Pictures!!

We can all thank the lovely Taylor Kalander that I now have pictures on my blog. She was able to post them for me. The first half of the pictures or so are of the Volta region, including the waterfall at Amedzofe, the Mountain Paradise where we slept (with the view across the valley) and the hikes in between. You can see the pickup truck in some of the pics and the group of tro tro drivers gathered around me while I am arguing with the driver of the pickup. After the last pic from Volta is a picture of the group at the Ghana v. Gabon World-Cup qualifier soccer match. Then there are some pics of our computers with no internet and interns shuffling cables, because that is what I spend most of my day dealing with. And finally there are some pictures of the canopy walk over Kakum National Forest that I wrote about a little while ago. Enjoy and comment often.

Country Folk and the Tro Tro Drivers of Ho. . .

This past weekend I and the other five interns I have been traveling with went to the Volta region in the eastern part of Ghana, near the border with Togo. We boarded a tro tro in Accra on Saturday morning, waited roughly 2 hours before it filled up, and headed to a city called Ho. Yes, Ho. We were joined on the tro tro by a traveling bus salesman. I had no idea that such a thing existed, but apparently we live in a sick, depraved, and hopeless world where such things are permitted. Just as we were about to depart, a well dressed man with a briefcase boarded the bus and addressed the passengers in Twi. Not speaking Twi, I assumed he was the bus driver and was giving very important instructions on the weather in Ho, what to do in the event of an emergency, etc., etc. Ha! Then another man boarded the bus and began driving, and the well dressed man just kept talking. Eventually he opened his briefcase and displayed a small package of pills that supposedly cure all possible aches and pains anywhere on your body. After taking them for 5 days, you will never ache again. Ever. Sounded pretty awesome, but I decided to pass. Others, unfortunately, did not have quite the market savvy I did, and much to my surprise, people bought this guy’s crap. After about 15 minutes of listening to this unbearable live-action infomercial repeated in English (actually a performance very much like you see on late night TV in the States) the bus pulled over and let the salesman off. Unfortunately, they let another one on. The second guy was selling a self-help book that looked like it was from the mid-90s and brilliantly titled “Life Guide.” People bought that crap too. I was losing faith in humanity.

Anyway, we arrived in Ho, had lunch, and then our group split into separate camps. A few of us wanted to head up to a place called Amedzofe to the north of Ho to spend the night and hike to a waterfall the next morning. Two others were concerned that we might not be able to get a car back from there on a Sunday, so they headed south. The four of us remaining took a tro tro to a little village called Fume, bought a mango, and headed up toward a lodge called Mountain Paradise where we planned to stay the night. A small sign in Fume informed us that Mountain Paradise was only 4km “uphill,” so we decided to hike it. Understatement of the year. It was 4km directly up the side of a mountain. An hour and a half later, 4 very exhausted interns reached the top of the mountain just as the sun set. The Mountain Paradise is very aptly named. Our room was nice, though somewhat bug infested (it is the rainforest). The bathroom had no electricity, so showers were had by lantern-light and FREEZING cold mountain-top water. In the morning we sat on the patio overlooking a large valley and had a breakfast of eggs, toast, and fresh brewed rainforest-grown coffee.

After breakfast, we began what we thought would be a 45-minute hike to Amedzofe and the waterfall. A sidenote on rural Ghana: After spending 2 weeks in Accra, I realized that I had put up a certain guard against strangers who wanted to talk to me. In Accra I get the feeling that strangers only talk to you if they are trying to sell you something or scam you. So as we hiked through the mountain villages, I was immediately suspicious when everyone we passed stopped and talked to us. The conversation was pretty standard: as we passed, people say: “Hello, you are welcome,” which is quite nice, and then typically ask where we are from, what state in the U.S., say thank you, welcome us again, and then walk away. This happened 3 or 4 times before I realized people were just being nice, and not actually trying to sell me anything or rip me off. I unfortunately became a little too trusting of “country folk”. . . more on that later.

Anyway, after about an hour of hiking, we came to a sign that said “Amedzofe falls, 5km.” We were concerned about whether or not we would be able to hike up and back, so asked a guy on the side of the road where we could get a taxi or a tro tro up a little further. He said there were no cars on Sunday, but that he could take us up in his truck and then drive us back to Ho (for a fee of course). We asked him how much he would want, and he said “fifteen.” An explanation of Ghanaian currency is required to understand this story: in 2007, Ghana introduced a new currency called the “Ghana Cedi,” which is roughly equivalent to the U.S. dollar and denoted “GH¢.” The old currency is called the Old Cedi, and there are 10,000 Old Cedi in one Ghana Cedi. Only the Ghana Cedi is in circulation now, but people often still refer to prices in Old Cedi, which requires you do the conversion in your head. So, when someone says “fifteen,” that might mean GH¢15 ($15) or 15,000 Old Cedi ($1.50). We, of course, assumed the guy meant GH¢15, as it would cost more than 1.50 in gas just to get us up there and back to Ho. In any event, it seemed a fair price, and we agreed.

