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[awindowamirror]

A wise piece of advice. . .

I am being all nostalgic and going through old pictures and emails as I prepare to graduate, and I found an email exchange with my dear friend Sneha, who supported me unconditionally while I was abroad. We were talking about the feeling of living somewhere besides “home.” Though I had a lot of struggles while I studied abroad, I’m really proud of the reflections and growth that came out of my experience, and here’s one line I wrote in an email to Sneha that I find really helpful and wise--it’s something that makes me proud of myself, and all of my friends who have challenged themselves in the past four years. I offer this as gratitude to the folks who have made my own years of undergrad so special, and have empowered me to be excited for the next steps, wherever they take us.

“The people make a place, and I'm beginning to believe you can live anywhere if you have at least one person who reminds you of who you are and makes you feel seen.”

[awindowamirror]

Things I’ll miss/Things I’m used to in Ghana

12/4/17

I leave in 6 days!!!!! And I am ready to have a break from challenges for a bit. But, I will miss some things about Ghana. Here’s some of them:

1.      People saying, “You are invited,” every time they eat ANYTHING (from gum to banku)

2.      Saying “paaaa” after everything to emphasize it (i.e. I like this paaaa)

3.      Looking before crossing the sidewalk to make sure there aren’t any motorcycles zooming by (yes, sidewalks)

4.      Referring to everyone as madame, aunty, or boss

5.      Ordering things by how much money you want to spend (i.e. 5 cedi mango)

6.      There’s always Dolly Parton music in taxis? Well, not always, but an above average amount.

7.      FanIce!!! The reward of FanIce when you’ve trekked across Accra in the insane heat. I love FanIce. Cheap and delicious ice cream. Yes.

8.      The community of riding on a trotro. It’s hot, it often takes a while, there’s traffic, there’s usually someone pretty much sitting in your lap…but we’re all in it together.

9.      Being called Akosua (my Akan day name—everyone knows what day they were born on here because there are corresponding names. Mine is the female name for being born on a Sunday)

10.   It seems like people can’t resist dancing if they hear music. And that’s so cool.

11.   Being called Chale—this is the ultimate way to show someone you’re friends, or that you’re cool with them.

12.   Shaking hands with everyone, and knowing to snap with them if they are your age or someone more familiar, and to not snap if they are like…above you.

13.   People asking, “You dey?” to ask how you are. Like hey, you good? You there? I dey, I dey.

14.   Hearing Twi, and having people try to teach us Twi wherever we go (trotro mates, market ladies, etc.)

15.   Plantain chips. Yum.

16.   How important greetings are. Everyone asks how you are.

17.   Getting my food from the same people and same places

18.   People.

[awindowamirror]

Photos from Meet Me There

On the island we stopped at on our boat ride.

Not a bad boat view, eh? This actually reminded me of summer boat rides in MN. 

J Chillin

[awindowamirror]

Meet Me There!

11/22/17

Hello again! This post is from a bit ago, but I haven’t had WiFi.

Last week was our very last week of classes in Ghana. Actually, two of my classes even ended the previous week. It’s really weird to me to be done with classes, mostly because I don’t feel like I’ve learned a lot academically this semester. I’ve learned a ton outside the classroom, but it’s a little frustrating (ok, a lot) to look back on your semester and wish you had taken different classes or that professors had cared more about teaching. Exams start at the end of this week on Friday, and it’s hard to imagine what on earth will be on them—what did we learn?? I’m sure it will be fine, but it’s definitely a weird feeling and very different from what I expected, since usually British academic systems are supposed to be very straight-forward.

We have revision week until Friday, which is so nice—I really wish the U did this so that you aren’t trying to finish classes and finals all at once, I think people would really do better and be healthier. So, Charlotte and I decided to take a mini vacation. We looked online to check out cheap and quiet places on the beach, hoping we wouldn’t have to go all the way to Cape Coast on a trotro. We found a cool-looking place called Meet Me There in Ada, which is a beach town in the Volta Region of Ghana (towards Togo). They had beds for as cheap as 40 cedis, but we decided to get our own room for 100 cedis a night (about $25)—not bad at all once you split it between two people. And best of all, we were told it would take only about 3 hours to travel there—much better than the 6 hour ride to Busua we did a couple weekends ago.

We took off early on Saturday morning. Charlotte is living in a homestay, so we met at Spanner, a trotro stop just 10 minutes off campus. At Spanner, we had to walk for a while and ask a couple people where we could get a trotro to Tema Circle, but it’s never too hard to find where you’re going; people always help, especially when they see clearly foreign people with their backpacks and confused faces. Charlotte and I were already drenched with sweat when we got on our second trotro—it was about 8:30 in the morning, and the sun was already impossibly hot.

We rode for about 45 minutes, and then the trotro mate told the driver to stop, and gestured to us to get out. We said, “Oh? Here?” and trusted him—I mean, we had no idea what the Tema Circle stop looked like. We got out and gathered our things and looked around us. It appeared that we were in the middle of nowhere—we couldn’t see anything but a gas station on the other  side of the  roundabout. We cracked up because we must have looked ridiculous—two white girls in the middle of nowhere with nothing but our backpacks and no sense of direction.

We saw a bunch of people walking near the gas station, so we headed there and asked where the trotro station was. It turned out to be just across another street, hidden from view from where we first got off. Trotro stations are a little intimidating because they are essentially a huge parking lot filled with trotros going anywhere and everywhere in Ghana. All the mates and drivers yell, “Where are you going?” when you walk by, which used to really overwhelm me, but now we know to just pick one person to talk to and tell them where you’re going, and they almost always will physically walk you to the trotro you need to get on. Sometimes they’ll even tell you the price you should pay so that you don’t get ripped off, which is extra nice.

So that’s what we did—we asked, and we got put into an empty trotro that apparently was going where we were going. Because we were the first ones on, we got to ride in the very front with the driver, which is usually the most comfortable spot on a trotro. We waited about 30 minutes or so for the whole bus to fill up, getting a little nervous because the driver kept yelling “Keta! Keta!” to passerby, which was not where we were going. Again, we trusted, and eventually were able to confirm that Keta was simply the final destination of that particular trotro, and we would be getting off a few stops before that at Savietula Junction. (Quick note: Remember how I had so much trouble communicating to people that I was going to SDA Junction when I was trying to get to my internship, and I was surprised it was so hard considering there are only three letters to say? Well, I thought we’d have so many problems saying Savietula, because to me that could have so many more nuances in pronunciation, but guess what? It was so easy. The driver immediately understood us. Savietula is easier to say correctly than SDA. I don’t know, words are funny.)

