Well it's been pretty much a nonstop adventure since the last post. After finally managing to escape the overly generous grip of Tema's police chief, and after heading to the beach for New Year's Eve only to find that the guidebook had steered us to a village known not for its drums but for its thieves (thanks, Rough Guide) we shot further west along the coast to Winneba - a small fishing village with a nice beach, friendly non-thieving residents, and a giant festival ground that played host on New Year's day to a masquerade contest that drew a crowd of thousands. Maskfest, I think it might be called. We got into town just in time to see the last hour or so of the competition, which was rowdy and colorful: men in bright costumes on stilts, stepping through the crowd; hundreds of kids and adults with wigs on their heads and mesh masks on their faces, wearing bright shiny outfits in all sorts of colors with various trinkets - bells, mirrors, pom-poms, ribbons - sown onto every possible surface. Drums booming. Trumpets blaring. Team after team, each representing a different tribe in Ghana's central region, took the field, marching and dancing around in formation. We were a bit of a spectacle ourselves - the only white faces on the field. The end of the festival was a spectacle too. In the past, the losing tribes have not always taken the news very well, and sometimes get a little...heated. This time no one contested the outcome, but the crowd, in knee-jerk fashion, took off in a sprint for the exit anyway. All at once. Laura and I waited for the tide to slow a bit, and made our way back to the hotel.
Our hotel - the Lagoon Lodge - turned out to be a gem. Clean, airy rooms with orange batik curtains and a cross-breeze, an open courtyard looking out over the lagoon, and a sand path to the beach. It was high budget for us at $12 a night (most places we've stayed are far cheaper) so we splurged.
But by far the best feature of the place turned out to be the company. After we got back from the festival we fell into conversation with a Ghanaian couple from Accra, who happened to be sitting in the courtyard. We spent most of the evening and a good chunk of the next day locked in conversation with them and still that wasn't enough. They were just too inspiring. Kofi is an optometrist, and his wife Vivian is a nurse. Together they run an NGO in Ghana called Sight for Africa. The mission: to make sure that every person in Ghana gets the eyecare they need. They run a clinic in Accra, and three times a week travel out through town and nearby villages to seek out and help anyone who has troubled eyes. Right now they provide exams and glasses to those who can pay for roughly $10 - glaucoma test, lenses, contacts, everything. They started the clinic because when Kofi had a dream - three times, the same dream - that he would forego a profitable practice in Canada and return to his native Ghana to help his people. In September, he will open the first optometry school in West Africa. I have now taken reams of notes about his story, and at the end of next week Laura and I will visit the clinic in Accra to spend a day or two traveling with the clinic's mobile team into some of the poorer villages in the central region.
We left Winneba completely inspired, and determined to see some of the interior of Ghana by boat. It sounded sort of idyllic and quaint to take a boat up much of the length of Lake Volta, which is the largest manmade lake in Africa. So we traveled by tro-tro (think small, supremely crowded van, a preacher in a dusty brown suit jacket praising the lord at the top of his lungs for an hour straight, and the wily old woman squeezed up next to me in the back row cleverly trying to steal more butt space everytime we landed on the seat again after a big road bump, of which there were many) for a few hours back to Accra, after waiting for several hours in line to get on (and ultimately bribing the driver to do it). We were running late and worried about missing the boat, so we raced to Akisombo to the lake's main dock in a taxi, flying over roadbumps northward, and got there just in time to...wait for two hours in the heat and the stares only to learn that the boat was broken, and had been for some time. Super! It's late in the day and we're stranded.
We tried to get back to Accra but everyone else was trying to do the same (Monday was a business holiday) and we were having no luck pressing past the yam and pineapple sellers and through the crowds onto a tro-tro. So we took a different route, traveling east of Accra and even Tema on the coast by tro-tro then transferring to another one that could take us back to Accra. In that last one, Laura and I actually got to sit in the front, though that meant removing ourselves and our backpacks everytime we stopped to let someone out. Trust me when I say that together, Laura and I have personally inhaled a considerable percentage of Ghana's carbon emissions: score one for the atmosphere, zero for our lungs.
