True Life: I Went on an African Safari and Almost Broke My Butt

As the title eludes, it's true! Two days ago the SIT program went to Mole National Park right outside of Damongo for a safari. It was absolutely incredible, but I should probably back up and give you all some details.

The drive up to Mole was basically hellish. The first 90 minutes was fine, but then we turned onto this unpaved road that we had to stay on...for 2.5 hours. It did such a number on my back and butt, but it was totally worth it. I forget how lucky we are to have all of the roads basically paved in America. Never again will I complain about a pothole. Never. Again. Driving through we saw all of these villages, though, that always make me think of how diverse Ghana really is.

It's hard to understand how people can travel to Accra and think they know Ghana, but it really is so much more than just its capital. I'm not saying that because I travel around that I know more about Ghana, I just can see how different it is throughout the whole country.

Anyways, after the road, we finally arrived at Mole and we were able to stay overnight at the Mole Motel inside the park, which was really awesome, especially because there were monkeys and warthogs that just came right up to your door:

We got dinner at the hotel restaurant where they had hamburgers, so of course, most all of us ordered them. Tamale and the northern region in general has so much Westernized food, which, quite honestly, is a relief because Ghanaian food just isn't doing it for me anymore, but more about that later. So, once we got the cheeseburgers, we were greeted with a little Ghanaian surprise. The taste of the cheese was a little bit funny and no one could figure out why. Finally, we realized that the cheese was melted Laughing Cow cheese. Yes. Ghanaians (sadly) don't have much cheese at all, so Laughing Cow is as good as it gets. A newly-found appreciation for dairy products, let me tell you. The burgers also had cucumbers instead of pickles. Oh, Ghana, you slay me.

Anyways, then we woke up early on Thursday morning to go on a driving safari tour through the bush. We saw so many antelopes and gazelles. The road was so bumpy, but I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and somehow was able to fall dead asleep. I was woken up to an elephant. Seriously. We all got out and were able to take pictures so closely to the elephant; it was crazy.

(The tro-tro that took us from Tamale to Mole that also doubled as a safari vehicle)

We had to leave fairly early from the park and work our way back to Tamale, but not before we had coffee!

When we got back to the hotel (which, I should add, is absolutely gorgeous and like a little paradise within Tamale), we all watched finished the season of Modern Family that I (accidentally) brought. It's so weird when we do that, though, because I literally feel like I'm in America again. It's a little odd.

Though I intended to write about food or Anita, I promise I will; I just figured writing about elephant sightings was, perhaps, a little bit more fun to write about. Anywho, tomorrow morning we're off to Kumasi for a night then we start the educational tour where we travel to Cape Coast, the Central and Eastern Regions, and the Volta Region all in twelve days. So, if I don't write soon, no fear!

Hot Tamale and the Fanless Village

After a long time away and lots of procrastinating, I decided it's time to finally what is bound to be the longest blog entry in the entire history of blog entries. Since I last updated, I stayed in Ntinanko, a village in the Ashanti region, for two weeks and moved up north to Tamale, the northern region's capital.

So, let's start with some village details: Ntinanko is about 900 people and about an hour or so from Kumasi. Because SIT varies the villages they go to every semester, some of the children in the village hadn't ever seen white people before, so that was definitely an interesting experience. Other than that, though, the community was absolutely welcoming and accepted us right away. In fact, almost too much. I didn't realize that we would all, to some extent, be sort of like zoo animals where everyone, especially the children, would want to watch us do nothing. Sometimes, the six of us would be taking naps in the SIT headquarters living room and children would be crowding the windows to stare at us. It was pretty suffocating at times, but then a lady yelled at the 60-80 kids outside of our house and threw some rocks and they never really came back with such great force. We were able to do a lot of really great things, like teach in the schools and I was able to study the Ntinanko palm oil co-operative for my mini independent study, which I'm sure is too boring to write about in detail on here, but it was totally perfect for me. Also, on the list of Ntinanko experiences was the three-hour church service we went to...all in Twi. Yes. That happened. Oh, and Izzy got a millipede on her butt when she was going to the bathroom. Village life. Totally rad.

The village experience was by far one of the most life-changing that I've had so far in Ghana. I'm going to try to help out the Ntinanko schools when I get home. They have a Tech Ed class, but only one computer for 168 students and the roof leaks when it rains. All of the kids were so excited to go to school that I just don't feel right about leaving when I know I could pull something together.

Anywho, we drove seven hours to Tamale and now I think I might be in the hottest place on the planet. It was 110 degrees today. It's so different than Accra and Kumasi, though. There are goats and cows just roaming the streets and whatnot. It's really cool. Most of the people are Muslims, too, whereas most of the country is Christian. The city's much more manageable, too, which is really nice after just coming from a village where there's just dirt roads and under 1,000 people in the community.

Today, we went to see a dance and drum troupe and every time I'm reminded about how real and raw and human it is to just dance to simple drum beats with your bare feet. I absolutely love it and could watch it all day. I'd say I would love to actually participate every day, but I'm pretty much the most embarrassing person ever when I dance, so I just like to, you know, tone it down a few notches every once in a while.

My internet time is about to run out, though, but in the next entry (which will hopefully be sooner), you can expect any combination of the following:
+ The story of Anita
+ Making shea butter
+ American food in Ghana (specifically lamb burgers)
+ The lameness of Ghanaian cuisine