Easter Weekend!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

I am doing much better today, I woke up regenerated and with no signs of sickness. I think I was worn-out from not sleeping enough and the rehydration salts and ten hours of sleep has solved my problem. Through out the day I still had some signs of sickness, but I was in much better shape. I went to all of my classes and they went by smoothly and then I had dance for about five hours. We are moving along now, although we are practicing five days a week for the final two weeks so my spare time is going to be greatly diminished.
The only exciting part of my day was discovering a new way to walk to class that cuts off about five minutes, which is nice since the distance from my first class to my second one always makes me late. Additionally, my first class got out early so I was able to finish up my assignment before my second class. I had not done an adequate job due to the fact that I was so sick and so drained the day before. But in the end it all worked out and I got everything done.
I am getting anxious to be home and have all of those things that I miss and the stress of finals is becoming real, but I try to think of what lies ahead and the wonderful last two weeks that I am going to have. It is those thoughts that keep me going. Although I want to be home and I miss everyone so much, I know I am not finished with my experience here yet. I still learn new things everyday and my horizons become expanded with each new encounter. I meet men who annoy me beyond belief and I have become so much better at blowing off the entire ordeal without becoming stressed. I have more patience fro the slow speed of life and the individuals who speak to me as if they are being helpful but really they are just causing me anxiety.
So many of my mannerisms have been altered from specific inflections in speak and subtle changes in wordings for everyday activities to the way that when something goes wrong it is expected and it is not seen as an issue it is just something else to deal with. Everyday I try to predict which one of the changes will prevail and which things will disappear in time causing me to revert back to how I was before the semester. There are several things I hope I can maintain, while others I am praying vanish before I land back in America; like eating with my hands!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

I am completely better today!!! I was able to eat two meals and keep them both down; I even made it all the way through dance without getting sick. My day was exponentially better than yesterday; I feel reenergized and am once again ready to continue my journey in Ghana. My Easter plans were ruined on Wednesday, which greatly added to my hardship and Hannah once again came to the rescue and invited me to go paragliding with her group. Also Eunice invited me to church with her, so everything is going to work out I am sure of it.
My day started out great because I woke up to a phone call from my boss letting me know that I did not have to go into work. I was able to go back to sleep until almost ten!!! And then when I got up I did some readings and just got to relax for the remainder of the day until dance. I ate redred for the first time in a while because I was sick, so it tasted better than usual. I even finished the book I had been reading by Glenn Beck. It was a beautiful morning and then I had to go to dance. I still do not know the music well enough to perform on my own, but Atsu and Mickey, two Ghanaian dancers, have promised to work with some of the girls that don’t know what they are doing and me before our exam. Therefore, I am confident if I work really hard in class and with them that I will understand the dance in time.
Like a typical Thursday I went off to Tantra for an evening of dancing and time to unwind. Unfortunately, Friday is a holiday so no one has classes. Therefore, the club was extremely crowded and the music wasn’t great. After one the DJ changed so at least the music improved. We did end up having a fun night, but it was not the relaxing atmosphere I was looking forward to. We returned after five AM and I did not get to bed until after six because the boys were waiting for someone to bring them food and we stayed up talking until it was time for Peter to leave for his journey to the East for the Easter Festival.

