Sunday, April 25, 2010

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!!!!

Friday, April 23, 2010

Adventure to Kokrobite Beach

After our last week of classes, we decided to head to the beach.

I'm not sure if I have made this clear, but it generally takes a long time to get to most places. Five kilometers could take easily half an hour. That being said, we knew it would take forever to get to this beach, but it got great reviews. Rivky, Zahava, and I started our day early in the morning and left to get a tro-tro to Circle (which is on of the main tro-tro stations) so we can get to Kaneshi Station . Meanwhile, on the tro-tro I ask the guy next to me to tell me when to get off for Kaneshi Station. Turns out, that the tro-tro wasn't going there so we had to get off at Circle and then go to Kaneshi (which is like ten minutes away). The guy sitting next, Moses, tells me that it's too far to walk and we needed to take a bus. Moses and his friend walked with us for about ten minutes through markets and sewage to the bus stop and ended up coming on the bus with us from Circle to Kaneshi Station. We were all pretty confused with everything and just went with it. We were escorted by two random men and they even paid for our bus! When we got to Kaneshi, they took us to the next tro-tro, where we had to get off at the police barrier (that was the landmark for our stop). Sadly, we lost our escorts at that point and we thought we were going to be on our own. But as we were getting off at police barrier, two men told us they were also going to the same beach so we went together. We had to take a taxi from the police barrier to the beach, but there were five of us plus the driver. Somehow, I ended up sitting on one of the guys laps (who was half my size) in the front seat of the taxi. My head did not really fit in the car, which was quite unfortunate and my knee was blocking the gear shift of the dilapidated car. Every time the driver needed to switch gears, there was my knee blocking his way so I would have to shift my weight every time, trying not to crush the tiny Ghanaian man. Along the way, we stopped so that the Ghanaians could fill their huge inner-tube with air at a pump. After the stop, I made Zahava switch and I sat on her lap and the tiny Ghanaian man went to the back. But the problems with my head and knee still remained. In addition, we had a HUGE inner-tube, which was just held outside of the window for the remainder ten minutes of the drive.

After two tro-tro rides, a bus, and a taxi we arrived at the beautiful beach with our new friends. We ended up spending the day with them. It was really great and relaxing. The Ghanaians, Zahava and I swam and lied out in the sun and got burnt (just Zahava and I got burnt, though the Ghanaians were very concerned about the burns). Rivky and I took a walk and she played volleyball with random men (she was great...she almost got her serve over the net) and we saw a fishing boat come in with tons of fish and women standing there wait to collect their fish to go and sell. It was really interesting to watch this all happen. They had lots of fish that we could have bought, but I did not really want to deal with cutting off the head and fins. Not my cup of tea, to say the least.

Anyways, after a long day, we traveled back to Legon on the same long journey. We had not had water since Friday (it was Sunday) and we were pretty sandy so we managed to get water from our friends who live in the next block. I was pretty heated about the lack of water (you can ask my parents about that...) but we eventually got water back, after four days without it. It was pretty miserable and incredibly unsanitary. It seems that they may be more on top of the water situation now and I've gotten to be really good about hassling them about it.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Volta Region

Last weekend CIEE took us to the Volta Region, which borders Togo. Rivky, Zahava, and I left on the Friday and the rest of the group joined us on Saturday. This trip was my favorite trip to far.

We came back from Israel right before and quickly cooked a little (without water) and brought lots of canned food. At 7:00 am on Friday morning our driver is ready to take us but there is no staff with us and no one knows who is supposed to accompany us (how typical). Thirty minutes later, we figure it all out and are on our merry way. We drive along some of the bumpiest roads I have ever been on. Trying to drink from our water bottle was joke. We made it to our first destination- a monkey sanctuary with minimal bumps on our heads. We entered the sanctuary with a guide who gave us bananas and we fed the monkeys. Zahava was the bravest and went first and fed them without any hesitation, then I had the guide help me feed at first, and Rivky barely fed them. The monkeys say in the trees and we had to extend the bananas to them holding the bottom of the fruit tightly as the monkeys peel the bananas. It was awesome to watch their little hands peel and gorge themselves with bananas.

Afterward, we continued to Ghana's tallest mountain- Afadjato. It's 2900 feet and we started at the base which is at 900 feet. It took about an hour to get up and a less to get down, but it's REALLY steep and Rivky and Zahava weren't feeling well so they turned back and I continued with our guide and our driver. When we got to the top, we were able to clearly see Togo and the surrounding mountain range, though I was no overly impressed with the view. It was nice, but not particularly amazing. The climb down was definitely tough on my knees. Also, keep in mind that we started the hike around 12:50 PM, so the sun was beating down making it over 90 degrees. I actually have never sweat so much in my life. My clothes were completely drenched; it was as if I had jumped into a pool. It was disgusting.

