Jenny and I had to be in the Union by 6:30 the following morning to meet up with our overnight trip group. This was a very small group- 27 people total, with about 15 of them being lifelong learners, teachers, or families. Luckily my favorite trip leaders, Tina and Lee Riedinger, were leading this trip and the majority of the older people were awesome. Jenny, Kyle, and I probably spent more time talking with the lifelong learners than other students. Overall I had a great time on this trip because it was very chill and we were with a good group of people.
As I said earlier we had to meet in the Union at 6:30 and were supposed to leave shortly thereafter. Unfortunately our tour bus broke down and we did not end up leaving the ship until 9 AM. Rumor has it we may be getting compensated for the delay. Honestly though, we didn’t have all that much to do on the itinerary the first day anyway, so we didn’t end up missing anything. After we got on the buses we proceeded to the Central Region of Ghana which was about three and one half hours away from Tema. Along the way we were able to see hundreds of Ghanaians who were all carrying anything and everything on their heads. It was awesome to drive by markets of people all with free hands but loaded with things on their heads. After we moved out of Accra we began to see the rural areas which consisted of dirt roads.
After lunch at a restaurant that was surrounded by a pond filled with crocodiles we proceeded to Kakum National Park which is famous for its Canopy Walk. The Canopy walk consisted of seven individual walkways that each had a very narrow wood plank that was surrounded by vertical netting on either side. We walked single file across the planks and after each individual bridge there was a type of lookout tower in the middle of the rainforest. We were walking in the canopy of the rainforest about 40 ft above the ground! Unfortunately we weren’t able to see the wildlife because we were Canopy Walking in the middle of the day and most of the animals were away, keeping out of the sun. Regardless it was really fun sky walking and I really enjoyed it.
The Canopy Walk and lunch were the only set items on the itinerary that day and we proceeded to the Coconut Grove Beach Resort in Elmina for the night. We passed through this really awesome fisherman’s village where there were hundreds of boats and crowds of people all going about their business. One thing I noticed is that each fishing boat had, as far as I could tell, completely random flags. There were flags from Spain, England, America, Brazil… even Israel had a flag. I couldn’t comprehended the randomness of the flags for the life of me.
Jenny and I got our own room which was similar in style to the small cottage type things we stayed in on the safari. We were finally able to shower which was much needed and with the free WiFi, attempted to download many much needed episodes of LOST. The group had dinner together outside by the beach and I was more than happily surprised to see French Fries as a buffet item. Jenny and I proceeded to talk with Tina and Lee for about an hour about life in Tennessee (they’re both physics professors at the University of Tennessee) and their family and also shared our own life stories with them. We walked down to the beach for a little and saw HUGE crabs walking around all over the sand. Afterwards, Kyle met up with us and we continued to chill before deciding to go to sleep. Going to sleep meant that Jenny and I took advantage of the free internet and were facebooking, mscheduling, and trying to reconnect with the outside SAS world. The free internet was great but it would have been even better if the connection was a little bit faster- LOST had been downloading for the past two hours and still had “four hours remaining.”
Luck was on our side and we woke up the next morning with a fully downloaded episode of LOST. Please note that this is the fifth episode of season six and we are still very behind. After breakfast the group went on the “historical” part of the Cape Coast Historical Tour and toured both Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle. Both castles were active during the slave trade and used to detain slaves before they were sent across the Atlantic. We were able to walk into the pitch black dungeons and attempt to imagine the reality of the situation. Try to imagine a dungeon that was pitch black and only a couple of rooms wide that was used for over 1,500 slaves at any given time. Women and men were obviously separated and different forms of punishment were used for rule breakers. Both castles had museums that described the history of the slave trade and the castle itself. An interesting comparison between the two castles is that Elmina was not originally built purely for the slave trade but was built much earlier when the Portuguese controlled Ghana. Therefore the dungeons and facilities were not as horrible as the dungeons in Cape Coast Castle (a castle specifically built for the slave trade).
