Beach Tour '08

So I have recently returned from my latest traveling. As you all know it is Easter time and to celebrate Jesus' raising from the dead, we get to take off school and bask in His awesomeness right?! Thank you Jesus! Therefore, Kristy (the other volunteer) and I teamed up with my housemate, Mariah (another teacher at American International School) and her friend, Jonathan, who is staying close by in Nigeria! Now I am not going to stretch this vacation on for 3 months, so I will summarize it in this nice, concise list for you all to enjoy:

8 days
7 nights
5 beaches (each was a fishing village-as are most beaches in Ghana)
1 Tour of a Village built completely on stilts
1 Tour of a slave castle
20 minutes of running
Approximately 572,639 kilometers of walking!!
4 tro-tros
1 bus
1 taxi
3 million beads of sweat
400 pages in 'Gone With the Wind'
LOTS of street food (with a little sickness on the side)
And none of it paid for with a mastercard :-P
but of course all of it was PRICELESS! :)

The four of us had some incredible experiences together. On the flip side, it was actually a perfect chance to be alone and to do some reflection, reading, and relaxation (so...R and R..and r?). So thank you Lord for cheap travel in Ghana.

Also, I must say that I was told by one of my high school students that I write my blogs backwards. She thought perhaps I didn't know and was very stern in trying to get me to understand that I CAN'T write about New Years Eve in MARCH. Haha, that being said, I would like to quickly wrap up my last two days of holiday vacation.

New Years Day we woke up at 3:30am to catch a 4:00am bus. After frantically pushing and pulling ourselves through the mobbish group of people trying to get on the ONLY bus to Tamale for the day, Kristy, Bianca, Dayne (two Aussies we met at Mole National Park), and I settled in to sleep for a few hours. We woke up in Tamale, searched for a bus to Kumasi, failed to find one, hopped on a tro-tro and 5 squished hours later began to walk to our faithful Presbyterian Guesthouse. Bianca and Dayne continued on towards Accra, but Kristy and I wanted to stretch our vacation out for as long as possible. We found our restaurant with a pool table again; then came back to the guesthouse for a lovely shower and a comfy bed.
Our last day of vacay was spent hopping from Kumasi to Accra for lunch and back over to Ho to eat dinner and collapse into bed. Who knew vacation was so tiring??

What did you all do for Easter vacation (don't answer that if you're bitter because you didn't go anywhere :-P)? I would love to hear some fun stories :)

My Special Education student and I have really found our niche. Together, his occupational therapist, his other teachers, and I have been working on techniques to help with outbursts and extra energy. Thank you to everyone who has been e-mailing suggestions and encouragements in this area! My Spanish and American History classes are both going well and I am looking forward to this next/last quarter! Just so everyone knows, teaching actually works! My students are REALLY learning what I teach! hehe (Even those one or two mistakes that we had to go back later and fix...oops!)

I would like to give a quick 'shout out' to two very important people in my life. My brother Matthew turned NINETEEN and my agent/other mother Sherrill Heinrichs turned SIXTY!! woo hoo!!! I love you both so so so so much, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Well, I would like to thank you all for reading. It is such an encouragement to me to know that my friends and family take the time out of their crazy, busy, Obruni days to read what I think. Can you believe it's April already!?
Happy Spring to those of you who have access to seasons. hehe :)
Miss you!
Love,
Meg

Day 5: December 31st, 2007

NEW YEARS EVE!!

So, after a night and early morning of calling to prayer announcements in the village of Larabanga (a 100% Muslim community), we woke up at 6am to leave at 6:30 to taxi (there are only two taxis in the village-not an exaggeration) to Mole National Park. The early morning safari walk was supposed to be the best avenue to see the most animals. When we showed up, we were two amongst a group of about 25-30 Obruni waiting to set off on our hike around the park. After making sure that everyone was wearing close-toed shoes, they divided us into 4 or 5 groups. There were a few clumps of people that decided to be together, so Kristy and I not making any clique decisions got 'stuck' in the mish-mash group of pairs. So as best as we could at 7 in the morning, the ten of us '20-somethings' began to get to know one another. At the same time, we set off for the morning led by our guide and his rifle.

"The reason I am carrying this firearm is only a precaution for your safety in case any of the animals decide to become hostile."

Thanks Mister.

