Senegal/Gambia

Day 1

It was the perfect day to travel. I was super excited about this upcoming trip. I was already sleeping at the bureau so I just went downstairs to meet up with George and the driver to head to the airport. We picked up Nina and Jason on the way. We got to the airport and checked in and sat around waiting for our flight to Dakar. Nina, Jason and I chatted for a while and had breakfast with George. The flight was great. We got a great meal on the flight. We got to Dakar and one of the guys thought that because I was wearing a sling on my right arm I couldn’t write so he filled out all my paperwork. Little did he know that I am left handed, but at least I got to cut in front of everyone. There was a guy getting beat up by a guard for some reason and there were yellow taxis! Our hotel was amazing!!! It was like $125 dollars a night. The wireless was so fast and amazing. Each got our own rooms. After a hot shower we went down to the lobby for a snack. We all shared a plate of chicken, cold cuts, salad, and goat cheese. It was amazing. So tasty! We went out on the town of Dakar. The hotel was so close to the beach so we decided to start there. At the beach there was soooooo many people but the water was so dirty. There was a bunch of dead animals and trash. It was depressing that we were at the beach and very much didn’t want to get in the water. We walked around and I stopped to buy a great shirt from these Rasta guys. It was a pretty epic shirt. I got a good deal because the guys were real cool. We walked around and saw a Tapas bar. We went in and they were playing sweet music and the ambiance was chill so we decided to stay and have a beer. We had peanuts, olives and beer. After we were all pretty hungry for real food so we went to a great restaurant. I had seafood spaghetti; Nina had a pizza and Jason have fish sauce Yassa. It was all so delicious. Issaka called me during dinner to tell me that he was back in Yoro and to see what I was up to. It was nice to hear from him. Dinner was great but we were all so tired from the trip that we just wanted to head back to the hotel. I reveled in the a/c, hot showers and wireless internet all night. Nina and I made plans to go shopping the next morning since we had some time before we had to catch our flight.

Day 2

The beds were so comfy I had a ridiculously hard time waking up, but I didn’t want to miss shopping. I showered and headed over to Nina’s room. We went down to breakfast and found Jason and George already there. It was an all you can eat breakfast! Nina and I were so shameless when we started. I mean, come on, they had nems and chicken wings. We asked someone who works at the hotel where we could go shopping and he gave us directions to a shopping mall. A REAL shopping mall!!! This mall had real stores, with real over priced shoes and clothes. I couldn’t believe it….also we couldn’t afford anything in the mall. It was a sad situation but it was great just to be there at all. We walked around a bit more and bought hair dye from a super market. I want really light hair so I bought like super blonde dye. We headed back to our hotel and started to get ready to go catch our flight to The Gambia. The flight literally took less than 30 minutes. It was pretty silly. We got to The Gambia and were greeted back Peace Corps Gambia. I got in the car and instantly feel asleep. I couldn’t keep my eyes open the entire way to the hotel. George said that he couldn’t believe how quiet I was haha. The hotel in the Gambia was cool (though not as nice as the one in Dakar). There wasn’t very much to do when we got here so Nina dyed my hair. Unfortunately it didn’t come out really any lighter. It was time to head out on the town so we started out. We walked down a street called “Senegambia” We walked down the end and saw a sign that said that there is a monkey park and a croc expedition when all of a sudden I saw a monkey!!!!!!!! There was a guy feeding it. I freaked out with excitement; I’ve never been that close to a real monkey before. Then another one walked by! A security guy came out with a bag of peanuts. He saw how excited I was and put some in my hand. The monkey came up and took them out of my hand and ate them! The security guy us all peanuts and we fed the monkeys and it was incredible. I couldn’t believe that was happening. When all the peanuts were gone we tried to figure out what we should ask for dinner but we also wanted to watch the Spain v. Italy Euro Cup game. We stopped in for a beer at a really crowded/cool bar. Eventually hunger got the best of us so I suggested that we go back to this restaurant that I had seen that had seafood. That was a great choice because not only did they have an amazing food but they also showed the game so we got to watch Spain kick Italy’s ass. After the game we went to the super market and back to the hotel and met Ben, a PCV from Togo. He was super sweet and cool and we all went out for beers. Then headed back to our rooms.

