Semester at Sea! Spring 2011

Day 26

Well I have been sitting on a bus for the past 8 hours and we aren’t even to our final destination. Okay I stopped writing for a while. I got side tracked on the bus. We ended up being on the bus from 10am-9pm, a long day. In the morning it took us a while to get off the ship due to immigration stamping every ones passport. After breakfast Alicia, Ashley and I watched us dock. There were Ghanaian dancers on the pier. After getting off the ship we had to walk a while down the pier to find the tour we were doing the “Can Do Tours”, there were 24 of us. Our leader is Fred. We got on the bus and went to an ATM to get some money. That took forever because the ATM was giving it to us in 5 cedi’s. Fred then departed from the tour because he had other things going on so Emanuel was our tour guide. We drove to a restaurant to eat some lunch, it was a really cute place and as soon as we looked at the menu we had no idea what anything was and we had no idea what to get. Our tour guide suggested that we get jollof with chicken. So we listened to him. Jollof is rice cooked in a spicy red sauce, it was so good. After lunch we got back onto the bus and started to head to the village. During the drive, Ashley and I saw a lot of interesting things. While driving in a town, Ashley goes “awww a naked baby” so I go to look and then she goes “ahhh a naked man!” Yes, we saw a naked man walking down the street. We saw women breast feeding, people being on the side of the road and just the most interesting things. Everyone was getting so antsy on the bus and we just kept driving and driving. Finally we got to the village around 9 and a family there cooked us a dinner that consisted of really spicy rice with a hardboiled egg and water that came in a plastic bag. After dinner we all went to a spot in the village and the people that live in the village put on a drumming and dancing show for us. We were able to join in on the dance. Just as a note about the village, there are 2000 people with 26 toilets for the whole village. These toilets don’t flush, they are just a hole in the ground, and sometimes there wasn’t even a hole, and you just peed on the cement floor. It was quite an experience. This village was where our tour guide was from. It’s so unreal that people live this ways, in huts with no electricity and always working to support their family. After the dancing and drumming Emanuel showed us to where we were sleeping, we slept in the village. A few of the girls stayed in a blind man’s home and the other girls stayed in a home that was right next door. It was so hot at night but it was a fun time.

Day 27

This morning we woke up at 545am, the sun was just rising. We met up with Emanuel, and he brought us to feed the monkeys in the village. These monkeys came right up to you and unpeeled the banana then took it from you and ate it. We got to see the leader monkey of the group. After feeding the monkeys we took a nature walk and learned a little about their nature. We walked to the same place where we ate dinner the previous night and she had cooked us breakfast. For breakfast we had an oatmeal type thing with bread and coffee that was crystals in a packet and you poured into hot water and it made an instant coffee. It was actually really good, so I took a few for the road. After breakfast we walked to the children’s school and saw where they have class and the uniforms that we got to wear. A speech was said saying how happy and thankful we were for letting us stay in their village. The children were so happy and always wanted to take pictures with us, except some of them were a little shy at times but eventually broke out of their shell. We had to get ready to leave because we had so much to do. We began our drive to Accra which is the capital of Ghana. Our first stop on the way there was a waterfall. We had to take a 45 minute walk to the waterfall. And when we got there the walk was SO worth it. The waterfall is the largest waterfall in Ghana and it is called the Wli Agumasta waterfalls. We all got in and took a picture underneath it. It was cold but we knew that we had to do it. We walked back the 45 minutes back to the area where the bus was and Emanuel hired someone to make lunch for us. I had an omelet with Jollof, I was just so addicted to the Jollof it was so good. After lunch we were so stuffed and tired but still had more traveling to do. Our second stop on the way to Accra was at the largest manmade lake that generates electricity for all of Ghana. We were only there for about 10 minutes because it was getting dark and we were behind schedule. When we got to Accra I felt like I was home and driving around in the city, it was so nice to have that feeling. Everything was laminated with the lights and there were tall buildings, it was much different than what we had been seeing the past two days. We checked into our hostile and organized everybody in the rooms. Our room had 7 girls in it. We had 20 minutes to get ready before we were going to go out. Emanuel knew of an awesome bar that he wanted to take us too. We walked to the bar and when we got there, there weren’t many people there because it was a Monday night but a few people came, but mostly Semester at Sea students took over the bar. We hung out and danced for a few hours until we had to get back because it was going to be another early morning. We got back to the hostile and there were all of these random noises going on outside of the hostile, such as people talking, dogs barking, other animals making noises that I have never heard before but we all ended up passing out, we were SO tired.

