I’ve been a busy bee since mid-December. I went on holiday for two weeks when one of my best friends came to visit, and since January 1st I’ve been laden with nearly 50 volunteers from the U.S., China and England for two weeks. With just Kirsty, Lawrence and myself accounting for our NGO’s full-time staff, and Kofi only working weekends, managing two student groups and a handful of individual volunteers was a challenging start to the year.
It didn’t matter that we had been preparing since October for their arrival because in Ghana, and in much of Africa from what I understand, you can organize and communicate well until you’re blue in the face, but it won’t make the slightest difference. Things never go the way you plan. You wait two and a half hours for a colleague to show up to your meeting. Or how about you wait four hours for a van ride to Accra when vans should be running the route every half hour? Or say Vodafone, the main internet network provider in Cape Coast, goes down for the day and you’re on deadline to submit a budget report online to your boss in the U.S. And then you realize it’s not all of Vodafone that’s gone down – it’s just that some gentleman cut the internet wires in your office’s suburb and the neighbors speculate he did it to use the copper to make jewelry.
Yet, somehow we held our own. The volunteers left happy, bronzed and better educated about Ghanaian culture and Ghana’s social, economic, education and health issues.
The 14-person New York University volunteer group's flight back home was Monday, January 17 at 9:50 a.m. Saturday morning and afternoon they participated in a Ghanaian drumming and dancing workshop in Cape Coast and at 3 p.m. the group said goodbye to Cape Coast and we bussed to Accra for the rest of the weekend. We lodged at Lake Botsumtwi Hotel in Osu, a lively suburb of Accra, toured Accra on Sunday and left for the airport early Monday morning.
Our NGO outsourced to an Accra tour agency for both of the student groups’ Accra visits. On the three-hour bus ride to the hotel I was asked every question in the book: What are we having for dinner? Is it buffet-style again? Can we arrange to have fufu before we leave? What time are we leaving the hotel for the airport on Monday? Is there a place we can go out tonight? Like a Ghanaian sort of place though, since we’ll be going home soon? What are we doing tomorrow? What time do we have to get up in the morning? Can we ask our bus driver to drive past the University of Legon tomorrow? Are we going to the Aburi Botanical Gardens?
Quite unfortunately for all, my boss had only equipped me with one answer: Lake Botsumtwi Hotel. I had expected this group to be intolerable of the unknown. It takes a certain type of person to dance without music, not to mention that they hadn’t been in Ghana but for two weeks. Maybe after a month, maybe if they weren’t in a group, they would swallow their questions and bask in the beauty of uncertainty, like most of our long-term volunteers learn to do.
To ease a fraction of their anxieties, I assured them we could make fufu, Legon and the Aburi Botanical Gardens happen – I would relay these requests to our tour guide Tettey. I explained that I’m just along for the ride and reminded everyone that Tettey would be meeting us at the hotel with answers to the rest of their questions.
He didn't show up on time, but that is neither here nor there. We made do until he came to the hotel in the morning and explained where we were going on our tour. As we started to load up the bus, one of the volunteers asked me, “Should we leave our keys here so they can clean our rooms?”
That idea hadn’t occurred to me - I had forgotten many guesthouses in Ghana don't have duplicate keys to each room. I repeated the question to Tettey, figuring his experience from leading hundreds of tour groups would trump my common sense. (Cue Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” - see next blog post for the story.) I should’ve remembered from hundreds of personal hotel experiences and my four-month stint as a hotel receptionist that rooms don’t need to be cleaned if guests are only staying one night. Tettey responded, “Oh yes, you must leave your keys." We stacked the keys in a pile on the front desk and filed into the bus.
It turned out to be a lovely day. We drove by all the important buildings and statues and parks, including the University of Legon campus, while Tettey explained their significances. Then we shopped at the Accra National Arts Centre, where everyone marveled at how badly they would’ve gotten ripped off if this had been their first shopping experience in Ghana. As our bus pulled away from the Arts Centre, Olivia replayed to the rest of us how “Drew got raped.” Oh, how I miss American slang. (He spent $150/210 cedis on three football jerseys, an African mask, a painting, and a bunch of other things.) “I happened to walk by the stall Drew was in as he was paying for, you know, half the store, and he turned to me with this worried, helpless look on his face and whispered, ‘Help me!’” Yep, sounds about right. Shopping (negotiating) in Ghana is not for the faint of heart.
Next we had a guided tour of Kwame Nkurmah Memorial Park and learned about the life of Ghana’s first president and the affect he had on his people.
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| Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkurmah |
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| Former President Kwame Nkurmah stood for "The United States of Africa" |
Oh, and apparently Rita Marley lives in Aburi and Tettey saw her walk along the road while we were eating but didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to disrupt our meal. He has been a tour guide for 10 years and didn’t think to point out Rita Marley?! He laughed at our (mostly my) incredulous exclamations, apologized and promised we would drive by her house on the way down the mountain and he would give us time to take pictures.
After lunch we toured the Aburi Botanical Gardens. It opened in 1890 and was largely responsible for encouraging cocoa production in Ghana. I think the volunteers' favorite part of the tour was when our guide pointed out the medicinal herbs and then made us play a "name that spice" game, giving us pieces of trees to smell.
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| Aburi Botanical Gardens |
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| A palm tree had died (right), but then came back to life and grew another palm (left). |
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| Who knew something dead could be so beautiful? |
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| Our tour guide pointed out these clovers called "Sensitive Plants" that shrivel up when you apply pressure to them. |
Among the numerous gardens was a designated area for the world's leaders to plant whatever kind of tree they want, provided their chosen plant can grow in tropical/subtropical climate. Hard to believe that this little guy in the photo below will end up as big as the other 150-foot trees.
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| The newest kid on the block, planted in August 2010 by the Queen of Swaziland. |
Spending more than I had wanted at the Accra National Arts Centre didn't make me feel like buying anything else. So while everyone browsed the shops I asked a vendor if I could watch him work.
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| Matthew told me Ghanaian vendors either buy wood "white or painted." Most vendors who buy wooden crafts from him ask for painted wood. Whereas a white African mask costs the vendors 4 cedis, a painted one costs 7 cedis. |
After the Aburi woodcarving village we drove back to Osu, Accra. We had dinner at a restaurant/bar called House of Ovation, where you can get a free 10-minute massage while waiting for your food. When the owner came to our tables to greet us, I commented on the creative idea to offer massages. She explained the more relaxed you are, the easier your food digests. Makes sense. I also found out a one-hour massage is only 35 cedis or $25... what a steal! My mom is a veteran massage therapist in the Midwest, and her one-hour massage costs $75. Well, I know where I'll be going next time I want to treat myself in Accra.
Despite our enjoyable Sunday, our weekend in Accra wasn't entirely problem-free. At least now I know I could excel as a detective if this whole Ghana/volunteer-hosting/NGO projects gig doesn't work out. Stay tuned for my next post for details.
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