As soon as we agreed to the price, however, the driver looked very confused. He talked to his friend briefly (in what I assume was Ewe) and tried to clarify, saying it costs “Fifteen Thousand.” I asked “fifteen thousand Old Cedi?” and he responded by saying “Yes, it’s one point five.” 15,000 Old Cedi is indeed 1.5 Ghana Cedi, which is WAY too little, but I assumed he actually meant 15, was just confused, and in any event we would pay him 15, so agreed anyway. More on this saga later….

We were driven up to the town of Amedzofe where we checked in at the recently opened “tourist office.” The tourist office charges a fee of GH¢3 to support its community ecotourism project and a guide then brings you down to the falls. The falls are about a 40 minute (very exciting) hike from the town. The hike becomes VERY steep at several points, and absent the ropes along the trail, would be nearly impossible. Our guide of course bounded down the hill as if it were nothing, but we were each at some point simply hanging from ropes trying to repel our way down this hill. The waterfall was awesome, and though I knew it would make for an uncomfortable tro tro ride back to Accra, we all got at least part way in the water.

After spending some time at the falls, we all hiked back UP the hill along the ropes and got in the car back to Ho. We arrived in Ho and I had the driver take us to the tro tro station where we could get a tro tro back to Accra. As soon as we arrived we were, as usual, swarmed by tro tro drivers all trying to herd us into their cars. I asked them all to wait a minute while I paid the driver that had brought us. The driver said “one point five” again, and one of the other interns, Casey, took out GH¢5 and offered to the driver. He refused to take it and just repeated “one point five.” Casey then tried to offer him GH¢15. He refused that too, and then said “fifteen thousand.” At this point, the tro tro drivers had noticed something going on, and had gathered all around us. I asked one of the tro tro drivers if he understood what this guy wanted, but he didn’t seem to understand either. The driver then took a single Ghana Cedi and said “this is one.” I responded “Yes it is.” The driver then said “I want FIFTEEN THOUSAND.” I looked around at all the tro tro drivers who had gathered around us now, and they all looked bewildered, confused, and a little entertained at this country man who though I would have the equivalent of $15,000 to give him for a ride.

I tried to explain to this man that I could have bought his pickup truck and gas for a year for less than GH¢15,000, but he didn’t seem to understand. I offered another GH¢5, making the total GH¢20, but explained that we had agreed on 15, and that there was no way he could get 15,000. One of the tro tro drivers spoke to him in Ewe and told me what he actually wanted was 1.5 million. 1.5 million old Cedi would be GH¢150. All of the tro tro drivers were now arguing with the guy. One of them had taken the GH¢20 from Casey and was trying to convince the guy to take it. By this time, I had gotten slightly separated from my group, as every tro tro driver in Ho had gathered around me and this guy as we argued over the price. Luckily for me, most of the tro tro drivers seemed to be on my side, as they were all arguing with him (though I have no idea what they were saying).

I think the driver recognized that no one was on his side, because he kept trying to get me to get back in his car and go with him to the gas station to fill his tank. I realized he a) wanted to get me away from all the tro tro drivers who recognized he was trying to rip me off, and b) get me away from the station so that he could refuse to take me back until I paid whatever he demanded. I of course refused to go anywhere with him. This went on for several more minutes, and I finally reached into my pocket (where I had thankfully placed GH¢10 separate from my wallet in case of such an event) and said “I’ll give you what I’ve got.” I pulled out the GH¢10, and told the guy he could take it, or not, but that it was twice the price we had agreed and I had no more to give him. The tro tro drivers all rose up in a chorus, I assume telling the guy to take it, and he eventually did. Thus ended a harrowing battle. There’s a pretty funny picture I will try to upload. Only a sliver of my face is visible from within the mob while I am engaged in the heated debate.

This entry is now 4 days old as I have been writing it waiting for the internet to come back. I now have the internet, so that’s the end of my stories for now! I can't upload pics, but one of the other interns (Alicia) has posted a bunch of pics from our travels on Flikr, so you can see pics there: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alicia1216/sets/72157605584690278/. The first page is mostly Cape Coast and Kakum, the second page is Ho and Amedzofe. Sorry for the long post!

