Thunder Road

Journals are always hardest to type when so much as happened that you don’t really know where to begin. Such is the case with myself at the current moment. I think last time I sat down at my computer to actually put together something intellectual was around mid-may. My most exciting adventure in that time as been a trip to Ghana, but I certainly have other interesting tales to tell as well. Therefore, let us begin with the “end” of school.

Although the “end” of my school year is not technically until the end of this month, for all sanity purposes, I am done teaching. Due to my previously planned vacation, I actually wrapped up a years worth of forgotten information the week before I left for Ghana. For my last week of teaching, I decided two things were true: my students needed some serious revision and I didn’t want to teach. Therefore, with these two seemingly contrasting ideas I came up with a rather ingenious plan--open book quizzes. Going through all of my lesson plans from the year and exercise books alike, I devised two ridiculously hard and long quizzes that my students were allowed to do in groups and with their notes. Without knowing it, they were reviewing everything that I had taught them over the year and all I had to do was sit back and make sure that no one cheated by talking to another group. Mission accomplished.

Besides my clear brilliance, my other end of school year story is about a girl named Bev-ly who shocked and surprised me in the most unusual of ways. She was one of the students throughout the entire year who always showed up to class but never seemed particularly interested in learning English nor was she ever particularly amused by my in classroom antics. It seemed as though she was really only in my class because she had no other place to be; it seemed as though she was just ready to ride it out until the end of the year. However, on our last day together, after I announced that this would be the last class and all the other students had joyfully filed out of the classroom, there sat Bev-ly with her arms folded on her desk, head down. As I walked over to her, it became clear that my initial instinct was wrong--I thought she had fallen asleep--it was clear that someone else was happening, something strange, she was crying. Two other students were standing in the doorway so I asked them why Bev-ly was crying, and they told me something that shocked me even further--they told me that she was crying because of me, because she was sad that I was going away. Having to stop myself from laughing, I assured her that I was coming back next year and that with any luck I would be her teacher in the next grade, too. She seemed unconvinced and I was still unconvinced that she was crying about me--I thought that surely something else had happened to make her behave like this. Anyway, after several minutes of my reassurances, she lifted up her head and said she was okay to walk home, so off we went in our separate paths. The surprises did not stop there, however. For the following three nights until my departure to Ghana I was presented at my door with two huge mangoes. Each night the mangoes were delivered by other students with the message, “These are from Bev-ly.” Very strange. Very strange indeed. Did she really have that strong of an emotional attachment to me? Was she just trying to earn some brownie points before the final grades were decided? Could it have been just a simple act of kindness? Whatever the case, it was quite an interesting way to end my first year of teaching.

After the “end” of school, I traveled down to Cotonou for a few days for the Peer Support Network (PSN) training of which I was accepted into despite my lack of PAL experience at Mattawan High School. The training lasted two days and was rather uneventful although informative. In spite of the incredibly warm and friendly atmosphere, I still became rather embarrassed during a group bonding exercise when I became the only one who didn’t step forward to the statement “Step forward if you like your post.” Even to this moment, I can’t really say why I didn’t step forward even though my body was compelled to do so. It’s not that I don’t like my post, because there are a lot of things and people here that make Manigri really special to me, I suppose that it’s more of a matter of constant rollercoaster of ups and downs at post that make me question my likeability towards the place. I mean how can I dislike a place where I have an old man push me through a pile of mud because I got stuck halfway through on my bike--but how can I also like a place where I have developed an “antisocial” route for days when I just cannot force myself to take the main route through village because of the harassment? I hope that near the end of my service I will find answers, but I have a deeper feeling that I will continue to struggle with my mixed emotions about Manigri well after I have returned home.