After the slave dungeon tours we had lunch at a local restaurant in the fisherman’s village (they had fries again!) and then went back on the bus for our return journey. The journey ended up being a prolonged adventure because of the traffic. Our expected three hour bus ride evolved into five hours. We were all happily back on the ship by 6 PM where many of us proceeded to shower, eat dinner, and board the shuttle for our last night out in Ghana.
As a female I felt the most vulnerable in Ghana than I had in any previous port. I mentioned in the previous blog that there was a fine line between fun and sketchy situations and I had reached the point in my Ghanaian stay where I was beyond fed up and irritated by Ghanaian men trying to talk to me or grabbing my arm. For the record I was not alone in these feelings. Therefore I was extremely happy when a club was throwing a purely Semester at Sea party and only open for SASers. I was relieved that I would not have to keep watching my back at every second and feeling uncomfortable. After a group of us met up at another local bar we crossed the street to the club. It was a great night and could not have resembled Freshman Year Michigan Studio more.
The next day Rachel and I were supposed to meet Fred’s aunt Ophelia at the preschool that she taught at. The same group from the first day more or less, ended up coming with us. The second the six of us entered the outdoor preschool these tiny, adorable Ghanaians all started screaming of happiness and running up to us and hugging us. We split up three and three and went into the two classrooms. I was in the classroom with the younger children (babies to about four year olds) and had so much fun playing with them. Once again we could not really communicate but I was pleased to discover that they knew the song “if you’re happy and you know it.” After about two hours of playing with the kids I noticed a couple of them lying in a corner of the room napping. It appeared to be nap time and never having turned down the opportunity to nap in my life I joined my fellow nappers and slept on the floor with them. Too bad we have to grow up.
Our group went back to Fred’s mom’s house who had insisted on cooking us a truly Ghanaian meal with Red-Red. The naturopathic doctor stopped by to meet us and told us about his profession. He explained his profession as trying to promote a person’s well being and by doing that correcting any of their illnesses. He claims that he has cured cancer, diabetes, etc. I’m not sure if I exactly believe him but the ideas behind his methods were very interesting. He explained that if a person came to him with a stomach ache for example, rather than prescribing medicine he would ask more mental questions that aimed at determining what was causing said patient to feel ill. Apart from discussing his profession he taught us how to eat Ghanaian Red-Red like a true Ghanaian- with our hands. I actually enjoyed it a lot and thought it was pretty cool how we were eating.
After Fred’s mom’s house we asked Fred to take us to a market so that we could buy crafts and gifts. For some reason he thought it best to take us to the beach where there were literally two small shops that had nothing we wanted to buy. I’m pretty sure he knew the guys working there and was trying to earn some type of commission. I was pretty annoyed at the situation. We proceeded to go to Global Mamas, a women’s microfinance project that enables women to sustain themselves. I opted out of going to this market because I heard it was not what I was looking for and retired to the shuttle to go back to the ship.
Ghana was awesome. I had my cultural immersion experience, went on the Canopy Walk, saw the slave dungeons, played with little Ghanaians at a preschool, ate at local homes, and interacted with the locals. It was amazing but partially tainted by that nagging fear that I had to always be on alert. For the record I really don’t like Ghanaian men hitting on me or making that move from being friendly to overly friendly. I heard of multiple situations when I was back on the ship of Ghanaian men giving girls gifts or buying them drinks and then pursuing to receive something sexual from them in return. Honestly, it just wasn’t ok and I was kind of creeped out while I was in Accra. I really enjoyed my time there, am glad I went, but don’t feel like I have to return there. Ghana- thanks for a real experience.
