Beautiful jungle: Aburi Botanical Gardens and Boti Falls

The last 2 weekends I've gone traveling to some gorgeous places in Ghana where I have had the pleasure of seeing green that is greener by far than any green I have yet seen :)

First, last weekend, I went with Grace, Matt, Katie, and Jenna (all friends from my ISEP group) to see the Aburi Botanical Gardens. This was our first solo tro-tro expedition, so it may be useful to describe the tro-tro. Tro-tros are like the buses of Ghana (and much of Africa, I believe). They are the size of your average minivan, but they have 5-6 rows of thin, cramped seats inside, with foldable seats down the righthand side, so each tro-tro can stuff 12-16 people inside. One guy drives and another seats by the door to slide it open and yell incomprehensibly where the tro-tro is headed. Often you have to rush and push past other potential riders to get a seat; there is no line or anything like it. Once you get your seat, you pay anywhere from 20 pesewas (15 US cents) up to 10 cedis 50 pesewas (that's if you're going all the way to the other end of the country, which is about the size of Oregon, but a lot harder to drive in). Then you relax and watch the action out the window. There are signs that I suppose might be speed limits here, but they seem to just be suggestions. What really regulates the speed of traffic is the abundance of vehicles. Drivers here are incredibly aggressive, as they need to be if they want to get anywhere. You can look out the window in traffic and see another cars bummer inches away from your door and still moving. Our tro-tro actually hit another tro-tro yesterday, in stop and go traffic. The drivers and occupants all yelled at each other and we all moved on. It is also not at all uncommon to be in a tro-tro (especially one that is going somewhere outside the city) and suddenly be driving on a strip of dirt on either side of the road. nor will your tro-tro be alone. Drivers are constantly making new roads on random stretches of dirt on either side of the actual, paved (or not) road.

So now that there is some background for the adventure that is traveling here, you can fully appreciate the pride we had it ourselves when we made it successfully to the Botanical Gardens a few hours later. The gardens were basically a park, with some informative signage, so we just roamed around and took pictures. Here's what we saw!


This box that revealed to us that we have been on the Lost island THE WHOLE TIME


There were some beautiful trees like this one!


A lovely butterfly landed on my hand!


Check out this rooster!


Stuffed in the back of the tro-tro, ready to go home.

Excellent day trip!
This last weekend, Grace, Matt, Alex, Sarah, Eliza, Lianne, Marianne and I went to Boti Falls, which is to the north, farther into the Eastern Region. We took three tro-tros to get there and took a staircase down to the pool at the bottom of the falls, where we proceeded to clamber over all the slippery wet rocks and muddy ground we could find.


Beautiful waterfalls!!


Some steep, slippery rocks we climbed up!


Behind the waterfall!



Alex under a waterfall!


Lianne, Matt, and I

So that was a soaking wet adventure as well! The tro-tro ride here was possibly the most thrilling. Grace and I were in the front seat and we were enjoying the adorable goats that frolicked around the Eastern Region. A group was crossing the road in front of our tro-tro and a little black goat sort of hesitated in the middle. Our tro-tro did not slow down. Grace's and my eyes got bigger. The baby goat didn't move. The tro-tro didn't slow down. At the very last second he jumped out of the way and saved his own life and we were not traumatized and racked with guilt over the death of an adorable baby goat, and thus able to fully enjoy our falls experience!

Where my beaches at? They are in Ghana!

Beaches in Ghana are definitely especially beautiful!



See how everyone is in one part of the water like that? That is because the current is super intense and can easily carry you away! Craaaaazy! The water was pretty pleasant and warm and there were teeny tiny critters in shells that would wash up to the sand with the tide and then scurry to crawl back under it again.

There are also pretty places to chill out and order food and drinks...


...thrilling displays of musical skill and drag queenery...



...and good times!





This little boy taught us to dance!
There were some really cool, friendly folks, but as always, we have to shake off a good deal of guys persistently selling paintings, jewelry and horseback rides. In the bus, our student guides also warned us to watch out for guys offering to "help you swim". Nobody had to deal with that though.

Here we all are, celebrating our exciting first beach day!



Another exciting event that happens every Wednesday at the beach is Reggae Night. We went our first Wednesday in Ghana, since it was one of our group's birthdays that day. There were a ton for foreigners and some Ghanaians. When we arrived, the band was playing (it was not very good, in my opinion) but no one was dancing. Our ISEP group and some Canadian friends we made who came along started the dancing and ordered some drinks at the semi-sketchy bar and had a good time. I took Mary Ann (one of the Canadians) down to the water for her first touch of the ocean, which was really cool. We ran into Obed, one of our student guides, and Fifi, a popular Ghanaian around the hostel who takes us out to pretty fun spots. It was definitely a fun night of beach bonding.

Akwaaba, friends!

