Keep Calm, Just Swim

Wed. May 13, 2015

Had the shortest day to date! We finished around noon! We only saw a total of 31 patients today up in a small village called Agona. It’s a beautiful place in the middle of the jungle. There they speak Fante, similar to Twi. 

What did we do for the rest of the day? Well for starters we went to the beach! And when I say beach you are welcome to picture a nice beach but then dump a ton of garbage all over it. I couldn’t believe how much trash there was. We saw a man walk down to the shore as we were playing frisbee and dump a small garbage can of garbage along with who knows what else. We saw roughly 3 naked children while we were there, one of which just squat down on the spot and dropped some kids off at the pool. If you plan on going to an african beach don’t plan on having any time alone. We always had people around us, mainly children. It was lots of fun despite the uncleanliness. We had to tell ourselves to not think about what goes into the water but to just enjoy it. 

Then we went to another slave castle with Arnold, one of the St. Thomas workers and his friend Irene. It’s called the Elmena slave castle. They were just closing when we got there but they said that they would do one more tour just for us. It was similar to the one in Cape Coast but slightly different in some ways. For one this one was the first major European slave castle built in Africa. Built by the Portugese in 1492 it was and still is the largest one ever built. From the roof we could see the Cape coast castle in the distance. I didn’t realize how close they were. 

Ill give you one guess to who Arnold is. 

The beach next to Elmena Castle. 

The signage next to Elmena Castle. It's a good thing they said something. 

The town we are staying in seems small in my eyes but it seems like a major fishing town. They have a large port and tons of fishing boats. The streets were filled with people too. Many who would call out to us, some who asked for money and others to come and buy their goods. You learn to play dump like you can’t hear them because many of them know we have money and take advantage of us. For example we took a short taxi ride up to the castle and the driver said 80 pesewas which is like 21 cents. When we get there we give him 1 cedi which is more than what he told us and then he says that its 80 each! Never had I heard of people paying individually for a taxi ride. He was cheating us for sure. Arnold didn’t want confrontation and we didn't want arnold to pay so we did. When you think about it, it’s hardly anything but I don't like getting taken advantage of no matter how little it seems. We ran into the missionaries again today and they were telling us that they cant take a taxi for 2.50 cedi up to Agona 45 minutes away where we were working today so we know taxies are cheap here. So a taxi driver that is trying to get 3.20 from us when we went 3 blocks is ridiculous. But it all worked out. 

There is so much more that I could share about Ghana but its hard to put it into words and I don’t have the time nor the patience, if I am being honest, to write it all haha. I am loving it here and I am glad that I am here for another 5 weeks! There will be some awesome adventures for sure!

Oh I almost forgot about a funny thing someone said to me as we were walking down the street after the beach. I was wearing my swim suit and tank top and I was waving and saying hi to some people in their shops as we passed. One guy says hi and I return the greeting, then he says “you have a nice body!” haha I didn’t really know what to say so I said thank you and continued on. I think its the skin more than anything. I have had many children look in awe and touch my skin. I am sure for many of them its the first time they have been this close to an Obruni before so touching white skin is pretty big deal. Nothing is as cute as a small black child waving back to you as you pass. They always have a huge smile on their face and you feel like you just made their day!