Honking in Ghana!

All drivers honk in Ghana, all the time. There are many things a driver might be trying to express with their honks, and I've listed all the ones I've come across, in order of frequency:

1) "I'm an empty taxi and I really want a fare."

Taxis love to honk at you, especially if you are white, because the only reason you would be white and walking around instead of in a taxi is because you are not smart enough to know how to summon a taxi. I get this frequently while waiting for a tro-tro: a guy will come up and say "Where are you going??" and I'll say "Kaneshie" and he'll grab my arm and drag me to a taxi. No, sir. I don't want a taxi. That is why I'm waiting for a tro-tro. Then he'll say "Oh. You wait over there. Tro-tro will come." Yes, thank you, I know. That's why I was waiting there in the first place. Whew. Sorry, little rant there. Ghanaians love to help me, but they don't often realize that I don't really need help.

2) "I'm driving recklessly fast, so you'd probably better move"

If there is room to drive too fast, a car will drive too fast. This a rule with few exceptions.

3) "I'm going to drive where you are walking and want you to move immediately."

Cars have right of way in Ghana. Always. It is pretty difficult to cross streets because they rarely slow down at all. I've definitely had times where, had I tripped and fallen, I would have been run over. Kinda amazed I'm still alive.

4) "I'm too lazy to use my turn signal."

Ghanaian drivers tend to take the lines that distinguish lanes as suggestions. On a 3 lane road during rush hour (or rush hours, as it is here), you can usually count 4-6 vehicles next to each other. They all change lanes all the time too, in hopes of getting ahead of that one driver. they do this by waving out the window in a sort of shooing motion at the other cars and/or honking to alert them that they'd better move of they'll get hit.

5) "I can't believe you aren't driving yet, the light has been green for approximately 0.5 seconds!"

Traffic is pretty awful here, since there is one main road that everyone uses to get from Legon to Accra, and it is backed up between 7:30-10:30 AM and 4:00-7:30 PM. Not super surprising that people have road rage.

6) "Drive faster!"

This in lieu of overtaking them, though usually they just overtake them (safely, or not)

7) "I'm a motorcyclist in the bike lane!"

All the time, especially during rush hours. I walk about a half mile to the farther tro-tro station on Tuesdays when I volunteer at the Embassy (I'm faster than the traffic and its easier to catch a tro-tro down there), and I see probably 10-15 motorcyclists in the bike lane at that time. These bike lanes are a section of the sidewalk too, not a section of the street. There is a curb between the bike lane and the street. It seems so progressive that they are there, until Matt gets chastised by a motorcyclist for riding his bike in the bike lane rather than on the sidewalk. Note, these motorcyclists are driving up to 50 mph.

8) "I'm a taxi driver and I know that other taxi driver! Hi, friend!"

I like this one, because just when I'm about to get annoyed that yet another taxi is accosting me for walking, I see that no, they are just being friendly to a coworker.

9) "I am going to drive where you are walking, but I'll wait for you to pass... Hurry up, though!"

This is especially confusing as #3 is so much more common, but it's nice to hear. Often, they flash their lights at you too, which helps to distinguish whether they want you to stop or keep going.

10) "Hey, obruni!"

A lot of times people yell this at us because they want to meet us, or sell us something. But sometimes they yell it because they are just excited to see a white person. Imagine if you walked down the street and saw a Kenyan guy and said, "Hey! Black person!" Well, it's nothing like that here. The proper response is a smile and nod, and, if you can, "EtE sen?" or "Obibini!!" ("how are you?" and "Black person", respectively).

I don't like making posts without pictures, so here is a lion. These don't live in Ghana.

Turning 24 in Ghana

Two weeks ago, I turned 24! I was a little apprehensive about having my birthday in Ghana, away from all my family and friends, but luckily, I've made such good friends among the International students in my hostel, that my birthday was most excellent! In fact, since I mentioned (complained) to them that I'm accustomed to sharing my birthday with the 9 friends I have born in late October/early November, they made sure I felt special for the whole week! The day before my birthday, Lianne bought mixings for pineapple mojitos and we all watched Shutter Island. On my birthday I went for a massage and we ate red velvet cake!