We were on our Keta trotro for about 2.5 hours, which wasn’t so bad. I slept for most of it, I think. It started pouring rain at one point, which was a bummer because we had to roll the windows up, and with about 20 people in a trotro, it gets stuffy and hot real quick (cue Jordin Spark’s “No Air”). Other than that, it was a smooth trip. We got dropped off at Savietula, which again looked like the middle of nowhere, but soon a taxi driver collected us and said, “Meet Me There?” because where else would two foreigners be going, I suppose. It was a shared taxi, which was really nice because it’s so much cheaper—like a trotro, you wait for the car to fill up with people going the same direction as you.

Meet Me There turned out to be sooo nice. It’s a non-profit hostel/hotel, so all of their proceeds go to a community center that is right next to the hotel. Because we were there on a weekend, we didn’t see the center in action, but we were told kids come to play games and do homework and grab a snack, which is so cool, especially because it can be hard for small towns anywhere to have such a great resource available. They have a wonderful restaurant and bar, all outdoors of course, so you can feel the wonderful breeze from the ocean coming in. The ocean is really dangerous to swim in in this area, but there is a lagoon that the hotel sits right on—they even have part of the restaurant eating area sitting on stilts over the lagoon. At night, they lit tiki lights on the tables and across the lagoon so that we were surrounded by light. So peaceful.

The food was insanely good—of course, it’s much more expensive than what I’m used to eating at the market on campus, but it was SO SO SO nice and necessary to have a break from eating just rice and fried chicken. When I get home, I’m not going to eat rice and chicken for at least a month to cleans myself—it’s delicious but OH MY GOODNESS 4 months of it is a lot. And Ghanaian food is SO wonderful, we just don’t have access to a lot of it on campus. At Meet Me There, we got to try morenga stew and palava sauce, which I think are now two of my favorite things I’ve had here. They actually have a morenga tree right on their property, and apparently it’s a superfood—all the rage in the U.S. now, though Ghanaians have been eating it forever. Classic. Palava sauce is made of a leaf kind of like spinach (I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called right now, but I’m pretty sure it’s the leaf of cassava). You eat them with rice or boiled yam and oh my oh my, yum. I’m going to try to cook some up when I get home.

We arrived at about noon on Saturday and settled in and grabbed lunch, and then met the current managers. They’re from New Zealand, and are running the place for a year. They invited us  to go on a boat ride with the rest of the guests at 2:30pm—how good is that timing? The ride was really cool—they know a lot of people in the community because they’ve been here so long, so they asked a group of drummers to come along with us. It was so cool—we were in little nooks and crannies of the ocean in a big fishing style wooden boat with at least 30 people on board, including the musicians. We were on the boat for about 3 hours and the drummers played and sand the entire time, which is so impressive to me. It was really fun when we passes close to shore, because anyone on shore would stop what they were doing to dance to the drumming, as if they could not possibly resist. It was a good reminder of just how important music is here.

We stopped at an island nicknamed Rum Island because…well…they make rum there. We were told it is as good as real Caribbean rum. Charlotte and I split a shot, and it was pretty good! Some people really liked it so they bought whole bottles. We got back in the boat and stopped at a different island to watch the sunset and grab a drink. It was beautiful, and so peaceful. We headed back, a few more people dancing now after our stop at Rum Island, and had dinner and then passed out. At 9 pm. Yep. And then woke up at 9 am. That’s so many hours of sleep!!! Clearly we needed it.

We spent all day Sunday lounging around in the hammocks, the restaurant, and the lagoon. I caught up on some of my podcasts, which reminded me so much of being at school in Minneapolis—chilling in my hammock and listening to NPR. Some things never change no matter where you are, eh? We even got a little wild and ordered banana daquiris and sipped them over the lagoon. Life is hard. Charlotte actually was doing homework this entire time (those chemistry majors, am I right?), but don’t worry, I relaxed enough for both of us. We ended the day by playing some wholesome card games and listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. There was a movie night at the hotel that night, which sounded fun, but once again, we were out by 9 pm.

The next morning, after a solid 12 hour sleep (that means we slept for the equivalent of an entire day that weekend!!!! Woah!!!!), we had breakfast and packed, and then went swimming for one last time. We grabbed lunch right before leaving because it’s so hard to find food on Sundays, especially when you’re travelling, and then made the trek home.

It was a pretty smooth trip back to Accra, but one of our trotros got stopped by the police. I’ve been in taxis that have been stopped several times—a couple times, we were even asked to get out and had our bags searched—but never in a trotro, though I’m sure it happens just as often. They asked to see our passports, which was scary because why on earth would we be carrying our passports travelling within Ghana? The man next to me said, “How about any other ID card?” and so we gave the officer our Non-Citizen ID cards, which of course worked. It was scary for a moment though because I just wasn’t thinking that oh yeah, duh, the card that we’re legally required to carry will probably work. We’ve been told several times that the police in Ghana often try to stop foreigners and catch them for tiny infractions, like not having their ID cards, because then we’d have to pay a sort of unofficial fine to stay out of trouble (a bribe). Like in many places, including the U.S., Ghana’s police force has many issues with corruption, especially with bribes. People literally know that they won’t go to prison as long as they have enough money to pay off the police, which is wild to me, but then again, so is the brutality of our police force in the U.S.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which is an awesome day to remember one of the many times that white people wrote a fictional narrative of peace with Native Americans. It’s also an awesome day to be genuinely thankful for what we have, of course, but isn’t every day? It’s my fourth Thanksgiving away from home, so it doesn’t seem so weird to me, especially because Thanksgiving obviously isn’t a thing here. Our program actually is putting on a dinner for us, a combination of Thanksgiving and a Farewell Dinner, which is really nice. I’ll miss being at home with my family though, and eating bread roll after bread roll and pumpkin pie for dessert (and breakfast and lunch the next day). I hope everyone has a wonderful day with love and peace surrounding you.

Now it’s time to start studying—I have my first final on Friday morning in Twi. Good luck to everyone else who is starting their final stretches of school, I know there’s lots of projects and final papers this time of year, so remember to respect your mental health and take breaks and walks and naps!!! @LindaPeng @BlakeDowning @RoohiKatarya

[awindowamirror]

Cape Coast Weekend

11/13/17

 I’m having trouble posting photos right now, so I promise there will be more from this weekend because we did a lot, but it just won’t be right this second.

