We set sail in a couple hours for South Africa. Ghana was AMAZING! I absolutely loved it! The first couple days I went on a trip to Winneba, which is the sister city of Charlottesville, VA. The hotel was nice for Ghana, but awful by our standards, I had to share a bed with a girl I’d never met before, and the shower was literally a bucket of water. We met the mayor, chief fisherman, market queen, university students and some kids at a school. The were so welcoming, and seemed to just love us! They gave us gifts, and the young kids loved to have their pictures taken and gave us a million hugs!
Yesterday, I went to the rainforest, with Jocelyn, Laura, Megan, Tesia and Anthony. It poured down rain, go figure! We did a walk thru the canopies and a nature hike. It turned out to be an awesome day, 6 of us had to squish in a taxi, and take a Tro tro, which is a minivan. The food was so if-y here. Laura and I ate what seemed to be balls of dough that were supposed to be dipped in a soup type thing that had pieces of goat meat in it, and they don't give you silverware, you’re expected to use your hands. Jocelyn is picky like me, so she had chicken and fries lol but then in the taxi on the way home, she threw up out the window...unfortunately she was holding my backpack because Laura was sitting on my lap in the front seat, and she got some vomit on it and all over the door, the poor taxi driver had to clean it up :/
Last night I went dancing at a club with Evergreen. I got out of the taxi, took two steps, and fell in a concrete drainage ditch! It was hilarious, Evergreen could not stop laughing at me. One minute I'm beside her talking, next thing I know I'm in a hole about 3 feet deep! But I got a bunch of cuts on my hand, foot, bruise on my leg and my chin hit the sidewalk-- I was so close to knocking out my teeth! The bouncer took me inside (after everyone stopped laughing at me) and put what seemed like rubbing alcohol on my cuts, he was so nice! I'm hoping for a cool scar, so I can tell people I fell in a ditch in Ghana! They play this one song at the clubs all the time, it's called Waka Waka? All I can make out is that it says Africa somewhere in it, which might be why they played it 6 times last night.
And today I went to volunteer at an orphanage, where I fell down on a muddy hill, and made the cut on my hand even bigger, lol. The kids were WONDERFUL! They were so caring and sweet and loving. We brought them shoes because they had none. We just stayed the day and played with them. One little girl, Rachael, drew me a picture, and they loved my camera, I have almost 900 pictures just from the kids taking pictures. They all wanted hugs as we were getting ready to leave, and many kids wanted to go with us. One little boy said to a girl I was with "Please take me home, you can be my mom! I promise I will listen and be good!" It was heart-breaking to leave them. These kids have nothing… they wear the same clothes for a week, no shoes, their clothes have holes in them, they have no toys. We brought them crayons and coloring books, but they still smile and they are so selfless, so many kids offered us to have some of their lunch, and we couldn't bear eat the orphans food. Rachael did my hair, and when I hugged her goodbye, she said God bless you. As we drove away in the taxi, the kids stood there waving, and we all had tears running down our faces. It was horrible and wonderful all at the same time. Never again will I take anything for granted.
Ghana has been my favorite port so far, just because the people are so friendly! I gave out my email to so many Ghanaians, and the University students wanted to friend us all on Face Book. I used to fear these kind of people who asked for my name and contact info, but now I see it is because they genuinely want to be friends, and they called us their brothers and sisters.
I do have 2 bug bites. I took vitamin B, and bummed bug spray off Katherine and Megan, but still got some....here's hoping I don't get Malaria! lol
　
　
　
I absolutely LOVE Ghana! I was in a minor freak-out mode because I saw pictures of the rainforest, and I wanted to go there, and I also wanted to go to an orphanage, but I had an overnight FDP (Faculty-directed Practicum) for one of my classes. I almost did not go on the FDP, but in the end, the syllabus required we go to at least one of his FDPs. It was supposed to be about the court system, and I don’t understand/care about politics at all whatsoever.
We were to meet some Ghanaians from the courts that were coming to the ship, and they ended up being almost 2 hours late (Ghanaian time interpretation is different than ours, apparently!). They finally arrived, and we eat with them, give them a tour of the ship, and then we leave Takoradi to make our way to Winneba (the sister city to Charlottesville, VA, which my professor, David Toscano, was a past mayor of Charlottesville).
3 hours later, we arrive at the council building to meet the Mayor of Winneba. I had very little clue as to what was going on, since their accent is so thick, and sometimes they don’t speak English. We then make our way to a University Campus where we meet Ghanaian students and we have a sort of open discussion and Q&A with the students, who were very interested in Semester at Sea. After the discussion, we all had multiple students come up to us to shake our hands and just talk and many of them asked for our Face Book names (tho we won’t know if they friend us until we get internet again)!
Then we made our way to the hotel for dinner… the students stayed up and we just chilled and talked.
　
　
The next day, we went to an actual court hearing. It is towards the end of the rainy season, and it poured down rain, to the point of flooding and a bridge was supposedly out. But we lucked out and got to see a wedding in the court room!
We then left to go meet the Chief Fishermen of Winneba. We had a Q&A with them, but it was difficult because they did not speak English, but we had our inter-port lecturer Joe Baami (a person who rides the ship with us from one port to the next, and they live in the next port), and he interpreted for us.
We then went to a marketplace to meet the queen mother of the market. At first, it seemed they had no interest in meeting us, but the professor gave them a gift, then all of a sudden out of nowhere, all 20 of the women rush over to us, shaking our hands and hugging us and we are taking pictures with them and they bring us gifts, we all got a bracelet they make. We took pictures of the children too, and they loved to look at the pictures. The children would gather around us and pose. They just loved us!



We then moved on to a school to which we brought an indestructible football (soccer) ball that is supposed to represent peace. All the children of the school came running out to us and again loved the cameras! I sat on a step and kids were sitting on my lap and hugging me and I let them use my camera to take pictures of me, and showed them the pictures I took of them. They would come up to me and say, “Madame, what is your name please?” I would tell them, and ask their names, then shake their hands. These kids were amazing, they were so happy and had no fear of us, the white Americans who showed up out of nowhere and took their pictures. One boy even asked me what country I was from. I did not want to leave, it was such an amazing experience. And it was great, because it was not only us as students who were experiencing something like that for the first time, but Professor Toscano and his wife and their 12 year-old son, Matthew, was playing soccer with them. The photographer and the student affairs manager were all smiling and laughing and just having a wonderful time with these kids, who had probably never seen a camera before in their lives. There are slave dungeons still preserved in Ghana today. Seeing these kids makes me wonder how in the world could anyone have taken children like them into slavery? As we drove away, the kids waved and shouted good-bye! Kids everywhere in Ghana always wave, with the biggest smiles, when they saw our bus going by. We then had a special invitation to meet back at the town council.
　

We arrive to meet up with Emmanuelle, one of the university students we had met the night before. He is in charge of a youth group, and about 6 of them came and presented us with Ghanaian bags, as a token of our “brotherhood”, and a letter inviting us to always be welcome in Winneba. The mayor also presented SAS (Semester At Sea) with a large wooden wall hanging and a glass replica of the council building of Winneba to take back to the ship with us. These people were so friendly, from the small children, to the university students, to the town elders, to the women in the market place. I cannot even explain how it felt to be so accepted by these people, who were so warm and welcoming, or how it feels to be hugged by one of the small children, or the excitement in the face of a student when I say of course I’ll be your friend on Face Book, or the smiles of the women in the marketplace as they embraced us like family, even though we could not understand each other’s languages.