Weekend of June 18th

Amazing weekend. Hiked two mountains, swam under a water fall, danced it a traditional village festival and met some of the warmest people I've yet to encounter in Ghana.

As last weekend, the journey begins with a mad dash to find the correct tro-tro to our destination. I had an easier time finding the place on my own because I knew the name of the station and grabbed a cab from the barber shop ($1.40 for a haircut btw). There was a minor concern that we wouldn't be able to find our new friend, Jackye because we told her the station across the street and she retained her American phone number (global blackberry) but that notion was soon dispelled when me and Shara found her being led to us by a couple of Ghanians in our direction. Sometimes it really helps being the only Obrunis in an area because it is so easy to find each other. Indeed, while waiting for Andrea a random person declared to me “I think I see your sister up the Junction”, sure enough it was her. When we well all rounded up we set off for our 5 hour trip (2 hours of it was traffic in Accra). By the time we got to Hohea (spelling) we only had time to get to a guest house and knock out for a few hours before our hike.

At 5:30 am we headed to the mountain. Although the lovely owner of the guest house offered to make us breakfast, we didn't have time to wait for her to round up all of the ingredients.(side note: whenever you go to a restaurant to get a meal that is cooked to order, more likely than not someone from the shop has to go to a local market, round up all of the perishable ingredients, and cook everything from scratch. It makes for very fresh but very slow meals.) Instead we opted to buy some fresh bread near the tro-tro station, which was legit the best bread we've had here. For a 30 cents each (I kid you not), we each got a fresh loaf of bread, a bag of shelled peanuts and a piece of this little fried dough thing that tasted like KFC (from what I remember from like 6 years ago). Keep in mind that everything we eat in Ghana, for the most part, is organic. I eat caged free eggs almost every day with organic bread and fruit. The meal we had in Hoea in Whole Foods (or it's progeny) would have been at least $10, and probably not as good.

Mount Afijato is about 900 meteres, straight up. It was basically a vertical staircase in the rainforest with well placed rocks as steps. I was pretty happy that I'm still in shape from the end of last semester and that I wasn't out of breath. But poor Daan, all 4 feet of her, decided to wear jeans and was more than understandably having a hard time keeping up (and in retrospect I feel pretty bad for setting such a fast pace :-/). No matter, it gave us more time to enjoy the scenery on our way up the an amazing view of the volta river . Let me take this opportunity to say, sorry guys. You'll get these pictures when ya get 'em because it took me forever to upload one picture the other day. I'll see if I can email some to Terri for her to post.

When we got down we played the inevitable waiting game for a cab to the water fall. Eventually we made it over to the Entrance of Wili falls, but not before Shara asked a two random women if she can help them make fufu (a tamale like thing made from mashed maize). If she didn't know already, Shara came to find that this is strenuous business. First of all the stick they used was pretty damn heavy, Secondly, they make this dish is like playing music. They take a giant bowl with all of the ingredients. Then one woman moves the giant pieces of vegetable around while the other smashes this giant stick down with all of her might. One false move would certainly break a hand, but I think the teamwork is really illustrative of how much more collectivist the Ghanian culture is compared to the West. At the falls, our tour guide led us through a brisk 40 minute walk to the falls. After hot/sweaty day of walking/climbing there was nothing left to do but jump in the water. Me, Daan , Shara and Andrea made it pretty much right under the falls and Jackye (who wasn't interested in jumping in) got some amazing pictures that you'll just have to wait for :P. We pretty much ran back from there so we can make it back to the guest house to watch the Black Stars take on Australia. Of course not without an absurd transportation situation where we squeezed 8 people in the car, and one in the trunk...

There was a chop-shop right across the street from our place and we had some much deserved beers with some locals and waited the inevitable 90 minutes for lunch. The Draw that Ghana managed didn't evoke the insane celebration of the week before, but the result was good enough to set up a pivotal match against Germany on Wednesday, with Ghana controlling their own destiny (win or draw and we're in :) .

We went to town, of course the first tro-tro broke down and we squished 5 people into like 1 and a half seats.

When we got to Have' we were greeted by Pedro (who had some battle wounds from his village fishing expedition), Grandpa (they are big with the cool grandparents here) and Justice (yeah that's his real name). Both were extremely welcoming. Grandpa actually spent some time in the US, I believe he said working for the FAA …

Diego and Conrad followed soon there after with some of Pedro's work colleagues. Incidentally one of them was a high-school mate of Terri's. We all chipped in a buck to get some ingredients for jalloff rice, and Conrad whipped up a delicious batch. After a glass of a traditional welcoming drink (Guinness and palm wine cocktail...I don't recommend it) we headed to the dance festival. I really can't describe how awesome it was...but basically Google BorBorBor when you get a chance. Everyone gathered in this small area while a dance troupe performed in the middle. Then if you wanted to join the dancing circle you just made your way in (or if you're obviously not Ghanian one of the women will pull you in).

The next morning there was more celebrating of Agadavi. Every year the people of Have' commemorate the day when a huge mudslide (they say volcanic eruption but I think what happened was closer to a mud slide) occurred near town and no one was hurt “not even an animal”. Shara of course wanted to climb a second mountain and get up wicked early on the one day we have to sleep in :-/. So we met up with Diego and Justice, got Ginormous egg sandwiches for $1 and hiked the mountain. It was a great time but unfortunately the path to the top was covered in fallen brush so we couldn't make it all the way up.
When we got back people had arrived at the festival and they were collected money for a new community center. The place we stayed in was definitely not touristy or rich by any means. But they managed to raise about $4,000 US dollars which is an astronomical amount. There was some more dancing but we had to leave to get lunch started. We took all of the Talapia and some ingredients to the bar we went to the night before and the owner grilled up for those who ate fish.
Me and all of my housemates loved Have (“the town with no internet”). If there is a weekend where we do something twice it would probably be visiting that area again. Pedro's colleagues didn't like it so much and kind of complained that it was “removed from civilization”. You can't please everyone I guess. This weekend we're taking a break from traveling so far away. We're staying at a beach house called cocobrite (about 45 minutes outside of Accra) where Andrea knows a tribal chief. Needless to say it's gonna be another great weekend.