Elie the Elephant!

That’s right folks, we saw an elephant. Woohoo!

I was particularly lucky because, being the old lady that I am, I went to bed around 10pm while staying at the Mole Motel in Mole National Park in north western Ghana, but my trusty travel companions woke me up around midnight when, as they were relaxing having a beer, an elephant moseyed up to have a quick snack was in front of our room! It was awesome seeing an elephant up close and personal, live with no cages, whole huge tusks, and it pooped! (Just for us!) Elie took a good hour hanging around the motel that night, along with a small herd of antelope type deer guys, and we were pumped.

BACK TRACK…

So we headed from Kumasi on a regular, painful, bus expedition to Tamale. The 7 hour journey stopped once for some fu-fu and rice, but went so slow on the crummy road it was a bit to bumpy to sleep and a bit to dark to read. Eventually we got to Tamale and were lucky enough to stay at the PC Regional house with 8 other PCVs who were passing through for the night. It was fun to hear about life as a PCV in Ghana, and relax with a bunch of Americans, so we slept well that night, but got up at 4am (okay actually 5am, though we planned for 4 am!) to buy our next bus tickets to the park. No waits at the bus stop so we taxied back to the PCV house to sleep a bit more, eat some pancakes, and head out.

The bus ride to Mole was beautiful, green dappled with little villages of round mud huts and straw little roofs. Cool. The park was beautiful, with a great view over looking a watering hole (technically this is rainy season so the watering hole is not SO necessary for the animals, but still beautiful) and we saw warthogs a plenty, baboons (BaMbons as the guide Deiki pronounced it) and the baboons really liked to jump around in the water. Then we saw Red monkeys and other monkeys (they were black and white, but I forget their actual name, seeings as ‘Red monkeys’ is oh-so-technical…) and the animals were just wandering around within a few feet of us! We also so a bunch of types of deer/antelope guys, squirrels (made me thing of the UM diag) and lots of plants.

After Mole, Elie started us on our stroke of good luck. We caught a right from the small village to a bigger hub, where we got on the 10 hour ride to Accra that was leaving that minute. When we finally pulled into Accra Monday night we were tired of sitting and being subjected to really really bad Nigerians films, so we caught a taxi quick to The Salvation Army Hostel in Osu where we’ve been doing a bit too much shopping (Why, Hello, beautiful Ashanti beads and fabulous batik fabrics). One shop where we all did a lot of damage.

So now we are in Accra, about to eat Thai food for dinner (WHoppee!) and getting ready to fly to Tanzania tonight. Get excited! (Flying through Kenya, so we’ll get a 3 hour look at Nairobi, too!

Peace,
Leah

How did Ghana beat us in the worldcup?

Well I guess cuz they’re better.

But they love the USA no less, I’ve seen a few Obama and Michelle billboards around the country and both members are looking a bit photo shopped, though nonetheless inspirational.

So far we’ve hit us the capital, Accra, and stayed at Crystal Hostel which was a bit outta town though nice that it felt like a regular Ghanaian neighborhood. We drank some inexpensive and not to shabby wine, ate chinese food, went to an internet cafe faster than my house in the USA (where are we, really?) and walked all along the coastline talking to little kids in English. YAY ENGLISH! Makes life a bit easier!

Then we hopped on a cheap bus to the Cape Coast, saw a really depressing Cape Castle where about 2000-5000 slaves were kept hostage before heading to ‘Merka and livened our spirits by contributing to the local economy at various market stalls around town.

We met a cook PCorps couple from Benin, met up with Brett and Amanda from Cape Verde and went on the Canopy Walk in Kakum National Park. Scary heights. Lots of butterflies. Then we hung out waiting for a Tro-tro, through a rainstorm, til a few hours later we made it to the Hans Cottage Botel. The hotel where they would have filmed The Shining had the move been made in Ghana. Weird weird place.

Now we are headed north in search of elephants, and I’m just searching for ideas about the future. Wish us luck! Love, Leah

Ballin’ in Senegal

Well, we have been here in Senegal for 2 weeks now and today we are heading to Ghana (flying through Cote d’Ivoire, does that count as another country on the list?)

Why are we ballin’ you may ask? Because, through our great luck of connections and friendly Americans abroad, we got hooked up with an Embassy worker that let us crash at their apartment prior to our flight our of Dakar. Hip hip HORRAY for laundry machine washed clothes and air conditioning! Maybe I’ll be back to the USA earlier than I planned…

Highlights of the Senegal Expedition:

Dakar (capital city, on a peninsula, crowded, hot, a bit rainy – cuz its the rainy season – and anything you could want to buy, for sale)
1. N’Ice Cream – they have an Obama flavor and it rocks
2. The Market – shopping for fabrics and jewelry and shoes, and I love getting charged 60X the normal price because of the white skin factor, but we have become a bit better at bargining
3. Weird huge statue – It’s kinda like their statue of liberty, expect its a scantily clad family of 3 in a highly Muslim country where multiple wives, many a children and head to toe clothing is the Norm (oh and North Koreans built it in exchange for a good chunk of coastal land, another weird point)
The Statue Controversy

Dakar was cool. We stayed with 3rd year extension Volunteers in their house and they took us all around the city. Great schwarma and pastries (thank you Lebanese immigration and french colonialism). We went and heard live music at Just 4 You, and we got lucky with a great local band called Orchestra Baobab (in homage to my favorite tree in this nation). We also spend a night learning to make ricotta cheese and the days getting our Ghanaian visa, prepping for the next stop!