More pressing matters to be discussed: the UNDERWEAR THEIF. You’re eyes did not deceive you- there is an UNDERWEAR THEIF on the ship and it’s gross. I, among many other female students have become a victim of underwear theft. Our laundry consists of us putting dirty clothes in bags and leaving them outside our doors so that our stewards can take them to be cleaned the next day. We fill out receipt forms that indicate how much of each clothes item we have. When I received my clean clothes I was dismayed to discover that my underwear count had been changed from 14 to 11! Three underwears were missing and were missing prior to being washed because Ray, my steward, indicated that I only had eleven pieces and not fourteen. I soon found out that I was not alone! Someone is going around during the night and stealing girl’s thongs. This may sound comical, but I assure you, the thief will be caught. It’s just creepy. What could anyone want with up to thirty pairs of dirty underwear?
We had the shipboard auction which raises money for scholarship funds etc. I really really wanted to hoist the American flag when we got to Fort Lauderdale but unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it because I didn’t end up spending an obscene amount of money to do so) the flag hoisting was auction off at $280! The whole auction was insane- a map signed for the captain went for $600, dinner with one of our teachers went for $700, a bottle of pepto signed by the ship doctor went for $42, being able to make the menu for a day went for $300, etc. Dad- I may not understand the full value of a dollar, but let’s be honest, I’m not that stupid. Bottom line: the whole thing was insane and my mouth was hanging open for the majority of it. Our friends did end up going in on one item together than we won- a private showing of a movie of your choice in a classroom of your choice for a group of ten (popcorn and drinks included). It ended up coming to about $20ish dollars a person which to be honest is what it costs to go to the movies now anyway.
I’m completely done with two of my classes now. I have one final in Global Mental Health which consists of being given two essay prompts at 8 AM and having to turn in the essays by 8 PM. It’s open book aka I’m not worried. Other than that we are hurrying to make our global studies group project that has switched from Food Distribution to Transportation. Once this presentation is done, I’m cruising- pun intended. Oh and it’s official: the drawing was held to see the order of which seas would be let off the ship in Fort Lauderdale and my sea was obviously picked last. Mom- sleep in. I won’t be getting off the ship until around 1, so I don’t expect you to be waiting at 8 AM though you probably will be anyway.
Brazil and the Amazon in two days!!!! Nine countries done, one to go… definitely the fastest semester in college. One more thing: Lakers 87, Thunder 79. Let’s go Lake Show.
As I said earlier we had to meet in the Union at 6:30 and were supposed to leave shortly thereafter. Unfortunately our tour bus broke down and we did not end up leaving the ship until 9 AM. Rumor has it we may be getting compensated for the delay. Honestly though, we didn’t have all that much to do on the itinerary the first day anyway, so we didn’t end up missing anything. After we got on the buses we proceeded to the Central Region of Ghana which was about three and one half hours away from Tema. Along the way we were able to see hundreds of Ghanaians who were all carrying anything and everything on their heads. It was awesome to drive by markets of people all with free hands but loaded with things on their heads. After we moved out of Accra we began to see the rural areas which consisted of dirt roads.
After lunch at a restaurant that was surrounded by a pond filled with crocodiles we proceeded to Kakum National Park which is famous for its Canopy Walk. The Canopy walk consisted of seven individual walkways that each had a very narrow wood plank that was surrounded by vertical netting on either side. We walked single file across the planks and after each individual bridge there was a type of lookout tower in the middle of the rainforest. We were walking in the canopy of the rainforest about 40 ft above the ground! Unfortunately we weren’t able to see the wildlife because we were Canopy Walking in the middle of the day and most of the animals were away, keeping out of the sun. Regardless it was really fun sky walking and I really enjoyed it.
The Canopy Walk and lunch were the only set items on the itinerary that day and we proceeded to the Coconut Grove Beach Resort in Elmina for the night. We passed through this really awesome fisherman’s village where there were hundreds of boats and crowds of people all going about their business. One thing I noticed is that each fishing boat had, as far as I could tell, completely random flags. There were flags from Spain, England, America, Brazil… even Israel had a flag. I couldn’t comprehended the randomness of the flags for the life of me.