Day 3

All the Peace Corps Volunteers arrived today!!! I met volunteers from Ghana, Gambia, Guinea, Togo, Benin, Senegal and 2 staff from Mali. Nina, Jason and I kind of showed up to breakfast late and got the bottom of the barrel stuff. We met up with George after to work on our presentations and go over some other stuff. We had a free day so what did we decided to do??? Go to the beach of course! Nina, Ben and I headed to the beach. The sand here is black! The water is warm! Ben didn’t have his swimsuit but he was nice enough to watch our stuff for us while we took a swim. There was nothing that could have beaten that. After a swim we went to grab some lunch because we were famished. We headed to this stand and this lady was selling fish and chips that she grilled right in front of us. It was delicious. Nina and I wanted to go shopping and invited Ben but he wasn’t really down for that so we headed out. We took 2 taxis to get there and the market was huge! It was a little overwhelming and we spent the afternoon there and the only thing we came back with was sunburns and a pagne that I bought. Needless to say that was slightly disappointing. We had to be in the conference room by five so we headed back to take showers but the water was out. In the conference room we had the opening remarks and introductions. We officially met everyone and headed to dinner in the hotel. The other volunteers that are here are awesome. I sat with Ben, Mike, Abbey, Jason and Chase. Abbey was awesome. I told her about our trip to the market and she (being a PCV in Gambia) offered to take us shopping on Friday if our fight doesn’t leave early. Dinner was amazing. There was salad, potato salad, coleslaw, stuffed grilled fish, chicken, beef stir-fry, and fruit salad for dinner. It was raining so we headed up to our rooms and called it a night.   

Day 4

6:45am came early today. Headed down for an omelet and baked beans breakfast. It’s a funny combination but surprisingly good. Sessions started at 8 am and the time went by really fast. We did all of our country presentations and I really learned a lot about some of the work that the other volunteers are working on. They are served us fried chicken and meat pies for snack. Fried chicken snack?! That’s crazy talk. We went back into sessions and discussed what it means to be a Food Security Task Force. I’m really looking forward to getting back to site and working on some new projects. We went out to dinner as a group to this amazing pizza place. It’s the closest thing to real pizza I’ve had in the last year. It was fun to hang out with and get to know the other volunteers. George is having a really great time here. It’s a great group, we are all really clicking. It’s really been a good time so far.

I’ve been doing a lot of thing lately about plans for the future, and going over things that happened in the past. Now that I’m in my second year as a Peace Corps volunteer I’ve been thinking about the projects that I should work on in my remaining year. I’m so involved in the FSTF that I think that’s what I want to focus on. I do want to get more involved in the school but also working with my community on food security projects. I’ve also been thinking about possibilities for after my service. There are a lot of 3^rd year possibilities in the food security aspects of Peace Corps. The more I think about it the more I’m into the idea of staying for a third year. I’ve not made any formal decisions but it’s just an idea that I’ve been tossing around in my head.

Looking forward to our field trip tomorrow to a women’s garden and bee farm.

Day 5

Happy 4^th of July!  Today we went to visit a beehive farm here in Gambia. It definitely inspired me to work on apiculture in Yoro. I learned so much about it. I’ve seen some bee houses in Yoro but I don’t know who owns them or if anyone takes care of it at all. I want to definitely go back and do a needs assessment to see if it will be a feasible/ sustainable project to start with my community. We got to taste fresh honey and it was amazing! It was so sweet and delicious. I bought some for my Yoro family and for Issaka. After the bee farm we went to visit a Women’s garden. The garden was very well cared for and it gives women a chance to start a garden and sell what they grow at the market. I thought the garden was amazing but I don’t think that it’s very sustainable. They get all their supplies and funding from some Taiwanese NGO. What happens if the decide to cut the funding? Would the women be able to support themselves and pay for the supplies? I sure do hope so! We had sessions the rest of the day we spent in sessions. We went out to dinner as a group at an amazing restaurant in Senegambia. After that we had beer and fireworks on the beach to celebrate the 4^th of July. Sitting on the beach is fun but also never fails to make me nostalgic. I started thinking about a lot of things and missing stuff. It’s good to think about that kind of stuff sometimes I guess. The night was amazing, we drank and danced and just enjoyed each other’s company.

Tomorrow is the last day of the summit L

Day 6

Last day of the conference. It was lucky that we didn’t oversleep because my IPod alarm never went off. We did our sessions and worked on project plans. We spent most of the time socializing with each other and sharing ideas and projects. We had all shared our project plans and there was a little ceremony where we all received certificates for all the work that we did and attending. We had our last dinner together at the hotel. After dinner we all went out to the “Scottish Embassy” which is a bar here. Nina, Chase and I played a rousing game of “Snakes and Ladders” but as a drinking game…So Fun! Whoever would have guessed that would have been as fun as it was? I was able to talk to the volunteer who works on the beekeeping farm here. He gave me his contact information and told me that he would answer any questions that I have, which is great because I have a lot. We got back to the hotel after making plans with Abbey to go shopping in the morning before we leave. Back the hotel we packed up our bags so that we could be ready to go in the morning. I'm so excited to be going shopping tomorrow. I hope that we find some great clothes and stuff to buy at the market before heading back to Burkina. I wish that we had more time here. Not sure if I'm ready to go back. I do miss Issaka and my friends, and I’m really excited to see Nate this weekend!