Third attempt at pictures...

Cape Coast and Kakum

This weekend all the interns went to Cape Coast and the Kakum National Park in the Central Region of Ghana. Cape Coast was the original administrative and trade capital of the British colony from which most slaves from the region were brought to be loaded onto ships for transport to the New World. Half of the interns left on Friday night while the rest of us got up at 6am on Saturday and got to the bus station in time for the first bus to Cape Coast. As is typical, the bus was sold out. We sat and played cards at the bus station until 11 and managed to catch the next bus. So much for an early start. The three hour bus ride was actually quite pleasant, and we arrived around 2:30. We booked a room at the “Oasis Beach-side Resort,” which is indeed “beach-side,” but not exactly a “resort.” In any event, it only cost us $8 a head for our rooms, so we were satisfied.

After “checking in,” we visited Cape Coast Castle, which is actually a fort rather than a castle, under which are the slave dungeons where slaves were held before being sold onto waiting ships. The walls of the dungeons are marked about 2-feet above the ground to show where the floors had been before they were dug out. The floors had risen as a result of compacted human waste that the slaves were forced to live in. The dungeons were almost completely black, with only a couple tiny windows high above the ground to allow fresh air or light. Slaves who, after what must have been an unbearable stay in the dungeons, were injured or too sick to walk from the dungeons through the underground tunnel to the waiting ships were locked in a tiny room, sixty at a time, and left to die with no food, water, or light. There are scratch marks visible on the floors and walls from the chains of those who, locked inside, had tried to scratch their way through the solid block walls. When a person died in that room, the British would not remove the body, instead waiting until all sixty had died and then emptying the room all at once. Needless to say, the Cape Coast Castle is a necessary but not exactly what I would call “enjoyable” tour.

At the Castle we ran into the other group of interns who, coincidentally were staying at our same “resort.” We spent the night drinking Club Beer (for the cool people) or Star Beer (for the losers) at the outdoor beach bar. Later we were fortune to see a fire and acrobatics performance. The acrobatics were particularly impressive considering they were performed barefoot on stone ground. After the show, my group went to bed early so we could hit up the Kakum National Park early. Sunday morning we were up at 6am again and caught a tro-tro to Kakum. We were ripped off and ended up paying the extortionary price of $2 each for our ride. I suppose I can’t really complain. Kakum National Park is a tropical rainforest reserve and a tentative UNESCO World Heritage Site. We bravely traversed the Canopy walk, which is a series of rope bridges slung between tall trees that crosses over top of the forest canopy and over a valley. The bridges sway a lot, and can be a little unnerving, but the view is spectacular. After the canopy walk, we went on a guided nature hike through the forest, where a local told us about different trees and their traditional uses. Someone spotted a snake coiling up a tree that looked just like one of the vines. It so resembled the tree that it took several minutes for everyone to spot it, though it was only a few feet in front of us. We were pointing it out to each other and gathered around it while our tour guide told us all about the tree the snake was climbing. Only then did he decide to inform us that, by the way, this snake is “very bad, very poisonous. In our language, its name means ‘it kills hunters.’” Thanks for the heads up buddy.

Anyway, we all escaped without a snake bite, but a lot more cautious of where we stepped. After catching a tro-tro back to Cape Coast, three of us spent a couple hours just walking around the city and the other three, exhausted from long days in the hot sun, headed back to the bus station to wait. Walking around the city we heard regular calls of “obroni,” meaning “white person” and the girls were regularly stormed by children asking for change or, rarely, just wanting to know their names. That afternoon we boarded our bus back to Accra, where I was able to take a much needed shower and, defeated by the sun, was in bed by 8:30. I took some pictures with the other interns' cameras and just copied all their pictures too, so if the internet is working, they should be up!

New Apartment!

I wrote this post last Friday, but there was no internet connection, so I am posting it now:

The internet is down at work, so I can’t do any work and I decided rather than stare off into space, I would write a new blog entry. After a week of spending 2 hours a day on tro tros back and forth from work, I now I have a room within walking distance of the office. It is really the lap of luxury for Accra. I have running water, hot water, a/c in my bedroom, a kitchen with a stove and a refrigerator, and a living room. I am planning on scheduling an appointment with MTV Cribs. There is a married couple that I work with who is also renting a room with me in the house. The house is FAR more accommodation than I need, and definitely not how I had planned on living while I was here, but was the only reasonable thing I could really find. The only cheaper places I could find were unfurnished, and I figured I would spend more on a bed and fan than the extra it would cost me to live in this house. Anyway, it’s a LOT less than paying a hostel every night.

