As my host family waited for the moon to appear on the eve of August 21st, the Islamic holiday to mark the month of fasting, I nervously remembered that I told them that I would try fasting with them for the first week. This entails: waking up at 5am to eat porridge and drink tea...going back to sleep until 9am, doing low-energy labor until 3pm, avoiding grumpy, tired, hungry, dehydrated people until 7:25pm, and then eating more porridge tea and possibly bread. Welcome to Ramadan.
The only thing that kept me sane during this time was knowing that I was going on vacation to Ghana half way through Ramadan! We were held up a bit in Senegal waiting for our visa's to process, but we made the most of it, wandering around the HUGE city of Dakar (population about that of Gambia!) We ate Lebanese, Ethiopian, the Chinese food and gave eachother "trip names". We were now Pierre (James), Juanita (Tavi), RJ (Alex), Trinket (Annie), and Ezmerelda (Maggie).
Landing in Accra, Ghana was so exciting- despite the terrible jet-lag (that's for you mom...) we headed right to the beach- of course! The water was COLD and refreshing, I forgot what cold felt like! RJ and I went immediately into the water; diving through waves and body surfing; it was picturesque. Then we started noticing lots of trash floating in the water, RJ found a diaper. But we had the whole beach to ourselves- heavenly. Afterwards, we are informed that no one swims in that water because it is full of raw sewage. We lucked out: no E. Coli or unidentified skin infections.
Ghana is just at a different "development" level than The Gambia. There were overpasses, sidewalks, recycling bins, tourism, and locally made products like chocolate and liquid soap (I was just very impressed by the soap...) The street food was out of this world: fried plaintains, yogurt, donuts, eggs, beans, oh man. Thinking about it now makes me miss "Red-Red"-plaintains with beans and a little bit of oil. Oh yes, and they had various meats on skewers- beef, octopus, lobster, sausage. We went from protein deficient to protein overload in the matter of two days.
From Accra, we visited Hohoe- SO SO SO beautiful- we walked to Wli Falls and swam under the tallest waterfall in Ghana. The mist off the falls combined with the wind pierced our skin. It was a crazy feeling. We also hiked up the tallest free-standing mountain in Ghana, Mount Afadjato, - which was a harder one-hour hike than most of us thought it would be! We met some Ghana Peace Corps Volunteers and drank dark beer in Hohoe for a few days before heading northwest to Kumasi- one of the largest markets in West Africa. We bought pretty batik/tie-dyed fabric and beads! We went on a day-trip from Kumasi to Lake Bosomtwi, a sacred lake in Asante country. It was serene, quiet, and peaceful- perfect after a few days dodging traffic through the market.
From Kumasi, we headed south to the beach and stayed in Heaven. Well, if heaven was on earth, it might be in Butre beach. Beautiful, CLEAN, refreshing, quiet beach away from everything. About every ten minutes, one of us would say something like, "can you believe we are just sitting here on this amazing beach?!" or "I'm transferring my Peace Corps site to this hammock..." It was hard to leave Butre Beach, but we did get to Cape Coast for a day- thank you Uncle Sam and Mama Vic for letting us stay at your beautiful home for our last night in Ghana! When I go back to Ghana, I would love to spend more time in Cape Coast, home to the large slave house, which was a sombering experience. The town was rustic and energetic and since it's right on the beach, seafood galore!
Gambia could learn alot from Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah. In 1960, he made education and healthcare a priority and free for everyone. That has given them such a strong framework to success now. Obama recently visited Ghana, his first trip to Africa as president, which Ghanains were very proud of. There were just as many American flags and pictures of Obama as were Ghanain flags and pictures of their current president Mills. I felt particularly proud to be American while in Ghana.
We ALL forgot our cameras except for the wonderful Pierre and Juanita, so check out their blog at http://peacefultravelsoftaviandjames.blogspot.com for more details on our trip and to see some pictures!
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