GHANA

We left Ghana a couple of days ago and I’m still going through so many different emotions from my experience. I had a lot of really fun moments mixed in with a lot of sad moments too. Probably within the first 20 minutes after getting off the ship I could tell it was so much different than the other places we’ve been to so far. There were a lot of locals right near the ship that were selling different African souvenirs that would come right up to you and put their arms around you and ask you your name. It got hard to walk in and out of the gates after a while because the crowd of people trying to sell us stuff got bigger as word got out that we were there. And they were extremely persistent.

The first day when we went into the market place down town was really upsetting. A lot of kids came up to us and asked for money and water. It was really sad because we wanted to give them some but soon realized that it wasn’t a good idea. The poverty everywhere was definitely a huge culture shock. Later that day we decided to get out of the city and go to one of the beaches. The differences between the beach and the market place were so extreme that it didn’t even feel like we were still in the same country. The beaches were gorgeous and had no crowds. It felt like we were on a remote tropical island somewhere instead of in Africa. We met a lot of really nice locals at the beach and they all seemed genuinely interested in us.

The two SAS trips I did in Ghana were both really good. I visited a village one day where they put on a ceremony for us with lots of drumming and dancing. We also had a naming ceremony where we all got African names that came from the day we were born on.  After that we got to walk up to the school and play with the children for a little bit. They were so cute. They all wanted to get their pictures taken and take pictures of us too. When we were leaving a lot of the kids followed us to the bus and asked us for things. I gave one boy a pen and another little boy asked me for a shirt. I wish I had brought more things with me to give to them. The other trip I did in Takoradi was on the last day where I visited an orphanage. We had a lot of fun playing games with the kids all day. We taught them how to play elbow tag and sharks and minnows and they taught us how to play one of their games. One little boy got really attached to me and didn’t want me to leave at the end. He clung to my arm and tried to get on the bus with us it was really sad.

One of the other things I did in Ghana that was really cool was go to the Kakum National Park with my friends Hannah and Kaitlyn. There was a canopy walkway in the rainforest that was way up in the tops of the trees that we walked along. The walkway was basically a long plank of wood with some rope around it. A few people in the group got scared because it was really wobbly but I thought it was a lot of fun and the view was absolutely amazing. I actually enjoyed it more than my rainforest trip in the Amazon. Hopefully I can find an internet café in South Africa so that I can try and put some pictures up of the canopy walk so people can see how cool it was. We have 4 more days at sea until we get to South Africa. I can’t wait to get to Cape Town! I’ll try to post again as soon as I can.