My Life in Accra

My blog so far must sound as if we are constantly travelling restlessly through Ghana. That is not true, however, I have been thoroughly enjoying the past few weeks in Accra and on Legon Campus. In fact, the weeks are passing by so quickly that it scares me sometimes. I'm nowhere near ready to even think about going back home, yet the semester here is drawing closer to its end in mid-December (that is not to say my time in Ghana, though).

I love watching the sunrise at 6am during the crosscountry-training, it's become a routine to visit the seamstress every week to get another Ghanaian dress, I start freezing at 24°C, I know the little bumps and puddles on my ways around campus like the back of my hand, I don't want to stop hearing the lovely sound of Twi around me, leave alone the (less mysterious) Pidgin, I don't want to take my eyes off the colourful clothes, I am still excited putting on my own Ghanaian dresses, Hiplife moves my feet day and night, embarking on a full-blown shopping trip to Makola Market is thrice as strenous but also four times as exciting as walking around in some shopping centre, and … „Obroni, what do you want! Obroni, I love your country“. - ...and „Oh, Obibini, I love your country even more!“

The  Registry on the hill, along my favourite jogging track  on campus

First Ghanaian dress

Fabrics out of which I had the next four dresses made...

Ghanaian Hiplife - this one promoting monogamy...so dance away!

Many of the things that may have seemed inconvenient, strange, or new almost three months ago are now the normalities of daily life:

Volta Region

Mountains,Waterfalls & Lakes – The wanderlust got me even in Ghana

As I have experienced it before, especially in New Zealand, once 

you think you have seen the most inspiring, peaceful, amazing place, you go around the corner and think This is it!

I felt similarly on our way to and through the Volta Region - one week after Kumasi and Bosumtwi. As soon as we'd crossed the Volta River near Atimpoku in a car and taken a quick glance at the glistening water, and as soon as the peaks of the Togo mountain range appeared, a slight feeling of home crept in. Mountains and water always give me this feeling, be it that they remind me of Bavaria or the fact that my parents used to 'drag' me accross every mountain they could find when I was little (for which I am very grateful now:).

Gladly, the four of us, Julia, Lilith and Jojo, were so full of wanderlust that after our first night in Hohoe, we didn't hesitate once at walking, or rather hiking, to the Upper Wli Falls, close to the Togolese border. Our Ghanaian guide Anthony was wearing pink flipflops, hello, it couldn't be that hard! 

Anthony, our guide, and me  (looking huge)

Never underestimate a guide half your size, wearing 0,50€-flipflops but even more so, never underestimate the beauty of this country that will be your reward. 

Wli Falls

After almost two sweaty hours of hiking up a steep path through the thick forest (somewhere referred to as a semi-traitorous walk), gorgeous views onto the Volta Region and Wli waterfall, we had finally reached the upper Wli falls. 

If we'd thought, we had also reached the highest level of wetness without actually jumping into the water, we were wrong, we reached it after standing in the cool spray of the waterfalls for 2 mins. We rested a bit, dried a bit and fed our starving guide with some of our cookies and water (he had finished his own earlier on) and walked or slided back down the mountain. Our search for a rewarding meal at night ended up in the dark due to a major blackout. We saw nothing in the streets, so to avoid falling into the open gutter, we went for another maccaroni cheese at our Grand Hotel.

The following day we made our way up to the promising Mountainparadise Lodge, near Mt Gemi, 2^nd highest mountain in Ghana. It started with an interesting trotro-ride: The car was packed with obronis, who, not knowing how they could get to where they thought they were going, had just followed the four of us. Please, if I ever have to sit in a car with such naive German volunteers again, I will either get a Schreikrampf or I'll have to get off immediately. I have no idea how people with so little clue of anything and lack ofindependence get sent to Ghana to volunteer. Rather more exciting was the fact that our driver had no license and looked underaged (plus he was driving around 11 Oburonis) so the car was bound to be halted at the next police barrier. The police man seemed really fussy, too. However, just as the driver had gotten out of the car and followed the police man, he came back and drove on. The price: Probably 1 Ghana Cedi (0,50€). I call it pseudo-corruption...

The 4 ½ km walk from Fume up to Mountainparadise Lodge was a little harder than expected. We should have known that a mountainparadise cannot be accessed on a straight road...Luckily some guys on their motorbikes came past halfway, so in all our exhaustion we once again we forgot this thing called 'safety' and got on somebody's bike with our backpacks, shorts and no helmets...

