Trips of Reading Week

Finals here at U of G stretch over a four week period, so I've been having a lot of free time to travel around. Ghanaians study an INSANE amount before finals. Literally, they just study all day and don't really leave their rooms. We think they're crazy for studying so much and they think we're crazy that we don't study. But then I found out that the reason they study so much is that many of them don't go to class. I have one friend who literally did not go to one Stats class the whole semester so now she needs to learn all the material on her own. I wold venture to say that many of my Ghanaian friends miss about half of their lectures. I guess it makes it much easier to study when you actually show up for class.

Anyways, so with all our free time we have been traveling around. Last week, it was Yom Ha'aztmeut (Israeli Independence Day) so we made a fancy breakfast of crepes and wore blue and white (Zahava even wrapped herself in an Israeli flag and wore it as a dress) as we went to Mekola Market (the main market in Accra). As we were shopping there, people periodically asked about the flag and we explained to them that it was Independence day. (People are generally familiar with the Israeli flag because many tro-tros and cabs have them). Anyways, so a woman in the market stopped us and said, "Shalom, mah inyanim?" (Hi, how are you? in Hebrew) and I answered in Hebrew and she completely understood. She explained to us that her husband was studying in the Technion in Israel and she lived there for many years. In fact, all her children were born in Israel. It was crazy!!!! She said that she loved living in Israel. We told her that it was Yom Ha'aztmeut and we were celebrating. I ended up buying fabric from her, though it was not even such a great price.

The next day, we went to Shai Hills Reservation, which is about 50 KM from Accra. The guidebook did not give much information (like all guidebooks for Ghana) so we were not quite sure what to expect. It took three tro-tros to get there, but it was well worth it and we never even got lost. We got a two hour tour with a guide (which ended up being longer) and we fed baboons and did a little hike/rock climbing. The baboons were amazing. They are very friendly to people, probably because we feed them. I took TONS of pictures of the baboons. I really liked them and their red butts. We also saw the cave (which was more like an avalanche of rocks) were the Shai people hid from attackers. Rivky did the whole climb in flip-flops (except for the parts that she did barefoot) so that was quite the scene. When we reached the top of the climb, there was a great view. We were so happily surprised that we had such a successful day given the minimal information and last-minute planning. Props to us for pulling it off!!!!