Wait Small, I’m Coming!

… translates from Ghanaian English to: “Hold on a second, I’ll be right there.” I still laugh every time someone says that but I won’t be hearing it much longer, my flight leaves in a few hours. Thanks so much for tuning in and reading about my life for the last 5 months, I look forward to seeing everyone stateside!

-Alan

Scraps of Forgotten Adventures

It’s come to this at last. It’s been a long semester of adventures and travels but I’m afraid it’s all winding down. All that’s left is to tell you about the things I’ve forgotten to tell in other blogs. Like the time I spent the night on a stilt village built over the water…

Nzulezu:

All the way at the bottom left corner of Ghana, near Cote D’Ivoire there is a  village of people who fled a civil war in Mali 600 years ago and followed a snail across desert and savannah, rainforest and swamp until they found their new home of Nzulezu, on top of a lake in a maze of swampland. They felt as though they would be safe hidden in the swamps and inaccessible by anything other than dug out canoe. They were right. It took about an hour and a half of paddling through the swamp to get to the village but it was certainly worth the work.

A whole town built on the water nearly unchanged for centuries; it was certainly a unique experience. We didn’t plan on staying long but the weather had other plans. Just as we were about to go back, a late afternoon tropical rainstorm hit and we were stranded in the village. I hadn’t planned on spending the night but I suppose I’m glad I stayed. Now I can say that I slept in a house that swayed back and forth on it’s support columns (tree branches) with every step, and I slept in a bed while listening to the fish splash about under the floor.

Python Temple:

There is a place in Benin where they worship snakes. Well, at least they did at one time, now it seems like the temple’s main purpose it to turn a profit for locals but who could resist a room full of dozens of pythons? Not I!

Kelly wasn't quite as comfortable with the Pythons as me.

I was slightly concerned when the guide picked up a python and wrapped it around my neck like a scarf but turns out that the snakes were very docile and cuddly.

By the way, I’ve been waiting a long time to tell you that I’ve been in Benin… to get there you’re gunna need to leave Ghana and then you need to go to Togo.

 Cape 3 Points:

The southern most point in Ghana comes complete with a lighthouse, whale watching and sea turtles. Unfortunately, I came at the wrong season for everything but the lighthouse, which apparently is there almost all year long.

Voodoo Forest:

There was also a forest, which was a sacred voodoo forest, which was more of a sculpture garden, which was supposedly home of a man who turned himself into a tree hundreds of years ago. He has gotten very tall since.

The tree that used to be a man... see, I told you he was pretty tall, even for a tree.

This was a cute statue... you know, in a completely evil and terrifying way.

Here’s a look at where I’ve been over the last few months:

I think I’ve done just about everything there is to do in Ghana… Oh yeah. I took some classes too, all of which I have completed with the exception of one exam next week. 

See ya in a week.

Volta Region

I have a few hours before I head out again on another trip so I thought I would quickly post a short description of my weekend trip to the Volta Region.

On Friday, myself, Molly, Catherine and her dad who flew in to visit for the week, left Accra and by nightfall we had arrived at Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary. We spent the night there and in the morning we fed the monkeys and went for a stroll through the forest. I fed a monkey a banana and it was pretty awesome. The little thing jumped onto my arm and shredded the banana peel off with it’s tiny fingers. To be honest this was my second attempt… On my first try the monkey ripped the banana out of my hand and ran off, jumping into a tree to eat it. That was no fun for me so the second time, I held tightly so the monkey would have to stay if it wanted to eat.

After breakfast we moved on to Wli Falls, the tallest waterfall in West Africa. The falls are in two segments, the upper falls and the lower falls. It’s a quick and flat 40 minute hike to the lower falls but the upper falls were a steep and fairly strenuous 2 hour climb. I wore flip flops which was a horrible idea but nevertheless I made it and the completely deserted upper falls were definitely worth the hike.

View half way up the climb

Cliff face near the falls

Wli - Upper falls

... for a sense of scale

Wli - Lower falls. See all the bats on the cliff face?

Ok. you see them for sure now.

Wli - Lower falls

On the way back this morning I came across a tro-tro mate (guy who yells the destination and collects money) wearing a very unlikely shirt:

Please, somebody calculate the chances of that… I was curious where and how he came across the shirt but its true origin will remain a mystery since he told me that he bought the shirt from someone in Accra. 

Despite everything, the craziest experience for me this weekend was realizing that 3 weeks from today I'll be back in Ohio... times flies.

Blah Blah Blog

Sorry, It’s been a while. I guess I should list off my excuses to why I didn’t bother to blog for the last month or so. But that would be something you would expect… now for something completely unexpected.

Pretzels. I found pretzels in the last month and have been enjoying them ever since I first saw them sitting on the shelf of the bakery in Koala Supermarket, the most wonderful place in Accra. Do you know what’s wonderful about pretzels? Neither do I. They’re just amazing and I don’t know exactly why.  So close to salty bread yet so far away.

Peach Ice Tea. Also found at Koala and also amazingly amazingtastic. Peach Tea is well publicized as my favorite thing in all the universe and the day I found it was without a doubt one of my favorite days of the semester. I can remember everything about that day down to the weather: it was sunny and warm, the air was thick with humidity and there was a moderate haze over the city. Wait. That’s everyday… time to talk about things…

A thing I did on Earthday was plant trees. I wrote about the Green Ghana Project before and this was the culmination of my planting and growth monitoring efforts. I hate to spare all the thrilling details but we went to a village, stuck a thousand or so trees in the ground, cleaned off, waited for a TV crew and reenacted the effort for TV3. Goats were also involved, some buckets too.

I mountain biked in the mountains above Accra… with a bike.

My notebook is green.

So are my shoes… at least they used to be.

From the perspective of me in January: My shoes are and will have been green.

I need to study for my finals… but not too much.

There was a hang gliding festival on Easter but I unfortunately could not attend.

I’m on my 3^rd pair of sandals.

Rainy season is starting.

These are things that I would say on Twitter if I had an account.

Q: I wonder exactly how long white walls stay white in Ghana.

…And that

A: 2.756 Days

… That too.

They actually paint the first four feet of buildings dark red to match the color the dirt would stain it.

Oh, I went to Benin a couple weeks ago. I’ll do a post about that someday. Kelly says she wants to co-author it. We’ll see if that happens… (and just read this and says we are going to if Alan would ever take the time out of his non-busy day to do it…Plus the last time we worked on it I had to go to the hospital for possibly questionable bacterial problems misdiagnosed under the false positive lab result of typhoid—thus the blog will be happening!!!!!!!!!!!!!) J  -that was Kelly. Last time I let her proof read a post.

Yes. It will sound like that.

Update: we’ve already started writing it but got bored.

Update from the future: We’ve written it. I don’t remember how good it was.

See you in 26 days.

I’ll of course blog before then.

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p.s. This is what I sound like when I write at 2am.