Wow! This trip has flown by! I can’t believe that I only have one month before I fly back to GR and then back to Surrey! We have free travel at the end of this week for 10 days, and then it’s exam/paper time, final retreat time, and then home time!
In celebration of what a wonderful trip this has been, I’m going to write a list of all the things that I’m going to miss about Ghana:
1) 1) FanIce, FanChoco, FanYogo, and FanPop: Here is Ghana, milk products are hard to come by. The only milk available is either powdered or shelf milk. So, instead of drinking milk, I eat FanMilk products. FanIce is soft serve ice cream. FanChoco is frozen chocolate milk. FanYogo is frozen strawberry yoghurt. FanPop is a frozen pineapple ice lolly. The best part about FanMilk products? They come in little plastic sachets. To eat them, you bite the corner off and sort of melt it with your hands until you can drink it. They are absolutely wonderful on super hot days, and they’re only about 40 cents each for a 400mL sachet. So delicious!
2) 2)Water sachets: Here in Ghana, you can’t drink the tap water (well, I suppose you could if you wanted to get parasites and worms etc...). You have to buy the water you drink. Our first couple of weeks, people bought water bottles, which are quite expensive, and one cedi per 1.5 litres. Then, we discovered water sachets. You get 500mL of water in a little, sealed plastic bag and it costs you only 5 pesewas. You bite a hole in the corner and drink away! The concept of drinking out of a plastic bag is such a good one. The only problem is the garbage it creates, but there are companies like Trashy Bags (http://www.trashybags.org/) that create awesome things out of them.
3) 3) Trotros: imagine a really old minivan. Then, imagine it completely rusted and patched together with string and plywood. Then, imagine stuffing in between 12 and 16 seats. Don’t forget to notice the random slogan on the back window (Ex. No Weapon. Fear Women. God’s Time is the Best. And many many more...)Add a driver who knows how to careen his way through traffic without a working speedometer, odometer, tachometer, or fuel gauge, as well as a mate to collect money and yell out the name of the place you’re going, and bam! You’ve got a trotro! For only 55 pesewas, you can catch a trotro all the way to the centre of Accra, which is about 20-60 minutes away depending on traffic. They’re a wonderful way to experience the business of Ghana. You get to people watch, and see the sights of the city. They’re also quite a lot of fun, and you get to meet some interesting people while you’re aboard. (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/photo.day.php?ID=76087)
4) 4) Markets: So much more fun than the mall! There is just so much stuff to be found in a market, from fish to Obama belt buckles to miles and miles of cloth to cow’s feet to little spicy peppers to plastic buckets and so much more. Markets are always busy and full of people, even in the rain. It’s also so much fun to wander through the market as a white person, especially when the sellers try and talk to us in Twi. They expect us to have no idea what they’re saying, so when we respond to them in Twi, it brings huge smiles to their faces! Wandering through the Kejetia Market in Kumasi was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. It’s the largest market in West Africa, and it literally just keeps going and going and going on and on and on! The paths are narrow and crowded, and there are people everywhere chatting and laughing. It is honestly such a wonderful way to shop. It’s so much more personal. There is a very small food market just down the road from ISH, and we’ve been able to make friends with a bunch of the people who work there. A few of the girls in our group even got to go to one of their weddings! Markets honestly are just so much fun!
5) 5) Handshakes: When you meet someone in North America, you shake their hand for a few seconds, and then let go and continue your conversation. When you meet someone in Ghana, you shake their hand, fist bump, do this crazy snap thing, and other complex awesome things. It just makes shaking hands that much more fun!
6) 6)Goats and sheep: They just wander around everywhere. There are also lots of baby goats and sheep, which are adorable. The goats sound like crying children sometimes, which is always an interesting experience.
7) 7) Chickens: Same thing as the goats, except without the crying. The chicks are really adorable too.
8) 8)The ladies at the front desk at ISH: Adelaide and Peggy always greet me warmly when I leave and ask how my day has been when I come back. They call me either Lizzy or Beth or something along those lines. They’re always so friendly and kind. Sometimes, they send us on errands to get them ice cream or something. It’s quite cute.
9) 9) Louise: Louise bakes and cooks. She bakes banana chocolate bread, pineapple bread, and peanut butter cookies. She cooks groundnut soup, curry vegetable soup, and ‘pizza’. There is almost no baking in Ghana, because ovens are quite rare and it’s so darn hot during the day! Also, Louise uses A LOT of vegetables in her soups and pizza, which is also quite rare. At first, I thought she was really annoying because she always calls you over when you walk past. Then, I began to appreciate her. Her favourite word is ‘tantalizing’ which she uses to describe most of her food. One day, I didn’t have a lot of money left for the rest of the weekend, and Louise dashed (see number 10) me a container of groundnut soup and rice. She really is a sweet woman, and I’ll miss her.
1010) The concept of ‘dashing’: If you buy something from someone and it’s substantial enough, you can ask them to ‘dash’ you something, which just means that they give you a little extra something. For example, if you buy three bananas and an orange and you ask for a dash, you might get another orange or something for free. When you start to develop relationships with the people you buy from, they are more likely to dash you things. It’s pretty fun, actually.
1111) Cold showers: Since I like to shower at night, cold showers are wonderfully refreshing!
1212) Going to hotels with warm showers: Even though cold showers are super refreshing, nothing feels more luxurious than having a hot shower. I think I’ve had only 3 or 4 since coming here!
1313) Our professors: Our Literature prof is awesome! He’s a little crazy, but he’s awesome all the same. We’re pretty good at getting him off track, and he’s told us so many stories about his life. Our Twi prof is rather intimidating upon first meeting, but he is actually a wonderful guy. He tends to mark our homework not on our understanding, but on if we formatted and titled it correctly. Basically, if you follow instructions well, you’ll do well on your homework. He’s definitely our most Ghanaian prof in terms of how he wants us to listen to him. We are not permitted to doodle or have computers out or do anything distracting in the slightest. It’s kind of a lost art amongst us North Americans. Our Politics prof is a little dry and difficult to understand, but he’s still good. He says his ‘r’s funny, but I enjoy it. It’s really fun having Ghanaian profs, especially when they tell us stories about life in Ghana.
1414) The sky: The sky here is always different and always beautiful. It’s so big and vast! Sometimes there are clouds, sometimes not. Sometimes the clouds are high and ridged, sometimes they’re low and foggy. Sometimes the sky is super blue, sometimes it’s light and almost has a yellowish tinge. The best time of day is sunset. It’s always around 6:30 or so, so we see it almost every night. I am going to miss the sky...there is far less pollution and it’s just so wonderful!
1515) Trees: The trees here are amazing! Most of them are really short, but some of them have really cool twisty branches or really cool leaves. Some of them are really tall and statuesque, just looming above the horizon. In the north, we saw lots of baobabs, which was so cool! They’re so big and beautiful and stately. I just wish I knew the names.
There are so many other things that I will miss, but these are some of the biggest things I can think of right now. I can’t believe that I only have less than a month left! Gah!