Jenny and I got our own room which was similar in style to the small cottage type things we stayed in on the safari. We were finally able to shower which was much needed and with the free WiFi, attempted to download many much needed episodes of LOST. The group had dinner together outside by the beach and I was more than happily surprised to see French Fries as a buffet item. Jenny and I proceeded to talk with Tina and Lee for about an hour about life in Tennessee (they’re both physics professors at the University of Tennessee) and their family and also shared our own life stories with them. We walked down to the beach for a little and saw HUGE crabs walking around all over the sand. Afterwards, Kyle met up with us and we continued to chill before deciding to go to sleep. Going to sleep meant that Jenny and I took advantage of the free internet and were facebooking, mscheduling, and trying to reconnect with the outside SAS world. The free internet was great but it would have been even better if the connection was a little bit faster- LOST had been downloading for the past two hours and still had “four hours remaining.”
Luck was on our side and we woke up the next morning with a fully downloaded episode of LOST. Please note that this is the fifth episode of season six and we are still very behind. After breakfast the group went on the “historical” part of the Cape Coast Historical Tour and toured both Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle. Both castles were active during the slave trade and used to detain slaves before they were sent across the Atlantic. We were able to walk into the pitch black dungeons and attempt to imagine the reality of the situation. Try to imagine a dungeon that was pitch black and only a couple of rooms wide that was used for over 1,500 slaves at any given time. Women and men were obviously separated and different forms of punishment were used for rule breakers. Both castles had museums that described the history of the slave trade and the castle itself. An interesting comparison between the two castles is that Elmina was not originally built purely for the slave trade but was built much earlier when the Portuguese controlled Ghana. Therefore the dungeons and facilities were not as horrible as the dungeons in Cape Coast Castle (a castle specifically built for the slave trade).
After the slave dungeon tours we had lunch at a local restaurant in the fisherman’s village (they had fries again!) and then went back on the bus for our return journey. The journey ended up being a prolonged adventure because of the traffic. Our expected three hour bus ride evolved into five hours. We were all happily back on the ship by 6 PM where many of us proceeded to shower, eat dinner, and board the shuttle for our last night out in Ghana.
As a female I felt the most vulnerable in Ghana than I had in any previous port. I mentioned in the previous blog that there was a fine line between fun and sketchy situations and I had reached the point in my Ghanaian stay where I was beyond fed up and irritated by Ghanaian men trying to talk to me or grabbing my arm. For the record I was not alone in these feelings. Therefore I was extremely happy when a club was throwing a purely Semester at Sea party and only open for SASers. I was relieved that I would not have to keep watching my back at every second and feeling uncomfortable. After a group of us met up at another local bar we crossed the street to the club. It was a great night and could not have resembled Freshman Year Michigan Studio more.
The next day Rachel and I were supposed to meet Fred’s aunt Ophelia at the preschool that she taught at. The same group from the first day more or less, ended up coming with us. The second the six of us entered the outdoor preschool these tiny, adorable Ghanaians all started screaming of happiness and running up to us and hugging us. We split up three and three and went into the two classrooms. I was in the classroom with the younger children (babies to about four year olds) and had so much fun playing with them. Once again we could not really communicate but I was pleased to discover that they knew the song “if you’re happy and you know it.” After about two hours of playing with the kids I noticed a couple of them lying in a corner of the room napping. It appeared to be nap time and never having turned down the opportunity to nap in my life I joined my fellow nappers and slept on the floor with them. Too bad we have to grow up.
Our group went back to Fred’s mom’s house who had insisted on cooking us a truly Ghanaian meal with Red-Red. The naturopathic doctor stopped by to meet us and told us about his profession. He explained his profession as trying to promote a person’s well being and by doing that correcting any of their illnesses. He claims that he has cured cancer, diabetes, etc. I’m not sure if I exactly believe him but the ideas behind his methods were very interesting. He explained that if a person came to him with a stomach ache for example, rather than prescribing medicine he would ask more mental questions that aimed at determining what was causing said patient to feel ill. Apart from discussing his profession he taught us how to eat Ghanaian Red-Red like a true Ghanaian- with our hands. I actually enjoyed it a lot and thought it was pretty cool how we were eating.
