Big adventures and fighting boredom
Trip Start
Sep 05, 2008
1
29
43
Trip End
Jan 01, 2009
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Akwidaa,
Ghana
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Wednesday was the day Katherine was really sick again. It is so stressful being sick here not just because of the shared toilets but more because any symptoms that seem to just be a cold or flu could really be something much worse. Katherine stayed in our hut and rested most of the day. I went to the village with Jo for Wildlife Club. We got the children ready for our big excursion on Friday. They were very excited and well behaved for us. After the meeting I came back to the lodge to nap but it didn't last long. Emmanuel came by for the meeting we were supposed to have the day before with the guides. I didn't expect them to show though with the nastiness of the storm. So I took Emmanuel on a tour with me as the guide and I have to say I suck as a tour guide. He was very gracious about it though.
On Thursday I went back into Takoradi to drop of my phone and try to find the only bank that has worked for me in Ghana. I did get some money out this time but had to leave my phone for the weekend with the repairman. He said the encoding was very difficult. I am a little stressed about leaving my Blackberry with them after they were all telling me how nice it was and asking what it was worth. However, they also all wanted to be my friend so it should be alight.
Yesterday was awesome. It was the day of our excursion to Kakum National Park with 60 children. Katherine was too sick to go which was really unfortunate.
Kids on the village bridge
Moses was busy traveling so Ansah got to go instead. He was supposed to be working at the lodge but since we needed another adult and he had asked to join us the night before he got to come and was so happy to be going - even though he was 40 minutes late and held us all up. But we did eventually get rolling.The teacher in the minibus with me (which isn't so much a bus but a cargo van fitted with four rows of four seats plus one front seat passenger) kind of annoyed me. Every time we stopped - for instance a girl in our bus was sick so we pulled over for her to vomit - he would open the door and let the children out or let the vendors in. The vendors rush to the bus and the fourteen children in it take forever making all their purchases. Still, th is would have been OK once or twice but it happened seven times during the trip!
Once at the park I was teamed up with Emmanuel though so I had tons of fun. It is really funny when he talks to the children in his super serious teacher voice when he is normally always giggling. It makes me laugh and I have to turn around so the kids don't see me cracking up at him. If he sees me laughing he starts laughing too but the kids still listen to him. They pay absolutely no attention to anything I say.
The park has an amazing canopy walkway that is 30 metres to 46 metres high with 350 metres of walkway. The walkway is very narrow so you walk single file and it is suspended so its sways a bit as you walk. Needless to say a few people were frightened but everyone made it across.
Emmanuel and Victor
Ansah looked terrified and Emmanuel kept doing impressions of Ansah's turtle walk across the canopy. I asked Ansah later if he liked it and he said he did. I asked "are you sure? Because you looked a bit worried." He replied "I was a bit scared. I really enjoyed it but I don't think I will make it again." We all laughed. Poor Ansah.The canopy was such a cool experience. It gives you a perspective to view the rain forest you would only see as a bird and things look a bit different from above the trees.
We also went on a nature walk through the rain forest which was pretty interesting although the guide wasn't the greatest. He seemed to get confused when you interrupted him to ask questions. The guide pointed out the different trees in the forest and what the wood was used for. Our guide was a Ghanaian and spoke in English. After each stop when he had finished talking Emmanuel would turn to me and ask if I understood. After the third time I told him I actually speak English too. He seemed to think this was funny so I asked if my English was particularly bad from his point of view. I think he was concerned because when Ghanaians speak quickly I have trouble understanding the words through their thick accent, and when I speak quickly they have trouble understanding mine. But this guide spoke quite slowly so it was easy to understand.
Since I have been here I have learned to talk a bit slower though I don't think slow enough. I think my skin is changing too. I am now slightly off-white around the ever increasing freckles.
Me on the canopy walkway
Victor, our project mentor, commented one day on how I have grown accustomed to Ghana's weather. I noticed too that I seem to sweat less (though I am still sweating a lot) and I don't find the heat so uncomfortable. In fact at night when it cools down I'm not cold but yet feel uncomfortable because I'm not hot. It is really weird.Today is another hot day and I am sitting in the shade of a beach umbrella looking out at the gorgeous beach surrounding me. I didn't see the nest in the beams of the umbrella until I almost put my hand on it. Now I am watching the two babies in the nest and they are watching me. Katherine is still sick so we are staying home this weekend. I gave her some of my antibiotics to kill off any nastiness inside her so hopefully she's better tomorrow. I don't want her last week to be shit and taint her memory of her trip. We are going to have to live it up when she's healthy to make sure we have really good memories (though I think we both will regardless).
But sitting around on our days off can be a bit boring, so I would like to tell you a story of how we kill boredom which led to the discovery of The Body. But first I must begin with some general observations I have made. Of course I am generalizing but ...
Ghanaian men are a bit on the short side. I would guess the median height to be in the 5'7 to 5'9 range. Anyone 6' or higher stands out in a crowd. They are not incredibly rare but it is certainly not common to be above 5'9. I find myself nose to nose with many and Katherine often is taller. However they also are lean, slender, and well proportioned with the most amazing posture, perhaps from a life of balancing heavy objects on their heads while they walk. As a result I have found myself admiring the men by their parts rather than in their entirety. We observe toned arms and broad shoulders to one another. We have even gotten to the point where I can give Katherine a certain look and she knows exactly what I'm smiling about because she noticed the same thing. I suspect the dark skin enhances the definition of their muscles and the steady labour of their day to day affairs keeps their bodies quite fit.
So it happened that one day very recently I was casually watching the men building the extension to the bar when I noticed a shirtless man in a huge hole dug next to the bar. I told Katherine to check out the guy in the hole because he has the nicest body I have possibly ever seen in my entire life. She looked and her jaw dropped. I don't even know what his face looks like because it was not in my area of focus. Later she asked Sam "Who's the body? The body in the hole?" and he knew the guy she meant immediately. Sam told us his name but since neither of us would recognize him with his shirt on we continue to call him The Body. And The Body is really the only exciting thing we've got going on at the lodge this weekend. We really need to get out more!