Ramming up against the end of the PSN training was the beginning of my trip to Ghana. Together with a fellow volunteer, Alex, we left the morning of the 6th of June. Failing to procure tickets early enough for a direct bus line that drives straight from Cotonou, Benin to Accra, Ghana; we were forced to go to the taxi station and wait for a taxi driving to the Togo-Ghana border. Finding the taxi was the easy part but securing the taxi was the surprisingly hard part. You see, we found a taxi right away, but it wasn’t full so we had to wait (waiting for a taxi to fill can take anywhere from seconds to hours). It wasn’t long after sitting down that Alex remembered that we were going to buy cashews to bring to our respective host families that we would be staying with in Ghana. As no new fellow passengers seemed to be in sight, I volunteered to go out and look for some cashews. Making a long story short, the light drizzle the started when I began my search quickly became much more and as all the stands moved inside out of the rain, I was obliged to walk 25 minutes across town to a supermarket. When I arrived at the supermarket wet and tired, I got a panicked phone call from Alex asking where I am and saying the taxi is ready to go…immediately. Now, frazzled and wet and tired, I grab the cashews and take off running in the rain back to the taxi station. Sadly enough, I arrive just in time to see the taxi pulling out of its parking spot and out onto the road with only ONE passenger inside--he had apparently rented the entire taxi for himself. For lack of any other emotional response at the moment, I started quietly crying and went over to sit on a bench alone while the rain continued to mock me. My state of being must have looked quite pathetic indeed as the taxi drivers began to frantically organize another taxi for Alex and I. Alex, who was clearly frustrated as well, was able to negotiate a really good price and before we knew it, we were off to Ghana in our very own, completely rented out taxi--cashews in hand.

Arriving into Ghana was a fairly smooth process, stressful, but easy enough. We had some hiccups when we arrived at the Togo-Ghana border. First, there was some asshole (excuse me) of a guy who grabbed my arm as I was passing the border line while saying, “Hey there pretty lady,”--this is just so unbelievably inappropriate I don‘t know where to begin. Perhaps the only amusing part of the situation is that caught up in a flurry of anger and forgetting how to speak English, the first words out of my mouth were, “No touch!” Alex was walking in front of me at the time and straightened the guy out big time after I told him what happened. Thus, I learned my first Ghanaian lesson, men in Ghana are also idiots--at least I know some things don’t change across borders. The second encountered hiccup was at the actual Ghanaian border crossing. There was some guard there who was asking to see our WHO medical cards. Confused and disoriented because we were sure that we didn’t need them to cross borders we told the official that we didn’t have them. He asked what we were going to do and then proceeded to suggest that we give him one dollar each as a compromise. Only after we regained our senses did we realize that we just got bamboozled and that we were victims of total corruption. The Ghanaian officials tried this again with us as we crossed back into Togo, but we were much wiser the second time around and asked for a receipt and for the official’s name and number so that we could contact the Peace Corps office in Ghana with our little WHO card problem. They said that there was no receipt and that we should just remember to bring our cards next time and for us to have a nice day. Alex was quite happy that we were not fooled a second time--a small victory for foreign travelers everywhere. Our third and final bump was that we, very foolishly, let some guy carry my bag across from Togo into Ghana. We thought that he was an owner of a taxi and that we would just hop in his car and head to Accra. After realizing that this was clearly not the case, it was already too late--he was just some Togolese man trying to earn a cheap buck off stupid white travelers. We got away without giving him too much, but it was still frustrating to have committed such a rookie mistake. Nevertheless with these several incidents behind us, we were finally off to Accra and off to an amazing week of adventures.

Without going into too much detail, as I have honestly forgotten every little last part, I will attempt to do my best to summarize from here on out the good and the bad of our Ghanaian adventure.

To begin our journey, we started in Accra. I can only say that words will fail me here if I try to describe how shockingly different it was from Cotonou, Benin, let only our respective villages in Benin. It is a city that if it continues moving in a positive direction, if it does not fall to corruption, if it can develop a better infrastructure for its booming economy, it will be able to become a model and a capital for all of West Africa maybe even all of Africa in many years time. Our time in Accra, though the lengthiest stay on our voyage, seemed to fly by rather quickly. We spent our few days there walking around the city, eating cheeseburgers, pizzas, and ice cream, going to the Accra mall, spending a day at the beach, and visiting a couple museums. One particular highlight was that we were lucky enough to stay with an amazing host family; there were not only kind and insightful, but they, too, served us magnificent cuisine. Alex was excited to learn that the eldest brother of the family had dual citizenship in Ghana and England and thus Alex and he were able to talk government and policy and a great deal of other things which sailed straight over my head. I was more entertained by continually hilarious football commentary that was being provided by the father of the family in addition to his incredibly contagious laugh. There were a great host family, and they certainly made our introduction to Accra and to Ghana much easier.

