I know it's a little late to be saying that, so I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend! It turns out that Ghana shares its Independence Day with Canada, July 1st. So I've been busy celebrating the birth of nations all week. Ghana is quite a bit younger than the US, at only a little over 50 years old. There wasn't a big fuss about it here--no parades, no fireworks, no cook-outs. The schools were closed, however, so Shawn (a friend from CCS), Koffie (a Ghanaian friend) and I decided to take a day trip to Ho, a nearby city about 2 hours away. We took a tro-tro, which are notorious for being known by visitors to Ghana as both uncomfortable and terrifying to ride in. They are vans that fit about 12 passengers on hard seats with far too little leg room. On the way there, my seat was loose and I rocked back and forth the whole way. On the way back, we dropped off and picked up travelers along the way, and at one point we were crammed in 4 to a row. It was worth it though--Ho was a really nice city to visit. Bigger than Hohoe, it actually boasted sidewalks, covered drainage culverts along the streets, and traffic lights! It was a more picturesque city as well--trees lined the streets, for example. We went to the Volta Region museum, which was small but interesting. They had artifacts from the region, including tribal swords and thrones, traditional drums and musical instruments, and artwork from and about the area. Koffie grew up in Ho, so he showed us around town. He asked if we wanted to see the soccer stadium, which he said we big. As it turns out it was scarcely larger than my high school football stadium. Afterwards, we walked a ways along the streets of the city to the market, which was similar to Hohoe's, just larger. They have everything at the markets, from meats and produce to clothing and electronics. They are covered and dark, and a little intimidating with all the people around, but they have some cool stuff there. From the market, we took the tro-tro back to Hohoe.
For American Independence Day, we took a hike up to the upper Wli Waterfalls. I'd already been to the lower falls, it's an easy 45-minute walk through the rainforest on generally flat ground. The hike to the upper falls is quite a bit more rigorous. It's as vertical as the Afadjato mountain hike I did my second week here, longer, and requires a little bit of climbing up rock faces. On the way I could occasionally catch a glimpse of the two sections of waterfalls together, upper cascading down the rocks to the lower, reminding me of the prize at the end of the exhausting hike. When we reached the pool at the bottom of the upper falls, I went from being nearly the hottest I've been here to the coolest. The temperature fell tremendously and the wind coming from the rushing water could almost knock you down. Despite the temperature, I still swam out into the pool and climbed the rocks at the bottom to sit under the water falling down from the peak of the mountain overhead, which serves as the border with Togo. The hike back down was pretty tough as well, mostly because my legs were tired and I had to take care not to slip on a rock and fall down the side of the mountain to my certain death. I'm definitely happy to say that I've seen all of the famous Wli Waterfalls.
On the ride back, we stopped on the side of the road for firewood, which we strapped to the top of the van. Just after arriving back at the home base, we went out into town in search of hot dogs. We stopped at a frozen foods place--they usually sell frozen chicken, beef, and other local meats, but we asked for sausage. She took us behind the shack through the alley and to someone's home. Just when we thought maybe we'd asked the wrong question, she came back out with a package of hot dogs. The label revealed that they were chicken franks, but we still bought 2 packages of 10 each. After a successful trip, we arrived back at the home base and began arranging the firewood in the front yard to build our bonfire. We lit the fire after a while with the help of some gasoline. For a couple hours a few of us sat around the fire, cooked hot dogs, and even improvised smores with marshmellow cookies (like moon pies) and "biscuits" (sweet crackers). Some people played the drums they'd bought. It was a good American 4th of July celebration all the way in Africa.
My volunteer placement at Suzzy Mothercare continues to go well. I always aim to write more about it, but I end up taking up all my time talking about the stuff I don't do almost every day. More and more lately, the teacher has been leaving the class to myself. I often teach the whole day, with him just comining in and out sporatically. I have no idea where he goes or what he does, but in my experience it's common for teachers to do that here. I've been using various methods to teach mostly addition and English spelling and reading, and I've been happy to see some progress in the students. I discovered early on that they don't know what sound each letter represents, making it tough for them to spell and read (again, they always rely on memorization). I'm trying to teach that, but it's proven to be a laborious process. They love it when I read stories, so I usually reward them for good behavior with that. The kids are great; it will be really hard to leave them in a couple weeks. It will be a long time before I get that much attention and love all the time. On Friday I had them make Ghana flags and signs for the football game, which they loved. Unfortunately I guess they didn't cheer hard enough like I'd asked them to, because Ghana fell in an exciting game to Uruguay which went to penalty kicks. If you didn't hear about it look up the game recap on ESPN or something, it was a great game.
That was a long post--if you made it through thanks for reading! Take care, everyone!
