"And you may not find any you'll want to go down.
In that case, of course, you'll head straight out of town.
It's opener there.
In the wide open air."
We’ve had a crazy past couple of days! Saturday was filled
with visits & tours all over the capital city of Accra. We went to 2
memorials of former presidents, the beach, 2 markets, and looked at all kinds
of sights through the window. We learned a lot about Ghana, it’s independence,
& it’s history.
The first place we got to explore was the Ocean. We looked at
the fishing boats & spent some time climbing the rocks, but didn’t hit the
beach just yet.
After that we went to Nkrumah’s memorial, who was the first
president of Ghana. On our way there we went past the Accra sports stadium
where the world cup soccer team plays, the US Embassy, & many other sites
that represent Ghana’s independence. Ghana was established as a country fairly
recently. The country is less than 60 years old.
This was the original statue of Nkrumah. It was vandalized many years ago & the head was just returned to the park 5 years ago by an old woman.
We also went to the memorial of W.E.B. Du Bois who was the
president after Nkrumah. It was actually very interesting to learn so much
about the history of this country. The Ghanaian people are very proud of their
country, there are Ghana flags everywhere & a lot of things are painted
red, green, & yellow.
We also went to a couple of different markets where we were
advised not to buy anything yet, since we have to barter for everything there.
When I told the locals I didn’t have any money with me, they offered to trade
my camera or my jewelry for the things they were selling. All the jewelry I
have here with me has some sentimental value so I stopped wearing it out in the
city after that.
Three different vendors offered me free bracelets, but I only accepted one. This man followed me up & down the street making this for me because he told me that he liked my smiling face & wanted to welcome me to Ghana.
Sunday morning we went to the beach. It was absolutely
beautiful.
We played soccer & football with them on the beach that day & also swam in the ocean with them. They come from very poor areas lining the street leading to the beach & didn't own swimsuits so they all had to swim without any clothes on, but they didn't mind. It's moments like that that are so humbling here in Africa.
I took these images from the bus window on the road leading out to the beach. There are a huge number of people living in these tiny little shacks. They have small wooden structures lining the streets where they sell whatever product they can. Behind them are a cluster of little houses where there were many children playing & people of all ages working on various projects.
After the beach I took a three-hour nap & then a group
of us went to a pub called Honeysuckle to watch the Super Bowl. It didn’t start
until 11:30 pm but we worked up the energy to go watch it. We had fans from
both teams, but enjoyed watching the game together. We didn’t get any of the
American commercials so unfortunately we missed out on that. They turned up the
volume for us during half time as we all danced & sang along to Bruno Mars.
This is my new friend Alex. We danced in the pub when Philip Phillips performed Gone, gone, gone.
I lasted until the end of the third quarter. It
was 2:30 am here & I was ready for bed.
Today we mostly attended orientation seminars & toured
our enormous campus once again & we were all pretty worn out again by the
end of the day. We just finished a long night of games in one of the guys rooms & now it's time for bed. It's still crazy to me that it is 11:30 pm here & only 4:30 pm back home. Love to you all,
Kasey
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