TWO WEEKS LEFT.... wowza.

me with my trusty guidebook in Tamale - gotta love that thing!

Some things are hard to believe. That I've been in Ghana for nearly 6 months may just be one of them! I mean, I understand that time has passed. Lots of time! But the realisation that it is nearly AUGUST pretty much astounds me every time I think about it!

However, I can't say that time has gone fast, because it hasn't really. Those first few weeks dragged, and then picked up and then just ticked on nicely. After those inital few weeks of adapting I didn't really think the words 6 months much - it was just too scary! And then I didn't really need to because time was dealing with that fact without my help... and now here I am - this time in two weeks I will be at the airport! Like sitting at home a few weeks before my departure the thought of home fills me with this mixed excited feeling although lets face it after the initial crazy I am bound to be filled with (like coming home after uni only about about 10x worse...) I think I will start to miss Ghana.

The sun, the tros, the food (bizarrely, or perhaps I will miss the ease of getting food - off someones head, side of road or tro window), my housemates Anna and Maria, my beautiful children and just travelling through and living here. I wont miss some things (cries of obruni, always being different, stupid Africa-time, being grabbed) but even those will take on some sort of nostalgic value a few weeks after my return.

Before I leave I want to: Visit Kokrobite along the coast, eat lots of bread and egg, get two dresses made at the seamstress, see my children's graduation (this Saturday!!), eat banku and fufu one last time, go to the beach to try to get my tan to the level everyone expects (when really I avoid the sun here), visit the markets again... and lots more I am sure!

Ghana-Sal xxxxxxxxxxxxx

My travels! - Long journeys, elephants, failed boarder crossings, baguettes, taxi motos and voodoo!

I have just returned from my little travelling holiday with Marjo, a volunteer with ICYE from Finland! It was quiiiite an adventure actually, and I am sad to say that this blog will be picture-less due to general virus fears from the internet and Marjo having most of the awesome pictures BUT there will be fabulous picture post that I will try to do a few days before I leave Ghana - otherwise knowing me there will be a few facebook albums dedicated to my time...!

So on Sunday off I went to Kumasi to stay with Marjo. This was annoyingly a truly frustrating trip - as I went to the bus station at 12 and had to wait a joyous FOUR HOURS before the damn bus actually left. The message here really is no travelling on the weekend but apparently 5 months in Ghana isn't long enough to teach me this! I may have learn't some of the patience this country requires but deep (or not so deep?) down my British-ness still lives! Anyway, the next day we had a ticket for the 7 hour bus to Tamale. See the map below!
We stayed in a hotel in Tamale (cheap but a bit skanky and with cockroaches apparently, as we discovered after spraying mosquito spray. oops!) and the next day got a ticket for the metro mass but to Mole National Park. We arrived at midday to the station and the bus was SUPPOSED to leave at 2.30. Although from the guidebook we were prepared for a hell 4 hour journey on bumpy unsurfaced roads even I wasn't prepared for what we got! We waited and waited and waited for this damn bus and at around 5pm it started to rain quite hard. Of course, this was the time that the bus chose to arrive and so everyone ran across to the bus and got on. Here was the first problem - we had seat numbers but no one was anywhere close to their designated seat and no one wanted to go outside in the rain to clear up the isles. It was quite funny in a ridiculous kind of way as no one could move to get to their seat or get out of the wrong ones they were standing in and I tell you squeezing past indignant african mammas is not easy! Eventually, we did find out seat, but the bus company had double booked around 5 seats and to my surprise when we finally did set off there were around 9 people standing... and they stood for the whole way! I had a girl leaning on me, it was pretty awful, and of course it was dark and we were tired and the bus was horribly uncomfortable. I have found a picture of a metro mass bus for you all:
Eventually however we DID arrive at the National Park (using toilets half way that I must admit were truly terrible. I went inside and screamed: there were HUNDREDS of cockroaches all over the walls. Only my need forced me to stay. Urgh I can't even think of it now!) and Marjo and I got a nice big room with another girl from Ireland.