After Fred’s mom’s house we asked Fred to take us to a market so that we could buy crafts and gifts. For some reason he thought it best to take us to the beach where there were literally two small shops that had nothing we wanted to buy. I’m pretty sure he knew the guys working there and was trying to earn some type of commission. I was pretty annoyed at the situation. We proceeded to go to Global Mamas, a women’s microfinance project that enables women to sustain themselves. I opted out of going to this market because I heard it was not what I was looking for and retired to the shuttle to go back to the ship.
Ghana was awesome. I had my cultural immersion experience, went on the Canopy Walk, saw the slave dungeons, played with little Ghanaians at a preschool, ate at local homes, and interacted with the locals. It was amazing but partially tainted by that nagging fear that I had to always be on alert. For the record I really don’t like Ghanaian men hitting on me or making that move from being friendly to overly friendly. I heard of multiple situations when I was back on the ship of Ghanaian men giving girls gifts or buying them drinks and then pursuing to receive something sexual from them in return. Honestly, it just wasn’t ok and I was kind of creeped out while I was in Accra. I really enjoyed my time there, am glad I went, but don’t feel like I have to return there. Ghana- thanks for a real experience.
More pressing matters to be discussed: the UNDERWEAR THEIF. You’re eyes did not deceive you- there is an UNDERWEAR THEIF on the ship and it’s gross. I, among many other female students have become a victim of underwear theft. Our laundry consists of us putting dirty clothes in bags and leaving them outside our doors so that our stewards can take them to be cleaned the next day. We fill out receipt forms that indicate how much of each clothes item we have. When I received my clean clothes I was dismayed to discover that my underwear count had been changed from 14 to 11! Three underwears were missing and were missing prior to being washed because Ray, my steward, indicated that I only had eleven pieces and not fourteen. I soon found out that I was not alone! Someone is going around during the night and stealing girl’s thongs. This may sound comical, but I assure you, the thief will be caught. It’s just creepy. What could anyone want with up to thirty pairs of dirty underwear?
We had the shipboard auction which raises money for scholarship funds etc. I really really wanted to hoist the American flag when we got to Fort Lauderdale but unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it because I didn’t end up spending an obscene amount of money to do so) the flag hoisting was auction off at $280! The whole auction was insane- a map signed for the captain went for $600, dinner with one of our teachers went for $700, a bottle of pepto signed by the ship doctor went for $42, being able to make the menu for a day went for $300, etc. Dad- I may not understand the full value of a dollar, but let’s be honest, I’m not that stupid. Bottom line: the whole thing was insane and my mouth was hanging open for the majority of it. Our friends did end up going in on one item together than we won- a private showing of a movie of your choice in a classroom of your choice for a group of ten (popcorn and drinks included). It ended up coming to about $20ish dollars a person which to be honest is what it costs to go to the movies now anyway.
I’m completely done with two of my classes now. I have one final in Global Mental Health which consists of being given two essay prompts at 8 AM and having to turn in the essays by 8 PM. It’s open book aka I’m not worried. Other than that we are hurrying to make our global studies group project that has switched from Food Distribution to Transportation. Once this presentation is done, I’m cruising- pun intended. Oh and it’s official: the drawing was held to see the order of which seas would be let off the ship in Fort Lauderdale and my sea was obviously picked last. Mom- sleep in. I won’t be getting off the ship until around 1, so I don’t expect you to be waiting at 8 AM though you probably will be anyway.
Brazil and the Amazon in two days!!!! Nine countries done, one to go… definitely the fastest semester in college. One more thing: Lakers 87, Thunder 79. Let’s go Lake Show.
AHH! I am officially so jealous of how much fun you are having! I love love love you and I really hope you can convince mom and dad to let you come visit me when you get back!
ReplyDeletewe've been apart for 93 days...the separation anxiety is too muc...I don't know how much more I can take.
xoxoxoxoxoxox