Day 7

Back to Burkina today. This morning we met up with Abbey to go to the market and it was awesome. I wasn’t able to buy much because we didn’t really have a lot of time. It was cool hanging with Abbey. She went with us to the airport. Spent the entire day traveling…now I'm back at the transit house J

I had a great last couple of days in Ouaga. On Thursday I got together with Jason to work on our presentation for The Gambia. We worked together the morning and then we out to lunch together. It was fun and we got it all done. I called Issaka because he had told me to come by while we were both in Ouaga and I wanted to spend time with him before leaving for the conference. I headed over to his house. I got there and greeted all of his family. I'd missed them. We sat around listening to music and watching t.v. We had dinner and then watched the Italy v.s. Germany soccer game. I was rooting for Italy, Issaka was for Germany (he thinks that I decided to support Italy just because he wanted Germany to win, really though I just think Italy plays better). I fell asleep during the second half because I was so tired and my arm was hurting. Issaka told me to go to sleep but it was only 2100 so I knew it was too early. We watched t.v. some more and I fell asleep again so then it was really time to go to bed. He wakes up at the crack of dawn to pray (he's Muslim) and I slept in til 0630. I showered and we ate rice for breakfast. Around 0800 we went over to the corner boutique to hang out with Alain and his other friends. I love those guys. They always make me feel like part of the guys. They were all chatting in Moore so I felt dumb just sitting there not saying anything. Alain understood my awkwardness because he said he feels the same way when people speak in different languages around him. I was trying to get back to work so I told Issaka that I was ready to go. Before I went we went over to Rosalie's house so that I say hi to her and her family. I love Rosalie and her family. I love spending the night at their house. There was a new baby there, a little boy. I went in to pick him up and Issaka was like "Who picked that baby up for you? I didn't know that you knew how to pick up babies!"...Dumb. As if because I'm American, 23 and unmarried doesn't make me unable to pick up children. He just laughed and we went off to visit his brother. His brother was super cool, it was the first time that I met him. Then I got in a taxi and said bye to Issaka. 

My babies!

I headed back to the bureau to get some stuff down and Ishmael called me. He told me that my babies (the kids of our friends; twin boys and a girl) were moving to Cote d'Ivoire. So he suggested that we go by and see them since I'm gonna be gone when they leave. He picked me up and we went out to lunch, then did some work for his mom, visited his family, and then we went to see the kids. I love visiting those kids, they all give me hugs and kisses and call me "ta-ta." They talk so much and run around and we play games and we took a lot of pictures. It was so much fun, I'm going to miss them. After that we went out to dinner and Ishmael's friend met up with us for a beer. After that I was so exhausted and had to get my stuff ready for the conference. So I went home. The day was amazing. When I got back to bureau I got to skype with my mom and with Brandon so I was really happy. That was the perfect ending to a great day.

So I'm not leaving in the med unit until I leave to Gambia on Saturday! Gaaaaaaaaah!

Today was a pretty good day. I woke up this morning and had a bagel lol. I got some work done at the bureau and scheduled a meeting with George for the afternoon. Issaka called and said that he wanted to see me today. I didn't put a whole lot of stock in that because he has been saying that all week. But I told him that if he wanted to come by around 12 he could. Guess what?! He actually did. It was fun. We chatted and he laughed at my arm and it was really a good time. He bought me some juice to make me feel better and we went out to lunch. He told me that I needed to come by his house soon because everyone there misses me. He had said that Rosalie (his sister) had wanted to come see me as well but he didn't bring her. After lunch we hung out for a bit more, but it was so hot and I was tired so I told him that I was going back to the bureau. He asked him he could borrow my IPod while I'm in Gambia so that he could listen to music. I told him that he was out of his freaken mind haha.

Back at the bureau Hugo called to come hang out with me. That was a lot of fun because we talked and watched "No Strings Attached." We laughed so hard. Then I had a meeting to get to with George about Gambia and Hugo had to go finish his med stuff. My meeting with George went really well. He's a really nice guy. We got stuff worked out for Gambia and we are meeting again tomorrow once Jason gets into town. So Gambia is all set for us to leave Saturday!!! Soooooo excited.

I called Saiiba and we talked forever. He told me that he had been super busy filling out reports and that he didn't want me to think that he forgot about me. I thought that was really funny because we talked the day before yesterday! That's how close we are, if we don't talk for a day it feels like forever. We talked about everything that's going on here and he asked when I was coming home. I told him that I'm leaving to Gambia Saturday and he couldn't believe it. I had told him a million times that I was going but I guess that he forgot because I ended up having to come to Ouaga a lot sooner than I had planned. He said that he is going to miss me so much! I told him that I would bring him back something nice from Gambia and he got really excited.

