Final Dinner

Final Dinner with Leslie.






Final Dinner with the Group at Havellis :)

End of our Program

Sadly,

The last day of our program, Media in Ghana was on August 6th. This just so happened to be Noah's Birthday. Hope he had a good one, we went to Havelli's... BOMB.COM --> First time trying Indian Food and it was amazing! After our fun at the restaurant, we went back to the house and had some AMAZING cake made by the wonderful Emma S. It was too good and so filling. I'm sure we all took one too many pieces :-)

I had such an amazing time on this trip. I got to meet new people, get closer to others and spend time in a new country learning about different customs and lots of different traditions as well as a new culture. I've been subjected to so much while being in this country, I finally took the time too appreciate and realize everything that I have in my life. I can't imagine going back and being the same person, let alone not giving thanks to my God for giving me the opportunity to come on this trip. I intend to open the minds of others and educate them on this wonderful and promising country... Ghana!

Ghana will forever be in my heart and so will the many wonderful people I have met during my duration here.

Love always,
Akosua

Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum

Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah (21 September 1909 - 27 April 1972)
He was the first President of Ghana, the first Prime Minister of Ghana and a founding member of the Organization of African Unity.

12 a.m. on 6 March 1957, Nkrumah declared Ghana independent. Nkrumah was hailed as "Osagyefo" - which means "redeemer" in the Twi language.

VoLtA ReGiOn

Waking up at 550am AGAIN on another Saturday to head to the Volta Region was just what I needed after a long Friday! I was excited to go to the Volta Region and see the beautiful waterfall and see Monkeys but I wasn’t excited about the uncomfortable bus ride I’d soon have to endure. I got a bad seat next to the door, it was one of the single seats, but I made myself as comfy as possible. I had my Ipod boomin in my ears, even though I said I was going to read and finish New Moon, didn’t happen, and it STILL hasn’t happened. But soon, before Wednesday… I keep procrastinating. Anyways, we stopped on for lunch on the way to the falls and we had a buffet. Chicken, Jollof Rice, fried yams, white rice, chili pepper sauce, fish, fried plantains, and I forget what else. If I’m not sick of this same meal now then by the time I leave Ghana I’m sure I will be. I do appreciate the Fried plantains though very much, I could continue eating those in the states if they were made properly burnt. ☺ The food was mediocre and I didn’t enjoy it as I’d hoped I would! Then after we finished eating, a couple of us were too lazy to walk about 15 steps to change in the bathroom into our swimsuits, so we turned the bus into a large changing station. I was so hot and stuffy on the bus, but I was just way to happy that in a few short hours we’d be swimming under a beautiful waterfall.

We finally approached Willi Falls just an hour away from the little restaurant we’d eaten at. It was about a 45 min hike to the actual falls so we put on our hiking sandals and ventured off into the beautiful jungle/ mountain. Although it didn’t seem like 45 min, the hike back seemed about 45 min, plus some. During the hike to the falls, our tour guide was giving us a mini lesson on the different plants and fruits that the forest had to offer. He cut open this coco fruit, and I’d expected it to be dry, although it was really slimy and white on the inside, with little pieces of cocoa you could squeeze out to try. I hesitated at first because if you know me at all, you’d know I don’t do the slime and odd textures; but I am in Ghana and every one was telling me it was so good. So I took one and slipped it in my mouth and was amazed at how good that little piece was. I spit out the seed and was like WOW, that was some kind of good. Finally we made it to the beautiful waterfall. There were other tourists there and some other Ghanaians as well, but it wasn’t packed and I didn’t mind exposing my non-worked out body in my cute salmon pink Victoria secret bikini… secretly, I know I still looked good (cocky? Naaaah).