Last night Atsu came by to visit and check out the new place, so I hung out with him and we talked to the owner of the house for a while. The owner lives somewhere else, but I think he stops by some nights for a couple hours on his way home just to miss the traffic. Three other interns live opposite the road from me and they decided to go check out the Accra “mall” last night. Yes, apparently Accra now has a mall somewhere. I decided I did not need to see the mall and instead went to bed early. Party animal.

Work has been going well, although it’s impossible to get anything done without an internet connection since most of what I do is research. I have been assigned to the Parliamentary Advocacy Project and a good governance project that works alongside a German political organization. I have spent most of the week researching the processes in various countries for introducing Private Member’s Bills. In parliamentary governments PMBs are bills introduced by backbench or non-government minister members of parliament. Sounds exciting, right? I am also starting some research on whether a law permitting the Minister of the Interior to declare a curfew violates provisions in the Ghanaian constitution. I could go into it more, but I imagine it’s really boring for anyone who is not…me. So far it’s been really interesting, and all the other interns are a really good time.

In other news, Declan, the Irish kid who I stayed with in the hostel, left for the central region today. He will be working somewhere outside of Kumasi, and I might try to make it up there for a weekend at some point. Today for lunch I had Waayke and fried plantains. Wayke is mixed rice and beans with spices and a black pepper sauce, and is really delicious.

This weekend all the other interns are heading to Cape Coast. I will probably go with them, but Yusif had offered to take me through Osu tomorrow, so I will have to see what his plans are.

This Story is Bad...

I am writing a quick update just to let you all know that I am planning on updating with more stories very soon. For now, I start work in just a few minutes, so it will just have to be one quick story: For all of you who have been waiting for pictures...I'm pretty sure I lost my camera this morning. I found a room in a house very close to work for at least the month of June. So this morning I took a taxi from the hostel to the house. I had packed most of my stuff up last night, and I even remember checking that my camera was still in the safe in the room in the hostel. This morning, I could have sworn I took the camera from the safe and put it in my backpack, but when I arrived at the house, no camera. I called one of the two other guys who were staying in my room at the hostel (we had been staying there together all week, so I have their numbers), but they saw no sign of the camera. I am going back to the hostel during lunch, and if I find the camera, I will take pictures of the house I am staying in now, which is actually VERY nice. For now, I should do some work, but more to come very soon!

First Days

Arriving in Accra two things compete for your attention that are impossible to ignore—the humidity and the smell. The air is so heavy one begins to wonder if it wouldn’t be possible to swim from A to B. The heat is not unbearable, and if you can catch a breeze—or an open window in the tro-tro—it’s not too bad. As soon as you stand still, however, you are immediately soaked. The smell results from the combination of open sewers that run along all the roads and the poor state of operation of most of the cars and trucks that jam every paved street of Accra. Walking past some of the vendors you might be lucky enough to catch a whiff of something cooking and gain temporary reprieve. The smell is something you adjust too, but I’m not sure the humidity is.

On Friday morning, Yusif met me at he hostel and we traveled to the airport to meet another of the incoming interns who was arriving. Her flight was delayed, so we took a tro-tro into the “circle” where I could buy a cell phone. The circle is a large open market that is at the center of Accra and also is the major hub for tro-tro service. We returned to the airport as the plane was landing, but waited over another hour as the incoming intern, Casey, was held up at immigration. An officer was apparently attempting to extort a bribe from her before he would stamp her entry visa. She refused, but he insisted that unless she knew her address in Accra, she would have to pay the “fine.” The catch is that no one really uses a street address in Accra, the city just is not organized or laid out in a deliberate enough manner for that to be practical. When I entered, for example, I just wrote the name of the hostel as my address, and luckily was not stopped. The immigration officer let Casey use his phone to call the LRC office and get some address, but after she gave him the address, he insisted that the phone call cost ten dollars. Casey relented, as all the other passengers from the plane had been let through, and ten dollars lighter, she emerged from the airport.

We took a taxi to where Casey is staying in an apartment with another intern. The apartment looked very nice, on par even with what you might expect in a European flat. I found out later that the apartments in that building are exorbitantly expensive—considerably more than my apartment in Boston even. Yusif then took us to the LRC office where I will be working, and I got to meet some of the people there. The office and everyone in it seems very nice. The internship coordinator said there were 9 interns. We have orientation Monday morning, and I am excited to meet all the others.