There's a stagiere that is doing his training right now who is in the med unit with me. We went out to dinner and I had a great time. We talked about what I've been doing for the past year and he told me what he hopes to do in his service. I told him about all my friends and how hard it is to leave them. It was nice to talk to him and just have someone to talk to. The med unit can get pretty lonely.

One thing I do love is the internet. I just finished skyping with Kim, Kelby and Ms. JoAnn. I miss them all so much. My baby Kelby is growing up so much. That's pretty much how my entire day went. I'll probably mess around on facebook, see if I can't skype more, watch GLEE and go to bed!

So as it turns out I will be in the med unit until at least Wednesday because of my arm. The boredom might be the death of me. There are only so many books I can read and naps that I can take it one day. I've never been good at sitting still for long periods of time. 

It's weird how much I miss my village when I am not there. I talk to my best friend Saiiba practically everyday. He calls to tell me that he misses me and I tell him that when I see him I'm going to give him "Gros Bizou's" (big kisses) because I always miss him so much when I'm not there. I joke with him and tell him that if he could speak English he could pass for an American. He's so much different than the guys here. We can talk about everything, and we hang out all day everyday. We drink beer and tea and gossip and laugh. It's really quite amazing. He invited me to come to Bobo in August to visit his girlfriend and little daughter. I can't wait to go. He promised that we would go dancing and visit the waterfalls. We also plan to have a huge party for our birthday this year (His is November 28th and mine's the 24th) in Bobo. We are going to buy lots of chickens and beer haha. It's going to be amazing. I can even talk to him about relationships and love. I never thought I would have a friend like this here in Burkina. I wish I could pack him in my backpack and take him to America with me. He told me that he was going to come back with me and be my guard and not let dumb people talk to me. I have such close friends in this country I can't imagine what it will be like to leave them in a year. I wish that I could take them all with me. I've gotten so many calls from my village friends like Ada, Yago, Gabriel, Issaka and Saiiba asking how I'm doing. It's a really good feeling to know that they care for me the way I care for all of them. It's an amazing feeling to walk down the street and have all my babies run up to me to hold me hand. Just yesterday I was hanging out with my friend Ishmael here in Ouaga and we went to visit his cousin. His cousin has the most adorable kids ever! A girl and twin boys. I've meet the kids before and they all saw me and ran up to me saying "Ta-ta we missed you!" and they all gave me hugs and kisses. My favorite is the baby of the family, he was curious about my sling so I took it off for him to show him that I still have an arm. He crawled onto my lap and cuddled into me, sucking his thumb. It was such a perfect moment. I played angry birds with the kids on Ishmael's phone and they we all screaming "ta-ta knock down the house!!!" and when I did they would run to Ishmael and say "Ton-ton, Ta-ta knocked down the bird's house!!!" they were so happy and silly and precious. Now that school is almost over they are getting ready to move to Cote d'Ivoire. I need to get a picture with them before they go. 


My time here is going by so fast. I realized this right before I came in to Ouaga. Not only did I celebrate my one year anniversary here but something a little closer to home. When I first moved to village my friend Collette had a baby that was just a fat little infant. Now...he walks! That little boy is unstoppable and it made me realize that so much time has passed since I left. One year to go! To those of you who have pushed me, I thank you you gave me strength...but it is to those of you who thought I couldn't do it-- it is to you I thank the most because, without you I wouldn't have tried. 

Finally an Update

It's been almost 3 months since my last blog post! i've become such a slacker when it comes to updating this and even Facebook. I'll work on it...

So it's offically been one year that I've been in this country as of June 11th. Oh how time flies and how things have changed this past year. I'm not even going to attempt to recap the last 2.5 months in very much detail because that would take forever...but here are some highlights...

1.  Yoro first ever girl's soccer team!- My team consisted of the girls from the CM2 class. All that got started over me being a hot-head over the fact that I said any girl can play soccer with any guy. So, I was challenged to a bet. The bet was that I couldn't train a girl's soccer team to beat the boy's team. I hate to be told that I can't do something so I marched into the middle of Yago's class and asked the girls if they wanted to play soccer. All of them jumped up and wanted to play. The girl's had an amazing season. They could play on the condition that they studied hard and at the end of the year the top 7 girls in the class are all on my team. I watched them grow into confidant young ladies that are quick to jump up and brush the dirt off and get back out there. Man my girls could take a hit! I've never been more proud than I was of those girls. 

2. My first school year is now over. Yago called me to tell me that 31 of the 47 kids that took the CEP passed it! He did such an incredible job with those kids. Thats 31 kids that are now one step closer to finishing school. Lots of things to look forward to for next year... Like having 100% of Yoro's kids pass. 