 We left early on Saturday morning to drive to Cape Coast, which is about four hours West of Accra. We had quite a bit of traffic, and I got hungry (as I do), so I was very thankful to be able to buy bofroat (a delicious fried doughnut type thing) out the window of our bus. I definitely will miss being able to buy snacks from the comfort of a car to pass the time in traffic.

Finally, we made it to our first destination, the Slave River near Cape Coast. This is the river where slaves who had walked from all over West Africa (and beyond, sometimes!) were made to take their final baths. Often they received their initial brandings at this site, so the trade process had already begun. They were chained together in groups of about 10 to take their baths so as to provide no opportunity for escape. After, they were made to march for over 30 miles to one of the forts in Cape Coast.

We visited the Cape Coast Castle, which is only about 10 minutes from another fort, the Elmina Castle. Actually, there are about 60 forts on Ghana’s coastline, which stretches for only about 300 miles. Think about that. That’s about one per every 5 miles. Wow. White people really wanted control, huh. It’s horrible to think about that, let alone what happened in those castles, or because of the governments that ruled those castles (mostly the British and the Dutch in Ghana).

It’s impossible to grapple with the horrors that happened in these forts. Our tour took us into the female and male dungeons, solitary cells for “problem slaves”, and through the Door of No Return, which is the door slaves were marched through in order to be forced onto slave ships and be carried away from Africa forever. The dungeons are poorly ventilated and have almost no light—there are three tiny windows on one wall of each dungeon. That’s it. Occupants had to relieve themselves on the floor of  the dungeon because of lack of facilities (this includes urine, feces, and menstruation). When you look at the floor in the dungeons, they appear to be a solid black, sort of like tar. Our guide informed us that the floor is actually made up of decomposed feces, and there is a square of the floor that has been cleared so you can see the brick foundation—the original floor beneath the actual one. That’s how extensive the filth was that people were LIVING in—or trying to survive in.

It was expected for HALF of slaves to die in the dungeons, and another 4 out of 5 died on the journey to the Western world. There are many haunting poems and quotes about the history of the ocean as a graveyard, and it is very clear why. Unfortunately, as we know, the horrors did not cease once slaves reached various places in the West, and we are still experiencing the aftermath of slavery. Friendly reminder that prison labor is essentially slavery and that Black Americans never received any reparations (not that there is any reparation that could make up for slavery).

Most of you reading this are white, I know, so please make sure you are taking time to CHECK yourself and your family members and friends—call people out, and if you don’t feel ready to have race conversations, do your research, because that is absolutely your responsibility. 100%. And if you have time to read my travel blog, you have time to educate yourself. Yes, it’s hard, and of COURSE I am by no means a model ally, not at all what I’m saying. I’m saying we have to try. And listen. Always listen. Ok.

 On a lighter note—the next day, we went to Kakum National Park, which was really cool and something I’ve been looking forward to ever since I first did a Google Image search of Ghana. It’s a canopy walkway about 20 meters off the ground in a rainforested area of Ghana. Super cool. And though I’m moderately afraid of heights, I actually had no issues with the walkway. It was just fun to walk around up so high, above trees even! I’ll include some pictures because I feel like it’s kind of hard to visualize.

 This weekend was a lot—full of heavy conversation and heavy thoughts, but I think overall productive.

 Hope you all had a nice weekend, and are having a great start to this week! I officially hit the three month mark, so now I have about 25 days left in Ghana.

[awindowamirror]

Weekend in Cape Coast

Cape Coast castle, a major site in the horrors of slavery.

Beautiful poem in the museum portion of the slave castle.

A crappy photo but-- this is the Door of No Return, the exit slaves had to use when they were forced from the dungeons onto boats, and then from the boats to the slave ships. 

On the other side is a plaque that says “Door of Return,” which was added symbolically to give diasporans a welcome back into Ghana-- a homecoming of sorts.

The beautiful view from the castle-- hard to believe such horrors happened amidst such beauty.

The beach outside our hotel--not a bad view, eh?

Lil crabby babe!

Canopy walkways at Kakum National Park

[awindowamirror]

Last Day at Internship & Internet--wherefore art thou?

11/9/17

I have been sick since the weekend, but I think I am almost better! I just had a cold type of thing, so it wasn’t too bad, pretty typical for November. It was a little weird having the same type of Fall cold here that I would have at home at this time—when I look outside, I expect to see the weather reflecting how I feel, stormy and cold and wet, but instead, the Ghana sun persists, never taking one day off.

This week has been pretty relaxed. I missed quite a few classes on Tuesday because I couldn’t stop sneezing, which I thought would be a lil disruptive, so I stayed in bed and watched This is Us (such a good TV show, highly recommend). Sick days in any place are pretty much the same for me, it seems.

I had my last day at my internship yesterday, which is crazy. I’ve been going for two months now, which seems both long and short to me. I said goodbye to all the teachers I’ve worked with, some of my first goodbyes in Ghana. The students were in Worship, so I couldn’t say goodbye to too many individuals, but Augusta and I were able to find each other to say goodbye. Did I mention Augusta? I don’t think I did, actually! I went on a field trip with my kids a couple weeks ago (which was a little crazy, I can’t believe I never wrote about it!!), and Augusta and her best friend Esthella shared their seat with me, sitting on each other’s laps for over 2 hours so that I was comfortable. Very sweet girls. They talked to me a lot about what they want to do in their lives, and I taught them MASH and camp games to pass the time. It was wonderful, we had so much fun. Augusta and I ended up walking through the field trip together, so we especially talked. The following week when I went in to the school, she tracked me down and gave me a glitter-bombed letter, which I literally will cherish forever. It was hard to open because of all the glue she used, and I was covered in glitter for like 3 days after opening it—totally wonderful and thoughtful.

Anyways. So I saw her on my way out and was able to give her one last hug. The children also presented me with two African print dresses, which was such a sweet gesture. It’s weird thinking I might never see any of them again, but I feel very lucky to have known them for any amount of time.

