That Monkey Stole My Pineapple...and Other Tales

Where to start.......Lets be sequential and start at the beginning; it all started with a journey across the Afram Plains where i live, to a place called Mole National Park. It takes me 6 changes of vehicles to get there....over 17 hours and some interesting times! but i have gotten ahead of myself, lets back track to where the fun really started.
 My friend Andi and i are making this journey together, we start at her place, than go to the Nkawkaw station, get a car no problem at 6am. We arrive in Kumasi around 830am, to try and find a car to Tamale....Now this sounds simple, and really should be simple, since both of these towns are large and visited often; But no....This is Ghana...and even the simplest things can get way out of hand.....very fast. One of the best things about Ghana is when you are lost, all you have to do is go up to someone and ask them where to go and they will tell you! It has been a very good experience for me to have to ask people questions on where in the world i am going, since i was one of those who NEVER asked back in the states; now i don't think i will have that problem. After walking for about 30 mins all around Kumasi to find the station that will get us a car to Tamale, we finally get there, and with good timing. We hop on a VIP bus ( this is similar to a greyhound and very nice) and head out on our 7 hour journey in relative comfort.
We than get to Tamale and spend the night at the TSO (the northern Peace Corps Sub-office). We wake up early (again) to find a car that will take us to Mole. Now, let me pause here and say this is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Ghana, so it should have a very simple and easy way to get there for all those who are coming from around the world to see this place, Wrong! There is no car that will take us straight there, so we have to pick a car that will get us close to the place, where we than will have to take a taxi to get to the actual park! All of this takes us around 4 1/2 hours. When we do the car change in Demango, we of course pick up our favorite things......Loaf of bread, box wine and juice! We are volunteers here and don't have the money to buy 3 meals a day at a resort! Anywoo, got to the park, got to our rooms, which were very nice. Three people to a room, Super comfy beds, working shower and flush toilet in each room, and with a porch on the back! Amazing value for only around 15 bucks a night!

One of the best things about this place is the fact that is has full pool!!!!!! O, but i do love a Pool! So of course the first thing we do is but on our suits and get in! We were all SUPER dusty and gross from traveling, so this helped Alot. While in the pool, Jo, one of the girls with us, spotted our first elephant!!!!! It was amazing! I have been to zoos, worked at zoos, see elephants up close, but there is nothing that can compare to seeing an animal that large in such a wide open space. I would have thought that it would make them look smaller, but i was wrong, they seemed even larger and so much...I dont even know the right word to use. It took my breath away to see how elephants should always look and be. We got there on Christmas eve, and decided to do a walking safari on Christmas morning (how many people can say they have done that?). So again we wake up early (are you seeing a pattern to Ghana, to do anything, u wake up early), and start off on our adventure through the park for a two hour walking tour with an armed gaurd.....just in case.

On this walk we saw a bunch of Bush bucks, Cobbs, Green monkeys, Birds, Warthogs and of course Baboons! Sorry to say we were not able to see elephants close up, but we saw plenty more of them later in the day. Once we got back, we had our free b-fast ( at which point a Baboon came and thought baout stealing it, but Hannah b saved our food by yelling and baring her teeth, Thanks Hannah!), than to the pool again. During this time i was reading Tess of the D'ubervilles, I have always wanted to read that book, and am very glad i did, it was good! On Christmas day, we all sat around listening to x-mass music, swimming and watching the elephants play down below us in the water. That night we all had dinner together (most of us had cheese bugers and fry's....YUMMM), and drank some lovely beer or box wine, as is the classy thing to do in Ghana.
We were going to leave the next day, but deceied that we needed one more day here, so we rounded up our money and stayed another Wonderful night at Mole. The last day we were there, and did something not to smart; we were cutting a pineapple outside, near the pool, and one of the monkeys came and took off with it! I say this is more our fault than its, but damn was it not one of the funniest things ever!
We left the next day and traveled all around to get back home! Hope this entertained you a bit into the life in which i living!

The Commonalities of Ghana, let me count the ways.....

Here is a List of things commonly done, seen or felt in Ghana:
1. Getting anything i could ever need from a top the head of a women ( and i mean anything-food, drink, toys, razors, toothpaste, sewing machines, chickens (alive), ect.)
2. Having a simple hand signal tell a driver where you are going
3. LOUD MUSIC AT ALL TIMES OF DAY AND NIGHT
4. Sleeping under a mosquito net
5. Cooking three meals a day....everyday
6. Wondering what type of meat i am Really eating....cause you just never really know here
7. Drinking water out of a plastic bag.....usally bought from a top someone head...avalable EVERYWHERE in Ghana
8. Babys slung on the back of everyone women, being help up by some miracle of cloth twists
9. Using powder milk for everything...
10. Perfecting my dutch oven temps...harder than it sounds
11. Getting into a car and never knowing how fast your going because no instruments work
12. Fitting 8 people in a car....a regular sized sedan...Talk about getting close to your neighboor
13. Being called white person in 57 differnt languages
14. Getting treated differnetly because i am white
15. All food either being bland or spicey
16. Seeing breasts ALL the time
17. Being called beautiful and than proposed to daily
18. Emonional swings with out being hormonal
19. Never being truly clean
20. Seeing the Brittish spelling of words
21. Being worken up by roosters, guina fowl, African doves, and small childern most mornings
22. Making the perfect egg sammie and than showing it off to everyone
23. Sitting and doing nothing for hours, just watching and listening
24. Greeting everyone you see, meet, look in the eyes
25. Being asked by childern and adults alike for money or food or toys ALL the time because im white and rich.....so not true!

So those are just a few of things that i thought might be an intresting insight into my Ghanaian Life.