Wow!!! What a Three Weeks That Was!

Hey everyone!!

I have finally found time to force myself to sit down and write about the last three weeks. Each day is literally jam-packed with new and exciting experiences. Such that I feel my short summary does not do my experience justice, but I will do my best. This has been the most exciting, interesting, and enlightening past three weeks of my entire life. It is simply amazing how not one day goes by where I am not completely fascinated by my surroundings and humbled by life outside our American bubble of relative richness and prosperity. - - the following are a series of “snipits” of major experiences I have embarked upon over the past three weeks. Hope you enjoy!!!

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ORPHANAGE OF FORMER CHILD SLAVES
While traveling has been a major highlight of my trip in Ghana, I wanted to actually spend more time actually giving back and volunteering- and I couldn’t have found a better place. About three weeks ago I started volunteering at an orphanage of former child slaves. There were about 30 children ranging from 6 to 13 years old all of which had been rescued by a privately funded organization. The orphans are initially sold into slavery by their parents for a small reward (sometimes $20 per child) and are taken away to work 12-14 hour days paddling a fishing boat. The children call the adult fisherman “masters” whom only feed the children a meager meal once a day. It was absolutely sickening to me how such slavery still persists in today’s modern world – especially the enslavement of young children. A good number of the children had bloated pot belly stomachs which is a symptom of malnutrition. Furthermore, they had huge upper bodies which was a result of paddling a boat full of adult fishermen for 14 hours a day. When I first arrived at the orphanage about 20 of the kids ran out and grabbed me by the hand and pulled me in yelling “Akwaaba!!! or, "You are welcome, you are welcome.” It seems as if they were starved for attention likely because nobody had actually every played with them or even held their hand before they were rescued. The orphans mimicked everything I did and just stared at me waiting to get some reaction. For example, I went to go sit on the grass in the front yard and about 10 children followed me and sat on and around me. After playing soccer with the kids for a while I went inside and had dinner. Their orphanage was surprisingly very well funded – after it received public attention in the United States for its rescue program. Each child had a personal laptop and now attends a private elementary school and has three fantastic meals a day. It is so strange to think about these children just a year ago were near starvation and forced into exhausting child labor – now they live like upper class royalty. I could only imagine what that transition must have been like. One of the children had just been rescued one week prior and would sit in the corner of the house and rock back and forth never smiling or speaking to any of the other children or his new parents. I made it my goal to get this 8 year old boy to smile and by the end of the day. Finally, after throwing him up in the air and catching him after pretending I was going to drop him – he finally giggled. The foster parents were overjoyed that the boy had some form of communication. From that point on the boy followed me around and held my hand – I had been the first person he had shown affection towards. What an amazing experience - it truly is phenomenal how it is the small things in life that have such a major impact. All the funding and toys in the world couldn’t have helped the newly rescued orphan – all he starved for was a little attention. It stunned me how kind the kids were (they would bring me water and food) even after their entire childhood was full of pure child cruelty. This program and the effect it was having on the rescued slaves is truly a testament to the impact we can all have on anther's life. The orphanage parents were so grateful that I visited and explained to me how important it is for these children to feel loved in order to expedite their healing process. I am going to try and return to volunteer at this orphanage every Friday and look into teaching English at the school they attend.
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VALENTINES DAY DINNER WITH GHANIAN FAMILY
On a lighter note, three friends (Britt, Helen, John) and I decided it would be fun to go play soccer on the beach and then take my Ghanaian family out to Chinese food on Valentine’s Day. It was the first time my Ghanaian family had ever been in an air-conditioned restaurant let alone try Chinese food. This was such a fun day aside from injuring my foot playing soccer. I kicked something and sprained my ankle pretty bad. I thought I was going to faint but about 7 Ghanaians rushed over to make sure I was OK, so I had to suck it up and stay cool. On a brighter note now I have an excuse for being a terrible dancer in my Traditional African Dance class. Anyway, aside from the soccer injury, and the Ghanaians absolutely fell in love with the Chinese food. Their diet mainly consists of fufu, bankou, plantains, chicken, and rice – so this was an experience of a lifetime for them. They were so so grateful – the entire time they talked about how amazing the food was. A few of the Ghanaians didn’t know how to use a fork because they eat everything with their hands.
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POLITICAL SCIENCE LECTURE
One interesting experience took place in my “Modern Western Political Thought" lecture. Of course since I am the only Ubroni in a class of 400 Ghanaians I was called on in front of the entire class to answer a question. Luckily, I knew the answer, but the professor responded to me my saying, “You know, when I was younger I would have thought of you as a white god, but now I know I am stronger than you in mind and body.” It was the most random remark but the entire class of 400 students laughed seriously for like 5 minutes. Once again, I looked around completely confused – story of my life.
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FIRST MAJOR SICKNESS
I have been relatively healthy aside from my limited chicken and rice diet during the first couple of months in Ghana. But after eating some bad chicken one day I got an extreme case of food poisoning. Allow me to paint the picture for you. There was no electricity or running water and it was about 100 degrees in this stuffy stall – so there I was sweating profusely and sitting on the toilet in a dark stall from 1am to 7am. I perfected a balletic dance between standing up vomiting/ dry heaving and sitting down…. Well… let’s just say something seriously wanted to get out of my body any way possible. I know you all know the feeling where it is 50/50 chance that when you pass gas you may get more than you bargained for. Sorry for the graphic detail – but I didn’t want this blog to leave out any experience good nor bad. Luckily, the next day I felt better but was still weak but was happy that the symptoms had passed so I knew I didn’t have malaria. Two people from our California group have already been airlifted out of Ghana and taken back to the US because of extreme illness either from malaria or possibly meningitis. So far there have been 4 confirmed cases of malaria among out California group and rumors of one case of intestinal worms. FUN FUN FUN!! But its all part of the experience and I am taking every precaution possible to stay healthy.
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TRIP TO NORTHERN GHANA – MOLE NATIONAL PARK AND SAFARI
Finally, my favorite part of this blog. My trip to Northern Ghana was by far the most fascinating trip I have ever had in my life. Even though I have traveled to Costa Rica, Guatemala, and all over Western Europe, nothing compares to my experience in Northern Ghana - there was not one dull moment.