Yusif and I then left and returned to my hostel where we had lunch. I asked Yusif what “fufu” was when I saw it on the menu, and he laughed quite hardily, so I played it safe with rice and fish. Yusif ordered the fufu, however, and let me try it. It consists of a large ball of dough, like a giant dumpling, at the bottom of a bowl of a spicy soup or broth, and came with a piece of goat meat. You eat it by hand, but sticking your hand right in the bowl and tearing off pieces of the dough. Yusif then left, and I got to rest for a bit.

Around 10 o’clock I got a new roommate in the hostel, just as I was preparing to give up for the night and catch some sleep. His name is Decklin, he’s from Dublin, and if you know anything about the Irish, you know I did not get to sleep until some many hours later. After the meet-and-greet in the room, Decklin got right to the point and wanted to know where to go to get a beer. Steven, a student from the U.S. said he had been to a hotel down the street earlier that had a decent bar, so we set out. At the hotel we sat out on the patio and had a couple beers. The local beer is Star Lager, and is actually fairly decent. It reminds me of a mass-market Dutch beer like Amstel or Heineken, but at a cost of between one and two dollars for a 20-ounce bomber, is much more “drinkable.” The hotel looks like an expensive resort-style hotel, and there were many foreigners there.

Decklin noticed that groups of people were continually walking by us toward the back of the hotel, but not returning; the waitress told us that there was a sports bar connected to the hotel, so naturally, we had to check it out. Lucky for us, it was karaoke night and the place was jam packed—it is obviously a popular haunt for foreigners. We watched a few renditions of old American songs performed badly, but something was drawing me closer and closer to the other side of the room, as if I had some sense that my destiny lie just around the bar. Sure enough, I discovered a foosball table had been beckoning me. There were a couple Ghanaians on the table when I found it, but they were more than happy to play teams, and after a few rounds, I had earned the respect of my peers. When I lived in Italy I discovered that Europeans, devoted as they were to soccer, were particularly serious about their foosball as well; the Africans, it would seem, are no less dedicated to either sport (yes, I called foosball a sport). Anyway, sometime between midnight and one, I decided that I had probably call it a night, and headed back to the hostel, while Decklin headed out for a night on the town with the American girl he had met while I was playing foos.

Yesterday I met up with Atsu, who I had been put in contact with through a friend back in Boston. Atsu has been looking for a room I can rent for cheap close to where I will be working. He rode his bike to my hostel to meet me and then took me to his place. He rents a single room that I imagine is typical in Accra. He has no running water, but there is a public tap outside where he draws what he needs to do any washing. He has a small range top in one corner that he can use to cook, but generally eats food from the street vendors. There is no bathroom in his room, instead there is a large public bath house that he shares with his neighbors. Atsu had taken classes as an electrician but, as he explains it, discovered he was too “sensitive” to being shocked, so prefers to work on computers. He had an old computer that looked like a 486, possibly a Pentium I, the type of computer I remember from when I was a kid, but it was not hooked up to anything. Despite the lack of running water, Atsu’s home is very clean and comfortable, and he went out of his way to be hospitable.

The neighborhood where I will be working is called “Dzorwulu” (pronounced Jor-woó-loo). Atsu and I went there to look at a room, but it was not my lucky day. Atsu has a friend who lives in the same building, so we went to his place to wait for the agent. Atsu’s friend invited me in and showed me his room, as they were all the same in the building. It was a single room, about the same size as Atsu’s, but had a small kitchen and bathroom with running water. It had no AC, but at the price and location, it would have been perfect. It was walking distance from work and about $80 per month. Since I am now paying $20 a night, I was excited. After a while, the agent met us and told us that he had rented out the empty room the day before. I was one day late. Atsu and I went back to his house and got some lunch from a stand nearby. The stand served plain white rice, with some spaghetti noodles on top, coleslaw, a chicken wing, and a spoon of some spicy sauce. For such a strange combination of foods, it was actually quite delicious, and at $1.50, was enough food to feed me all day. Atsu helped me get back to my hostel, where I crashed for a few hours. I called Yusif, and he, Decklin, and I went out for a drink down the street. My night ended a little earlier last night, but I don’t think Decklin’s did. He met up with a waitress he had met the night before and went out; I met up with my hostel and went to bed.

The learning cvurve here is steep, but I am settling in and excited to start work tomorrow and meet the other interns. I am still waking up every morning at 6 and napping in teh afternoons, but that's probably ok, as I will be getting up early for work anyway. Not sure what I'm up to today, but will hopefully get a chance to take some pictures, which I will post as soon as I can.