We also played with party hats, masks, and horns, much to the dismay of the ISH porters.



Eventually, we took our party fun to the next logical conclusion: Unicorn Battles!



After that, we just rolled around on the grass!


That was my first day being 24! The fun didn't stop, though, as the next day, one of our ISEP members planned a joint birthday party for me and her husband (we was born on the 4th). It was a potluck and she made AMAZING sausage pasta sauce and I commissioned our own Louise (aggressive Ghanaian saleswoman who sells pastries outside ISH) to make me a cake, which was delicious!

Theeeen, on Saturday and Sunday, we went to Kokrobite, to continue our celebrations! Since our cameras all broke when we went the weekend before for Lianne's birthday, we have no pictures of it, but I'll jsut use last week's pictures since it was basically the same!

Boooobby!

Lovely, warm ocean!

We found a tire swing!

My birthday was coming to a close, but I'm going to go ahead and count us going to see In Time at the movie theatre as part of my birthday, since Lianne and Marianne probably wouldn't have gone for it otherwise. We all loved it, though, and highly recommend it! (Kinda funny to watch a movie about poverty in the valley of the Ghana Elite that is the Accra Mall...) Hooray for my almost-week-long birthday!

Watermelon Carving

Pumpkin Carving! That tried and true tradition of any Halloween! Only in Ghana, there is no Halloween. No one hands out candy, people look at you weird for dressing up, and there are no pumpkins. But we were not going to let that stop us. The day after we went to Shai Hills (a week before Halloween), we went out and bought nice, firm, ripe watermelons to hollow out and carve!


So bright and pretty!


And there is SO MUCH TO EAT


My "pumpkin"

Marianne's Pumpkin (it says Mole National Park" on it)

Lianne's Pumpkin

Let me tell you, watermelons were So Easy to carve, compared to pumpkins. Even though we only had awkward kitchen knives. Unfortunately, they also wilt really sadly in the heat of Africa. A few days later they needed to be thrown away, a really gross job that Matt did for Lianne and I as early birthday presents.

In their glory!

Baboons!

So, the week after we fed our little monkeys, we wanted to go back for more. Renee from Mawuvio's Outreach Program told me about Shai Hills, a nature reserve that has rock climbing, camping, kilometers of trails, a bat cave, and baboons. No one was up for a long weekend trip again, but Marianne, Lianne, and I thought we would go up for the day and check it out.

When we got off the tro-tro, there were baboons wandering around the roadside, scoping us out. The guide later said they like to cross the road and steal food from the vendors and school kids, then run back onto the reserve where they know no one will follow. Adorable little thieves.


Baboon butts are really gross.


A BABY


Baboon family party


As we walked through the reserve, we came across ostriches!




Ostriches make it clear that birds descended from dinosaurs.


We also visited the bead market that day, and I got a ton of beads so we can make stuff when I get home!

Some gross stuff about Ghana, but also pretty nature adventures!

I haven't updated in way too long, which means it's time for another multiple update day! First, our thrilling trip to the Volta Region! About a month ago, we took a trotro for about 5 hours to get to Hohoe, a main city in the Volta Region (northeast of Greater Accra Region, where we live).

There we experienced the grossest bathrooms we have come across in Ghana thus far. So, the really scariest part of traveling isn't not knowing how to get to a place, nor is it not knowing exactly where you'll be sleeping. It is not knowing where you'll use the bathroom. Hohoe (and most market areas, really) is a perfect example of why this is so frightening. Of course, there are no shops or restaurants with bathrooms; you need to find the one for the whole market. We saw a sign that said 10p for toilets and urinals and went for it. After paying my 10 pesewas, I was asked by the guy if I needed a urinal or a toilet. Thinking, 'Well, I'm a girl, so...' I said toilet. The guy ripped off a piece of newspaper for me and sent me on my way. Lianne had gone before me and when I caught up with her, we enjoyed having another person to share our horror with. "Toilet" meant a long room, divided into several doorless stalls. There was a path to walk down the room and choose your stall. Once you made your selection, you could put your feet on the wooden foot-shaped steps and poo into the hole. The hole was not deep. There was no water or anything to dilute the hole, other than my small piece of newspaper. There were many, many flies in the hole. The people who had pooed in the hole before us had not had exceptional aim. It was a hot day, so the combination of about 12 such holes on my nose was overwhelming.