From Accra, we headed down to Cape Coast. It was from this location that we visited Kakum National Park and Cape Coast castle. A real highlight for me was at Kakum were Alex and I walked along a 350 meter long canopy walk. Sure it was a little tourist and there wasn’t really any wildlife to be seen from our vantage point, but it was still really beautiful to be amongst nature and amongst the trees--there was something very serene about looking around and seeing nothing but a vast landscape of green. The castle of Cape Coast was also very interesting, we were a little pressed for time so we opted out of the tour and instead took our own little jaunt around the huge stone structure. In all reality, the real highlight of Cape Coast was the beachside reasturant located next to the castle. Smartly sticking to the Chef’s specialties, Alex dined on steak and real mashed potatoes smothered in a mushroom gravy sauce one night and pancakes stuffed with fresh mangoes, papayas, and apples covered in syrup the next morning--all while enjoying a nice costal ocean breeze.

Heading out of the south and into the central region, we took a bus to Kumasi (using the same bus line that not a day later crashed into a semi truck on the way to Accra killing 21 people-yikes). Getting into Kumasi was the easy part, getting in touch with our second host family was the hard part. However, several phone calls down the phone tree later, everything was worked out and as exhausted as we were at the end of the day, Alex and I couldn’t help but smile when we heard that we were being driven to the “guest house.” What would traveling in Africa be without a little adventure anyway. The next day was busy as we were ushered around Kumasi by our host brother. He took using to two fantastic museums and down into the huge central market of Kumasi. Alex and I were hoping to do some shopping for kente cloth and other fabric but it was quickly clear to us that by doing so we were asking for a headache for greater than whatever satisfaction we would gain by finding our cloth--the place was just too big. Instead, we were taken to the black market money exchange section where we were able to get a really good exchange rate on our Beninese CFA into Ghanaian CD. We returned home in the afternoon after our jaunt into the market and were able to catch the two EuroCup football matches of the day. Unfortunately, we had to leave the next day, but not before meeting the mother of the family we were staying with in Kumasi. She was an incredibly kind and generous woman and though our encounter was brief, she stocked Alex and I with loads of fruit for the road ahead (one pineapple, four apples, three oranges, and 10 bananas). We left Kumasi heading north for Tamale, once again we were grateful to have had the opportunity to have stayed with such an amazing and generous host family.

Our stay in Tamale was brief and rather unmemorable. It was mainly a stopping point before heading west to Mole National Park. We were unfortunate enough to trust an outdated traveler’s guide and stayed at a place that had overrated rooms and overpriced food. It was, however, a place to lay our heads and we headed out the next day to, perhaps the coolest place during our entire trip, Mole Park. The trip west started a bit rocky when Alex and I learned that there were no available rooms at the park hotel--we had assumed that because it was no longer the tourist season that it wasn’t necessary to call ahead. Kicking ourselves, we got on the bus, and came across the good fortune of running into two Peace Corps Ghana volunteers who currently had a friend in the park who assured us that there were plenty of rooms left and that the receptionist always tells “late callers” that there are no more rooms available--I suppose as a tactic to make sure there always are rooms available for the people who arrive late at night and who haven’t planned ahead--like us. Arriving well into nighttime, we got our room and headed not straight to bed, but back to the bar to have a chat with the Ghanaian volunteers--it’s always interesting to hear about Peace Corps posts outside of your own country. A few drinks later and we all decided it was past our bedtime; especially considering that the best tour of the park was a walking tour leaving early the next morning. The tour was fantastic and well worth the three dollars in total it cost for Alex and I to go. At first we weren’t seeing much expect for a couple of male deer sparing with each other, but then, after a little over an hour and a half of walking, we came across a water hole with about 5 or 6 elephants cooling off inside the pond. They later emerged and we followed them over to an open grassy field. I don’t blame my dad at all for choosing the elephant as his favorite animal, they were truly beautiful giants--very cool to see them up close like that with no zoo fence standing in the way. At one point we must have gotten too close because one of the elephants started casually walking towards using with his ears flapping--this was apparently his way of telling that we were crowding his personal space because our two guides (both who were equipped with rifles) told our group to back up. Needless to say, our group quickly and happily obliged. Our morning tour was followed by a lazy afternoon at the pool and an early 4am departure the next day. At the pool, Alex and I were a little overwhelmed by a group of American school kids who were being a bit rowdy. We first agreed that they probably had no idea how amazing of an opportunity to swim in the pool was and that secondly, it was just plain strange for us to be around so many westerners in the first place. All the social skills we once possessed-gone.