Anyway, that seemed like 'travel mishap' enough, but we weren't done! It took us at least three hours in Accra - hungry and tired and sweaty and alternately announcing that we were going to completely lose it - to find right combo of taxi driver that knew the city's streets + non-skanky accomodations that could actually accomodate us and did not feature a lobby carpeted by sweaty, napping shirtless men. At around 11 last night - after 15 hours of hapless travel - we finally decided to return to the first place we stayed, on our first night in Ghana; they were so friendly, and we had absolutely enjoyed their company, so we snuck past the guard dogs and knocked on their door. They had just been talking about us, it turned out, and we spent an hour or so manically reenacting everything that had happened to us, to the booming laugh of Seth and the open-armed hugs of Naomi. They're wonderful people, and it was great to see them again despite the circumstances.
As luck would have it, today is Seth's 56th birthday, and we've been invited to his birthday celebration. No doubt the house will be teeming with interesting Ghanaians and excellent food - and after yesterday's mad travel we're seriously ready for a party. We'll have to leave early, though, because we're hopping a bus tonight for Cape Coast, a town about three hours west of here that was once the main port for Ghana's substantial slave trade. We'll plant there for a few days (at least that's the intention) and from there we'll go west, then deek back and head north for, we hope, an epic football match between Kumasi and Accra, the two best teams in Ghana. That's next Sunday. But no doubt we'll check in before that. Looks like we're headed, for the first time, into true tourist country. Believe it or not, neither of us has yet to see a single postcard.
Tech glitch note: for some reason my gmail is not working right now, at least not in Accra. Something about having the wrong version of the browser. So for the moment I'm not getting email. Try me here instead.
bugger! what suckosity with that ratsy gmail! well then, the lengthy communication will just have to wait.
just this: i am infinitely jealous of your adventures. both in particular, as well as in general - there are things on holiday trips that seem to happen exclusively to women. guys probably are just too suspicious to generate that kind of forthcoming behaviour in people. or maybe it's just ghana.
no, i'm not talking about the thievery part here, that happens to us too ;)
Posted by: ben | 06 January 2005 at 12:49 AM
amazing adventures jen.. you're an extraordinary writer -- i feel like i'm sitting next to you on the tro-tro battling for more butt space. i miss you terribly and can't wait to hear your stories live when you get back.
sophs
Posted by: Sophia | 05 January 2005 at 05:34 PM
Very intersting blogs, Jenny! Keep writing. I await the next episode...
Posted by: Victor | 05 January 2005 at 04:05 PM
Wow. Just wow. First, you are a born blogger. Second, I am SO envious, and it makes me so happy to live vicariously through your exciting adventures. Of course it all comes out sounding a lot better when you're off the bouncy tro-tro and back in a seat in front of a 'net terminal, but I really admire your exploratory spirit. Congrats on finding such a gem of a couple, and I look forward to hearing more of your exploits!
Posted by: Noah | 05 January 2005 at 03:42 PM
While I was appearing "in court" via telephone and listening to other lawyers ramble on just now, I remembered that you were blogging your journey. So, I have entertained myself with Laura's and your adventures for the past ten minutes . . . . though the judge rudely interrupted my reading a moment ago. I was tempted to say, "Wait a minute. I'm reading something. Go on to the next lowlife, I mean, lawyer," but I didn't. Phone call over. What a journey you are having. I am visualizing everything and laughing, though I'm certain my idea of what happened is nearly as great as the reality of what happened. Keep the stories coming. Have fun. Stay safe. And enjoy!
Posted by: Jon | 05 January 2005 at 09:56 AM
REALLY!!! I dare you to bet on the football match. ;-)
(Erik)
That's wonderful Jenny, I'm glad that you are safe, sound, and experiencing Ghana to the fullest extent. We can't wait to see your slide show. :-)
(Erica)
Posted by: E & E | 04 January 2005 at 10:06 PM
Such a zesty enterprise! Along with my fellow blog readers (hello other Jenny and Laura enthusiasts) I eagerly await the next installment...
elizabeth
Posted by: Elizabeth | 04 January 2005 at 03:49 PM
Jenny,
Thanks so much for the play by play - so wonderful to read how you both are doing. Hug Laura for me!
:) Janet
Posted by: Janet | 04 January 2005 at 01:13 PM
Dude:
Great posts so far. Keep having fun and being careful. And beware of crocs and rhinos while on the waters--presuming such creatures live in those parts. You don't want to go out that way.
Other than that, have a blast!
TJ
Posted by: TJ | 04 January 2005 at 12:56 PM
Your trip sounds great, Jenny. Looking forward to more posts and more adventures. Say hi to Laura for me.
-C
Posted by: Chris | 04 January 2005 at 11:31 AM