3. The "Men as Partners" Conference that I attended in May was amazing. I took my village dad to it and that was an amazing decision. He learned a lot and actually engaged in all the activities. At the end of the conference he was given a frame that said that he is a partner to all the women in his life. He was so proud of that moment and when I got home I found that he had proudly hung it up for everyone to see. 

4. The end of my relationship is a pretty significant thing that has happened in the last 3 months. Not going to get into the specifics. Just sometimes things don't work out like you had planned or hoped for. In the end the distance won. Now I'll just treasure the good memories and leave the rest behind me. I wish Andrew the best and think of him often. 

5. Food Security Task Force update- I currently am vice president of the food security committee. I helped work on a project proposal for a HUGE grant that USAID gave Peace Corps Burkina Faso for food security related projects. Now volunteers will have the resources that they need to do any projects. Also there is a conference in a WEEK in THE GAMBIA that I get to attend with Jason and Nina. It's going to be so epic to be able to talk about Burkina’s projects and visit The Gambia. I'll definitely post about that trip.  

6.My messed up arm. Currently I am writing this laid up in the med unit.  A few days ago I was biking in Leo and Hugo's dog ran in front of me. I didn't have time to stop but I hit the brakes, clipped Plato and hit the ground. When I hoped up I wasn't bleeding except for a cut on my ankle but my arm was in a lot of pain and shaking like crazy. I thought it was just a shock but by afternoon it was unbearable. I called the PCMO who told me that I had to come in and get x-rays. Luckily there is no break but it's possible that I have a torn ligament. Still can't move it at all so I keep it in a sling. I'm hoping to be out of the med unit soon. As much as I like having air conditioning and bagels I can't deal with the loneliness of being the only person sleeping in here.  More updates on the arm to come. 

Spring Break Ghana!

Day 1

Our trip to Ghana started a bit rough. We woke up just a tad late (we had called a cab the night before and woke up when he arrived). We packed up in a hurry, Nate being Nate felt the need to take his time and shower ever so slowly. We got to the bus station and bought tickets from a man who looked like a mob boss. We had a bit of time before actually departure so we decided to go to the nearest McDonald’s for some breakfast (which was actually some lady at a stand that smelled like fish who cooked up some omelets). The bus was supposed to leave at 0830 but it didn’t actually depart until about 0930 which wasn’t too bad because at least it was air-conditioned. We had 24 hours to go so we tried to hold out from just plugging into our iPods right away. That lasted about 30 minutes before we got bored and started listening to music. When we got close to Po (the last city in Burkina before Ghana) we stopped at a military checkpoint where 2 armed guards climbed aboard to “escort” us into Po. Details as to why this is done aren’t very clean but it was still cool to watch. We crossed the border into Ghana around 11 or so. There are a ridiculous amount of checkpoints that we had to go through. So many Ghanaians tried to change our CFA into Ghana money but I thought we would just get ripped off. Nate actually traded in a mille and got 3 Ghana cedis. Best thing that he could have done because at the first stop in Ghana we stopped for our first break on the trip. Hugo has advised us to eat the fried rice and chicken so as we stood in line to buy some we realized that we only had 3 cedis and that is how much a plate costs. Nate and I had to share a plate of rice and didn’t have any money for a drink. It was pretty bad news. We were in a different country with nothing but a debit card and useless CFA. After about 6 more hours we made another stop where Nate and I hurried off the bus in search of someplace to change money. Luckily we found an ATM so Nate took out some cash. What did we buy first? A huge bottle of water. We actually over- paid for it but it was so worth it. The rest of the bus ride was pretty uneventful, mostly consisting of trying to sleep (impossible to do because the ride was so bouncy) and a stop for more rice (this time we each could have our own plate). It got late into the night so we tried to get some sleep…