For the first time in a while, I felt like I was in the heart of Africa. The University of Ghana is located in Accra which is the largest city in Ghana with cars, semi-paved roads, hotels etc. Northern Ghana consists of little to no cars, grass and mud huts, and rural agrarian villages. This part of Ghana is the stereotypical Africa – small tribes with chiefs living in the bush. The entire experience was surreal – I felt like I was walking around in an anthropology video or national geographic magazine.

The journey to the north consisted of 2 buses and one taxi totaling a grand total of 16 straight hours of transit. We left Accra at 3pm and arrived in Mole at 7am the next day. When we first arrived at the national park I looked down into the savannah and saw five massive elephants and two babies at the water hole cooling themselves off. This of course was my first time seeing elephants in the wild so I ran down to the watering hole and snapped some pictures. I stood literally 30 yards from the massive elephants and was close enough to hear their rumbling stomachs and even feel the mist from the water blown out of their trunk. On that same walk into the bush my friends and I saw another elephant on land which stared directly at us. I was a little nervous it would charge because the previous group of California students which visited Mole a week prior was charged and the ranger had to pull out his gun to deter the elephant. Everywhere I looked there were different types of indigenous African animals. I saw waterbuck, antelope, a huge crocodile, baboons, warthogs, and numerous awesome looking birds. I took about 80 pictures within the first five minutes of arriving at the park and walked around in complete shock that I was actually walking around in the wild bush. The feeling of actually walking among the animals I have only seen in zoos is an extremely surreal feeling I had only dreamt about. My whole life I had wanted to go on safari and there I was. I couldn’t help but feel bad for my dad because I was living his dream of going on a Safari. He often sits at home and watches water hole cams on his iPhone… I hate to say it’s just not the same. He would have absolutely loved every second of it, but I hope by showing him my pictures it will convince him to take time off work someday so we can come back.

Just walking around the hotel I saw at least a total of 50 baboons and two warthogs (which look exactly like the warthog in the Lion King) Everywhere I went I was surrounded by wildlife. My friends decided to go for a swim in the hotel pool but I was so enthralled that I was actually seeing wild elephants that I sat and stared at the watering hole for at least two hours and watched the sunset behind the savannah. I could help but whistle the "Lion King" theme song which seemed to highly embarrass my friends but you've got to do what you've got to do.

