As I mentioned in my last blog, we went on our first trip this past weekend to a small fishing village called Ada Foah. Now I knew it was going to be an awesome experience (I mean a hut on the beach for only $5 a night...can't beat that), but I was not anticipating such an amazing time. We left Wednesday around 2 p.m. and had a two hour "private" tro-tro (we charted it just for our group of 11 at $3.50 per person, much less than the $7 that the city bus would have cost). Once we arrived in Big Ada (the main village), we loaded our stuff onto a boat and rode down the Volta River for about a half an hour. We past a ton of boats, fisherman, etc. There were a lot of beautiful mansions along the river that we later found out from Niels (a retired man from Copenhagen that got super drunk Saturday night) all belong to wealthy, retired Europeans. The river was also lined with reed/palm leave huts with children bathing and swimming in the water. Once we finally arrived at our little slice of paradise, the sun was low in the sky and everything was glistening orange. We paid for our boat ride and rooms for all four nights (coming to a "whopping" $34) and put our stuff in our huts. I shared a hut with Brandon, from Portland State University (the other PSU). At first it was a bit awkward sharing a bed with somebody I've only known for about a week, but by the end of the trip we were all so close that it wouldn't have mattered who I shared with. Our group consisted of Carly, McKenzie, Maggy, Callie, and Mary Beth from UNC; Andrew from NC State; Becca from a small school in California (sorry I forgot the name Becca); Brandon from Portland State; Kristine from Elon; and Andrew and I from Penn State.
The menu had a good deal of variety on it, but it was little pricey relative to campus and Accra prices (but still well below the States). The big hit was spaghetti for $2.50! The chicken was pretty good as well. Water was a bit expensive ($1.20 for 1.5 liters), but the beer was on par with prices around the rest of Ghana (about $0.90 a bottle). All-in-all, I spent about $30 on food and drinks for our five day, four night trip; bringing the grand total to about $64!
Thursday we woke up to the sounds of fisherman singing as the hauled in the nets from the night before. Andrew, Andrew, and I went down and helped them pull in the nets. It was a lot of work, especially since we couldn't understand the local language. Once we finally had the nets hauled in, they showed us what all they caught was...a lot of it was what they refer to as "yellow fish," some crabs, jellyfish, a squid, and some sturgeon. The fishermen offered us each a fish for our help, but we declined and they all smiled at us (either because they thought we were crazy for doing work without being paid, or because they appreciated our help without expecting payment). The rest of the day was spent lounging around reading and soaking up the sun. I started reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut that morning and was finished the following afternoon. It was an incredible book! I highly suggest it to everybody reading this that hasn't read it yet (Rafik...as I was reading it, it made me think of you a lot; particularily your "essay" back in 11th grade because I remember that it was one of the books Nailor had you read).
The sun sets incredibly early in Ghana this time of year (around 6:30). So after the sunset we pretty much just sat around and talked with each other. We went to bed around 9:00 p.m. because there wasn't really anything else to do and the fishermen always wake you up around 7:00 a.m. Friday was more reading on the beach. Once I finished Slaughterhouse Five, I moved on to The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman (a little slow at first, but its getting better). I have a feeling that I will be doing a lot of reading here, since there isn't much else to do in your free time. No television, no web-surfing (aka "facebooking"), etc. We also paid a local "fisherman" 10 cedi to give us a tour of some of the surrounding islands on his boat. It turns out that the fisherman was no fisherman at all, but rather a sugar cane farmer. He took us to his island and showed us how they make awk-wa-tash-ine (phonetic spelling because I have no idea how to really spell it). It's essentially moonshine that could take the paint of the walls. He gave us about half a shot glass worth and it just burned as it went down. The after taste though was fantastic; it was very sweet (which makes sense since it's made from sugar cane) and had a hint of banana. We bought about a 16 oz. bottle full for 6 cedi to bring back for others to try at the hostel. On the way back to the hotel/resort, the weight of us all made the sides pop out and the seats fell into the boat, scaring the crap out of us, but all the children along the beach thought it was hilarious. Once we regained our composure from our nearly capsized boat, we re-arranged ourselves mid-river so that it would happen again. We didn't get it right! It ended up happening two more times, until we finally got the weight balancing correct (which required McKenzie to straddle/grope Maggie for a good 30 minutes on our way back).
On Saturday, we ventured in to the villages to take pictures of the children and buildings. The adults are very hesitant to allow tourists to take pictures of them, but the kids love it. One guy was asleep on a bench outside his home and when they took the picture we woke up and got really angry. He later came over to the resort with a machette and some coconuts to complain. While we're pretty sure that he sells coconuts for a living, his weapon of sorts put us a little on edge, so we bought some coconuts above "market value" and apologized many times to get him to leave. That was the only hostile person that I have encountered during my entire time in Ghana so far. The kids on the other hand love to have their picture taken...a million times! Once you take their picture, they insist on looking at it on the screen and they always giggle. I didn't take my camera into the village because I knew the kids wouldn't leave me alone, but they did find it amusing the grab my hand and have me lift them way up in the air. That got old rather quickly, but it was still a great experience. My two favorites were Sampson and Richard. Richard went around and picked all the empty bottles and cans out of the trash cans to sell for recycling. He was so cute!
Although it was a beautiful resort and we had a great time, by Sunday I was more than ready to come back to campus. Mainly, to take a shower. Oh yeah...they didn't have showers or toilets at the Marantha Beach Resort. A shower for us consisted of jumping in the Volta to wash our body/hair (which I did only once because I didn't feel very clean afterwards anyways). The "toilets" were holes dug in the sand with wooden crates with holes cut out of the top box. They must have cleaned them out overnight because they were always cleanest in the morning, but by the end of the day they were just terrible (I'll spare you the details). Let's just say that after dark, we all just went out in the middle of the beach to go #1 and covered it up with sand. Sounds unsanitary, I know, but much better than the alternative! Don't let those two things discourage you though. We all had a blast and we're likely to make another trip out there towards the end of the semester. If you're ever in Ghana, I would definitely suggest a weekend at the Marantha Beach Resort. Especially Saturday night, when they have a huge bonfire with drummers and traditional dancers!
Well, it's taken me about 50 minutes to write this much and I still need to check my email before my time runs out, therefore I won't be spell-checking this entry so forgive me for any errors. I'm at Busy Internet in Accra for the first time and the connection speed is so much faster! So, if you have questions about the trip/life in general, just leave a comment.
Until next time,
Greg
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