Nearing the end of our adventure, we took the Mole bus east out of the park and continued east right into Togo. Along the way we met some more Ghanaian volunteers who were really helpful about getting us pointed in the right direction to get out of Tamale and into Togo. Interestingly enough, all four Peace Corps Ghana volunteers that we met were guys. I guess that they have more along the lines of a 50/50 female to male ratio in Ghana as opposed to our about 70/30 ratio. It was a really long day of travel which surprised me, as the road itself was not long, but we had to switch taxis a lot, which always lengthens the journey, and the roads weren‘t in fantastic condition either. Once again tried and hungry, Alex and I were ready for our final hotel. Our spirits were definitely lifted when we arrived at the hotel--the guidebook did not lead us astray this time. It was a gorgeous place and they were even kind enough to give us a discount on the room because we were Peace Corps volunteers. After a much needed shower, (seriously, you know it‘s bad when you are either sweating dirt or when you think that you have gotten a day during the day but then that tan mysteriously washes off in the shower) Alex and I, for the last time, dined on some gourmet cuisine: French onion soup, steak in an herb butter sauce, and pork with a mushroom and onion sauce--quite delicious after a full day of bush taxis. We hoped to wake up on our last day and take an early morning dip in the pool, however, we were a little disappointed to wake up to rain and clouds instead--this did allow us to be lazy and take off after without feeling rushed to do so, so really not so bad in the end.

And that, I’m afraid, is where our adventures ended. Alex and I took a taxi to Djougou together were we spilt ways. Each of us had a frustrating enough time getting home and while he was off to do a Malaria bike tour in the Alibori region of Benin, I returned to a whole lot of nothing. After all the excitement of the past two weeks, it was strange to sit back down on my couch and look around to no American to talk to, no where to go, no electricity to amuse myself, no running water, and no more someone else preparing all of my food. It was just me, myself, and I back together again.

***

The initial boredom of being alone with my thoughts is starting to wear off. My electricity is back on, so I’ve been able to watch my newly purchased television series and I’ve been able to focus my boredom into productively freaking out and planning my up-coming girls summer camp. Additionally, with the final exams taking place during my absence, I now have all the papers to grade. My most amusing and dumbfounding response to a question so far is that with a multiple choice between a) 2 years b) 4 years and c) 10 years, one student chose the answer d) years. I guess he apparently thought that it was a trick question--just makes me go “hmm…” Anyway, with that I think I have typed about all my brain can handle at the moment. I hope the time in between now in the next journal won’t be quite as long. Cheers.

Other highlights and lowlights include: finding and eating Ghanaian made and manufactured Kingsbite chocolate, getting hit on by men while trying to swim in the ocean thus ruining any and all fun, returning home to Manigri to find my cat not only alive but that he had killed another mouse in my absence, gorging on salt & vinegar and sour cream & onion Pringles, being constantly ripped off my Accra taxis because we don’t know the price, having bacon for the first time in 11 months, wearing awesome rubber boats on the Mole park tour and then later finding out that they were also awesome at giving blisters, both of us having diarrhea at one point or another during the vacation, sweating dirt, free bars or soap and hot showers, spilling a massive blob of ketchup on my newly washed shirt, eating FanYogo Strawberry and FanChoco (which I swear is more chocolately than the FanChoco available in Benin), not being harassed all the time for being white, being harassed for being a woman, realizing I deleted photos of my neighbors frying and eating GIANT grasshoppers, finishing the third Harry Potter book (I finally gave in to the Harry mania), 80s power ballads playing overhead on our way to Mole National Park, sleeping in King size beds, finding out the “Chocolate House” is not a place to find chocolate but rather just a brown building, having the chance to following the EuroCup games on TV, having breakfast delivered to our room in Togo and then finding out that it wasn’t actually for us, getting to hold a bazooka, and finally, the worst thing to have happened on the trip is that my deodorant broke the second to last day, so now I have to sit alone in my house smelling like all of my students that make me crinkle my nose on a daily basis.