The next morning at 6am we woke for out walking safari. I must say that this was worth the horrific bus journey, because we saw warthogs everywhere, baboons with their babies, antelopes and ELEPHANTS! The elephants were just happily eating by the village for the park rangers and we got really close and took lots of pictures. It was really awesome! After our walk we relaxed by the pool with all the other obrunis but still the animal sightings didn't stop - not only did we have an amazing view of the watering hole where the elephants bathed at midday but warthogs were wandering around the place by our rooms and elephants decided to come around 20m from the pool, apparently unconcerned!

The bloody metro mass bus left for some STUPID reason at 4am the next morning although it was mercifully on time and we got ourselves back to Tamale and then on a tro to Bolgatanga where we stayed for a night in a lovely guesthouse. The next day we went to Paga with the plan of crossing the boarder into Burkina Faso but here was the problem! We got to the Ghana immigration office and as the officials were stamping us out we discovered that the price for the boarder visa had increased on the 1st July (it was the 8th) from 10,000 CFA (around 12 pounds) to 94,000 (140 pounds). Not quite believing this could possibly happen we decided to proceed into Burkina, walking along the road unsure whether we should be speaking French! Unfortunately, it was true, and regretfully had to go the 100m back into Ghana (this time on a Burkinebe's motorbike!) and stamp back in again!

It then was frustrating to go back to Tamale and the next day getting the 6.30am bus back to Accra. The journey took 14 hours with a 1.5 hour break at a roadside village due to a flat tire during which time Marjo and I had a 40minute photo shoot with some of the kiddies - photos to follow - which did make rather a good think out of a flat tire! And it was during this loooong journey that we decided to go to Togo!

Togo was in many ways similar to Ghana - but also very different. French, for one! Also the baguettes they served on the street with tasty avacardo filling. The main form of transport in Lome, the capital, was taxi motorbikes - a hair-raising transport option to say the least, and although we did take them it wasn't often or in rush hour traffic which I think would have been truly terrifying! In Lome we stayed in a cheap (Togo is more expensive than Ghana!) but undeniably awful hotel - the toilets and showers I was incredibly glad to leave! The next day we headed to Lake Togo and crossed the lake to the village Togoville by canoe.

It was paying for this hotel (huge with a pool and we were the only guests) that Marjo realised that she had LEFT HER PASSPORT/MONEY/BANK CARD in our clever under-the-mattress hiding place! Her cries of disaster were heard by the kind english-speaking guide who assured us that it would be quite possible to go back to Lome and the hotel and return again by the evening. Phew! Sooo, we got the boat (painfully slow), a minibus and a taxi to our gross hotel: up the stairs, into the room, under the mattress and PHEW it was still there - the manager gasped in shock and immediately demanded a cadeaux (a gift, money basically!) for not cleaning well enough and keeping the money?! Well, anyway in much higher spirits we did head back to the hotel and were very relieved to relax after our frantic travelling!

Togoville is a small village half of which are Christian and the other half practice voodoo! We had a tour of the village the next morning visiting the Christian structures (a villager supposedly saw the virgin Mary on Lake Togo in 1940 which prompted the visit of Pope John II so much was for him) and then very strange voodoo statues in place for the protection of the market place and a family compound for example. We asked to visit a voodoo lady and our guide did take us to see one - a crazy mad experience! On going inside her house we saw our guide had taken off his shirt and Marjo joked if we should take ours off only to discover that, yep, that is exactly what we should do! We had to wrap ourselves in fabric and then infront of a weird sacrificial thing (with meat?!) we performed odd clapping ceremonies. Marjo has some amazing photos. I will never do anything so weird as that!

The rest of our stay in Togo was relaxation by the pool and back in Tome some touristy shopping! Now I am back in Accra glad to be home for a small time.

This post is stupidly long! I'm sure I wont write so much next time...! I am back in England in less than one month now!

Sal xxxxx

P.S. I am always impressed by the professionalism of officials of Ghana (and Togo and Burkina) as we were asked for numbers, addresses and to be "friends" with 4 of them, and one of the women officials on returning to Ghana asked me for some money as I swapped my currency (pointing to her mouth like beggars do) laughing like it was the funnniiieeessttt thing in the world. Hum. Ha ha?

P.P.S I also argued with yep more officials, as the Ghanaian guy didn't seem to think I had a re-entry visa after I had double triple checked at the Burkina boarder AND on entering Togo so I had to argue pretty hard before he checked with his boss, otherwise I would have had to reapply and pay again!