Later that night we met some Ghanaians who lived in a nearby rural agrarian village and they invited us to sleep on their roof and eat dinner with their family the next day. This sounded like an adventure so I of course am always down for random adventures - -, so we made plans with our new Ghanaian friends to pick us up on motorcycles after our vehicle safari the next day.

The next morning we woke up at 6am to go on a vehicle safari (in an African equivalent of a Land Rover) which covered a more expansive amount of land. The Mole National Park is about 500 square kilometers HUGE – so we were only able to see small portion. I decked myself out in safari gear, (looking pretty much like the crocodile hunter) and drove out into the bush with a park ranger and 4 of my friends (Laurel, Mary, Gareth, and Tyler). We got lucky and apparently saw one of the largest and oldest elephants in the park along with a lot of hoofed animals.

BABOON ATTACK
After returning from the safari I packed up and got ready to go out into Larabonga (The rural agrarian village where our Ghanaian friends we met the previous day lived). While I was eating lunch a warthog walked under my table and I saw a baboon grab a piece of chicken from the kitchen and ran off. While I was waiting for our friends to arrive on the motorcycles I thought I should take some last minute pictures of some baboons, so I walked up about 5 feet from a massive baboon to get a close up. I don’t know whether the baboon was camera shy or what, but all of a sudden 3 baboons started to charge me with their mouths wide open revealing their teeth. My heart raced and I screamed at the top of my lungs, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" and "STOP!!!!!!" and started running. The baboons chased me for a good 15 yards until the park rangers heard my screaming and they sprinted over to chase the baboons away. I was literally about 5 seconds away from being attacked by three large male baboons but luckily I escaped. The park rangers thought my frantic running and screaming was the funniest thing they had ever seen and a couple of them even fell to the floor in laughter. The rangers approached me when they had finished laughing and explained that running from baboons is worthless because they are faster and then he into an African proverb about – how I shouldn’t fight fire with fire but how I should fight fire with water. I didn’t have the slightest idea about how this applied to the situation but just agreed and walked as far as I could from my attackers who were sitting in the distance staring at me. It took about an hour for my heart rate to reach a normal pace again. Close call – lasting memory.
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THE VILLIAGE LARABONGA
About an hour later, our Ghanaian friends picked us up on motorcycles and we drove into their rural village. The infrastructure was circular round huts just like the ones you see in national geographic. It was a small agrarian wheat and flower community. When we arrived the Ghanaians took us on a tour of his village and introduced us to his grandmother and family. We then rented some motorcycles and drivers who drove us about 45 minutes through the bush to an even more rural village called "Eco-Village. It was very sad to see many of the children were starved and malnourished with physical malformations and pot bellies.

I went to the village flower mill and pounded some ground nut into flower. Word must have gotten out about this spectacle because about 40 villagers came out to watch and laugh at the sight of an Ubroni pound flower. I then wandered around the village by myself and spoke with several of the locals about their way of life. I then met up with our Ghanaian friend and he took us to the village mosque which apparently was the first mosque ever built in West Africa. To my surprise it was the same mosque that is on the cover of my Ghana travel guide. Apparently nearly 100% of the northern region of Ghana is Muslim which explains the random Arabic chants I heard as I walked around the village. After I returned back at the hut house I was sitting there and this random kid came over and handed me a baby. This kid thought it would be real funny to go around the village and gather babies for me to hold. So at some point I was holding three random babies while the village children and my California friends were all laughing. Random – I know. I then asked about where I could go pee at the house and the pointed to this small wood outhouse where I literally just was supposed to pee on the cement floor. After peeing on the ground I returned outside and asked where I should take my bucket shower. The Ghanaian smiled and pointed to the same room I just went pee on the floor. Yes, the toilet doubles as the shower as well. I suppose it’s not all that different from the UCSB dorm showers where people pee all the time but I had to take a bucket shower in the pitch black (the hut did not have electricity) and pour dirty well water on myself. I’m pretty sure my shower made me dirtier but it’s all part of the experience. It’s funny, after being here for over 2 months now – very little surprises me. The fact the toilet was also the shower just seemed fitting. After my shower my friends and I ate fufu whom our Ghanaians friends’ grandmother had made. After dinner the village put on a huge show for us and performed about 5 tribal dances. There were about 70 children dancing around and I also showcased my traditional African dance skills in front of the locals and joined in with their tribal dances. After the show we walked through the village and climbed a ladder which led to the roof of one of the huts. Our new Ghanaian friends set up a mattress on top of the roof where we slept. It was sort of hard to believe that we were randomly sleeping on a roof of a hut in a rural village but it was so, so cool. Even though it was difficult to sleep through the sounds of various sheep and goats it was all part of the experience. We woke up at 4am to catch a bus to Tamale a larger city about 3 hours outside Mole.

