A Holiday Weekend (with Pictures!)

Many schools in Ghana have midterm breaks – essentially a long weekend that give students and teachers a chance to relax.  Manye very rarely has this, as the headmaster usually wants the kids to be in school as much as possible.  However, last week, we got lucky!  Because July 1^st was a holiday (Republic Day) , Mr K also gave the students Thursday off, giving us a four-day weekend (probably similar to what many of you all in the States had for the 4^th!)  Thursday was a very lowkey day – I did a little bit of work in the morning on our Grasscutter project, but then spent most of the afternoon/evening reading.

Friday was more fun! One of the teachers arranged a program at a beach in Ada (about 2 hours away).   We were supposed to leave at 8:30 am, at which point it was kind of overcast out. Luckily for us, things were functioning on Ghanaian time and we didn’t end up heading out until almost noon, by which point it was sunny and warm and perfect beach weather.

Once we arrived in Ada, we had to take a small boat to get to the specific beach that we wanted. There were about 15 of us together:  2 teachers, a few of their friends, Jamie, myself, David (Silver ’12, our summer volunteer), and then several others that we didn’t really know. The boat sat really low in the water, and I was pretty entertained seeing how nervous everyone got when the boat would rock a little, as many Ghanaians can’t swim.

some of the crew on the boat ride over

the kind of boat we were on... ours was named "Slow but Sure"

The afternoon we spent at the beach was fun! We ate tofu kebab’s prepared by Courage (his mom owns a tofu kebab company) and “buttah-bread” (aka bread w/ margarine), watched the guys play football on the beach, and even went swimming (first time I’ve gotten in the water when at the beach with Ghanaians).  Swim suits aren’t really something that Ghanaians wear… most guys wear shorts of some kind and wife beaters. Girls also wear shorts and tank tops/t-shirts. I just wore my dress. I ventured out into the “deep end” for a little bit and found myself engaged in several short races with locals.  Embarrassingly, I lost the first one… but I won every single one after that – I even threw in a few strokes of butterfly to see if I could still do it.  The answer? … Somehow. Even though the races were only about 15 yards each, I got tired pretty quickly. Apparently not swimming for more than a year really kills your endurance.

Once it started to cool off, we changed into dry clothes and exchanged in a favorite Ghanaian at-the-beach past time. Photoshoots. For about 45 minutes straight.

too close of Jamie and me on the beach

about half of us 

Afterwards, we took the boat back to the mainland and tro-tro’d it back to Tema, grabbed some rice and stew for dinner, and went to bed.

Saturday, I planned to head to the Akosombo Dam with David plus Jon (Brady ’14) and Kiki (Hocheder ’14), the volunteers over at NAP.  As luck would have it, Ben’s car wouldn’t start. David already wasn’t feeling well, so he decided to stay home.  I went to go and meet Jon and Kiki at the Ashaiman station so we could catch a trotro instead.

The trotro ride was about 2 hours (with one stop in Kpong to change cars).  When we got to the Akosombo station, the three of us decided that we didn’t really want to pay to go into the dam facilities, so we just paid a taxi driver to take us where we could get some pictures of it. Resourceful, eh?

Depending on your source, the Akosombo Dam might be the largest dam in West Africa. Or it blocks the largest man-made lake. Something along those lines. Given that the only other dam I’ve seen is the Hoover Dam (UNLV, Dec ’07) I was pretty impressed.

an unobstructed view of the dam

Kiki and Jon

DWSD ! 

On the way back, we ran into some more transportation issues:  Our trotro overheated.  After an hour of sitting on the side of the highway, Jon, Kiki, and I finally hailed down a car to take us back to Ashaiman/Tema.  One other man from the trotro joined us.  The man who picked us up was really nice and even went out of his way to drop us off closer to home.  I had the chance to chat with his son James, who was in P4 at a local public school. Everytime I asked him a question requiring a positive response, he said, “Of course” in the most adorable voice. Example: “Do you go to school?” “Of course”. After learning he was named after a Pentecost minister, “Do you go to a Pentecost Church” “Of course”.  “Do you like fufuo?” “Of course”. It was too cute.

chillin' on the side of the highway

Sunday was rainy and cold. Well, for Ghana.  It may have been 70 degrees, but Jamie and I were curled up under blankets all day. Another day of reading! Monday, which should have been the real holiday for us, was totally normal.  School resumed, I had work, and we didn’t do anything special to celebrate America’s birthday. Oh well. All in all it was a fun and relaxing weekend.