As my Spanish teacher put it: This is Ghana, you have to improvise!

on my way to the bar ;)

The Lodge didn't have its name for no reason (another paradise :)), they served coffee, the best groundnutsoup (NamE: peanutnut) in Ghana so far; we had the nicest mountain-panorama from the bar where we hung out eating snickers and drinking Club beer after our hikes, and, nice for a change, we could wear a jumper and socks in the evening without sweating the least bit (Which shouldn't mean that I'm complaining about the heat, though...).

 Jojo's and my disappoinment at the crappy mountainbikes, which did not have brakes or gears and were therefore unsuitable for going up Mt Gemi, was soon gone after we'd decided to follow the girls hiking up Mt Gemi (840m) via Amedzofe, a former German mission. From the -also German- Gipfelkreuz or cross, we could see as far as Lake Volta.

Amedzofe in the background, Mt. Gemi ahead of us

Biakpa village on the left, Mountainparadise on the right

Lake Volta as seen from the dam

On the fourth day, on our way back from the Volta Region to Accra, we had to get on and off an amazing 7 different vehicles to get back to Accra (in between lay a short sightseeing tour on the huge Akosombo dam in between the lake and river Volta). After our past trips, this one was probably the nicest and most pleasant one, not at last because of the local people, the Ewe, who greeted us with a friendly „You're welcome“ everywhere we went. It has also been the only place so far, where I could walk along the mainstreet by myself without dealing with a marriage proposal, friend request or missionaries - sometimes it's nice to be out of the focus of attention. Once again, I said to myself, I'll be back.

Kumasi and Lake Bosumtwi

It has been a while since I've written anything since I was just going with the flow and enjoying life in Ghana. After the previously mentioned trips to the Eastern Region (Koforidua) and Cape Coast, is was time to spend a weekend in Accra. However, in the following week the next trip was already on: Kumasi in the Ashanti Region. This time we were wise enough to leave on Thursday to avoid the insane Friday traffic. VIP busses -which are as comfy as they sound :)- serve the Accra-Kumasi road regularly, i.e. whenever the coach is full. Interestingly though, the road linking the two biggest cities of Ghana was partly untared and left me with the feeling of sitting on horseback rather than in a bus, which was nice anyway since I haven't done that in a while. After the first night at mouldy Guestline Lodge, out of health reasons we moved to the very clean Presby Guesthouse and then hit Keyetia Market, the biggest open market in West Africa. I guess all four of us, experienced shoppers that we are, had their imaginary shopping lists in mind while we stumbled accross the market. We went from the mobile phone section to the clothes, to the shoes, to the slipper-makers, to the fabrics, to the clothes, to the anything-you-could-ever-need section, to the ...abbatoir. We had not fully realized it until a guy came past us carrying a huge severed cattle head on his shoulders. Careful not to bump into any of the pigfeet, cow- and horseheads, trying to avoid the women carrying fish and meat on big plates on their heads and eager not to breathe we finally managed to find our way out again. In the end, this huge market was not a huge success when it comes to shopping but it was worth the experience. Now Makola market in Accra doesn't seem so big after all and now that we've made quite a few market visits, we've come to understand the system behind Ghanaian markets and most importantly, bargaining.

Just found our way out of the market...Sorry I  didn't take any photos in the abbatoir :P

Somehow, despite being the second biggest city after Accra, Kumasi seemed more relaxed, less packed with traffic and not at all like a 1,5 mio city. Nevertheless, we left Kumasi for Lake Bosumtwi the next day already. It took us 2,5 trotro- and one taxi-ride, plus a nice 4,5 km walk along the lake to reach Rainbowgarden Village. The short but sudorific walk with our trekking backpacks made me reminiscent of of my last hiking trips. (Hello to my hiking buddies, especially Karin and Lina and thanks for sharing some of the most wonderful experiences with me!) Anyway, the location where we stayed looked like paradise (that is, my imagination of paradise). 

Lake Bosumtwi

It was right at Lake Bosumtwi and probably the only place we'd been to so far where there were no cars, no (plastic) waste, no pollution (which invariably comes with cars here as they have no exhaust filters), where it was peaceful, quiet and nature as far as once could see. Certainly, until then, it was one of the most beautiful spots in Ghana I'd seen. By the looks of it and from what I've read, the lake is a meteorite crater, it is round and fringed by green hills.

Fishermen

Rainbowgardenvillage

I told myself I'd go back there a second time but by now I have seen parts of the Volta Region and once again decided it was even nicer than what I have seen before...To be continued...