Day 2

Sleep was pointless and needless to say was never in more than 15 minute intervals if you were lucky. We arrived in Accra at about 0630ish in the morning. We got in a taxi and headed the Salvation Army guesthouse. For 7 Cedis each we stayed in dormitory rooms…girls in one room boys in the other. Let me just say that you get what you pay for. At a price that cheap, we truly did get what we paid for. It wasn’t bad for just the one night. We freshened up and headed out to explore Accra. Given the fact that we had close to little money exchanging CFA was priority number one (to me at least, Nate thought breakfast was number one). We ate breakfast at a chicken place. It was surprisingly good, and then walked towards a bank. It just so happened that the bank that said it was open from 0900-1200 had a sign on the door apologizing for the fact that it would not be open that day. We met a guy on the street carrying bags. He asked us where we were from and when we told him that we are from Burkina Faso he started to peak to us in Moore! It turns out that he also was from Burkina. He showed us a place to exchange money. After we had plenty money we met up with our Burkina friend and he showed us where the grocery store was. Let me just say that Marina Market has nothing on the Koala Market of Accra. That place was AMAZING. After the market we met (and by that I mean I) bought a wallet from the guy to thank him for his help. It’s really cute. I’m glad we met that guy. Then came “Baby Rasta.” Baby Rasta is an interesting character that we met on our way to Osu Castle. He made Nate and I these really awesome bracelets. Needless to say I think we spent way more money and time then we should have with Baby Rasta, but he was a cool dude. After he finished making our bracelets we finally headed on to Osu Castle which was supposed to be a cool historical sight, but it turns out that it’s not actually open to the public. We were promptly stopped by a guy with a rather large gun telling us that we could not go there, point taken. After all the wandering around we decided that a beer was in order so we hit up a few more sights like the Accra stadium and the Eternal Flame (which happened to not be lit, go figure). It was really hot and a cold beer was sounding better by the minute so we walked on and stop at a pub. Nate and I both ordered Star which is a pretty decent tasting Ghanaian beer.  We even got to drink our beer out of straws haha. Just trying to keep in classy. We saw pretty much all there was to see in Accra and continued bar hopping. After our second round we decided to go clean up and catch a late lunch/early dinner at Mamma Mia’s pizza place. I had a calzone, Nate had pizza. Mamma Mia’s had pepperoni pizza…ACTUAL pepperoni! Ghana really does beat Burkina. After dinner we walked around a bit, did a little shopping and retired back to the Salvation Army so we could watch a movie and go to bed early because we were planning to start our day early…

Day 3

0630 never came so quickly. I was so tired from the previous days travel mixed in with the fact that we had had very little sleep. The day started with a quick shower and then it was off in search of transport to Cape Coast. We were going to try and make it to Busua the same day, so we needed to get a move on. We got in a tro-tro that took up to the bus station where we could get in another one to get to Cape Coast. It was all so easy that something was bound to go wrong. There were cars that were leaving straight to Cape Coast that I suggested that we get on but Nate thought that we should walk around the station first. We ate a delicious rice and sauce breakfast and then set off to find a car. There was a sign that the car was going to leave to Cape Coast. When we asked him how long it was before leaving he said “oh we are leaving right now!” It sounded perfect to us…we should have known better than the think that right now actually was going to be soon. The driver of the car forgot to mention the fact that we would not be leaving until the bus was full. Nate was not happy with this. It literally took us close to 3 hours before we left and what people said would be a 30 minute ride to Cape Coast also took almost 2 hours. All Nate and I could do was look at each other and laugh. When we finally made it to Cape Coast we headed straight to Cape Coast Castle. It’s where slaves departed from Africa and headed to the Americas and the Caribbean. We made it just in time to catch a tour group going around there. It was really cool, I think. After the Castle we went to a museum and then decided that we needed to book it if we were ever going to make it to Busua. Everyone told us that it would be impossible to go there because it was a Sunday and we weren’t going to find a car. Little did those people know that Nate and I really didn’t have a plan so it we caught a car cool, if not, oh well; we would cross that bridge when we came to it. Luckily we managed to hop in the last departing tro-tro that was headed our direction. Sweet! We were pretty darn lucky. From there we just decidided to ride it out and figure out where we would go from the last stop. We saw some pretty interesting things on the rode, including an ice cream truck!  Nate managed to hop off the tro-tro to get himself ice-cream and a slushy for me while the car was getting gas. After reaching the last stop we were still about 20km from Busua. A guy asked us where we were trying to go and pointed us to the direction of another car that was headed that way. 3 cars later we ended up in Busua but as it turns out you can’t get to “The Hideout” (the place we were going to stay at) at night. So a nice you man points us in the director of Elizabeth Inn. Now here I introduce James. James was a nice Ghanaian man who helped us get settled into a room for the night with a promise of taking us to the resort the next day. The room was 10 cedis, breakfast included. This was another one of those pay for what you get situations but the bed was comfy and the owner was nice. James took us out to show us the town. We went to a resort and had a beer then went back to Frank’s restaurant to eat some rice, chicken and sauce for some reason we ended up paying for James’ beer and food. By that point we were all tuckered out. James promised to meet us in the morning and take us where we wanted to go…

