Akwaaba, Abla Lorlorgme

Well what to say about Ghana, honestly this post could be ten times longer than all of the others but how dare I torture you all with long posts, especially since some of you named Jessica DeSalva complained…oh look you got a shout out. So our ship docked two hours late into Ghana we went around in circles for quite some time and the only good thing that came out of it was the whale watching. Little did we know this prolonged berthing would set the tone for the entire Ghanian experience. I decided last minute the night before we go to Ghana to go on the city tour since Collin wasn’t going to use his ticket. It ended up being really lame but oh well. We went to the University of Ghana, Legon, and then went to the memorial of the first President of Ghana which was the beautiful structure in all of Ghana the cleanest. We then headed to the Cultural Arts Center which was really a cool name for the shops and markets much like the souks of Morocco but way more intense. After shopping there we headed to the W.E.B DuBois center which was his house before he died when he came back to Ghana and so we toured his house and his office. After the tour I headed to the Welcome Reception at Ashei University which is where our interport student Nii was from. We got to learn some traditional Ghanian dancing from their “dance group” at the university as well as talk with numerous students about their country and they asked ours. We headed back to the ship as I had another long day ahead of me involving the Wli Waterfalls and Mona Monkeys. Denim was on this trip with me which made it amazing! We did lots of driving through Ghana’s dirt roads and finally reached the waterfalls where we hiked and crossed the same river 11 times. Once we reached the falls though, it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. Hawaiian waterfalls have nothing on Wli, we splashed around and the let rushing downfall puncture our eyes and contacts the headed back to the little community and did some shopping. After we left we proceeded to the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary where we fed the monkeys bananas, and continued to play with the children in the village there. Got back to the ship rather late and decided to not do my habitat for humanity the next day because I heard it was another 8 hours of driving and I just couldn’t do that anymore. So instead I hung out with Andy, Rachel, and Yvette and we went into Tema and had some amazing legit Chinese food, best dumplings ever…yes they have Chinese in Ghana, don’t ask. Then we went to the market and bougth some groceries for the ship, you know survival stuff like soda chips and candy so we don’t spend a dollar every day. Then we headed back to the ship for a little RnR and then proceeded into Accra to do some shopping, where  I got some cool hats, and I bought my hand carved and handmade Ghanian drum! It’s soooo cool! I was also hanging out with our LLC Mario at this point and we had some epic adventures of our own going around looking for food and what not since he forgot to read his green sheet and he didn’t have access to a bank because he had MasterCard, future SASers read your green sheet…ALWAYS. Anyway the last day was by far the coolest cultural experience I had while in Ghana and will forever be a part of me, and that’s where the title of this blog comes from. I went to the Torgorme Village where I was given a traditional name of Abla Lorlorgme, it means Loveday…(I am finishing this blog post-South Africa, so some of you might find what my name means particularly funny like I did). We then proceeded to dance and listen to music and hang out with the village people until a torrential downpour happened…are you seeing a pattern now? Then we headed to where we were going to visit a bat cave, which was an epic adventure. Since the rain fell, the dirt of Ghana is clay and our bus couldn’t go to the point where we just hike to the cave, so we walked in mud, and Barbara one of the Lifelong Learners, who is actually in her late 20s who pretty much is a Barbie, was trekking through the mud like she owend the place it was awesome. Then we were thinking we would walk into the cave, oh no, I was legit rock climbing and scaling, and it smelled like bat pee. Gross! Whatever, it was interesting. Anyway, we made it back to the ship and got on, and man did I have the time of my life. It was hard to see the shape that Ghana was in but great to see the steps towards their new democracy. They definitely are on their way to becoming a better country. It’s hard seeing malnourished children and complaining about eating the same thing every day on the ship, so I guess I don’t have much to complain about anymore. I complain because there’s salada, cheese, pasta, potatoes, and some funky meat or fish and steamed vegetables everrry day but these kids are lucky if they get at least one thing. Over all I think I learned a lot from Ghana, the people are so friendly they are also in love with Obama (it was really hard to bite my tongue), and they enjoy Americans, it was by the far the first country we felt most welcome…probably because we were the largest group of Americans ever to visit Ghana at one time. By the way…Akwaaba, means welcome.
Ashley

(sorry this is only two and a half weeks late…)