Adventures in Ghana

On Sept  17^th, a group of 12 other Peace Corps Mali Volunteers and myself left on a bus for Ghana for a much needed, but also to run in the annual marathon/half marathon that’s held every September in Accra, the capitol. But, let’s be real, I was also in search of Sidik look-alikes. Travelling through Burkina Faso into Ghana, the trip took us about 36 hours, including a 5-hour stop at one border so the drivers could sleep. The bus didn’t have air conditioning and did not have bathrooms on board (think Greyhound,) but looking back, the trip there wasn’t that bad. We had tons of snacks and were excited for vacay & to be around each other, so it went fairly quickly. We arrived in Kumasi, where we then travelled to Takurati to stay at the Green Turtle Lodge (BEACH!), an environmentally-friendly resort/lodge type deal where we stayed for 3 nights. The bus taxi we rented to get there had a little trouble on the ridiculously rocky road/path that was atleast 6k off the main road and broke down, but who better than 12 girls to push at 11pm? We found a 13 year-old kid to catch and cook us lobsters for what we figured was equivalent to 0.75 a lobster. The food was delicious at the Lodge – egg, sausage, & toast breakfasts with French press coffee, paninis for lunch. Did I mention there was a beautiful beach? We all got a lot of sun, but it felt good to sunbathe and swim in the ocean.  After the Green Turtle, we headed back to Kumasi to go to Kakum National Park, home to the tallest and largest series of rope bridges in the world. There are 4 like it in the world – 1 in Costa Rica and I can’t remember where the others are. The 7 rope bridges criss-crossed over the rainforest. After leaving, we went to the Oasis Resort in Cape Coast, which was probably my favorite place we went to in Ghana. The culture was Jamaica-rasta. All the locals wore Bob Marley tees and beanies baring Jamaican colors and would say things to us like ‘it’s nice to be nice’ or ‘we are all rich. We are only poor if we want to be.’ Ghanaians speak English, but they also have something like 40 local languages, one being Twee, which we picked up a few essential phrases. We discovered in Cape Coast that Ghanaian music is WAY better than Malian music. We came home and immediately downloaded the songs that became the anthems for our trip. The music was hip-hop meets pop meets Jamaica. They also listen to a lot of American hip-hop.  I wish we had more than just one night in Cape Coast, but we had to get to Accra to rest up for the marathon/half marathon, which was the whole purpose of our trip to Ghana. The people that weren’t running stayed behind in Cape Coast another day, while the runners (me?!) began our way to Accra, which turned into an all-day affair. A PCV from Ghana that we met in Cape Coast (super jealous) told us about a hostel/hotel outside of Accra that was opened by a previous Medical Officer for Peace Corps Niger, and gives priority to Peace Corps Volunteers and their families. The place was incredible and none of us wanted to leave. We cooked breakfast there & watched Harry Potter on the big screen tv and slept in air conditioned rooms with King sized beds. If you’re EVER in Ghana, you HAVE to stay at the Peace Inn outside Accra. The staff was so nice & it was just as inexpensive as all of the other hostels we stayed at during our trip. But, we didn’t leave luxury for long. One girl on our trip got us a sponsor for the race, who paid for 2 rooms for us to stay at the African Royal Beach Hotel in Accra, one of the nicest hotels in Ghana, which was like a five star hotel in America. We laid by the pool and ordered Hawaiian pizzas at the restaurant bar. (Pictures will be on Facebook very soon; check ‘em out.) We woke up at 4am to head to the race starting line, wearing our matching t-shirts we had made and American flags in our pony-tails. The race course started alongside the water, which was a beautiful, scenic route, but went on to go alongside the highway and through some towns, which didn’t have the best terrain. There was no roped-off course, so running through town, we would have to yell ‘Excuse me!’ to weave our way through people, at times, who were on their way to church or collecting water. By mile 9, my feet & legs were killing me. I more or less crawled the last 4 miles, with short spurts where I would jog a few hundred yards. There were people from all over running both the marathon and the half marathon, but there was also a team relay and a 10k. I don’t know how many hundreds of people competed, but the girl who won for the females was a Ghanaian (duh) and looked like she could run across Africa while doing a crossword puzzle. She wasn’t even winded when she finished. I think I collapsed. I got passed by Ghanaians doing the marathon, who started about an hour before we did, cars following alongside them with video cameras. But, all in all, I’m proud of myself for finishing, being a self-proclaimed non-runner and all. It was rough, though. I wish I would have clocked my time, but it was somewhere around 2.5 hours. No one