Day 4

There was a crazy storm early that morning. The electricity went out so the one fan that we had in the room was one for about a grand total of 3 minutes before it died. That was a sad situation but my God the bed was so comfy. It was like sleeping on a cloud. The next morning we woke up to hot coffee and pancakes with bananas. It was a great way to start the day. James showed up and told us that he was ready to take us to the resort. In Ghana its totally appropriate to wear shorts so we put our shorts and flip flops on and headed out. The walk was nice, along the beach we took our shoes off to walk in the water. It was magical. Until you reach the part where you have to climb a mountain. This is not an exaggeration. It was literally a steep uphill climb with our heavy bags. We got to the top drenched in sweat and really wanting some water. It’s steep on the way down too but I have to admit that it is very beautiful. We cross over a bridge and arrive at “the hideout.” This place is great. They have bungalows and tree houses that you can stay in. It’s right on the water and they have a bar and nice places to sit and relax. Finally! Alas our luck kicks in and I realize that I forgot my towel in the other town…Nate realizes that he forgot his shirt with his money and credit cards in the other town. Now we have to walk all the way back. We walk back and by this point we are tired and hungry. We meet a guy on the beach named Frank. Frank explains to us that he is the juice man. In the Lonely Planet guide book sure enough he is there as Frank the Juice Man. He tells us that he can make us fresh juice. We tell him that we will think about it and get back to him. We manage to get our stuff back and we were ready for lunch. I asked James if he knew where we could get any Fufu. He took us to a shack where some ladies were pounding away. The Fufu was amazing! Best I ever had, again we ended up paying for James (I was beginning to sense something was not right about this). We decided that we were going to swim to an island just off the coast of the beach but James told us that there is some sort of animal when you step on it, it stings into your foot. To this day we have no idea what he was talking about but not wanting to risk it we didn’t swim to the island. We met a French guy who made us coffee at his house and we let Frank the Juice Man make us a fresh orange pineapple and banana juice. It was amazing. We headed back over the mountain to get back to the hideout; it was a lot easier without bags. As quickly as possible we changed into our bathing suits and hit the beach. Words cannot describe how incredible it felt to be in the ocean. We swam until there was no more daylight left, drank juice, watched a movie and went to sleep…

Day 5

How glorious it was to just sleep without having any purpose the next day but to do whatever we wanted. We decided anyway to walk back over the mountain and hit up Dan the Pancake Man, and get some more juice from Frank the Juice Man. As we were walking out of the room guess who we run into…James. James had come to tell us that he lost his phone the day before and wanted to know if we would give him 30 cedis to pay for a new one. There it was, the end of our friendship with James. It was then that I realized that he was only being helpful to us because he thought we would give him money. Apparently paying for his meals wasn’t enough for him. After Nate talked to him and told him that we weren’t going to buy him a new cell phone we headed over the mountain, James of course volunteered to walk with us. It quickly became evident that we were going to need to not let him go around with us. While on the beach heading towards the pancake man, Frank comes up and asks us if we want some more juice today! How amazing that we just happen to run into him just as we were trying to figure out how we were going to find him. Frank the Juice Man is everywhere you need him to be. We tell James that we appreciate all that he has done for us but that we needed to continue on without him, in which case he asked us for 10 cedis to which we replied no and I think that’s the last we will see of the guy. It’s a shame because we thought that he was just a genuinely nice guy. Sad, but I guess everyone needs to make money somehow. Dan the Pancake Man was delicious; I had banana pancakes with chocolate. Sooooo good. Dan asked us if we were going to be around in the evening because he wanted to make us dinner. We weren’t going to but we asked him if it would be possible to come back the next day for lobster pancakes in the morning. He said sure and we headed out, back to the beach. We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and tanning and reading. It was totally relaxing. The beach that we are at has no seaweed, it’s super clean, and it’s the perfect temperature. We made our dinner reservation for 1830 and went in to clean up for it. Dinner was amazing. I had lobster stir fry with vegetables and fried rice, Nate had chicken curry with fried rice. It was really really good. There was some party going on here on the beach, the hotel lit a bonfire and there was music and drums. It was a lot of fun so we ordered some drinks and just hung out on the beach all night. Then we watched a movie and went to sleep.

Day 6

This day was a relatively simple and relaxing day. We started our day by heading back over the mountain to visit Dan the Pancake Man. He cooked up our lobster pancakes. Now I like pancakes, and I had never had lobster but the 2 together makes a surprisingly good combination. We ate those and instantly wished that we had ordered 2 each. Frank spotted us and asked us what kind of juice we wanted today (he knows us so well). I told him that I was really going to miss him when we left. He was a genuinely nice guy and those are really hard to come by these days. After pancakes and juice was asked around to try and find a bank. Nate and I had realized the day before that we really didn’t have any money left so that was going to be a critical part of the day. We took a taxi down to the bank and it was surprisingly quick. Came back and got our swim on. Spent literally the entire day in the water and on the sand. It’s days like this that I wish there were more hours of sunlight in the day. We had a great lunch at the hotel (I have vegetable curry with rice, Nate had red-red). After lunch we tanned and swim and read. I finished 2 books in our time at the beach. It was glorious. At one point in the day I realized that this was our last day at the beach. I was pretty darn sad about that. The beach leg of our vacation has definitely been amazing and I wish it could be longer. After a full day of swimming we made dinner reservations and cleaned up for them. After dinner we had some drinks and Nate and I played cards. When Nate and I play games things get a little intense so we asked these girls if they wanted to play. They did. It turns out that they are German and are just traveling around Ghana. We played a bunch of games with them and then called it a night. All in all great day. Nate and I watched a movie and went to sleep praying that the next day’s travel was going to be easy. We planned to cover a lot of ground in one day…