I have about a month left here. Wow. 3 months have gone by, full of so many things. I think I’m ready for whatever this month has to offer me, but I’m also very ready to go home for the holidays and see my family and stay on the down-low for a while. I’m mostly ready to be able to be in touch with people—it’s been a lot harder than I thought it would be to stay in touch with friends and family here. On Monday, I was so excited because Tyler and I planned to FaceTime for only the second time since I’ve been here (and the first time we could barely hear each other). I commuted for an hour to get to the Café that Ceci and I found that has the best WiFi in Ghana, I swear, and guess what? Their WiFi was down. And I don’t get internet in my hostel because it’s always down…I usually go to the CIEE office to at least be able to get my homework done, but I never have had much luck FaceTiming while I’ve been in Ghana.

I know, I know, it’s nice to unplug and I should be grateful I can stay in contact with people at all, but it has taken a toll on me to not be able to consistently talk to anyone, not even my mom. I’m used to calling my mom between classes at home, while I’m cooking dinner, literally whenever. And even if we plan a week in advance to talk, it seems like the internet never wants to cooperate and we spend most of the time saying, “What? What? I missed that.” It’s hard not being able to have an actual conversation for 3 months. Because I haven’t even been able to stay in touch with my family, I definitely have not been able to talk to friends much, which kinda stinks. I know when I see everyone again it’ll be totally fine and amazing, but I see that some of my other friends who are studying abroad are able to talk with friends from home frequently, and I think, aww, that would be cool.

Sorry, rant over. There are much more important things than technology, and I know that. I’m lucky I’ve been able to communicate at all, and I’m lucky to have people that I miss and want to stay in touch with.

This weekend, my program is taking us to Cape Coast to visit one of the slave castles, among other things. It’s going to be difficult and intense, but it is necessary to keep that history alive.

Hope all is well in other parts of the world! Sending love.

[awindowamirror]

Weekend in Busua

This is the view from the porch outside our room.

So many hammocks!

Surf shop, bar, and slack line...I wonder who the target audience is?

Here’s the lil crew, aww.

[awindowamirror]

Weekend at the Beach!

11/6/17

At the beginning of the semester, a group of students who live in the same hostel as my program went to a place called Scorpion Lodge in Busua and came back excited to share how wonderful their experience was. The women in the group told us that they felt invisible to men there (the dream!), and everyone had a great time surfing, swimming, and relaxing in the cute lil beach town of Busua. All semester, we were thinking about going, and last week we realized there are only so many weekends left, so we decided to head out on Friday. It worked out for Ceci, Noah, Seth, and I to go, which was convenient because everything is easier in small groups, especially groups of four (for taxi purposes ya know).

We set out at about 11 am for Tema Station, which is about a 45 minute trotro ride from campus. When we got to the station (picture a huuuuuge parking lot type of situation, with pretty much every square inch occupied by trotros going to various places around Ghana), we asked around for a trotro to Takoradie (the largest town near Busua), and were pointed in several opposing directions. After walking around the station during the hottest time of day for over an hour, someone finally told us, “Ohh, for Takoradie you need to go to Circle, not Tema.” Oh. Whoops.

Circle Station is about another 30 minute trotro ride away, so we did that, and then our driver was kind enough to take us directly to the bus station so we could pay and be on our way. Unfortunately, busses to Tokaradie were all full, which didn’t surprise us, so we tracked down another trotro going to Tokaradie and settled in for the 5.5 hour journey.

I’m not sure if you remember how I’ve described riding in a trotro, but it is not super comfortable. It is totally and completely fine and efficient and functional if you are just commuting or running an errand—about an hour on a trotro really isn’t so bad. But over 5 hours? I was a little nervous. They don’t stop for bathroom breaks unless you ask, which makes me feel a lot like when I was younger and riding in other people’s parent’s cars—you don’t want to be a burden, and on a trotro especially, everyone has to get out to let you pass. So that made me a lil nervous. But the real kicker was that though the woman next to me was lovely, she was also larger than the tiny seats we’re provided with, so she was taking up her seat and most of mine. I remember looking at the tiny space I was supposed to fit in and thinking there is no way. But there was a way. I jammed myself into a space that was probably about the width of one of my thighs, I am not kidding. Noah was on my other side, just as miserable because I was forced to spill into his seat in order to fit, and he had the wheel seat, so no legroom. It is amazing to me that we made it through that ride. Looking at how crowded the trotro was, I was so close to jumping off and saying ok, have fun everybody, I’ll be somewhere where I can breathe and move.

We made it though! We arrived at about 7:30 pm in Tokaradie, and then found a taxi to take us to our hostel about an hour away. We were pleased to find out Scorpion was still serving food, and we had a wonderfully huge and filling meal of burgers and pasta. There is also a bar at the hostel, so we ordered Moscow Mules to congratulate ourselves on the journey (no copper mugs, though). There were lots of other international students staying there, so we were all able to hang out and talk, play cards, hammock, and slack line (the hostel really catered to a certain type of college student).

Our plan for the next day was to go to a famous village on stilts a couple hours further west, but when we woke up and saw how beautiful Busua was in the daylight, we decided we wanted to stay and chill there, especially because we only had one full day. Ceci and I went for a swim as soon as possible (I think it was around 8 am), and then did a little workout circuit and yoga session on the beach. It was so nice and peaceful—no one else was up and about yet, so we had the beach almost to ourselves, except for a few kids who were already playing.

We got lunch at a little place just a short walk down the beach, and it was delicious—margaritas and Ghanaian style burritos (I know, what the heck does that mean? They were wonderful, but definitely not your standard burrito). After lunch, Ceci and Seth (bless their hearts) went for a run, and I went for a long walk. It was incredible to have time to myself in such a lovely place—I’m not sure if my pictures do it justice, but the views were mesmerizing to me. I could have stayed staring at the waves for a week and not been bored. Hungry, but not bored.

Later in the afternoon, I walked into town with some of the other students, and Ceci, Noah, and Seth took a surfing lesson! Wild. The town is so cute and friendly, everyone talked to us as we walked by. We saw so many children that it seemed to me that the town was run by kids. How fun. When I got back to the hostel, I grabbed my book and settled into the comfiest chair on the deck. Ahh. So nice. That part reminded me of summers at our cabin on Beaver Island, lazily reading on the deck for hours while you dry out from your swim. So nice.

We got dinner at the hostel and played cards for a couple hours (another Beaver Island tradition), and then went to bed at GUESS WHAT TIME? You won’t believe it. I don’t believe it. At 8:30 pm!!! Yes! And we were all asleep by 9 pm. Wild. Noah and I were both coming down with colds (mine has since developed into a full on sinus deal), and spending all day at the beach takes a lot out of you. We had a couple other roommates because it’s hostel style, and I’m sure when they found us asleep they thought, wow, here’s a group of people who are truly fun. Haha, I’m glad we slept though, it’s no fun traveling when you’re already exhausted.