Friday, April 22, 2011

This morning I did not have to be up until nine, which was nice since I got to bed really late yesterday. We left at around ten for the Eastern Region- Kwahu – with the thought process that we would arrive by around two. What really happened is we got to circle on the nicest bus we have ridden on yet, because it was empty and extremely cheap. The first person we encountered exclaimed Welcome to Africa in the most enthusiastic of voices; it was incredibly entertaining and definitely the largest welcome we have received in quite some time. Then, we looked for the metro mass bus we were told would take us to our destination, but this bus was finished (or never existed) we are not sure. So we found a different way by getting directions from the sweetest women, Sister Ama. She gave us contact information for Auntie Acos who lives in Obo, which is the town in Kwahu were the festival takes place. She got us on a bus to the right place; however, the bus was quite expensive but we got on anyway because the lines for different transportation were long and not that much cheaper. We were forced to listen to screeching Ghanaian movies the entire trip after about an hour of preaching by a random man that was screaming ff the top of his lungs and it was after three by the time we reached Nkawkaw. There we took a trotro to Obo, where we arbitrarily decided to get off when the atmosphere seemed good.
It happened that a sweet young girl saw that we were in need of assistance and walked us around for thirty minutes looking for a hotel with an opened room. We eventually found a beautiful room with one bed for all five of us. It was located right by the “Chill Spot” for MTN, so we spent a portion of our night there. Before going to the chill spot, we asked a taxi driver to drive us up the road for as far as one cedi could get us and it actually worked. We found somewhere to get dinner a restaurant with a sign in the front that said continental and local dishes. When we got inside there were several good signs that we were going to get fed. We were all very hungry by this point because we hadn’t eaten all day and it was around seven. We had also walked up and down looking for food and we were unable to find somewhere everyone could find some thing. So when we finally got to order every one was ecstatic. Although we quickly found out there was no reason to get excited. The waitress brought us to our table upstairs where it was pitch black and no lights were provided. Then we were informed that they had banku, fufu, and rice with sauce. We all ordered and she returned to tell us that the rice is finished. Therefore, there were zero meals with no meat. So three of us went out one more time to look for food to bring back to the table to join the two people who would be eating fufu. I was able to find kenkay with no meat, Hannah ate bananas, and Devin had yam chips with sauce. We brought our food back to the restaurant and in the end everything worked out.
We then went to the Chill Spot and there were probably thirty little kids wearing bags on their shoes so when we walked by they could slide right in front of our feet. It was hysterical and we stayed to dance with them for a little while. They were adorable and kept us entertained for longer than we expected. Then older boys came by to get to know us, we were dreading the encounter due to the fact that every time this happens it always turns out with us attempting to find excuses to leave. However, these boys were a pleasant surprise. They were really kind and did not bother us at all. We were able to sit with them and have a nice conversation and then leave when it was time for them to get dinner and us to head of to a concert. There was no awkward encounter and they did not try to follow us to our room.
We then found our way to Ohenenana where we were told a concert would be underway. It was much further than we realized, but once we arrived we were glad we took the effort to get there. The taxi rides were all epic the entire weekend and the journey to the concert was no exception. The fist taxi did not want to take us because of the traffic so he started to pull away. Devin yelled out “WAIT!! LISTEN, you are going this way, we need to go this way so drive us in this direction until our paths are no longer in sync. He agreed and the entire ride we spoke with him in Twi, he was so entertained we were sure he would take us the entire way. However, that did not actually happen he let us down when he needed to turn, but we did get closer and the encounter was wonderful. He was such a nice guy and we learned some new Twi in the process. We found another taxi that was much less friendly, but he got us to where we needed to go.
We found the concert, the music was great, but we were the only white people so men flocked at us more than usual. We could not get men to stop touching us until we found the kindest Ghanaian women to dance around us; they were our saviors. At the end of the show we went to explore and met a group of three men who began by being pleasant and our final encounter was one of them kissing one of our friends, so we decided it was time to go back to the hotel. Once again we had an adventurous driver. He got into a huge fight over something that we were completely blind too. At one point he even turned off the vehicle and got out of the car. We were freaking out because we had already paid. One of the most important rules to remember is never pay until you get to your destination, but there is a back story to the reason why we paid. We met up with the junior sister of one of our program directors and her friends and she got out of the taxi paid him and told us to hop in. It was such a kind thing for them to do, but it led us to a situation where getting out of the taxi would cost us money but staying in could lead to trouble. In the end the taxi driver returned and we were once again on our way. The traffic was terrible and we were barely moving so the driver again got out, this time to fix his tire while we were in the middle of the road stuck in traffic. The entire encounter was amusing and it just added to the unique experiences we had with our taxi drivers!
We got back to the room and I decided to take a shower. The bathroom was beautiful, but the shower had no door or curtain. Therefore, when I turned the water on everything in the bathroom got soaked including my clothes and the toilet paper. I finished my shower and went to my bag to find something to sleep in that resembled pajamas, but was not drenched. I then laid down on the blanket we laid down on the floor for Hannah and I to sleep on, sleep did not come quickly but once it did I was out until six when I received a phone call.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

I was not able to fall back asleep after the call at six, but at seven we were getting up anyway. So I got up and got ready and in due time we were ready to head off to paragliding. We made our way to Atenin, which is located at the top of a mountain where the paragliding took place. Once again we took an unforgettable taxi ride, but this was the least favorable of all of the encounters. This man was madly in love with me and wanted terribly to get married. Although this happens constantly, it is unfortunate when it occurs in a taxi ride that is going to last a half hour. The driver drove us all the way up the mountain with the air conditioning on because of the severity of the dust. Therefore, when we got to the top he wanted us to pay more, but like I said before paying when you arrive is the most important rule the second most important rule is to discuss a price before entering. Therefore, we did not give him more money, we paid what we agreed on and made him go away. We found the list to paraglide and the way everything worked out amazingly the entire weekend this was no exception. We got the last spots for the day, paid, and patiently waited for several hours before they called us up to be strapped on. We were all so excited and the timing could not have been better. Right before I departed the vice president of Ghana showed up and sat three chairs to the left of me. It was incredible.
I soon found out that my professional that I would be flying with does paragliding acro, so he promised to do tricks with me in the air. I was so excited because the women had told me it depended on whom I got that I could not be guaranteed crazy tricks. We flew for about thirty minutes above the beautiful forest, right underneath the clouds, with the birds flying along side us. It was amazing and I think everyone should try and do it! Then it was time to go nuts, we swung in circles where we were completely vertical, and then we did a loop and went upside down. The driver said we reached 100 mph and dropped 50 meters a second! After we landed I got to ride back up the mountain in the back of a pick up truck, so it was two firsts in one! It was such an extraordinary festival and well worth all of the trouble.
We then got back in five different types of transportation and made our way back to our dorm, we arrive in much less than seven hours (the time it took to get there) so we were all thrilled. The last trotro ride was again entertaining, we got in and it would not start. The driver revved the engine for about twenty minutes before finally trying something new. A couple of men then popped the hood and figured out what the problem was. Soon after we were on our way back to school, but right before our stop the trotro turned down the wrong road and we quickly had to tell the car to stop so we could get out and walk the rest of the way. It was only about ten feet, it was just a surprise when the car went the wrong way since we are used to taking the same path. Also on our first trotro, which was about a four-hour drive there was the most annoying man sitting with us. He bothered us the entire way, although I that am under the impression the he thought he was being helpful. Really we all just wanted to sleep and he said it was too dangerous to sleep on the bus. The roads were so bad it was already difficult to do any thing except hang on for dear life, to have to deal with this mans nonsense made the trip that much worse. It also rained, which means the thousands of pot holes all filled with water and the dirt roads get that much more difficult to travel on. The water was so high in some areas we thought the car was going to stall out, but thankfully there were few car problems the largest problem was the man that kept talking to us after we made it clear we had no interest in conversation. We were all tired, hot, hungry, and ready to get back to school.