Sant Luis (the old capital in the north, filled with french colonial architecture and built on an island in the middle of the Senegal River, with nice little and slightly scary bridges connecting them all)
1. Amazing Senegalese food at La Linguiere, local Thiou Tomate, Maffe and Yassa Poulet for cheap ($3-$5 USD) we also ate a lot of bags of water, we have become accustomed to sucking on their corners as a hydration technique.
2. Old buildings – the island had really old buildings which gave it a nice grandeur, we were also there during the last days of Ramadan and the final night, when Muslims are allowed to break fast for during the day, Korite, we went out to a bar and then a disco call L’Iguana (and no, Muslims technically can’t drink alcohol, even on Korite) where we were dancing and relaxing with some other international development workers and Senegalese, when one section of the concrete roof collapsed. People looked over, assessed that no one was under the rubble, and continued dancing. Then the music stopped and we all got kicked out. Yay for old colonial architecture!

In Sant Luis we also bought a lot of ebony masks and other wood stuff, along with bags, more fabric and jewelry. We walked all over the coast which was unfortunately covered with trash and the ocean consisted of murky water (due to the rainy season) and floating mostly plastic trash. Not swimmable and a bit disappointed after living on Sal for 2 years, but the walk was nice. It was also a bit strange to see groups of Muslim men break down into prayer sessions constantly. I accidentally walked on one guy’s prayer mat because I was rounding the corner and he was stretched out at the entrance way to a little shop. Opps, a bit awkward. When we stayed at the Youth Hostel L’Atlantide, we would be sitting have a banguette and then 3 guys would all of a sudden prostrate themselves on the floor and start chanting together less than 3 feet from us, it felt a bit intrusive. Se la vie!

The South (best part of our trip, we got to see more of the “True Senegal” and went off the beaten track a bit more)
1. Staying at Sarah’s Village outside Mbour, her hut is painted like a hobbit hole and has the classic one room, outdoor pit toliet and nice family in a big compound around her. She has a great little garden in the back and we got to eat Millet with her family! (Here they make a big pot and everyone has their own spoon and digs in, we ate millet with them which another PCV said is bird seed that they grind down and cook. Quite tasty and seems healthy…)
2. Visited an awesome campemant in Mbour, a great tourist spot along the ocean where we relaxed with a beer, had a swim (the water was WAY cleaner than up north) and then enjoyed the great decorations, murals and general feel of the spot. Note to self: Canned Baga Ganoush is not as good as the fresh stuff. Not nearly as good.
3. The BUMPY car rides everywhere, we ride on reformed station wagons that they gery rig a 3rd seat into – cramped, dirty, no leg room and always an adventure. On the ride to Palmarin, Chris Murphy’s site, water entered in the holes in the floor and whetted our feet!
4. The highlight of our trip south, KAYAKING IN MANGROVE TREES! Down south Chris has been working with promoting Eco tourism so we did one of his trips, kayaked all around the Sine Delta area enjoying the mangrove forests (we planted some!) and swimming in the salty water. We also went inside a giant Baobab tree and had coffee. So cool (thanks Pierre)!

Today at 4pm – off to Ghana! Wish us luck and I miss you all!!!
Love, Leah

Attempting to not get ripped off in Dakar…

is difficult.

We (Dacia, Lindsay and I) got into Dakar, Senegal on Friday afternoon and thankfully Justin, a PCV here, met us at the airport. We avoided getting immediate yellow fever shots and somehow got through passport control. I accidentally walked into lost baggage offices while thinking I was being directed to the bathroom, but then we made it happily outside to Justin and got in a slightly scary taxi (which had a bottom and 4 tires, though the door didn’t really shut). Friday night we entered into QUIZ night, a Peace Corps monthly activity and got third place! Apparently braise means to cook meat slowly, I thought it was to rub marinade on meat as it cooks. Darn.

Saturday we spent at the huge market street but it was hard to buy anything because the Senegalese guys are so much more aggressive than Cape Verdeans! They were all over us trying to hike up prices and sell us anything that our eyes lingered over for more than 15 seconds… But we did succeed, somehow, and but 8 meters of fabric plus a phone card and some other art and jewelry. Dinner: spectacular Chinese food, eggplant dishes, cashew chicken dish, cucumbers, and shrimp. Plus PBRs!

Breakfast: Pastries up the wazoo. Great french tradition that they adopted here, crossionts, doughnuts, bread. Yum. Today we spent the day at Ilhe de Goree – we wandered around the cool historic island and bought a few more things. Sweated a bit. A relaxed in a spot that had no cars! (The air pollution here makes me a little nauseous.) Now we are hanging out at the house of an embassy worker so I thought I’d hit up the internet for a minute! Anyways, so far Senegal = not too many mosquito bites, a lot of hot weather, great ice cream, annoying retailers, amazing Chinese food, and more to come!

Okay! Fika dretu, Leah

Phrase of the day: Nu tu du? What’s your name?