The water looked cold, I mean it was a waterfall… so I had some other people go in and determine whether it was feasibly warm enough for me to swim in there. I kept my hiking sandals on, because I didn’t want anything touching my feet. I walked in hand in hand with my roomie and ummmm never will I take the advice of others, that water was super cold! I made it to the water touching my thighs and I was about to give up; but I couldn’t leave until I went under the water that was crashing down at more than 40 mph! As I got closer the water was splashing me and hitting me, NO punching me in my face. I slipped off a rock and went under, and that warmed me up a bit. Then I stood back up and held my other roommates hand and walked backwards to the crashing water. It was so hard because the water was hitting our backs even when we were still a bit far away and not completely under the fall, but we kept going until we couldn’t see and the water was on our hands and we bumped into the wall. I thought there would be some type of cove that we could hid in behind the falls but there wasn’t…. only a stone wall and I could barely see anything because it was like an inch away from the falling water. So we made our way back to the shallow water where the falls weren’t beating us to death. It was the most invigorating experience ever. It was awesome and I’m so glad I ‘womaned’ up and continued, even though I was kind of cold.

We took pictures of the falls, got one last look at it and then headed back to the bus. As I’d mentioned before the hike/ walk back seemed so much longer. After every turn I was like, “are we there yet? I see light” but it only lead us to another turn, and many more after that until I stopped holding my breath and just walked patiently until we finally were greeted with gentlemen saying, “Akwaaba, welcome back again, have a free look… no charge for looking.” They were selling their woodcarvings and some paintings, but I have enough souvenirs and good stuff and I don’t need to buy anything else.

We boarded the bus and then the consensus was to head to the Monkey Sanctuary and feed some monkeys!!!! We arrived there around 4pm, I was hoping that we’d actually see them, since it was late in the day and I’m sure they had many many visitors since the morning. We were hopeful, so we hiked with our tour guide to find some monkeys. All the while he’s doing his monkey calls and making kissing noises with his large lips, one of my group mates asks,
“Yo… Are these the monkeys that throw their doodoo?” and then all of a sudden, SPLAT! Monkey Poo to the face! Haha just kidding. Sadly these were not those kinds of monkeys, because that would have been hilarious. The Tour Guide reassured us that these monkeys were Mono Monkeys. All of a sudden we started seeing monkeys jumping from the trees and they all came together on this huge tree and then our tour guide, Emmanuel, said they were hungry and he showed us how to hold the bananas so that the monkeys would be able to peel them in our hands. I was the first to go, I was nervous because I didn’t want them scratching me or jumping on my hand. I stuck my hand out and then the monkeys had at the small little banana in my hand.


It was so cute they looked like little people there features were so distinct and so cute in this ugly kind of way. After they’d peel the banana they left me with the peeling and then jumped deeper into the trees. Everyone got a turn and then all of a sudden this big huge male monkey comes out, scaring the other little monkeys away. He was called, ‘Commando’! SCARY! He was actually pretty intimidating and I wasn’t about to be the one feeding his scary behind, he’d probably take my whole arm off. Anyways, he would take the whole banana out of your hand and then rub the banana really fast, it looked a little weird if your mind was somewhere else, then he peeled it and ate the inside and dropped the peel! After a while of stealing everyone elses bananas he moved to the side and allowed the other little monkeys to continue eating. It was so sweet. Then this mama monkey came out with a baby monkey in her pouch everyone snapped pictures and gawked at the cute image, and then finally with no more bananas’ we went back to the bus and headed to the Freedom hotel, in Ho.

I’ll just say that dinner was probably the most amazing buffet I’d had in Ghana. Even though it consisted of the same ol foods, chicken, jollof, pineapples, yummy Fried Plantains, and some bomb chips (fries), it was so BOMB!! Then it was bedtime for the kiddies and the next morning headed back to Accra ☺

