My Life

Ghana

Hello!!  I am very sorry but I don't think my last post from
Accrawent through so to all of you who have been waiting...
I'm sorry.  I am in Tamale now, we arrived yesterday after a
12 hour bus ride.  This morning around 10am we walked along
the main road - Bolgatanga Rd - with the girls who were up
first and we met mostly highschool boys who wanted to show
us around.  They are very friendly and were helping me with
my Dagbani.  Afterwards we went back to the hotel/motel and
waited for Luke to do some logistics stuff.  We are hopefully
going to talk to our NGOs tomorrow and figure out where we
are supposed to be, I have not gotten an email from my NGO
yet so it is very important that I contact them somehow.

It is very hot outside but not as humid as Accra which is
nice, so you cool down faster when you go in the shade. 
After this we are going to go to the market to hopefully
find some hats and take out some money from the bank.  All
the currency is in 1000s so it feels like we have a lot of
money.  Walking along the street is very interesting you
can find anything from car doors and cellular telephones
to goat heads or intestines.  It all feels very comfortable
although I hope I get used to the heat soon, I forgot that
I sweat more than most people.

Last night I recorded my first voice recording with Adam's
MP3 player and that system is going to work out very well,
I don't have the time or energy when I have to time to
write everything that is going on but saying it is much easier.

The bus ride was also something else, the busses have a
middle seat that folds down when people are on the bus so
we were sitting 5 across. The bus was vearing around other
buses and trucks and people walking on the side of the road.
We would stop periodically and buy things from people at
the side of the bus through the windows, what really struck
me was this area of construction with mounds of red dirt
piled on each side and women selling corn on the cob at the
side of the road on their heads.  Lots of people in the bus
bought some and for a moment the bus smelt like sweet corn.
The bus was very nice when it was moving and we got a good
breeze, I slept off and on and tried to learn Dagbani with
a new friend Amin who was going home to Tamale from Accra
for the summer holidays.  It started raining at one point
and the smell of the earth was amazing!! We drove past some
rural villages as well with kids running around and women
walking with babies tied to their backs.  The countryside
is very green with tall trees that look like oaks and banana
plants surrounded by other brush. As we moved further north
into the country on the bus the trees grow shorter and the
brush flattened out so we could see more of an horizon. 
It is also much less humid here in Tamale which is very
welcome on my end, although the farmers and people that
live here might wish for more rain.  We are coming at the
beginnning of the rainy season so I'm sure it will get more
humid soon but the temperature will be a few degrees lower.
The smells are very intense, sometimes so sweet and then sour,
sometimes spicy and then very earthy they always change and
I can't even hope to begin to identify them right now.

All in all, things feel very comfortable and I feel safe
and well taken care off,the people at the hotel we are
staying at are very friendly and most people speak english
so it is easier to communicate. I hope I can learn Dagbani
fast so I can talk to them in their local language.

Thank you for all your thoughts and hopes,
I hope to write soon again, maybe making a little more
sense than I do right now
Samina