Ghana...

... about February 9th or so...
I headed into Ghana and made a mistake. I went to the bank and changed travellers cheques because the rate was good. I changed 200 Euro.. and didn't realize how BIG this would be until the woman at the bank handed me a plastic shopping bag and then several bricks of money. Eesh. Now I had to carry that around. I'm couchsurfing in Accra at Eva's tonight. If you've not checked out the couchsurfing site, do so. www.couchsurfing.com. choose 'couchsearch' and type Cassidy under 'User name'. Look for the camel. And get on the site yourself :)


I spent my first day in Accra wandering and getting my hair braided. The most exciting part about getting my hair braided being when after 4 hours the chair gave up and slowly collapsed under me. I could have caught myself but for the woman doing my hair who panicked and tried to catch me in turn getting underneath me and turning me into a flailing foreigner much like a turtle on her back.

In wandering everywhere in West Africa I am endlessly amazed by what all people will carry about on their heads. On any given busy street there is easily enough merchandise traveling about on people's heads to stock and entire store, I kid you not. Tires, shovels, glass cases, furniture, etc. can all be carried about on people's heads in case you didn't know. