don't mind your wife chop bar.

Ghana. I have so much to say but don’t really feel like this is the outlet for it. So if we’re good friends, have an hour to kill, and are drinking red wine, we’ll talk about it. I have so many mixed emotions about both South Africa and Ghana (although I loved my time in both places very much), but the more I learned the harder it was to try and sort out my feelings. Let’s just say that I felt far more guilt, made far more friends, and felt far more successful in Ghana than I had in any other place I’ve been. It wasn’t my favorite country, but it was definitely my most successful.

Got off the ship in 95 degree heat. Humid and sticky upon impact. There was a group of ten of us – to make traveling four hours to Cape Coast more affordable. We waited for the SAS shuttle (that they charged us each $10 for…because it takes $6,000 to run a shuttle for four days…ughuhgkjsfjad) and when it didn’t show, a local cop let us ride in the back bed of his truck. This pretty much set the mood for my entire trip. Oh, let me name my comrades – Jordan, Ricardo, Andrew, Amy, Elle, Rachel (brown hair so RBH), Nick, Colette, and Tucker.

So anyway, we get a van to drive us to Cape Coast, stopping for beer, food, and ATMs on the way. Because we docked in Tema, about an hour outside of Accra, we arrived in the “industrial capital of Ghana” – you can imagine what that looked like. Lots of shoes being sold on strings, for one thing. Also lots of goats (a common theme in Ghana) roaming around aimlessly, eating grass and garbage. However, the countryside was beautiful – red earth with sparse trees and low bushes. Hills and small villages along the way, where people on the side of the road waved when we passed. LOTS of religious imagery. When I say a lot, I mean SO MUCH. “God’s Electronic Store,” “Jesus is Best Market,” etc etc. It’s almost superstitious instead of religious – like they were afraid God would smite them if they didn’t put the sign there. Probably 95% of the stores that we saw from Cape Coast til Tema, even in Accra, had something to do with God.

It took us about four hours to drive to our hotel in Cape Coast, a weird little place suggested by tons of guidebooks called Hans Botel. The rooms were very nice and there was a pond where crocodiles swam. It seemed pretty empty, save for Welsh Tim who we will talk about later. We went out for the slowest-moving dinner ever at Castle Restaurant, a place next to the slave dungeons on the beach. Amy attracted a few guys – Richard and Sammy – and they came into the restaurant and hung out for a bit. After dinner, Amy, Colette, Ricardo, Jordan, and Andrew went dancing with them in town, while Elle, Rachel, Tucker, Nick, and I went back to the hotel. We were exhausted…so naturally we drank at the bar with the guy who showed us into the hotel, Kofi. Kofi has been to Illinois before, so we became fast friends and ended up talking for an hour or two. He was awesome, kept referring to America as “Freedom.” Exchanged numbers and I promised to call, but I forgot the next night. Either way, it was amazing. Poor Rachel and Elle got stuck talking to the aforementioned Welsh Tim. He bought their drinks so they felt obligated to listen to him talk about his penchant for local prostitutes. Everyone else came back, we drank a little longer, then went to sleep.

Well, I woke up at 3am and got sick. Whether it was the heat, the chicken curry with jollof rice I got at the restaurant, or something else altogether, I got very very sick. First instance of “sickness” during the trip. It sucked and made me less adventurous with food for the rest of my stay in Ghana. OH, and the toilet was broken, so I had to fix that so no one would be greeted by my vomit in the morning. Disgusting.

ANYWAY, the next morning we had our “included” breakfast of toast and coffee, then split up and headed into town. My group consisted of Tucker, Elle, Amy, Rachel, and Nick. I only wanted to travel with 3 people, tops, so I was a little bummed out, but everyone I was with ruled so it wasn’t such a big deal. ESPECIALLY because Tucker and Amy went off by themselves for awhile and brought us a friend. We’ll get there in a moment however.

It was so hot. We walked through the town, saw children in their school uniforms play soccer, stopped in a few shops, got called “obroni” (white people). I felt horrible, but it was still a nice two hour walk. Finally came to a restaurant run by a big, happy woman named Henrietta. She made us fresh chips (fries) with chicken and a vegetable mix. Delicious delicious. Checked into the Oasis Beach Resort (not a resort – it cost $9 a night, no AC, little cave-like huts with fans too far away to make a difference. Loved it!) and ran into Amy and Tucker, who had met Isaac.

Isaac is far and away one of the best people I have ever met. After putting our stuff down, and leaving Nick behind because he felt sick, Isaac took us for a tour of his town. We saw alleyways that tourists never see, painted pink and filled with children in uniforms coming home from school, pointing at us and saying “obroni!” He translated everything for us, even when the kids asked “what’s up with that little man” about Tucker. He brought us to cheap fabric stores, bargained for us, and into an alley outside of the major town market for some palm wine. We were served out of a bucket in coconut shells. It was one of my favorite moments of the entire trip to be sure. He said he was just trying to make us the happiest people in Ghana, and was surprised when I told him that there are lots of flies in the US (he still didn’t believe me). The most lovely of the lovely.

Walked back to the Oasis, where Martin, Dave, Peyton, Genevieve, Cory, and James are hanging. We decided to stay near the hotel – good call since by midnight we were outnumbered by locals. Learned to drum on the beach with new friend Joe and five other dudes, traded a beaded necklace for a pack of Big Red and Chapstick with John (who wanted something to show his kids from America), and bought Isaac a beer for being a fantastic host. Isaac prayed to his ancestors that Elle would be safe, then left a VM for her mother that he would someday marry her.

The next morning we left Cape Coast after going for a tour of the slave dungeons (by the same guy who did Obama’s tour in Ghana). Horrific, to say the least. Spent the night drinking outside a too-expensive club and learning about the omnipresence of some kind of God from an Islamic guy who I shared the following with:

“I hear the US has been having financial problems, a recession-“
“Yes that’s true.”
“Well…what if the US looked like Ghana? What would they say then?”

Amazing.

Went to Makola Market the next day. Wrote so much. Don’t want to rewrite. I have photos. I’m going to post because learning Led Zeppelin songs on my mandolin is too hard.