what adventures I have had!
This weekend I went up to Aburi, which is about an hour north of Accra to go mountain biking! For anyone who has seen me bike, you know I was in for a challenge! The trail was a skinny path that led us through beautiful little hills along the mountains. We biked through bamboo forests, plaintain groves, sugar cane groves and all other sorts of beautiful greenery. We also shared our path with little kids going to bathe in the stream, sugar cane farmers and, most surprisingly and hysterically, a herd of oxen (or bulls, I'm not that familiar with these animals). We thought we had seen it all when they came sort of galloping around the corner-it was a bit frightening at first but we made sure to get out of their way. The people in the town were very friendly-many of them yelled Obruni, are you scared? when I rode past, because I guess it was pretty obvious that I was, and others just sang Obruni Obruni Obruni and danced around. The ride was hard and took us 3 hours, but it was so fun to be riding through the beautiful mountains and I so glad to have done it that I was basically giddy on the tro-tro ride home.
Last weekend was filled with excitement as well!
We left Saturday for Cape Coast, about 4 hours away on pseudo-paved roads.
We stopped at the Elmina slave castle and it was a place so dripping with
sadness and meaning, but it was so interesting. The slave castle had
actually started as a warehouse for portuguese arms traders, but as time
went on, the warehouses once filled with guns and ammunition were filled
with slaves, captured as prisoners of war by dueling tribes using these same
guns. Every room was just shocking as the textbooks described, but more-hundreds crammed
into a room, about to be led onto the deadly slaves ships we learned about in school towards horrible futures. Hearing all this reminded me of the holocaust and I asked, in a world where people were captured and shipped away as slaves to the west, are there any people who view the west as "the home of slavery?" According to my Ghanaian friends, though, people either can't afford to think of the west that way, as it offers such riches, or they just don't beacuse no one in their lineage became slaves (those with slave ancestors are all already in the west). Still, it struck me as weird that in the same place where Africans were once shipped off to America as slaves, there are signs about the lottery to get a visa to the US!
Later that day we went to one of the beautiful beaches on Cape Coast-because while horrible things have happened there it looked like paradise. The beach was just like a postcard-looking left and right was just sand and palm trees and beautiful big waves-just like santa barbara but with way less people.
To add more to such a packed day, we were staying in a really nice hotel with CNN and got to see Obama announce! Even our director was excited! It was really fun to hear someone so hopeful and the speech was beautiful. I'm excited to see what the and the other candidates develop and even more excited to work for and fight for someone I believe in-as I believe I will be able to with the current selection of candidates. Hopefully Edwards and Obama will keep bringing forth issues as they have been and we can change the whole nature of debate in the US. woooot!
On Sunday we had another amazing day! We went to a rainforest where these daring mountain climbing guys built indiana jones-style bridges over the top of the rainforest-so you actually hike above and within the trees and can see rainforest to the horizon! It was really really cool to be surrounded by trees and able to really look at them and of course exhilerating to be on the rickety (but safe) bridges.
So thats how pretty freaking awesome things have been here. Also good is that I am really getting to know the folks in my neighborhood. We hang with the shopkeeper across the street at least once a day and the neighborhood guys who are our age and work in the shops around the street often go out with us. The little kids who run around have befriended us and give us tours of their part of the neighborhood as well as Twi lessons. Its really nice to befriend everyone because it makes me feel more integrated and also lets me get a better glimpse into Ghanaian life. The kids, for example, took us to their house, which was basically a teeny room too small for so many people, but it had a tv and nice furniture. I'm learning so much just by being in the neighborhood, let alone my fun exploring days around Ghana! Hopefully I'll start volunteering soon, as that is now what I am itching to do!
Hope everyone is doing well-I love hearing updates on life where everyone I love is. Its pretty neat to hear about home and then hear about Kenya and then DC and then Italy and then write about Ghana in the same day-so keep it all coming! Tons of love,
Micaela
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