they already saw the girls and that we need to get moving to meet up with some other people that Ni told he would take. So Tommy and I start walking down the street with Ni and this other kid he was with. The other kid stops at a bank to exchange money and Tommy stops to go to the bathroom. But Ni keeps walking because he says we need to hurry and I have no idea where to go so I follow. Thus we get separated. So Ni and I find the other kids who are coming with us (who end up being the annoying Boulder girls who live next door to us the one that has the same last name as me). So I am under the impression that we are going back to meet up with the other people I was originally with. But instead we go out to the street Ni gets us a cab and puts 4 of us SAS kids in it tells the driver where to take us in Ghanian or whatever they speak and we leave. I'm in the front seat and 3 SAS kids that I don't know very well or like very much are in the back. Ni told him to go to some station because where we are going to see this castle and the canopy or whatever is actually 90 MINUTES AWAY not right outside of Accra. So we drive in this taxi through Accra for like 20 or 30 minutes and all I can think about is A) how this driver could take us anywhere and we would have no idea and B) how bad I have to pee. I'm thinking okay bus station I can pee there. Turns out this bus station is like a third world flea market. We get there and the driver pulls over and we are all like crap we are in trouble. Instantly 7 people come over to the taxi start reaching in the window at us asking us where we need to go offering to take us places everything. We are trying to explain to the driver and to all these people that we are going to wait for a couple taxis behind us that have our friends. Of course we have to be the first ones there. So we get out and we're standing on this curb in a miles big swarm of shops streets dirt people selling everything you could think of literally the only 4 white kids in miles. If you saw a birdseye view of this place you would find us in 3 seconds. I am actually getting a little scared I have no idea where we are or how we are supposed to find anyone. We wait there for like 30 minutes before finally finding Ni (like trying to find an Asian person in China). But we still don't have Tommy and the girls he was with. So we buy these van tickets which is the sketchiest thing ever we pay for these tickets with some guy sitting under some tent. We all get in a van but Ni says he isn't going to get in ours he is going to wait for Tommy and them. We say no way we aren't driving 90 minutes into Ghana without you and get out. By this time I'm about to pee my pants I have to go so bad. But there's nowhere for me to go since there's no buildings just miles of people and dirty little stands. So we wait longer and they finally get there and all I think 14 of us get in the van and it leaves for Cape Coast the place I thought was right outside of Accra that's actually 90 minutes outside of Accra. Problem is by the time we are in the van it's about 3:30 and the canopy place closes at 4. I'm not a math major but I don't think we are going to get there in time. So about 45 minutes into the van ride I'm dying and I ask the driver to pull over so I can pee. Mind you this guy is driving like a psycho its a two lane road and he keeps going about 90 in the opposite lane to pass people and swerving back into our lane to narrowly avoid oncoming traffic honking at bikers and walkers that we barely miss killing as we pass them and crashing over bumps and stuff. I decide I can't take it any longer one more bump and the pee is going to get shaken right out of me. We are in the middle of nowhere in Ghana mudhuts and stuff. I go into this ditch full of weeds and pee off the side of the road I probably got Malaria in the process but it was worth it. So 19 minutes later I'm done and we get back in the van and go. By the time we get there it's like 6 o'clock and dark and the castle and the canopy walk are long since closed. The "90 minute drive" took about 2 and a half hours. So instead we go to some restaurant that's on stilts over this pond with crocodiles in it. Would have been cool if the standing water all around us didn't attract a billion malaria mosquitoes and this place wasn't sketchy but it was. We were literally the only people there. Everywhere around us is dark since there's no streetlights or city lights or anything. We eat our Ghanian food I had rice and beans which weren't bad then we get back in the van. Ni said he hadn’t been to the restaurant since he was young and that it was a lot better then he said it really went downhill. We drive to the castle which is right on the beach but it just looks like this big building we walk around on the beach for a while and then leave. We convince the driver that instead of taking us back to Accra where we would have to get off and try to catch the shuttle bus back to Tema and then the shuttle van from the port gate to the ship at risk of missing both that he is going to drive us all the way to the port in Tema and we will pay him 250 cedis. He agrees. Other problem is Ni lives in Accra and needs to get dropped off there and he's the only person with us that has any idea what's going on. Anyways by the time we get back to Accra and drop him off it's around 10:45 PM. We drop him off drive away and it becomes apparent fast that the driver doesn't know how to get to Tema. He pulls over and asks someone drives a block pulls over and asks someone else who turns out to be a prostitute which was really funny. Then he follows her direction comes to an intersection where he has to turn left or right stops and turns around and asks us which way to go. We were all laughing and scared out of our minds at the same time and I finally go LEFT! and he turns left. Then he stops at some gas station and asks a guy who gets in his taxi and leads us to the correct road. We follow that but the guy still doesn't know where we're going. We help him find it finally see the ship and get in the port gate and somehow illegally drive through the port all the way to the ship pay the guy and he leaves. We got back on the ship around midnight or 12:30 having left at 11 AM. And when we talked about the plan the night before I was under the impression that we were getting off in the morning seeing a cool castle and walking on some bridges in the trees and getting back between 5 and 7. Right. So checklist of what we actually accomplished in 13 hours: NOTHING. We drove 3 hours both directions to eat dinner. And that's it. I guess I did have two of the most satisfying moments of my life that day getting back on the ship and dropping to my knees and kissing the floor and peeing on the side of an African road. SO that was my first experience in Ghana. Needless to say today we are just hanging out on the ship. Tomorrow we have a Habitat for Humanity service project which will be fun (and organized). Hopefully no more ridiculous stories for me to tell from this country at least.
9/24
Today we did our Habitat for Humanity trip. It was a lot of fun and was pretty satisfying. We unfortunately had to drive 3 hours to and from the site that we were working at so that killed a lot of the day. When we got there we split into 3 groups of about 15 and went to our different work site. We worked for a few hours and then ate the lunch that the family made for us. It was a little unfortunate while we were working because I felt like it wasn’t really productive. They only had 3 or 4 shovels so people were standing around a lot. We shoveled dirt and wheelbarrowed it to different areas of the house and then leveled all the dirt. We alsod59 laid a few la
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