Day 28

This morning we woke up at 745 and had fifteen minutes to get ready. It was our last day on the tour. Today’s only plan was SHOPPING! We went to a really cute place for breakfast, I had over easy eggs and some toast, not as good as the United States but it was good. It took us a while to get our food and we were the only people in the restaurant. We had to meet everyone back at the bus at 930 so that we could all get back on the bus and head to the market. On our way to the market we had a driving tour of Accra and saw a lot of neat places. When we got to the market Emanuel warned us that we were going to be swarmed with people trying to get us to buy their things and he told us to always bargain and purchase the item 30-40% less than what they offer. And he was exactly right, as soon as we got off the bus they came up to us and were touching us saying ‘please look, looking is free’ and then tried getting us to buy it. I was getting so annoyed I didn’t buy much. They should just understand that if they don’t bother us we will buy more! We only got to shop for 45 minutes because we had a 5 hour drive back to the port. That was a long bus ride. None of us wanted to be on. We were all exhausted considering we only got about 8 or 9 hours of sleep in the 2 nights and we were so gross, we hadn’t showered the whole trip. So let’s just say that when we got back to the port we all sprinted to the ship. When we got onto the ship we found out that they were turning the water off from 10pm-7pm the next day because they needed to conserve water because we were unable to use the ocean water in the port. In order to brush my teeth and wash my face I needed to use my water bottle. Ohhh Semester at Sea. After showering I was starving and I couldn’t be happier to have a ship meal of the regular pasta and potatoes. I was so sick of eating rice and non American food. After dinner it was a relaxing night, I was exhausted. Alicia and I went to an internet café where we got to talk to family and friends and upload some pictures.

Day 29

Today was the day of touring more Ghana. We had heard a lot of good things about the Slave dungeons’ or what are known as the Slave castles, so we were interested in checking them out. After breakfast we got 10 people together and headed outside to catch the shuttle to the gate. As soon as we swiped our card to get off the ship we saw the shuttle pulling away, of course that would be our luck. And it comes every 15-20 minutes. We didn’t feel like waiting that long because we wanted to get started with our day so we just started walking towards the gate. Halfway there we passed the shuttle that picked us up. When we walked out of the gate we were pretty much attacked by all of the taxi drivers that we there. They kept asking us where we were going and that they could give us the best price. We didn’t know what to do because we couldn’t even talk amongst one another because the drivers were talking so loud so we started to walk away and the drivers started arguing with one another and almost got into a fight. We needed two taxi’s since there were so many of us so we found 2 guys that gave us a reasonable price and we got in the taxi. The slave dungeon that we wanted to go to was called ‘The Elmina Castle” and was an hour and a half away from the ship, another long car ride. There were 5 of us squeezed into a taxi that should only hold 4 people, we were all squished together. On our way to the castle we went through 2 police check points and at each stop we had to pull over so that our taxi driver could bargain with the officer to let us go through. This worked the first time but the second time not so much. The second time we were told to pull over and our driver got out to go talk to the officer, we thought that everything was fine since this was what happened the previous stop. We realized that that wasn’t the case when we had been sitting in the cab for 20 minutes, sweating and our driver still hadn’t come back. We were so confused as to what was going on and finally a lady who was working at the check point came over to us and told us that our driver didn’t have a ‘license’ we weren’t sure what she meant by this, if she meant a drivers license or a taxi license, we were hoping that it was a taxi license. So we asked her what we were supposed to do and she told us to just wait and that another taxi was on  its way. We couldn’t believe what we heard, of course this would happen to us. Another 15 minutes go by and we were getting so mad because we were so hot sitting in a car with 5 people packed together and it was 85 degrees outside. Eventually our driver comes back, gets in the car and goes to start it and it doesn’t start. He gets out and opens the hood and starts banging around with this hammer type thing, gets back in the car and it starts. He then began to drive away and on with our trip. We were so confused as to why he was taking us when they told us that another cab was coming. We asked him what was going on and he told us that the officers wanted money. So he had to pay them money in order to let us go. Now the other cab of people is already at the castle waiting for us. We finally get there and are so relieved to get out of the taxi; our driver told us that he would wait for us, which was nice. We went through the castle and our tour guide told us so many interesting things. It really hit me how these slaves really lived and the experience that they went through, if they even survived. Half of the slaves died of starvation or sickness. This castle is 529 years old and was built by the Dutch. They put the whole tour in the cells of the men, we went in the cell of the whites and then put us in the cell of the African Americans, there of course was a HUGE difference. The African American cell was so much smaller and had no light or any source of ventilation going through. At the end of the tour we went into the women’s cells and saw where 150 women were packed into a room for 2-3 months and they were to go to the bathroom on the floor and it was never cleaned up. It was the original floor from when this took place so when we went into this cell it smelled really bad. We saw where the women would go for the governor to pick one and then she would go down this secret stairway into the governors room where he would rape her. This experience of the tour was an eye opener and it was so interesting to learn it all even though it was really depressing to hear what they went through. After the tour we went to the castle restaurant and ordered some lunch. I had Jollof (of course) and spaghetti. We all split it so we got to try some new things. On the way back to the ship there were no police check points because the morning shift was over with. When we got back to the ship they told us that the water was being turned off again at 10pm until 6am. So we had some dinner, showered and spent our night exchanging pictures from one another and of course going to the snack bar on the 7^th deck and enjoying a dish of vanilla ice cream with candy in it! Yummy. Tomorrow is our last day in Ghana and not much is planned besides some walking around and spending some last minute money!