Wow where do I even begin? So much has happened since my last post.

I'll start with my weekend since it was incredible. Last week I had a bit of a low moment. I was doing laundry by hand after hauling buckets up and down the hill until my arms ached, and then individually scrubbing and ringing out each item. It took over four hours to do a small bag of laundry, and I was sweating in the beating sun. That was my grouchiest moment of the trip. I was thinking of how easy laundry would have been if I had stayed home and was really ready for some amenities.

Luckily the next morning we had plans to go to Accra, so we boarded to a Tro Tro and headed out. We got to Accra at around 9pm, and stayed at the hotel we had stayed when I first came in, the simple but bright and friendly one on the beach. It has the most beautiful view overlooking the ocean and you can hear the waves at night, and look at the stars. I was so happy to be there. I took a cold shower (almost running water -- there was a short tap in the wall to fill up a cup with) and felt like a new person. We had fresh veggie wraps and I called my family and I felt really happy to be in Ghana again.

The next day we had an appointment to meet with the Minister of Education for Ghana. I was a bit nervous, because this is the most senior person in all of Ghana for Education and I'm just a college kid. I wore a button down and some slacks and headed over. Unfortunately, she was not in the office and wouldn't be back until 11am. We went back to the hotel to check out, and at 11, we called the office to see if she was in. She wasn't. We ate lunch, then called again, and finally she was in the office. We walk two miles back again to the Ministry and sit in the waiting room. The waiting room was air-conditioned, which is the first time I have felt air-conditioning on this whole trip, and it added to the meeting's sense of importance. We waited and waited for over an hour before someone told us that she would be in a meeting until later that night, and since we couldn't wait that long, we had to leave. They showed us to another office and had us wait for an hour to meet with the Minister of Tertiary Education.

It was a bit frustrating, but as my dad said, "Welcome to Africa". Their sense of time and schedules here is so insanely different than ours in America that you can't do anything but go with it. It's funny, at home, if you are five minutes late to an official meeting, it looks really bad. In Ghana, if you are an hour late, no one bats an eye. It's normal even. I've been pretty good at just going with it though. Most times it's out of your control so no use fussing over it.

Anyway we eventually got to meet with the Minister of Tertiary Education and she was helpful, but also showed me how removed from reality the government is. She had all of these glowing reforms that the government has done or hopes to do for girls' education, but I've gone to the rural villages and talked to the primary students there and the glowing reforms are no where to be seen. It's weird how big the discrepancy is.

After the meeting, we met up the rest of the fellows who didn't go to Accra (only Casey, Lorenzo, Liz and I had meetings in Accra, the rest came later). It was great seeing everyone again; even though it had been less than 24 hours apart, it felt like a long time. I guess that's what happens when you spend nearly every minute of every day for two weeks together. We are all becoming super tight.

We took a TroTro (small, cramped van btw) to Hohoe which was an eight hour drive. It took forever getting out of Accra traffic. It may even be worse traffic than LA traffic, believe it or not. Finally we got to Hohoe at 11pm where another TroTro was waiting to take us to Wlia for the waterfalls. Tired and silly-looopy from being too long in the car, we boarded and drove. It felt like a horror movie -- it was midnight, winding through the jungle, with a car full of obrunis (white people) who have no idea where they are going. Oh man.

We finally got to the hotel and are looking around for what to do since there is no obvious front adminitration building or anything. Just little huts and an open-air pavilion. Out of the shadows comes a skinny, German lady with gray hair that looked like Albert Einstein. She is wearing a tie dye shirt and looks a lot like a meth head. She asks who our leader is and we all push Casey forward, since he's the one that made the travel plans. She starts ripping into him about getting there late, screaming at him for not calling her, yelling that this isn't a four star hotel, and that we are spoiled kids, and what is the world coming to, and threatening to kick us out into the jungle to fend for ourselves....it got pretty intense. Casey sometimes has a temper, so even-keeled Rob had to push him aside and discuss matters with her.

