20 November – Part One

November 19th, 2008 by Kelly Earp

Where have I been? What have I been up to? You’d think since it’s been so long since I’ve written that I’d have a lot to say. Well, I do. So gitty-up. I’m breaking it up for ya…

PART 1:

First of all, the past 2 times I’ve tried to write in this journal, the electricity has gone out in Ho for the whole day. Which is a bummer, b/c the main reason I go to Ho is to get on the computer. But it IS funny that this outage does not affect my home life in Have, as we don’t have any electricity to begin with. And on the note, it’s dry season here. Which means, it’s uber hot. It’s the worst for me when I lay down to go to bed, and I’m just sweating. It feels as great as it sounds. I just shift positions until finally my body has acclimated and I can be comfortable. This can take an hour or so. I mean, imagine…no movement of air. Just still, hot air. No fan…no breeze…well, i do blow on myself…that’s always nice. The funny thing is tho, is that about by 3am, I’m pretty cool…like I actually get to snuggle up in my sheet. This is my most comfortable time of day. TEE-HEE!

So, back to what I’ve been up to. I traveled with my new friend, Ciara. We went to Accra to watch the elections. It was quite a day/night/day event. We were watching the news at about 3pm here, which was only 10am there, so there wasn’t much of an update. We decided to take a nap around 8pm-11pm…when we woke up to phone calls from out mothers (as we asked them to). From about 1-2am, we went to a ‘club’ that was pretty empty but had a TV…unfortunately it had no sounds, and it was in French…though the manager insisted that it was english after I asked him to turn it to CNN. He refused. ELECTION AMERICAINES 2008. Pretty sure that’s French. Anyway, we left to go to a computer lab that I found earlier in the day that was 24 hours. We logged in and watched history. We cheered, I cried, we hugged. Africa was also proud…as they should be. It’s quite a big deal for them that an African descendant is running the US. We walked around all day with smiles, and barely felt the exhaustion, until….we went to the bus station to catch the bus we wanted, only to learn we missed it. I’m not sure I’ve experienced a bus leaving EARLIER than scheduled in Ghana, but there’s always a first. We had been walking ALL day, and I don’t know how to pack light, so my backpack was weighing on me. I told Ciara, we should just try this beach hostel that was in our guide book b/c I thought we were pretty close. After quite the search, we arrived at a little piece of heaven called Amamono Beach Garden. It’s located behind a school on the beach…well hidden. We walk behind the school yard in the dark, and see a small, beach community and smell very foul smells only to see a wall with a wooden door. As you walk thru the door the smell turns fresh and clean and you are surrounded by beautiful plants and trees, and the sound of drums and children. We were led to meet the owners, who immediately prepared our room. It was an adorable little beach room with two twin beds, books on rustic shelves and a ceiling fan. AHHH…we could relax. We stayed there the next day and night, too. Just needed some peace. We learned that this is rasta place, and this house is run by a British woman and her Ghanaian husband, and their 4 children. They were beautiful. Dreads everywhere. She served us pasta with homemade sauce (oh, and I’m so sensitive to spicy food, and managed to eat the only hot pepper in the pot…ahhh! no milk in sight!). The next morning we had wheat bread and honey and earl grey tea. Did I mention that we loved it there?

We managed to tear ourselves away from this temporary bliss…the massive amount of mosquito in our room made it easier, and we changed all plans and headed to the east coast of Ghana. Here we actually DID go on the beach, as it was very clean. We went right into the ocean. It was awesome! The next day, we woke up early and did the same thing. Much to our surprise, the villagers were out on the beaches, too. They were catching fish with HUGE nets that require all the men to pull in with some men out in a boat and others in the water on the sides of the net. The women bring their big bowls to fill with fish and bring it to the village to prepare. It was amazing, and the pictures will do a much better job of describing it. Needless to say, the people were quite amazed at the white girls frolicking in the water. It was really great and we felt so free.

It was nice to be away for a while, but both Ciara and I felt like we really needed to get back to our villages b/c we had a lot of work to do.