Days 100-116

Life here is starting to slow down, but it’s definitely keeping me busy. We are on our first week of finals right now. I had one Tuesday, Wednesday, & yesterday. Now I have two more left, one tomorrow & one next Wednesday. Then I have just a little over a week to enjoy my last moments living in Ghana before I board the plane & start my journey back home. I’m actually really nervous about being back home. When I got here there was some culture shock, but everyone expected me not to know my way around here. I was a foreigner so they gave me a lot of grace in adjusting back to life here. When I go home, so much has happened in my life & everyone else’s since I left in January & I know I am not the same as I was when I left that day. Everything that is supposed to feel so normal probably won’t anymore & everyone might expect me to be the same as I was before, but I won’t be. I guess dealing with that reverse culture shock really freaks me out. And I will be so sad to leave here. I have loved it so much. It has been such an incredible experience & Africa is a really amazing place. It is the complete opposite of home, but I love it. I think I have grown a lot here, I feel like I can do anything now. I’m still just in my 20’s trying to figure out where my place in this world is, but I have way more confidence in myself after spending half a year living here. I feel like after being able to handle of this, I can take on just about anything. And the best part is, I know I can do it all by myself. I had some guidance here, but for the most part I survived here all on my own, and loved doing it! I think that’s a pretty big accomplishment.

Last week I worked am event for the West African AIDS Foundation. We tested 100 people for HIV right on campus. I was just a volunteer, one of my friends put the event together, but it was pretty cool working something like that. We all tested ourselves as part of the event, even though I was pretty confident that there was no way I had it. But it’s nice to know for a fact that I am HIV negative especially after working at the orphanage where a few of the kids are HIV positive. 

Since I don’t really have a lot stories this time & my heart is breaking a little bit as I prepare to go home, I decided to make a list of things I will miss & things that I won’t.

Ten things I won’t miss:

1) The heat. I will absolutely not miss being constantly covered in sweat.

2) Being grabbed/touched/stared at by people all the time.

3) Cold showers.

4) Open sewage gutters & the smell they produce.

5) Having to make up fake boyfriends, fiancés, & husbands.

6) Not being able to drive myself places.

7) Paying for water & not being able to ever drink it from the tap.

8) Being covered in bug bites & always thinking they are crawling all over me.

9) Never having to get ready.

10) Hearing all the Ghanaian men SCREAMING at soccer on the TV throughout the entire hostel.

Ten things I will miss:

1) The adorable babies & the mothers that let me hold them all the time.

2) The African accents.

3) Never being in a rush & not having to be on time.

4) Those moments where it just hits me that I am actually living in Africa.

5) Being able to buy water or food off of peoples heads on the side of the road when you’re hungry or thirsty & stuck in traffic.

6) Watching my drumming teacher dance.

7) Spending my days with the children at the orphanage.

8) The concrete sense of culture that Ghana has.

9) All the friends that I have made here.

10) The lack of rules & guidance here that should make life so chaotic, but it’s all so simple.

There are many more things that I’ll miss. I love it here & leaving is going to be very hard for me. I already know that, but I’m just focusing on the fact that I get to see all my friends & family again. I miss them a lot so in the end it’ll be good to get home & I think part of me is getting ready to be back. I’m also pretty much completely out of money so I need to get home & start working again. Montana will always be my first love & I have definitely missed the lifestyle there. Even my friends that I’ve made here from America just aren’t the same. I think everyone has a sense of pride for their home, but I think Montana is the best home. I’ll be on my way to those mountains in exactly 2 weeks! Love to you all,

Kasey 

Days 86-99

I apologize (mostly to my grandma ;) that I haven't posted for awhile. You might assume that I have been too busy to post, but in reality it's kind of the opposite. I have grown so accustomed to life here that it doesn't really feel like a big exciting vacation anymore. It just feels like life. I'm ok with this because in exactly 1 month from today I'll be heading to the airport to get on a plane home and I will be facing a whole new set of excitement & challenges trying to grow back into my roots in Bozeman.

Since I last posted there have been a few exciting events happen though. The first week I ventured out to grab some dinner. I ended up buying it from a woman who sells meals & treats out a plastic bin in our parking lot, the same lady who describes all of her food to be "tantalizing." After picking out what I wanted I handed her 10 cedis & told her to keep my change because it was one 2 cedis & I figured she needed it more than I did, little did I know how correct this assumption was. She looked at me with tears in her eyes & gave me a huge hug. She told me that I had paid for her daughter to go to school & that her father is never around so that's why she comes to sell food to us every night. Two cedis is not even 1 US dollar so I got a little teary eyed myself when she told me this & went back to my hostel feeling very grateful for how fortunate I have been throughout my life.