On this day, the one year anniversary of my (unintentionally) last post on my cooking blog, I have decided to try again. Not only will I resume updating Lovin' My Oven, I will also be chronicling my experiences here in Legon, Ghana in my semester-long study abroad time at the University of Ghana. I'll be here for a thrilling 5 months and I'll be learning all sorts of unique things, so I thought it would be good to share :)

First, some photos!



The pretty Registration Building. It is very, very far from my hostel, and up a big hill, so I avoid it. But it's pretty!



At the post office!



A pretty typical meal in Ghana.

I've been here for two weeks now, so I'll backtrack a bit in order to recount some of the cool part of the trip so far... (picture some sort of time machine and eerie music here)


August 4th: I am on an airplane flying from Washington D.C. to Accra, Ghana. about halfway across the Atlantic, I finally realized that I am going to AFRICA. To LIVE there. It was pretty scary. I did consider once or twice that it might be better and less frightening if the plane crashed into the ocean (don't worry, now I think that that definitely would have been scarier). I didn't know anyone on the entire continent and I had very few ideas about what to expect. I knew there were other people like me on the plane (it was a group flight) but I did not know who they were or how to talk to them.

As the plane was landing, we went through a thick fog. It was really a lot like my take off from San Francisco, until we got close enough to the ground for me to see land. You know how when the airplane lands in a hugh city and you see all those houses and buildings and you sorta land in the middle of them. This was not like that. What I saw was green. Bright, glistening green, everywhere, cut up periodically with red dirt roads that looked like harsh cuts in the earth. It was beautiful, but completely foreign. My fear built as we landed and went through customs. Accra Airport is tiny and I feared that everyone on the flight would leave and I would not know where to go.

Of course, that was not the case. As soon as I can out from customs, I was met by 5 or 6 Ghanaian people, including our student guides and people working for ISEP (International Student Exchange Program). They were friendly and behind them were a handful of Americans looking anxious and uncertain, but friendly. We waited for everyone to get through customs, then trooped out to a big van. Somehow, they got all our luggage (this was the stuff of like 12 kids, staying for 5 months - 1 year) piled on the roof and we rode through Accra to Legon, which is just to the northeast.

All us students got to know each other and paired up into rooms. A girl named Evelyn, from Colorado, ended up sharing a room with me and we've worked well together as roommates. As of now, we still might get put in different rooms and each have a Ghanaian roommate, but we don't know for sure. Either way, it's a good situation.

The next few days involved ISEP taking us around to places in Accra and Legon, telling us about what life and school will be like here, helping us get used to the local food and water, and helping us to bond with each other and feel comfortable in our hostel. Our hostel is like a dorm, but is called a hostel cause it is technically that too; people can stay for shorter amounts of time and its for international and Ghanaian students (like I House at San Jose State). The really university dorms are called Halls.

We went to the beach with our guides (and later by ourselves, for Reggae Night) and on a trip to Cape Coast Castle and Kakum National Park. But more about those later. I think I've said enough for a first post, so I'll just end with a list of

Things I unlearned and relearned about Ghana:
1) It is not the hottest I have ever been, all year long. I was told this, but it really feels like California feels right now, only add a little humidity. Apparently it will be hotter later (January til March), but I get to miss that.

2) I have not been proposed to yet. Not on campus, not downtown, not out at night, not anywhere. Neither has anyone I know. I suppose it might happen, but it is definitely not happening daily.

3) There is internet (obviously) and running water. I knew this, but I feel like a lot of people at home didn't. Understandable, it is definitely a third world country. The internet is unreliable sometimes, as is the water (but we have back-up tanks, so it's okay). What I did NOT expect was the lack of toilet paper. In America, if there is no toilet paper and/or soap in a public bathroom, you go complain to someone and they'll give it to you. In Ghana, if there IS toilet paper and/or soap in a public bathroom, you will likely cheer aloud and tell all your friends about it. We have all gotten used to carrying toilet paper and hand sanitizer in our purses.

4) I had this impression that not a lot of international students would be here. That was wrong. There are a lot of us. I heard someone say 4% of the university population, or about 1,200 international students. So I'm meeting a lot of people, from all over (especially Canada)

5) I do not have a hard time making friends. I usually have a hard time making friends, especially if I don't already know people. Here, however, its relatively easy. First we had a week of ISEP adventures and our 20 student group became friendly and close. Then there is the hostel, which fosters friendship making with the communal kitchen and laundry room and the little restaurant downstairs. THEN there are "professional friends" or sleazy Ghanaians who want to befriend international students in order to rip them off or steal stuff from their rooms. But even the nice, normal Ghanaians are very friendly and easy to talk to, once you get started with them. You will often have to make the first move, because they are conscious of coming off as a professional friend, but once you ascertain they attend school and are in classes, you're pretty safe making friends with them and they are excellent casual conversationalists. I have yet to meet a Ghanaian student who was rude or short with me.

Okay, super long post. Here is a photo of someone's pet monkey to reward you for reading so much.