Day 7

Another early morning start. Tricked Nate into thinking that it was 0615 when we woke up but it was really 0600. I know how he likes to take his sweet time so that way I figured we might be on time for once. Nope, we were still late to meet our taxi. He ended up driving us to the next town over which was really convenient because that way we didn’t have to switch cars. We got to Takoradi and found a car going to Cape Coast. Having learned our lesson about tro-tro’s not leaving until they are full, Nate and I stopped to have some rice and fro-yo for breakfast. We finished in perfect time because by then we were the last 2 people to get in the car and we headed out. Upon arrival to cape coast we were instructed to ask for a taxi to take us to Kakum National Park. The taxi driver tried to con us into giving him more money by saying that it was far. That’s where my keen powers of observation kicked in and I saw a sign that said the difference. Needless to say he didn’t speak the rest of the trip. We got to Kakum and the guy said that he would wait and drive us back. We head into the park and buy our tickets to walk the canopies. Guess who we ran into there? We saw Sam, Brooke, Jason and Sierra walking out as we were walking in. It was funny that of all places to run into them it’s at a National Park. At Kakum we did the guided tour and then we got to the part where you do a canopy walk. That was so scary due to the fact that I’m terrified of heights but I’m glad I did it because it was amazing. Actually I kind of wished it had been longer. After the canopy walk you walk through the forest a bit on your own. Nate and I don’t follow rules very well so we got a little of the path and guess what we saw?! We were able to see 4 CHIMPS running around. It was so wild to see them just running around…in the wild. It was amazing. The odds of seeing them were really small so we were especially lucky/sometimes you have to bend the rules a bit to get to the good stuff. Unfortunately they were too fast for us to get a picture, but seeing them is something that I will never forget. The park was a great experience. After the park we headed back to Cape Coast to find a bus to take us to Kumassi. We were lucky enough to catch one but it took most of the afternoon to get there and it was a tight squeeze. We got to Kumassi and of course attracted so much attention because we are American. People wanted to know where we were trying to go, but we didn’t have a clue. We ended up staying at a hotel that was really nice and had air conditioning. It was a great way to end the trip. We had dinner and beer and soaked up the air-conditioning…

Day 8

We slept in and had a lot of time to kill until our 1830 bus back to Ouaga so we went to the Kumassi market. It was insane. It was so big and there was soooooo much stuff. I really wanted to buy a shirt that said Ghana but I should have done that in Accra because there were none. We just walk around and had lunch and explored the city. We went back to the hotel, watched some movies and then headed to the bus station. We had dinner and then got on the bus back to Ouaga…

My trip to Ghana was absolutely amazing. We literally went to Ghana without any plan. We just decided to go to Ghana, got visas, packed our bags and headed out. It couldn’t have gone better. It’s so beautiful there and there is so much culture and the food is amazing! If I could change one thing I would have made the trip longer but because Nate teaches he had to be back. The trip was fantastic! 

I realized that it's been a really long time since I've posted a blog. Lots of amazing things that been going on in my life.

I'm the new vice president of the food security committee. There's so much work that comes with being that. I have lately I've been really busy. I've been working on an action plan for 2012-2013 for where food security is headed. There's a technical exchange in Mali next month and I really want to go to it. It's about food transformation and my community could really benefit from it. I hope that I get to go to that.

The other day I was sitting at my house having a conversation with my neighbor Paul. We really got into a deep conversation on the rights of women. I asked him if he would be willing to cook dinner for his wife and he said absolutely not. Which lead me to get all fired up about women's right and empowering girls. He told me that I wouldn't be able to find a man who agreed with me so I set out to find one. I went to the CSPS and tried to talk to the Majore about it. He didn't agree with me, and I really thought he would. He asked me if I ever saw any other girls playing soccer with the guys except for me. He had a point so I went to the school and told Yago that I wanted to create to a girls soccer team at the school. He was so supportive so practice starts Monday! I am looking for a soccer ball and I applied for a grant to fund the entire soccer team. It's gonna be great. I can't wait to start. We are also submitted a grant to fund hand washing stations to learn about hygiene. Things are going to be great.

I got applied for my visa for Ghana. If all goes well I'll be headed to Ghana on the 23rd of next month. Its going to be ther best. We are going to go camping and relaxing at the beach. It's going to be amazing. I'm so looking forward to it. Things lately have been great.