The buss to Tamale felt like a Jurassic Park ride and I definitely got airborne a few times when the bus dipped into the numerous potholes and shook side to side. In Tamale it was "Africa Hot," probably around 115 degrees. In this town we visited a huge market and went to a leather tannery where a man showed us how leather was made. He scraped the excess skin off of the goat skin ant walked us through the process of drying and dying the leather. That night we all felt like we wanted a break from chicken and rice so we went to a hotel and ordered a cheeseburger. This dinner tasted like a little piece of heaven and made me very homesick for American food. After dinner we went back to a hotel (which cost a grand total of $5 a night and had running water and electricity (which now seems likes a luxury).

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THE DAY FROM HELL
While my Mole trip thus far had been the experience of a lifetime, all great things must come to an end. We arrived at the transit bus station at 6:00am in order to catch our 6:30am bus from Tamale back to Accra. The bus expectedly shows up and hour and a half late and takes us about 5 hours into the heart of the African bush on a bumpy dirt road and then all of a sudden breaks. We literally broke down in the middle of nowhere in the scorching heat. The bus served as the greenhouse effect and the inside literally felt like a microwave. We sat waiting for about 2 hours, waterless/tired/hungry/thirsty/hot until a random ice-cream man drives up on a bicycle. I have no idea how he just appeared in the middle of nowhere but I didn’t complain. I ate about 3 bags of ice-cream in order to stay hydrated and continued to wait for another bus to come pick us up. In the meantime I got out and helped push the huge transit bus for about 20 yards along with all the other Ghanaian men on the bus with hopes the driver would be able to jumpstart the engine while it was rolling. We had little luck, so we continued to wait for a relief bus in the middle of the savannah. A nearly full bus came to our rescue so we all packed in and since there were no seats left I had to lay on the metal floor as the bus raced along the bumpy road and slammed by body into the floor a few times. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, right? So now bus #2 takes us about three hours and it also breaks down. The driver got word that the original bus was fixed and was on its way so we then waited another hour for the original bus to pick us up. After we all crammed into the original bus, it went for about 400 yards and then broke down as fluid and black smoke spewed from the back. All the men once again got out and pushed the bus down a busy highway (probably not the smartest thing I had ever done) but somehow the driver got the bus to start again. Every time the bus made it over a hill everybody would clap. So we then rolled into a bus station and wait for a new non-broken bus to take us the rest of the way. While we were waiting a huge dust storm came upon us. Garbage was flung two stories high and dust pellets stung my face. I don’t know if you have ever seen the black smoke from Lost but this dust storm was INSANE. We all went running for shelter before the dust cloud engulfed the entire bus station. Then all of a sudden it got real dark outside and the dust cloud somehow turned into a lightning storm and it started pouring rain harder than I have ever seen. As we were watching the storm from inside the station we saw a power line fall and sparks flew everywhere. I kid you not – we thought 2012 had come early, it was just like how you would imagine the end of the world. Finally the pelting rain subsided after two hours and we got into bus number 4 which took us the rest of the way back to school. Long story short, our trip back took upwards of 19 hours and should have only taken around 12. My stay thus far in Ghana has definitely pushed my limits of physical discomfort. Though I feel like I will be a lot more patient and never complain about physical discomfort back in the states. In a way I am finally becoming used to the Ghanaian way of life. I can only image Greg Donovan in Ghana (inside joke) having to pee and shower on the same floor and lie on ground of a dirty bus as it seizures through the middle of the savannah. The funny thing is that while back in the states the day from hell would have put me in a bad mood; here I just thought of it as an extraordinary adventure and my trip wouldn’t have been the same without it. I suppose all experiences are purely what you make of them – so why not think positively.
Anyway, I apologize for the length of this entry. I had a lot to say – and hoped you enjoyed. Please continue to send e-mail and facebook me. Even though I am so far everyone I always love hearing about what’s going on at home. No matter how mundane – its not mundane to me. I thank my parents so much for giving this opportunity and I hope by my postings, I am able to share what I am learning. Until next time.
Sincerely,
J