The next morning, we grabbed breakfast, and Ceci and I went for one last goodbye swim in the ocean. It started raining as we packed to leave, but not absolutely pouring as it usually seems to do. Our trip home was pretty seamless—there was a bus in Tokaradie to Accra leaving only 30 minutes after we arrived, which was so nice. So much space AND air conditioning. Those are the keys to a good trip. There was a pastor on board (there often is), so he preached for about an hour to the whole bus (they often do). Which was nice at first, like mobile church, but his passion and volume were a tad too much for us in our sleepy moods. When he finished, we thought, ok, time to sleep and listen to music. Nope. The driver turned on a Ghanaian soap opera (which consists of almost exclusively yelling) at FULL volume. I’ve never heard anything so loud, not even a passionate preacher. Our ears were ringing. So it wasn’t a super restful journey, but it was safe and far more comfortable than the way to Busua.

I am so glad we went, I had so much fun. Being at such a quiet and clean beach and being able to swim without anyone grabbing at me or yelling or anything was so refreshing and happy-making. I felt very peaceful this weekend. And I hope you did too! Thank you for reading, I really do appreciate it, as always.

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Kisseman Children’s Foundation

I first visited the Kisseman Children’s Foundation during my second week in Ghana. Dominic, one of the program director of the foundation, met me at a trotro stop near my hostel with a specifically calm energy, even though I was almost 20 minutes late (not only am I always late, but I somehow managed to go to the wrong trotro stop—that is, I went to a bench that is not a bus stop at all, it’s just a bench). I apologized, but he shook it off and said, “How are you supposed to know? You just got here!” So I could tell Dominic would be a wonderful person to work with.

We rode to Kisseman junction, and then got out to walk the rest of the way to the Children’s Foundation. Dominic led me through an absolute maze to get to the office, and around each of the endless turns was person after person who clearly knew and loved Dominic, waving or smiling warmly at him. School was not yet in session this first day, so there were several kids running around, and each ran up to Dominic and waited for him to pat them on the back or ruffle their hair. Adorable.

We finally reached the office (I literally had no idea where I was at this point), and I was able to sit down with Dominic to talk about KCF and the work they do. He explained the basic premise: working with communities to come up with the means for scholarships, supplies, and volunteers to provide the kids of Kisseman Village with the opportunity to learn.

I’d like to provide a little background on education in Ghana, which I know a bit more about now because I recently did a project comparing the education systems of Ghana and the United States. One difference is the funding of schools. In Ghana, there was an act passed many years ago called the Free and Compulsory Universal Basic Education act, or fCUBE. The idea was that by 2005, all basic education in public schools would be free—that means up until the 3rd form (like our 8th grade), students would not have to pay a cent to go to school.

This was an excellent political move on the part of the government, because who would say no to having kids have better access to education? However, you’ll notice the “f” is lower-cased in fCUBE. This is to show that even though education is stated to be “free,” it is not free in the same sense that public education in the United States is free. Technically, students’ tuitions are paid for by the government, as well as teachers’ salaries, but that’s it.

That leaves the cost of a school building, teaching supplies, textbooks, school supplies, computers and technology, cleaning costs, etc. So where does that money come if the government doesn’t pay for it? Each public school collects levies from parents, which are sums of money paid each term to cover the additional costs of running a school. These levies can get really expensive, as much as 400 cedis paid each of the three terms, per student. That is not free, and so a lot of students still do not have access to basic education.

That’s where the Kisseman Children’s foundation comes in. Among other things, they raise money for scholarships to help students go to school. This is done in part by selling baskets through Baskets for Education (mostly in the U.S.), but largely through donations to KCF. The scholarships are enough to cover a student’s entire education, not just a year at a time, so students are able to focus on learning rather than how they’ll pay for next years’ expenses. Cool, right?

KCF also provides an after school program for students of all ages to come and get help with homework and play games (CIEE students are often volunteers, which is how I was connected with KCF). There are books available for students to read on site, but not enough for them to bring any home yet. The students want to take the books home, which is awesome—they want to learn more!! So, Dominic had the idea to rent a separate space to gather a larger library for the kids. The idea is that they’d be able to stop by any time, not just when Dominic has the office open, and they’d be able to take home books to keep working on their reading. Yes.

KCF has so many wonderful ideas, and all of them are purely focused on helping kids feel empowered and capable as students and learners, but though the foundation is great at raising its own funds, this new library goal needs a little help.

Shameless plug time: I personally recommend donating anything you can to KCF’s cause. I know it’s a little scary or odd to donate to a place you know little about in a faraway country, but I give you my word that this is a worthy cause. The people are kind and the kids deserve it. Ghana is making awesome strides as a nation to make education more accessible, but it’s not there yet. Education is a basic right, having access to a library is a basic right, and having a safe space to go to is a basic right.

I’m including the Go Fund Me link below, as well as KCF’s website (which I highly recommend visiting), if you are interested.

Please let me know if you have any questions at all, I would be happy to answer them, or put you in contact with Dominic if you’re interested in being even more involved.

Support education!!! YES!!!

https://www.gofundme.com/kisseman-childrens-campaign

https://kcfghana.org/

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10/18/17 [Some much needed positivity]

Today has been a very good day. I woke up to go to my internship, not terribly excited, and wandered downstairs to grab some breakfast from the restaurant/kitchen in my hostel. There were a couple other early birds down there this morning, which is a little unusual, so I got to eat a happy chatty breakfast, which started my day off with lots of positive energy.

On my walk to my trotro stop, I enjoyed the peaceful routine of nodding pleasantly at other pedestrians and commuters, murmuring good morning to one another in a practiced but not disingenuous way. I confidently was able to get on my trotro for once (usually I ask, “are you sure you’re going where I’m going?”), so I was feeling pretty good about myself. About 15 minutes into my commute, the woman next to me, who I had noticed walking from campus earlier, tapped me on the shoulder and handed me something. I expected it to be money because we were stopped in traffic and I had the window seat, so often people will ask you to grab them plantain chips or something for breakfast from the street sellers. Instead, I saw the innocent lines of notebook paper. I looked up at her, surprised, and she nodded at me to go on and open it.

