Monkeys in the Mangroves and more weekend fun!

Friends and Fam,

Hope all is well!
What a weekend!
We decided to spend the weekend at an eco-lodge out in Ghana's western region, and so we hopped on an inter-city bus towards the capital of the western region, Takoradi. I thought the 5 hour ride would be horrible, and yes, it certainly was bumpy and hot, but sitting next to me was the cutest little baby, which really brightened my ride. In the states, we ordinarily don't get excited about long trips next to other people's babies, but here, babies and little kids are so well behaved-they almost never cry and are quiet and generally happy most of the time-that it actually made my trip funner! She was completeley mesmerized by my huge water bottle and we spent a fun few hours playing with it!

After arriving in Takoradi we took a taxi to the eco-lodge, which is out past two medium sized villages almost in the middle of nowhere, with the exception of the little village of Akwibaa, which is a 15 minute walk down the beach. The taxi ride was about an hour through pretty mountains and then half an hour on a teensy dirt road. The eco-lodge was amazing! They are very environmentally conscious-featuring self-composting toilets (some of the cleanest toilets I've found in Ghana) and solar-powered rooms. They also really focus on benefiting, not harming, the local village, so all produce comes from there, and all workers are from the village. Any trip you go on there supports the conservation of the local environment, like endangered sea turtles and the rapidly diminishing mangroves. They raise money for the local community, and then meet with them to decide on its use-so far they are working on toilets for the town and a library for the school kids. It was really nice to stay there because while I felt like I was at a resort-eating delicious food, swimming in a pristine ocean, lying on a beach lined with many big green palm trees, I also was able to feel like I was contributing a bit to Akwibaa (the ultimate vacation, right?)!

At night we went on a two-hour hike to see the sea turtles, but only saw one gigantic dead one. The next morning we woke up at 5:15 to go to Akwibaa and canoe through the mangroves. Apparently the monkeys are usually around collecting food from 4:30 to 6:30, so we wanted to try to see some. We wandered down the dark beach following the hotel staff's vague instructions (walk down the beach, you will see a canoe, then, you will see a road, tunr right, a man will find you) and in a little bit we were going down the river that goes through the village on a canoe manned by Ezekial and Isaac, from Akwibaa (they found us easily as there are no obrunis in Akwibaa). Ezekial was great, explaining the mangroves to us and pointing out all wildlife-including every single crab. He also casually remarked that pythons were in the river, but I pretended he was lying so I wasn't more scared than I already was (the canoe almost tipped a ton of times). We went through beautiful narrow tunnels of mangroves and were on our way back when he stopped and said, "there is a monkey around this corner" and there they were-two little black ones climbing a leaping through the mangroves! We were so thrilled! Then we headed back to Akwibaa, which was bustling with kids and adults fishing and finding crabs. We walked back on the beach just in time to see the local fishermen catching fish in a huge net-it looked really hard to do in the waves! Even the women helped out. Then, after our lovely morning adventure, we spent basically the whole of the sunny hours napping on the beach and swimming and body surfing in the gentle waves. As the sun went down we wandered to Akwibaa again and were paraded around by some elders and at least 15 little kids as we tried to buy a few things from the market (mostly as an excuse for exploring the village-which was more poor and more rural than any we'd seen so far). The houses were mostly made of mud, with palm fronds on top, and there were not really streets-just narrow pathways. A funeral was going on, and I was told that here, actual family members are not supposed to mourn, but celebrate, so in the middle of this little village was a wall of speakers blasting Shakira (a favorite here) and other pop music for people to dance to. It was quite an interesting visit and it was really fun to meet another friendly Ghanaian community. That night we had more delicious food at the lodge and spoke to more interesting people and then went to bed before our last day at our new favorite place. Sunday was nice-we finished off our visit with a few last swims, and then I showered in the outdoor shower, which is shaded by plantain trees (that probably supply the plantains we had at lunch). A bright metallic gold lizard chilled out with me while I showered and a pretty bird watched above from the tree in her nest. It was just paradise, and almost hard to leave, but once we made it home after a relatively uneventful bus ride, we were happy to see our friends in Okpongolo, the neighborhood.

Since the weekend, things have been going well here. Two days ago I made my way around Accra to the Ministry of Trade to do some research for my independent study, and today I went to Kisseman, which is a nearby neighborhood, that seems to have significantly poorer people than in Okpongolo, where I live. Hopefully I'll be tutoring some school kids there. Even though primary school is now free here, the kids have a hard time getting school supplies, so they do homework with the volunteers in the program and then do crafts (basket-weaving, batik) and performances to both learn vocational skills and raise funds for school supplies. We met some kids who were not in school, and the director explained that while school is free, they don't want to go because they get in trouble if they don't have their books, and their parents can't afford them and also don't encourage school. Seeing all these problems and the struggle that it is to manage a seemingly simple program like this makes me both more inspired to do anti-poverty work and more overwhelmed by the complexity of everything that must be done!

I'm still loving it here-where I get both paradise, inspiration and education! Love hearing from you-its so nice feeling so connected to everyone even when I'm so far away!
Micaela