The Sound of Music

The play started and it was very interesting to see the difference in production in the plays that I've seen on Broadway in New York and also plays at the Arlene Schnizter in Portland, Or. The sound system wasn't as good and it was sometimes hard to hear the actress. The microphones weren't hidden really, they were like large headphones which made it a bit awkward for the actress to not move her head so hard. I'd never seen the play by Rogers and Hammerstein so I didn't even know what to expect from each of the scenes. One thing I did notice were the very flamboyant men in black in the background, doing weird dances with each other. This probably could have been eliminated from the scenes, I could hardly focus. I did adore the singing and I absolutely adored the cute little girl who was the youngest of the bunch. Of course they are supposed to make her the cutest, she reminded me of someone and she had no two front teeth, i couldn't help but want to stay even longer so I could hear her speak more. Her voice was so young and cute... just adorable!! All in all it made me actually want to go see the original play, I'm glad I saw the Ghanaian version, I don't want to be a critic and talk about every bad thing I noticed in the play, because I'm just thankful for the awesome experience of being in Ghana and actually being able to see a production while I'm here. I'd say 20 GH Cedis well spent!

It Happened on Friday

Today I went to work at McCann with Sarah, this day had so much promise I was excited for every moment. First we started out the day, NOT working out, which isn't good! Sarah on Monday, we're gettin it in!! Then we got dressed after a wonderful night's sleep and headed to the trotro! We got to Circle finally and then we had to walk through this huge market across this bridge. It was so sad and depressing because I hadn't seen so much poverty since I'd last visited Nima. There was a mother who looked middle eastern... I'm not sure what she was exactly, but she had about 5 girls that were walking around the market following people trying to ask for money or food. I was very concerned because the eldest child couldn't be more than 12 and these little girls were scattered around the market talking to random people trying to hold people's hands, there were older men who would grab there shirts, and I couldn't help but to see something bad happening to them. I told one of my friends and he told me not to be concerned that's just how they feed. I still am thinking about them and I pray that nothing bad happens to them, because the mother just sat in one place and didn't even move. I'm sure she was just hoping that one of the girls would bring enough food to move throughout the family.

After this incident, we waited for a car to Korle Bu and it took a while. I just sat there, trying to wrap my finger about this commute to work that she has to do and I don't think I could do it everyday. 1) It's way too far for me to even be excited to go to my internship and 2) I couldn't handle seeing this type of poverty every morning.
The car finally arrived and we packed in, the driver was honking his horn trying to move people out of the station and driving through trotros, then all of a sudden he runs into this person who had been walking in front of us... the driver didn't even stop when he got to close, he just continued to let his car run into the gentleman; I was so shocked. The man walked to the drivers window and tried to open the door, I was for sure he would beat the man up. Had this happened in Portland, he would have drug that man out through the window and beat him up something vicious. A lot of people started yelling at the driver and they were speaking in Twi pretty much cursing him out. I could only look out of my window and sit shocked and in amazement that I had actually just witnessed that event.

We finally arrive at her work and Chill there and she shows me the ropes. I'm introduced to her boss and he pretty much gives me the intern run down of all the operations. She shows me this powerpoint about this MTN proposal they had recently turned in. It was interesting, 122 pages worth of interesting. I enjoyed meeting new people and seeing what other internships were like. We ended up leaving and headed straight to the Cultural Center on High Street. We just wanted to get in and get out. Boy these Ghanaians sure know how to give you a terrible headache!! I was successful and bought two cute purses, a necklace, and a nice little drum! I refuse to go shopping in that market without a buddy. After this experience we trotro'd our way home, since the taxi was tryin to charge us 15 cedis to get home. My initial reaction, "Yeah Prolly NOT.... um excuse me where's the trotros!" Seriously, I WAS NOT about to let another cab get over on me! We made it home, made nacho's and patiently waited for our custom tailored dresses to arrive, before we headed out to the play, the Sound of Music... Ghanaian Style!

After waiting 2 hours for the tailor, he finally arrived with our creations!! We were so pumped, so we quickly tried them on and then dashed out the door so we wouldn't be late for the opening of the play. Again, the taxi driver got over on us after we told him we were only paying him 9 cedis, I only had a $10 GH bill and he didn't have change, or so he made it seem like he didn't have change. We tossed him the bill and met up with our friends in the theater.