Inside, she had written, “I wanna be your friend. My name is Priscilla,” and then her number. How sweet is that? We ended up getting off at the same stop, so we got to talk a little bit more and I found out she is also studying at the University of Ghana and she works nearby Tot-to-Teen. How cool!

I walked into Tot-to-Teen a few minutes late, and found all of the upper school students lining up by the gate. What? I asked them what was going on, and they explained that instead of having worship in the school, we would be walking down the road to a church to have worship and an assembly to recognize the accomplishments of the school. It made me remember how exciting it was in high school when we got to skip classes to go to the Reif Center across the hall, even if the assembly wasn’t even interesting.

Today during the assembly, it really hit me just how intertwined religion and education are in Ghana. The speakers alternated between reading bible verses about working hard and persisting, and advice from teachers about how to best use one’s partnership with God to prepare for the exams that upper school students have to take to get into secondary schools. It was very interesting, and overall was much more energetic than assemblies I remember going to.

After we all traipsed back to the school, I was grading in the teacher’s lounge, and about 10 of the lower school students came to visit me. They almost always come during lunch on Wednesdays, so I was expecting them, and they brought along a new friend today. When they introduced her to me, they practically shouted, “She’s a Muslim!!!” In our subsequent conversation, I was able to find out a little bit more about her (she wants to be a doctor, she has a pretty big family, which she likes), but it was surprising to me that her friends introduced her by her religion and seemed to find it shocking. It made me think of the U.S., except here, her friends held no intolerance for her religion, it was just an interesting fact to them.

After we had chatted for a while, one girl ran out of the room and then ran back in a few moments later with a note in her hand. She handed it proudly to me, and I said, “Should I open it?” She nodded expectantly, so I unfolded it, and inside she had written: “Hally. I love you because you are my best friend.” OH MY GOD. How cute is that. (Also, no one can say my name here, so I was very proud of her for sounding it out and spelling it exactly how everyone pronounces it.) So sweet.

Oh my goodness!! It just started pouring rain out of nowhere!!! Thank goodness, though. Today it was so hot that I started sweating the moment I moved out of my bed. When it rains here, it pours. Thank goodness I have a book to keep me company while I wait it out. And perhaps a taxi home is in my future. Oh wow! I just looked outside and it looks like that water park attraction where the buckets tip all over the people below it. Actually, that’s a great way to describe rain in Ghana. You never know when it will come, but damn, when it comes…My mom said she’s been watching the weather here from home in MN, but I had to tell her that the weather is never accurate. If you think it’s innaccurate at home, which I definitely thought before, here is sooo wrong. You just have to take it as it comes and be ok with not being ready for rain ever.

Ok, apologies for the digression. Here is another wonderful act of kindness that I was shown today: My supervisor at Tot-to-Teen, Klenam, took me across the street to a seamstress to get my measurements taken, and he’s going to have a dress made for me!!! How lovely. There are so many good people in the world, and I’ve been lucky to meet a lot of them here.

One final fun thing. When I got on my trotro this afternoon to commute home, I noticed it had camo seats. I kid you not. How wild is that. Pieces of home popping up anywhere and everywhere—and good luck with the hunting season, people, whenever that starts…It’s got to be soon, right? Anyways. That was kind of a fun coincidence.

So I am doing better today! I honestly am such a rollercoaster human here, but I am learning to be ok with it.

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10/16/17

This weekend we went on our second trip as a group, this time to the Eastern Region of Ghana. I was very ready to have another break from Accra and a welcome wrench in the routine. I had a really difficult time last week, which is not evident from the huge smiles and waterfall magic in my photos, and I really want to make sure I’m being real about my experience here. Don’t get me wrong, I had a great weekend and my smiles are genuine, but the previous week was really hard.

I came here to gain insight into a non-Western culture, and that goal is definitely being fulfilled, but is taking every ounce of energy and positivity I have to deal with some of the parts of life I see here.

Anyways! The trip. We left Saturday morning to go to Umbrella Rock, which you can see from the pictures is a huge rock that is balancing on the edge of cliff, and unarguably resembles an umbrella. There was a ladder to climb on top of the rock, from where I imagine there was an incredible view, but my fear of heights did not agree with the precarious ladder and skill required to get up there. Challenge by choice, my friends. I enjoyed a wonderful view from just a bit further down in altitude, so I feel just fine about my decision. Green everywhere, mountains surrounding us…it was beautiful.

Then we headed towards Boti Falls, where we were able to do a beautiful hike that ended at an area by the falls that had the feeling of a state park in the U.S. We changed into our swimsuits and waded around and swam by the waterfall, which felt amazing and oh-so necessary after the hike (it’s been getting hotter and hotter each day here).

On Sunday morning, we went to Ghana’s first cocoa farm, which was so cool. We learned about the fermentation process of the beans, and got to try some chocolate from Ghana (which I have been trying since week one, mmhmm!).

We also walked around the Aburri Botanical Gardens, which are full of interesting plants and trees. My favorite part was when our guide gathered a bunch of different leaves from trees and crumpled them up and had us guess which spices we were smelling. Allspice, curry, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemongrass… Delicious. And obviously, I killed it, I totally won the spice game.

I found out today that we only have five more weeks of classes, which is interesting… That means finals are getting eerily close, and all finals here are worth 70% of our total grades. Wild. And after finals? It’s time to head home. Time flies at times, drags at times, but we’re always moving forward.

I hope you all have a wonderful week, thank you for reading!

[awindowamirror]

Fun fact! I cut my hair!

I cut my hair about 2 weeks ago, and I love it! I call it the “absence of hair.” I went to a barber in the market and Adams, my hair artist, was very confused as to why I wanted all my hair gone. And also probably was confused why I went to a black barber. But it worked out for all. There also was an audience of people watching me rid myself of head-hair and since then, sooo many men have asked me why I cut my hair, suggesting that I shouldn’t have. My response has been, “Why do you cut your hair short?” 

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Photos from the Eastern Region (Umbrella Rock, Boti Falls, Tetteh Cocoa Farm, Aburri Botanical Gardens)

Not a bad view from under the umbrella 

Here is a lil group shot of those who climbed up to the top of Umbrella Rock. (I was not among them because that ladder was not a good mix with my lil tiny minuscule fear of heights.)

Me at Boti Falls!

Ceci attacked my picture what on earth!

UGH!!

Some of the girls in our group

Cocoa time!

Unripe babes

Play iSpy for cocoas!

Snail babe!