That Friday I was on my way home from the post office with my friend Erin when we were in our second African car wreck. I had never really been in a real car accident before, that is not to say that I haven't added a dent or two to any vehicles because I happen to have a tendency to run into parked cars, but I wouldn't consider any of those incidents to be car accidents. We were rear ended pretty hard, quite a bit harder than the last accident. I was with the same friend on the way home from the same place when we had our first one so it's a good thing the semester is almost over and we won't have to make that trip anymore. We even made a few jokes on our way there about getting in a wreck & then it actually happened! I guess that's what I get for getting so spoiled by all my family.

The next night we went to a little Italian place in town. When we walked in all I could think of was how many white people were there. Race has never really struck me before but when I have spent the last four months in Africa I was definitely taken back by how many white people were in one place. That will be a very strange adjustment when I get home.

The next week was filled with the usual classes & trips to the orphanage. Thursday morning we woke up at 3:30 am & ventured towards the airport for a safari weekend in northern Ghana. After we were issued our tickets I made a small scene in the waiting area when there was a cockroach climbing on my bag. I got it off safely & ended up making a few new friends in the airport because of it. We traveled on a Ghanaian airline which was very different. There was hardly any security & the plane had open seating. The flight was barely over an hour which definitely makes the extra cost worth is because it is about 12 hours by bus.

Up early waiting to catch our plane.

Once we arrived in Tamale, I met a woman named Maggie who is a professor in Michigan and here for only a couple of weeks who began the conversation by commenting on my incident with the roach on my bag. We also met  a man from Australia named Jimmy who is doing some volunteer work & opening his own orphanage here. They both caught rides with us to the park & went on our adventures with us.

Once we got to the hotel we had some lunch & then set out for the afternoon safari on top of the jeep. We mostly just saw some baboons, monkeys, warthogs, deer, & antelope on this trip. Unfortunately Ghana doesn't have a ton of wildlife. There used to be lions but they don't hang around the park anymore so the only other exotic animals they have are elephants which we didn't get to see on the afternoon safari.

We woke up bright & early the next morning for a walking safari where we got to see our elephants. We learned that elephants actually have black skin but they cover themselves in mud to protect themselves from the heat. We got to see the darker skin when the bathed in the watering hole.

After our elephant adventure we had some breakfast & then decided we had seen about as much as we really cared to see here. We were starting to a little restless & the front desk was after us because six of us stayed in one room. There were three beds, but they were small beds. We cuddled up close anyways & they were trying to get some extra money out of us. While avoiding them we found a man who told us all about a nearby village that we could go stay at so we quickly made a unanimous decision to head out to the village & leave the park behind us. We got in the bed of a truck & rode off.

We landed in the village of Larabonga and it ended up being the best 24 hours I spent in Ghana. There wasn't running water at the park or in the village so we hadn't showered since Wednesday night and didn't get the chance to until Saturday night. We luckily had a pack of baby wipes that we used to sponge bathe ourselves but it definitely made me appreciate showering.

It was a Muslim village & held the oldest mosque in West Africa. We weren't allowed inside but it was pretty cool to see the outside of it anyways. We spent the rest of the day at an orphanage hanging out will all the little children. They were absolutely incredible. They barely spoke any English but they warmed up to us right away. They made us meals & the older girls put on a tribal dance show for us that night.

This precious girl was my personal guide for the weekend. She was always with me & showing me around everywhere. Most kids barely had any clothes on their backs but I have never seen anyone so happy. 

This little guy is only 1 week old. We got to see the crazy way that the bathe him ending with a grand finale where he is thrown up into the air several times to be dried off. 

That night the guy that runs the orphanage set us up some mats & a mosquito net tent on top of a roof where we slept. It ended up falling on us in the middle of the night so I was trapped underneath nets & sticks until we woke up the other half of our group to fix it. We were woken up at 4 am when the village began their first prayer of the day. The prayer alone lasted almost 2 hours!

Panorama of the village from the rooftop. 

Our travel group taking a selfie on the roof.

After the prayers woke us, we had some breakfast that they prepared for us & then set out on the bus back to the airport.

We didn't have any seats so I ended up sitting on the floor for a lot of the ride because it was a pretty long ride. When we got to the airport we tried our best to make ourselves smell & look presentable because we were being picked up by our director for a goodbye dinner at her place.

The girls from our trip this weekend with a random village man.















We had a great spaghetti dinner that night at Auntie Theresa's house. It definitely became real that our time is almost up here & I was sad about it. I have met some awesome people & had an amazing experience. I am now in my last week of classes here & I can't believe it. We have next week off & then three weeks of finals & then I'll be headed back to Montana. I get anxious to get home some days & then there are others where I think I could stay here forever. But I miss my family like crazy & am excited to have a routine again with work & school. All in all I have had a wonderful time & I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.



Happy early Mother's Day to all you moms that I know. I will be reporting back soon! Love to you all,



Kasey