Storms and rumours
Trip Start
Sep 05, 2008
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28
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Trip End
Jan 01, 2009
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Akwidaa,
Ghana
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Canoe trip to the stilt village
She went in the bank while I waited at the ATM in case the card came out. Creepy guy started talking to me and I told him to mind his own business and go away. So he went into the bank after Katherine but she told him to get lost and waved him away. He finally disappeared for good and her card did eventually spit back out.I dropped off my cell phone to get the SIM card unlocked and left it with a shop while we went to the Internet cafe. When I went back to get my phone I found out that the power had gone out at the shop once I left and my phone was still locked. So with a broken phone and no money we got back on a tro to Agona. Unfortunately when we got there we were the only two people waiting for the Akwidaa tro. An hour later it was still just us and it was incredibly hot so we got out to walk around the markets. As we were walking some children started chanting to us a verse they learn in school:
Obruni! How are you?
I am fine
Thank you!
We joined in the chanting and this made the children very happy. Eventually we returned to the tro tro to find it completely empty still. Katherine grew impatient and asked the driver if we could hire the entire tro and leave right away. I grudgingly accepted the negotiated price of 12 cedis between us and off we went. That's when the rain came. It gushed through the open windows and leaked through the cracks of the tro tro so that Katherine and I had to sit in the centre of our own row of seats in an attempt to stay dry. As we passed through the villages along the way I noticed several children with their soaking school uniforms plastered to their skin and then saw some very happy boys wearing only briefs dancing in the rain.
Canoe trip
The rain grew to a storm and we knew the meeting we had rushed back to make would not be happening. So instead I sat under an umbrella and read until thunder clapped so loudly that the ground shook and I (and many others) jumped out of my skin. After a few long seconds of shock, everyone laughed. Then I quickly ran for my little hut where I wouldn't feel so exposed.Going back a few days, after seeing the hatchlings in Beyin we took a canoe trip out to the stilt village. It was really interesting to see and was a nice canoe trip there and back. We sat with the chief's son and he told us about the village and why they built it on stilts but I couldn't really hear him very well so I couldn't tell you much about it.
On our way back from Beyin we took a tro destined for Takoradi but asked them to stop in Agona. Agona is along the road to Takoradi but 30-40 minutes before Takoradi. We had been traveling for close to an hour when the tro tro started to wobble a bit. I asked the guy behind me next to the window if the tire was flat. He looked out the window and said "no, looks fine". Seconds later the driver pulled over and told us to all get out of the tro while he changed the incredibly flat tire. We ended up hitching a ride with a passing tro tro. Our first driver took the fare from his lot and divided it up with the new driver. In the process he completely ripped us off, charging us each 1 cedi more than the Americans going to Takoradi. We made a fuss and the Americans helped and we ended up paying the same fare as them even though we weren't going nearly as far. Still screwed over just not as hard. Our tro tro rolled away while we were still bitching out the window to the first driver.
Last night Katherine and I joined a night hike on the beach. We had been walking only 10 or 15 minutes when the tide swept up the beach so high we all had to run up the embankment to avoid getting hit by the crashing waves. Our path along the beach was completely blocked by the sea and the forest along the embankment was too thick to navigate through in the dark. At the time I thought how strange it was to see the tide so high at this time. After being here for so long I knew that it wasn't normal. But as we turned back towards the lodge and returned to the beach, Moses leaned toward Katherine and said in a low, ominous whisper "the sea gets high when it holds a dead body". Thrilled to hear a local legend, I leaned in from the other side of Katherine. But it was no legend. Two days earlier a fisherman had been out in his boat alone and fell overboard. Other fishermen nearby witnessed the fall and rushed to retrieve him from the water but they couldn't save him and couldn't retrieve the body. They are still trying to find him. We have also heard stories of how he acted crazy before jumping in the water and that the general belief was that there were dark forces at play here. A back witch cast a spell to kill him.