One of the original trees, planted in 1879. Cocoa trees don’t grow in diameter as the  get older, the grow more trunks! How cool!

Time to begin the fermentation process! The cocoa pods are cracked open to reveal the white covered beans (the white part can be sucked off and tastes exactly like a Jolly Rancher! It is also called the placenta. I’m glad I found that out after eating it)

The beans are covered with either plantain or banana leaves to ferment (because they’re giant and efficient)

Isn’t it true that all the best things in life are fermented? The brown beans you can see in the background are dried and fermented cocoa beans, ready to be processed into chocolate. I tasted one (100% cocoa!!!) and it was wildly bitter. But pretty darn cool.

Here I am among the cocoa trees.

Look at these babes.

Plantain Leaf Joy!

Shea butter tree

Tree ft. the Strangler Ficus Tree

Ceci  being a tree

This is the inside of the tree. Work of art. My god. I could look at this forever.

I think this is nutmeg???

Look at this perfectly tree-shaped tree!

Carved tree

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More photos from Wli Falls

The definition of sweaty, dirty, happy.

Bliss?

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10/8/17

This week felt very regular until this weekend—we’ve had a couple crazy things happen in Accra. Oh, and on Tuesday I cut/shaved my hair, which felt like one of the most natural and anti-climactic decisions I’ve ever made.

On Friday morning, I woke up at about 6:30 am to start getting ready to go to my internship, and could not believe my ears. It was raining SO hard. I opened my door and looked outside, and it looked like godly sized buckets were being poured in unison from the sky. The parking lot outside the hostel was a big puddle-pool, and I knew that even if I ventured outside in my raincoat, the water would soak through in a matter of minutes.

While brushing my teeth, I ran into another girl in my program who has an internship, and we looked at the weather and laughed, “How on earth are we going to get to work?” We decided to wait until about 7:30 am to see if it would at least slow down any, but the weather accomplished a lot in that time—it summoned lightning and the most raucous thunder I’ve ever heard in my life, so it was actually dangerous to leave at that point. I made the decision to just crawl back into bed because there were no signs of slowing down, but I found out later that Layston had braved the storm to make it to her internship. She said it took her three hours to get there, rather than the usual one hour, and her trotro had to take a completely different route because the main road was flooded. At about 9 am that morning, we got an automated safety text from our program saying to stay put and not try to go to class or internships or anywhere else. There was severe flooding in downtown Accra, even after the storm let up at around 10 or 11 am.

I had a nice lazy day on Friday, safe and dry in my hostel, and it seemed like things had calmed down. On Saturday, I went to a café to do homework with friends because our wifi has been down since the storm (still is, actually). There was an event for international students on campus that afternoon, so we grabbed some free food and chatted with some people, and then headed to a restaurant in Legon, only about five minutes off campus.

A couple of our other friends went to a different restaurant for drinks, so we were thinking of joining them when we got a WhatsApp message saying “DO NOT GO ANYWHERE NEAR ATOMIC JUNCTION.” That was scary because that’s exactly where our friends were. Then, a crowd of people sprinted past the restaurant we were at and all of a sudden traffic was insane. Someone told us that there had been a gas explosion near Atomic and they were expecting a gas station across the street to explode as well. Our friends messaged us that they were ok, and our program made sure everyone was accounted for, but holy cow.

A few minutes later, the whole sky lit up orange. (If you google it, you can see videos of how huge the explosion was.) People on campus said they could feel the heat and hear the explosion. Our friends who were even closer to the junction had to literally run away, and they said people were getting trampled and everyone was freaking out. There are so many things that could have gone differently for our friends, or even for Kaylee and I—we were thinking of meeting them at the other restaurant, which would have put us right at the junction at the time of the accident. When an incident is so close to home, it’s easy to think of all the ways things could have gone more wrong, but a lot of things went right. There was a downpour over the junction, even though just a few kilometers away we barely got any rain. That made it so much easier to control the fire after the explosion, and the rain was aimed perfectly over the site. How crazy is that? And thank goodness, it could have been a lot worse.

Still, at least two people are confirmed to have been lost in the explosion, and several others are injured. I don’t have internet to look into the details of the story yet, which is a little scary, but I’m told it was handled very quickly and most people were able to stay safe. The junction is about a five minute walk from the school I work at, which is crazy to think about. Ugh, like I said, you can think of a million things that could have gone worse, but anyways, I am so glad it wasn’t on a school day with all the students there.

A lot people are very shaken up, and rightly so. The explosion was so close to campus, and a lot of people were shopping at Madina market (right by the junction) just that morning… Ooftah.. Today, our program is giving us lunch and space to talk to each other and take care of everyone, especially those who were so close to the site.

Send good thoughts to Ghana and those who were affected by the accident if you have some to spare!

[awindowamirror]

Trek to Hohoe, Wli Falls, and the Tafi Monkey Sanctuary

This weekend, my friends Ceci and Charlotte and I decided to take a break from Accra life and check out the Volta region more. I went a few weekends ago just for one night, but we didn’t go hiking or see a ton, so I was excited to go back and explore more.

Charlotte had a class on Friday evening, so we left campus at about 5:30 pm and took a trotro to Accra Central, which took about an hour in the traffic. All of the big metro buses going to the Volta region had left by this time, so we tracked down where the trotros leaving for the Volta were. There was one leaving in 15 minutes, but only two spots, so we were the first to buy tickets on another trotro. This was both good and bad—good because we got to claim the back seat and not sit in the wimpy little side chairs, but bad because we waited in the parking lot for another hour until our trotro had filled up. Honestly though, we were just happy there was a way to get to where we were going, and it only cost about 30 cedis each.

We left the parking lot at about 8 pm and expected to be in Hohoe, a town near our hotel, by about midnight or 1 at the latest. Google maps had told us it was about a 4-5 hour journey. What Google maps did not take into account were the traffic and road conditions. It took at least an hour to get outside of Accra, and the roads beyond the bridge over the Volta River (where I stayed on my previous trip) were in really bad shape. It ended up being about 7 hours for us to arrive. We were absolutely dead.

There were many holes I did not think we were going to come back out of. I am amazed that our trotro is still standing. Actually, at one point, in the middle of nowhere and in pitch-black darkness, our driver turned off the engine and got out and opened the hood, which would have been more than mildly concerning if we hadn’t been delirious from lack of sleep.

No worries though, about ten minutes later we were on our way again, and there was only one more episode like that. Also at one point I’m pretty sure we hit a goat—Ceci and I heard something and then looked at each other and burst out laughing because what else is there to do? 3 am on a trotro…it is a mind-altering experience.