Finally we settle into our rooms, while she continues to grumble and mumble about us. At first I was pissed that she would talk to customers like that. But then I thought about it from her point of view -- she is the only one at the hotel. She does cooking, cleaning, and managing all by herself with one Ghanian and we pulled her out of her bed to settle us into her room. That wasn't that nice of us. So I can understand her anger, even if it was a bit disproportionate to what we did.

The next morning we got up early to hike the waterfalls. You have to pay for a guide (no one is allowed to hike it without a guide -- first red flag). We start along a wide winding dirt path and I'm like ha this is easy. Then we make a sharp right, and the guide starts handing out walking sticks, picking them out for us based on our height and build. Aron, the sassy one of the group, thinks, "what a cute novelty" when he sees the sticks. However, they don't turn out to be novelty -- they are absolutely necessary. We spend the next three hours climbing straight up a cliff. It's 95 degrees out and I'm breathing like mad. I don't think I've ever sweat that much. I joked that my body was the waterfall.

We keep climbing and climbing, splitting up a bit as some people go faster and some go slower. At one point I hear shrieks and the guide says, "listen! some of your group is already there!" I don't know whether the shrieks are happy or scared and they sound a bit like a wild monkey so I hurry up. After a few more minutes, I walk into a clearing, and see the most beautiful natural sight I have ever seen. A wide, shallow pool has collected at the bottom of the most enormous waterfall imaginable. It's not gently cascading over rocks -- it's shooting off the top of a cliff and raining down, at least 60 feet of airborn water. I strip off my sweaty, dirty clothes (I'm wearing a bathing suit), and run straight into the water. Some of my group is already there, standing on a clump of rocks, about five feet from the base of the waterfall. I join them and look up, arms outstretched. All around me was water pouring down and i could barely see with all the water on my face. It was so beautiful. I don't even know why, but it made me incredibly happy.

We splashed around and played in the water for an hour, until little Liz's lips where purple, even though she was bundled in the boy's clothes. There was a strong breeze coming off the fall and the water was cold, so we all got a bit chilly and decided to hike back down. It was a long hike down, but my body felt less hot and we (Lane, Divya, Lorenzo, and I) played 21 Questions on the way down.

That night we had a party in our hotel rooms, all hanging out together. I brought out my friendship bracelet thread at one point and we started making bracelets for each other. Lane made me a red, yellow, and green one (the colors of Ghana), that I told her I will wear until it falls off.

Sunday we headed home. It was a very very long TroTro ride (like 12 hours) and I was on the make-shift seat that was 80% broken so it wasn't that comfy. It's okay though. We got home, and settled back in.

Today has already been interesting. It was my first day setting off alone, with no other fellows with me. I was happy to have a bit of time alone to relax and think. I walked to the Asuansi Tech School to ask if I could interview the students for my project. I got bounced around from office to office finally settling on Mr. Fin the counselor (a bit like Margo's job!) and Rebecca, the lady in charge of the female students. She told me that the girls were all in class right now but that tonight was their session. I guess she holds weekly discussions with the girls (there are only 81 girls out of 1,200 students in the school) to discuss self-esteem, career, health, etc. A bit like WYSE. She welcomed me to attend tonight and to talk to the girls then. I'm stoked to do that, I think it will be really beneficial. She also gave me a whole handbook on female education in Ghana, with what the nation, regional, district, and local officials are doing to help more girls attend. It's everything I need to know for my essay, in one handbook, and I couldn't believe my luck. I'm having it photo-copied right now while I type this. It was very helpful.

So now I am headed to meet the other fellows for lunch in Cape Coast at our favorite vegetarian restaurant, Babao House. It's become kind of our central hub in Cape Coast. They have delicious fresh salads and veggie pizzas, which is a nice break from rice and oil-laden meat (that's yummy too, just nice to have a change). So Casey and I are headed there now.