Going to Ghana

Ghana was amazing. The first day, nine of us went to the Accra Art Center. It was basically a shopping market and everyone would come up to you and try to sell you a bracelet with your name on it (I got three, naturally). But in the very back of all this commotion there was a small school made up of a few benches.

There were probably thirty kids all wearing their uniform. And right when I took my camera out they were all over me trying to take pictures.

Almost all of my pictures are ones that the kids took. All of them sung us a song and did some performances. After, we played soccer and I gave them some crayons and coloring books, but their favorite thing was the star sunglasses Will had brought.

We went back to Citizen Kofi to eat but I had just had a spicy chicken sandwich from KFC (jumping right into the culture, I know) so I just got a drink and split a burrito. After, we took a crazy two hour cab ride to Big Millies. That was A LOT of fun - we drank at the bar and hung out. We stayed there and all slept in beds with mosquito netting.

The next morning we went back to Accra and ate at Hotel Frankies before heading back to the ship. This was a necessary stop as I was covered in a layer of dirt. We ate dinner on the ship and took the bus back to Accra and a taxi to Le Palm to see a bunch of SASers staying there.

The next day I woke up early for my SAS trip to The City of Refuge. It was amazing. We started by taking a bus to a house where all of the 25 kids lived and where the founder, Stacy, lived as well.  The orphanage saved children from Lake Volto who had been sold to work on the fishing boats. Many of the children in the home were sold as slaves and The City of Refuge had to bargain to get them out.

We then went to their newly built school that 100 kids from the home and local village attend. The kids were amazing - we played with them before we headed to the home. At the home we prepared 600 boxed lunches of rice with tomato pepper sauce and a hard boiled egg. 

 


We got to hang out with the 'moms' of the home and some of the babies. I met an awesome woman named Josie who I talked to for a while and we ate the rice and sauce, which was really good. After starting an assembly line, we put all of the boxed lunches on the bus and took them back to the school. We gave each of the students a boxed lunch and then took the remaining 500 to the local village where kids came from all over to get them. There were so many it was incredible.



That night we took the bus to Accra because a lot of the SAS kids were going to Citizen Kofi. That was SO much fun. Paula was there too and we danced and had a great time before taking a cab back to sleep on the boat.

The next morning I headed to Tema with Brad and Isabelle and we went to the local market that sold everything from fish to bras. It smelled awful since there was so much food everywhere.

Back at port I found Alanna and we did some last minute shopping at the stands right outside of the port and at the Duty Free shop. 

On another note, something crazy happened the second day right outside of port. A man was sleeping on the road and he got run over by a truck and died. They just put cardboard boxes over him and there were probably thirty locals talking to each other right next to him lying there. It was eye-opening to think how different this would have been treated in the United States.

Overall, Ghana was amazing. I learned so much, had an amazing time and bought way too many souvenirs but it was all worth it!