When we got to Hohoe, we had to take about a 45 minute taxi ride to our hotel, and because it was so late/early, our taxi driver charged us 120 cedis and there was nothing we could do about it because there were literally no other transportation options. After cheating us, he thought it would be appropriate to ask for our numbers, which I find very interesting.

Anyways. We MADE it safely to our hotel and fell asleep by about 4:30 am. We slept until around 8:30 am, waking up just in time to catch the tail end of breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Charlotte was rearing to go on just 4 hours of sleep, but Ceci and I struggled a bit. But, when you’re in a beautiful and new place, it’s hard to choose sleep over exploring, so we set off to the tourism center (just a 5 minute walk from our hotel) to get a guide to take us to see Wli Falls up close and personal. Our hotel restaurant had a lovely view of the falls and the mountains as well, but we were ready to hike.

We stocked up on bananas and water and chose to do the 6 hour hiking excursion. I’m not sure what we were expecting, but I was entirely surprised by the hike. It was wild. We literally went straight up a mountain for close to 2 hours. Straight up. I mean it. At one point, Ceci asked our guide in between hyper ventilations, “Anthony, have you ever heard of switchbacks?” Alas, Anthony had not. And, upon hearing what they were and the supposed benefits, he declared, “Straight up is better.” Ok then.

Either way, straight up is what we had, and so we did it. There were many moments where it felt more like rock climbing than hiking, and we all slipped and fell at least a couple times. It was amazing though. Hiking to me is the definition of returning to my roots, to something I am so sure of. All you can do is put one foot in front of the other—you can only focus on the moment you’re in, the beauty around you and the good company. It was a really difficult hike, there’s no sugar coating it, and I am still very sore, but there is no better way to spend a day in my opinion. And we did it. How cool.

So we technically were hiking to the upper falls of Wli Falls, but on the way, we climbed a mountain even taller than the tallest mountain in Ghana. How is that possible, you may ask? Well, we slipped into Togo for a few minutes—turns out, half of the mountain is in Ghana and half is in Togo, but the tallest point is in Togo, so Ghana can’t claim its height (it’s not a very impressive height when you compare it to mountains in Colorado or other places, but it sure felt tall—I think it was a little over 1,000 m).

When we got to the upper falls, we splashed our faces and arms in an attempt to cool down, and then headed down to the lower falls. Anthony left us there, and we stayed a while, soaking our feet and watching shouts of water fall screaming with joy from the rocks. It was beautiful. There is something so magical about water, and waterfalls showcase every piece of that magic. After looking up at the falls for several minutes, we finally noticed about 200-300 bats staring at us from the cliffs. SO MANY BATS!!! It was crazy. It would have been creepy if it weren’t so cool.

The walk back to our hotel was super easy—I think it’s the trail that most people take, and it was very flat and well-travelled. Thank goodness. We were all ready to put our feet up and have a good meal, which is exactly what we did. Oh, and we showered. We were covered in a layer of dirt and multiple layers of sweat. Fun note: Ceci had the same Dr. Bronner’s lavender castile soap that I use back in the states, so it just added to how at home I felt—hiking AND castile soap? What more could I ask for?

We stayed at dinner forever, sharing three dinner dishes and a bowl of fruit and ice cream, and talking about politics, social issues, and how to make sense of people who agree with Betsy DeVos. We retired at about 9:00 pm (I really think retired is the correct word for this situation, though I know that it would sound more at home in an Edith Warton novel than a 20 year old’s blog post), and stayed up a little longer talking. It was a lovely evening, and we were happily asleep by 9:30 pm (remember we only got 4 hours of sleep the night before).

In the morning, we met a group of young people doing Projects Abroad (I think this is an organization where people volunteer abroad, but I didn’t fully understand it). One was from Chicago, and I think the rest were from the Netherlands. They were headed back to Hohoe as well, so we shared a trotro out with them—much cheaper than our 120 cedi taxi ride on Friday night!

From Hohoe, we got a taxi driver who (we thought) agreed to drive us to the monkey sanctuary about 30 minutes away, wait while we explored, and then drive us to Ho (a city further south where we could catch a bus back to Accra) for 130 cedis. Not a bad deal, and so we set off, excited to see monkeys.

Once we arrived in Tafi, where the sanctuary is, the driver said, “Ok, Ho is very far, so you’ll have to add on to the 130.” WHAT? No. You cannot drive us to the middle of nowhere and then change the price, no. I was so pissed, I got into full on Holly Battle Mode. Two of the guides at the sanctuary, guys around our age, came out to help, and they did a wonderful job of asking us what we had been told and then reasoning with the driver. Very helpful and genuine people. Eventually, we all agreed on 150 cedis total to take us to Ho, though we still have no idea what the driver was thinking. I do NOT like being taken advantage of.

But how can you stay mad when there are MONKEYS everywhere??? The guides took us to buy bananas for the monkeys, and then made kissing noises until the monkey started coming out of the depth of the woods to the road to meet us. It was SO cool watching them swing and jump around and eye our bananas. Such cool animals. The whole time, we were just thinking how much they look like little baby humans. They are so smart, too! Ugh. Amazing.

We got to feed them bananas, which you do by holding a banana firmly in your hand with your arm outstretched in front of you. Then, a monkey will approach you and jump onto your arm/back and peel the banana and eat it. How cool is that??? So I had several monkeys crawling on me, including the alpha male. What an honor.

We learned a few interesting monkey facts, but my favorite was that at least in this monkey colony, the alpha male sings everyone to sleep at 6:30 pm each night, and sings them awake at 6:30 am each morning. I don’t usually have much use for alpha male anythings, but that’s pretty darn cute.

We said goodbye to the monkeys and the sweet guides and climbed back into our hostile taxi, in which we made it safely to Ho. Our driver tried one last time when we arrived to get more money out of us, but we shoved his 150 into his hands and got the heck away. We bought some bread, avocados, and plantain chips to hold us over for a ride to Accra, and then climbed aboard our trotro.

Our trip home was much shorter than our trip there—I think we made it back to Madina junction in about 4 hours, and then we just a had one more short trotro to Okpongolo. Not bad at all.

The whole weekend was really lovely, I am so glad we went. I felt so grounded and at peace--  being outside, eating and buying everything communally, and being with people who value the same things I do. I felt very at home.