Our first stop was just up a dirt path to a chunk of trees where all of a sudden we realized we were surrounded by a bunch of sprinting monkeys! So, there were probably about five...but that was a lot when you come from a house full of NO monkeys! Then we walked through the area of staff-housing where we saw a bunch of humans on two-legs and THEN a bunch of WARTHOGS on four!! They were just roamin' around making nice with the humans. Then our guide, on his walkie-talkie got word of an elephant in some important direction. So as quickly and quietly as we could we followed the man with the rifle on a mission towards the possibility of an elephant!! Shortly after we started walking we came to an open area and caught a glimpse of the biggest behind I've ever seen in real life!! Just like in The Lion King, the elephant also had a few of those white birds hanging around with him. It was incredible!!! Although some may think elephants are large and lumbering, he was completely graceful in his slow, purposeful movements. I believe I would go back to that park if only to watch that animal move through his daily activities. After that WONDERFUL development, we made our way through the rest of the park, spotting a herd of antelope, a few crocodiles, and plenty different types of animal feces, haha. :) However, the end of the hike was the part I will not forget. We were making our way up this hard-to-climb-hill. Nothing really in sight except for the rocky earth-steps we had to focus so closely on. After climbing a few minutes, our guide stopped. He "about-faced" which caused the rest of us to turn. What we saw left us all speechless. I felt as if all of Africa was before me! When you are in the thick of 'the bush' you don't realize the land on which you're walking goes on for MILES! Below us was a beautiful watering hole, surrounded by a dusty landscape with a variety of trees and animals. We stood silent for a few minutes just taking it all in. To finish off the tour, we made our way up the hill and did our tourist duties by taking BOOCOO pictures.

We quickly found the Mole National Park Hotel's restaurant for breakfast which overlooked the beautiful sight we had just taken in. Somehow, two Australians, a German, three Canadians, and two Americans bonded quickly and easily in the morning, that they decided to hang out for the rest of the day! Kristy and I had plans just to get back to Larabanga before dark in order to see the OLDEST MOSQUE IN GHANA. This meant that the rest of the day could be spent sitting next to the hotel's pool, overlooking the wildlife park while enjoying the company of our new found friends. It was glorious!

The afternoon came quickly, but not without a few elephants bathing in the water hole and a few warthogs invading our space. We learned through our friends that their reservations were being toyed with and a few things had fallen through for ALL SIX of our comrades. Kristy and I realized there were open rooms at the Salia Brothers Guest House and offered this outlet. It WAS New Years Eve and how much fun would it be if we could all be together to celebrate! The decision was made and it took our taxi driver two trips to get us all back to Larabanga. Finally together, we asked Yaya (the son of the Salia Bros-about 12 years old) to show us this mosque! Little did we know, Yaya's older brother was given the opportunity to train in Accra to be a tour/guide. His specialty? The oldest mosque in Ghana, which is also one of the oldest in West Africa. We learned a lot from him and were able to take all the pictures (of the outside) that we wanted. We next mozied over to the local soda spot and sat down with 20 locals at our heels. We quickly made a few friends, who then invited us to watch a traditional dance performance that night! AWESOME! We sat for a little while longer, then went back to our place where we organized who would sleep where. You see, there are only three open rooms at this guest house, and there were eight of us. Problem. This actually turned out to be no problem at all, because Kristy, Daphne (Canadian-cycling across West Africa with her other Canadian friend Eli), and I opted to sleep on the roof!!! With this problem solved we had another incredible dinner and set out to meet our friend and his fabulous dancers! When we arrived we were met by about 70 young girls, ages 5-12, all dressed in traditional clothing. Somehow this afterschool program was started in order to teach these children homemaking skills, traditional dancing, as well as the English language. It seemed like an incredible program and when the celebrating began we knew it was going to be a good night. We were able to observe many different dances, until they decided it would be a good idea to make fools out of the obruni and have us participate, rather, try to DECIPHER, the rhythm and bounce and technique to various circle dances. WOO! It was hard!!

The show was spectacular and they even presented quirky poems afterwards which I imagine were tools in learning English. It was nearing 10pm or so when we arrived back at our place for the night. Immediately we grabbed a few sodas, and Bianca (Australian working at an orphanage here in Ghana, visiting Mole with her Australian friend who came to visit-Dayne) turned on her iPod WITH speakers! After the awkwardness of who-was-going-to-start-dancing passed, we were all up and dancing 2007 away (you know SOME of us were dancing MACHINES)! And we KEPT boogy-ing until the 'ball dropped' or until MOST of our cell phones said it was 12 am. We screamed our countdown, shouted and hugged, then winded down with a GREAT game of charades. Shortly thereafter we made our way to our respective sleeping quarters to catch a few hours of shut eye.

This was definitely my favorite day of the entire holiday :) Thanks for sharing it with me...and by the way, the stars were INCREDIBLE to fall asleep under in a town with no street lights. :)