Sorry I haven’t updated about Ghana for a couple of days-

I have 3 midterms in the next two days, and have been trying to catch up on readings. I can’t check my blog to see what I last wrote about, but I think I left off with the Door of No Return at the Cape Coast Castle.

We left the Castle and went to buy a drink from the local bar. A couple kids stopped us on our way. They wanted to take pictures, and look at themselves on the camera. After a couple of minutes with them, the inevitable question was asked. Did we have money for them to use toward books for school. We know that the children who ask this on the street are beggars, and the money never goes to their actual schooling. We told them we wouldn’t give them money, but that we would give them something to use in school after we got our drinks. As we made our way into the restaurant, the teenage girl asked if we would get her food. We figured that was something that we knew would go directly to them, so we ordered 3 chicken and fried rice meals. The owner of the restaurant found out from our driver that the food was for the kids, and started yelling at everyone. The kids were sitting in the back of the restaurant, and he came over and said he didn’t want to see them in there ever again. I guess they had been getting meals from people for the last couple days, and he didn’t want beggars in his restaurant. The waitress assured us that she would pack the food to go so they could still get it. We didn’t have time to wait for it, so we can only hope that the kids still got their food. This was the first time Catherine and I experienced poverty in Ghana, and it was really hard for us to leave without knowing whether the restaurant had upheld their promise to us. We did have time to stop the kids on our way out and give them stickers, which they loved. Thank you to Carissa Harris and Grandma for your sticker donations; they meant a lot to the kids outside of Cape Coast Castle.

After the Castle tour, we made our way to Accra. It was after dark by the time we made it to Accra. Our taxi driver couldn’t find the Pink Hostel, so we took out our info to call Neil, the CEO of Village by Village. We thought we were calling Neil, but we had accidentally called his recommended taxi driver, Peter, instead. Peter ended up meeting our current driver and taking us to the Hostel. We were so happy to have Peter as our driver. He was so incredible and nice, and we felt very comfortable with him. He brought us to the Hostel, waited for us to unpack, and then took us back out to dinner. It was a Sunday night, and he doesn’t work on Sundays, so we felt very lucky to have him helping us out. He took us to a local fast food restaurant that had pizza and chicken and ice cream. We invited him in to eat with us, which definitely surprised him. We got chicken and pizza for all of us to share, and he told us about his family. When we had finished, we had a tiny bit of chicken left. He asked if he could bring it home to his seven-year-old daughter. It was little things like shy Peter wrapping up chicken that we would have thrown away without a thought that reminds me how lucky a lot of us are to always have food. We had our sticker bag with us, and asked Peter if his daughter knew the Disney princesses. Her favorite is Cinderella, so we gave him a pack of Disney princess stickers to take home to her. Peter was so happy, and told us that she was supposed to bring stickers to school. She had gotten hers stolen, and he couldn’t pay for a second pack. So thank you to Courtney for you stickers-you made Peter and his daughter very happy.

After dinner we went over the driving details for the rest of the week. Peter had work the next morning, but he would have his friend drive us around Accra. Neil would be taking us to the village after, but we would need a ride back to Accra on Wednesday. Peter said he would ask his boss if he could switch days so he could bring us back to Accra, and then he would ask his friend to drive us back to Takoradi. We really lucked out in finding such an amazing person, and we didn’t have to worry about taxi drivers for the rest of the trip. It cost us two hundred US dollars to make our way to Accra with a driver we had found on our own, and we paid less than that with all the trips combined after meeting Peter. With all of the taxi drivers who try to jip foreigners, it was so nice to become good friends with many trustworthy drivers.

When we got back to the Pink Hostel, we were still the only ones in our room that fit 8 people. We played cards and listened to Waka Waka, and got ready for our three days in the village. Some girls from Norway and Switzerland who are starting long term volunteering in another village came in around midnight. What we had wanted to be an early night turned into a late night, and we finally got to sleep around 1. We woke up around 6:45, and brought all our stuff downstairs. The hostel provided breakfast, and our new driver, Mouse (moosay), was meeting us at 7:30. He took us to banks to take Cedi (Ghanaian currency) out, and then we went on a futbol jersey hunt. We ended up at the Art center, which is basically a big market. Since it was still early, we were the only people there, and everyone went CRAZY when we got out of the car. We were begged to look at everybody’s things, and talked into buying a lot of it. We did all of our shopping in Ghana at this market, and got some pretty cool things to take home. I also bought my African outfit, which I love.

We stayed at the market for over an hour, and then made our way to the Accra Mall, where we would be meeting Neil and Ana, founders of Village by Village.

When we got out of the car, we heard someone yell, “Are you Bridget?” We thought it was so funny that Neil knew that was us, when he had no idea what we looked like. I guess we really stood out in the crowd. We knew that our village experience was going to be amazing within minutes of meeting Neil and Ana. They are two of the nicest people ever, and they gave a quick overview of how the day would go. They had to do a couple things, so we had an hour to catch up on email and go shopping before meeting back up. Ana was going to be staying in Accra for a couple of days, but she really wanted to hear about Semester at Sea. So we met them while they ate lunch, and told them all about the program. Ana is from Ireland, and was excited and surprised to hear that my name is Bridget because I’m Irish.  After lunch, we said goodbye to Ana, and got into the Land Rover to make our way to Gboloo Kofi, our home for the next 3 days.

            I forgot to add that WE FOUND DONUTS!
It was the best thing ever! It was so yummy because it was like a little part of home in Africa.