The fellow crew -- (left to right) Isabel, Zanny, Lauren, Casey, Elvis (not actually a fellow, he lives in Ghana), Lane, Liz, Aron, Divya, me, Rob
Me doing research. In this video, I'm handing out surveys to junior high school students.
A typical classroom. Most have open-air windows to avoid heat, tin roofs, wood desks, and a blackboard, but not much else.
Playing cards, something we did almost every night. Hearts was our favorite game.
Me at the market on Wednesday. In Nyamadon (our little village), market day is Wednesday so people come from all around to buy and sell produce, clothes, jewelry, fabric, cheap electronics, shoes, etc. It's cool to see.
Hanging out at the dining room table. The table doubled as a communal desk for research essay writing, dining room table, and entertainment area.
Hanging out with the students at the Asuansi Farm Institute where we were staying. JoeJoe and Julius became good friends with the fellows.
This is us fixing up the library at Asuansi Farm Institute. In exchange for letting us stay at the school, we brought a bunch of books for their library. We spent the afternoon cleaning, organizing, and arranging the new books.
Waiting for the bus to arrive. We did lots of waiting in Ghana, I think it was good for me to practice patience.
Everyone asleep on the bus. The last weekend up to Mole National Park and Bolgatanga, we spent 50 hours in a bus for 44 hours of vacation time. The bus became our second home. Totally worth it though.
At one point the bus broke down and we were stuck on the side of the road for 3 hours, so we played Shoots and Laders, Hearts, and read books (and climbed on the roof, like James did).
Pictures from the canopy walk in Kakum Forest. The walk was almost a mile long, suspended over 100 feet above the forest floor. It was so cool, it felt like being a bird up there. And the canopy swayed gently (or swayed ominously, if you ask the boys who were afraid of heights haha) so that added to the adventure.
Casey and Zanny serving dinner. I joked that it was a bit like living on a comun -- each person had one day that they did everyone's dishes, one day that they cooked and set up breakfast, one day they did laundry. And everyone cleaned house after dinner. After doing dishes for fifteen people in a bucket, doing dishes for my family at home seems like nothing.
Lane, Casey, and I with some local boys we met.
In Kumasi, Rob -- being the adventurous eater he is -- decided to try fufu with bushmeat. It was a lump of thick-skinned meat with a nauseating odor. Rob tried one bite and couldn't go on. If Rob won't eat it, that's a really bad sign. I just tried the sauce and it made my tummy hurt. We placed bets on what kind of animal it was and the latest guess is a grasscutter (some type of local rodent).
At Castle Restaurant, every night a dancing/drumming group comes to practice their routine. There were like five guys on the drums and more dancing, it was really cool to watch.
One of my favorite memories was hiking to the Wlia Falls. The hike was strenuous -- two hours straight up a mountain -- but so worth it when we got to the huge waterfall with the clear swimming pool. I dove straight in at a full run :)
Look at how big the waterfall is! The dots at the bottom are people.
All of us together.
Just me.
Our goodbye party with the staff, teachers, and students at Asuansi Farm
Goodbye lunch with the people that had helped with our research
The eco-resort we stayed in at Bolgatanga. The flat roof on the right with the sticks on it is where we slept under the stars. The hut on the left with the green door was the girls' room for the first night.
Still the eco-resort, this is the dining area in the middle
Making the shea butter. First she has to cook the shells.
Baby Benjamin and I. His mom was the expert shea butter maker for the village so I got to hold him while she was hard at work. He has a little scar on his cheek because the tribe has a superstition that if a baby is born early and a bird with a long tail flies over the baby, it is bad luck. The only way to counter the bad luck is to cut the baby's face and put an herbal paste into the wound. This happened to little Benjamin so now he has a small scar. He was adorable though, sweet little four month old.
In Mole National Park, we went on a canoe ride. The village used to rely on hunting large animals before Mole became a natural reserve, so now they have to learn new income-generating activities. One experiment is canoe rides for tourists. We enjoyed it a lot. We didn't see many animals but it was very peaceful to float along the river for the morning.
We found this on the way to the river -- a cotton pod. The insides are used to make cotton. Even in this state, the insides are super soft, like a pillow.
One of the coolest parts of the trips was going on the safari. Here is our guide Abraham, who's been leading tours for 30 years. It's a walking safari so Abraham with his giant gun is our only protection. He looks like a bad ass though huh?
We had to walk very quietly to see any of the animals.
At the end we posed on top of the mountain, all the girls. Me, Lane, Divya, and Isabel.
Here's me with an elephant in the background.
Although the safari was very cool, it didn't end up being necessary to see animals -- they came to us. This is the elephant we saw on the safari that I had named Elmer. The next morning, he was outside our door, munching on the landscaping. Naughty Elmer!
Elmer and I are buddies.
A pack of elephants crossing the road. Casual.
Baboons were everywhere at the hotel. In the second picture, you can barely make out the fur, but I'm trying to take a picture of the baboon in the bus. I was laughing so hard that I forgot to focus the camera.
Cute little girl that loved Casey's sunglasses
Our last day in Mole. We spent a lot of bonding time together. In the top photos, I am wearing the African dress I had designed. In Ghana, they sell fabric everywhere so I picked out the fabric and brought it to a seamstress. She made me a traditional style dress with it.
The view from my bedroom window. Everything was so lush and green!
I already miss Ghana. One of my favorite parts was how welcoming the Ghanaians were to all of us. Everywhere we went, they would say, "Akwaaba" or "Welcome". What an amazing trip it was!