knows exactly when we started and they didn’t give us our finishing times. I decided I will stick to 5ks and 10ks from now on. 13 miles is a little too much for me. After the race, we celebrated with orange slices, coconuts, and Ghanaian rice and chicken. We all got medals that say ‘Finisher’ on them - definitely going up on the mantel with my stocking when I come home for Christmas. For the rest of the day, we went to the spa at the hotel where we got free 30-minute massages, haircuts, and pedicures, laid by the pool and celebrated a birthday for a girl on our trip with a cake and daiquiris. The following day, we made it into town to shop and eat at the country’s first, brand new KFC in town. There wasn’t macaroni & cheese or mashed potatoes, but I’m pretty sure we were still in heaven. It was fried chicken!  After checking into the Salvation Army’s hostel, we shopped until late afternoon, and then a couple of us went to the NYU center in Accra, where my friend Meredith, an NYU grad, spoke at a hosted dinner on Peace Corps and her experiences thus far. Ghana’s Peace Corps Country Director also spoke on the Peace Corps and the application process. Afterwards, we mingled with NYU students who were in the Accra study abroad program over dinner, which was amazing & FREE! I also may have fallen in love with their Resident Director, who sat with me at dinner, a local Ghanaian who came with us afterwards to meet up with the rest of our group at a sushi place (Yes, sushi in Ghana!) I’ve never seen so many white people…well, in 8 months. After a delicious sushi dinner with cocktails, we went out in Accra with some people we had met who had just opened a bar nearby. Fun night of dancing and drinks & listening to our new favorite Ghanaian songs. Our bus ride the following day was by far the worst part of the trip and it sucked that we ended the trip with such a low, but it was an experience nonetheless, so much so that I recorded the timeline in a draft on my phone: Left the bus station at 11:15 am after running around the city, going to different bus stations until we found the right one. The bus was scheduled to leave at 10:00 am. The bus broke down only 50k outside of Accra at 2:20pm. Yes, that is 3 hours to travel 50k. To say that the bus was a piece of shit or that that road was horrible would be the understatement of the year. We sat by the side of the road until 7pm, after calling the bus company as well as the Safety & Security Officer for Ghana who promised us a free ride back to Accra if only we could get the bus company to give us our money back. Clearly, he didn’t. So, at 7pm, we headed towards Kumasi. We stopped an hour and a half later to fix the bus yet again – electrical problems, they kept saying, but refused to call the bus company to demand another bus. We didn’t leave that bus stop until about 11pm, but the drivers drove through the night to make up for lost time. The rest of the stops were for using the bathroom (almost always on the side of the road) or to eat. Thank God, we made it to the Ghana/Burkina Faso border before it closed the following day at 5pm. After hours of paperwork and ‘no, go stand over there’s, we made our way through Burkina without too much trouble, and made it to the Burkina/Mali border late that night at 1am, where we stopped to sleep – some on the ground outside of the bus along with the other Malian passengers, some inside of the bus, which didn’t provide much shut eye. I got off the bus after 49 grueling hours (kind of like Oregon Trail, yes) in Koutiala, after eating mostly bread & peanut butter, saying goodbye to the rest of the group who had another 6-8 hours or so to Bamako. All in all, it was rough. My last shower was Sunday. Count it: 4 full days without a shower. Who am I?

So, let’s recap all of the elements of my trip that were completely contradictory to who I’ve always considered myself to be: I got a massage & a haircut by a Ghanaian woman at the spa of a hotel. Yes, I let someone touch me. She also swore that the oils she insisted on rubbing into my hair would make it shine. No, it made me look like I came out of the movie Grease. I ran a half-marathon. Yes, I RAN. What the hell? I climbed a series of rope bridges hundreds of feet up in the air and I’m afraid of heights. I went 4 days without washing my body or my hair. So, if there was ever a time for an identity crisis, it’d be now. However, I’m pretty sure my OCD is dwindling, so that’s a bonus.

The trip was great and it was hard coming back, but also, it feels good to be ‘home.’ In 2 weeks, I’m going to visit a friend for her birthday, followed by a Halloween bash a couple hours away from my region, then Thanksgiving, which is held every year in Sikasso, the land of plenty. Thanksgiving is a huge affair every year – complete with a registration day, Feast Day on Thanksgiving, Mexican Day at our hotel's really nice pool, and a day at the waterfalls in Woroni. I’ll have a lot to write about after all of those events, so stay tuned. Oh, and in case you’re counting down with me: 79 days til I’m home!!!!! Let the diet begin…