From there we continued to the "hotel" in Hohoe (pronounced Ho-hway). We wanted to stay in one room with a king size bed but they insisted that we had two rooms, which was annoying. We began to shower, but realized there was only one towel so we asked for another and they told us they only give one per room. So we had two towels for the three of us. Then, right before Shabbat, there was a huge storm and the electricity went out so we were planning on eating in the dark, but anyways in on of our rooms all of the light bulbs were out so that was not even such a problem. But eventually, the lights came back. In the morning, the phone rings to my room so I went to the front desk (which is like 10 feet away. Also they had called several times the night before and we just kept going to the front desk every time because it was Shabbat. I think they were pretty confused). Anyways, so I went to the desk and she told me I had to move to the other room and 3 people could be in the room after we had BEGGED to sleep together. This is so typical, whatever.

On Saturday Zahava and I walked through the town/village and saw all the hot spots of Hohoe, of which there were few. There was one shack playing some music...possible nightclub?

Then, on Sunday we went to Wli Falls, which was really cool. It's basically just really big waterfalls, which we swam in. It was really fun and refreshing. We hung out there for awhile and then headed back to the hotel, excited for our shower. We we arrived, they had taken our one towel. When we asked for a towel, the claimed there were none, but miraculously after much persuasion, the woman from the hotel found one clean towel for us. We showered and then loaded the bus to travel back to Accra.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Passover in Israel

Needless to say, being in Israel was great. I saw lots of friends and family, but more importantly I ate a lot and consistently had running water. I seriously forgot what it's like to not have to worry about the water running out at any point. It's really reassuing to know that I will have a toilet with running water. Back to the food...not only did I eat a lot, the food was actually good (it was quite disappointing returning to canned beans for Shabbat dinner). Before Passover began, I made sure to eat as much Chametz as possible including, but not limited to bagels, shwarma, pasta, and pizza. Over Passover, I was still impressed by the food. I stayed with Rivky and Zahava's sister for the first Shabbat and I spent the seder with Sandy, Arlene, Tamar, and Jonah (aunt, uncle, and cousins) at their friend's gorgeous home, which was really nice. Most importantly, the food was great. Then I went to Aviel's dorm at Hebrew University (friend from high school) and spent several days with her and our other friend, Plasky. We relaxed a lot, ate great food, and walked around. We went to Tel-Aviv for a day, which was fun. I had pizza and I actually couldn't tell that it was kosher for Passover. It's amazing the thing you can do with potato starch. Then, for the next Shabbat, I went to Raanana to Karen Seidenwar's family, one of my closest friend's from seminary and I spent several days there with her and Aviel. I used to go to her house all the time when I was in Israel and it was really natural going back.

The flight back to Ghana was fine. Nothing too eventful. Going through passport control is different in Ghana. I'm not sure whether the guard was joking or not, but he was trying to convince me that my visa wasn't acceptable for students, but I convinced him otherwise. If he was joking, it certainly was not funny. After I got through immigration, some man kept asking "to be my friend" and when we can meet again. I told him he can come to Legon to see me and he can find me there (keep in mind there are about 30,000 students here). Oh I was back in Ghana!!!!

When I returned to the dorm, surprisingly enough there was no water.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Trip to Israel!!!

I couldn't have left Ghana at a better time: there was no water and the electricity was about to go off for a 12 hour block. I could not have been more excited to leave. I got up early in the morning and took a cab with my friend Jenny, who was on my flight to Israel, and we went to the airport. As always there was horrible traffic and it took about 30 minutes to go about a mile (no exaggeration). The airport was fine...the departures section is MUCH nicer than the arrivals. There was even air conditioning! My visa has expired and I couldn't have submitted it for renewal because it would not have come back in time for my trip to Israel, so I had to pay a small fine. Jenny tried flirting her way out of it, but it didn't really work. Rivky and Zahava didn't have to pay anything...I think I just got unlucky. Anyways, I flew through Ethiopia, which was really cool. I am now inspired to travel there!!! It's really different than West Africa. (Keep on the look out for a future blog). The best part of the flight was the kosher food, which was even meat!!! Airplane food has never tasted better. No Joke, I have a new found appreciation for it.

We landed in Israel and it was GREAT. Though there was slight culture shock because the guards we certainly not flirting with us, it was amazing and I could not have been happier to land in Israel.