Stepping fearlessly into this structure, I put my newspaper to my nose and stared at the hole on the end of the row. I tentatively put a foot on the footstep. I tried to figure out how to pull down my pants without removing my newspaper from my nose. Then I decided I didn't have to pee that bad and ran away. There was good news though! When we met up with Matt, Bobby, and Marianne, we discovered that toilets were exclusively for pooing and, since we wanted to pee, we could use the luxurious (by comparison) urinals.

Here's a great picture of Matt in the men's urinal.

Here's our lady urinal. It didn't smell (much) and there was even a nice little wooden door that covered most of the doorway. It was lovely.

After that experience, we were able to move on to the really thrilling nature weekend we had planned! First, we went to Wli waterfalls, which are the falls in Ghana with the biggest drop (you can still stand underneath them, though, unlike the raging water at Boti Falls).

Matt and I pose with our Louise shirts (Louise is this really aggressive saleswoman who makes dinners and pastries and sells them outside our hostel. She has shirts with her face that say "Tantilizing... Tell Your Friends!")

When we got to the visitor's center, they hooked us up with a guide to take us on the 45 minute walk. Mostly, that consisted of him pointing out interesting trees and telling us when to make sure we jump over the fire ants.

We also crossed lotsa little bridges.

Then, there we were!!

After we saw the falls, we hung out a bit with the numerous baby goats that frolic all over the Volta Region, then went to stay at the Monkey Sanctuary.

So the Tafe Atome Monkey Sanctuary is possibly the best attraction type thing I've done in Ghana. We showed up kinda late (6:30 or so, but since the sun had set and the power was out, it might as well have been midnight), but they were really hospitable and got us a room, showed us the bathroom, and let us know that dinner would be served at 7:30. Our room included the beds (with mosquito nets, but, sadly, no fans), dinner, breakfast the next morning, a tour of the sanctuary, and feeding the monkeys. It was 20 cedi, which was most excellent. After our delicious rice and shito (spicy-ish-, fishy-ish, tomato-y sauce that is usually not very good, but here was yummy), we went to bed super early. Unfortunately, we did not sleep very well because it was crazy hot. We were glad when it was 6 AM and time for us to go feed the monkeys!

After that, our guide took us around the forest and told us about the history of the sanctuary. All the money we had paid goes back into the community, which was great, and he was really informative, friendly, and didn't ask for a tip, which is pretty rare in Ghana.

Here's the community our 20 cedis helped :) They were really, really friendly, since they make such a reliable living with the monkey tourists.

Here's us eating breakfast at the nice monkey place!

So THEN we got to ride motortaxis to get back to Hohoe, where we got a really nice cab driver to take us to Mount Afajado.

You don't wear seatbelts in Ghana, why would you wear helmets? (I'm not angry, I'm trying to look hardcore.)

Finally, time to climb the (allegedly) tallest mountain in Ghana.

Off we go!

Here it is!

Okay, so it was WAY steeper than any of us expected and it was super exhausting. Plus it was Africa, so we sweat more than ever before. But we did make it to the top!

Tada! Our reward.

We are so proud of ourselves!

So, for a final picture, I want to show you this really gross thing that happens here. So, the roads are all dirt and you get it all over your body and clothes everyday, all the time. So when you sweat a lot, the dirt migrates on your sweat to body joints, like knees and elbows. It's icky, but happens to me like 3 or 4 times a week (usually after dance class). Yuck :)

The end!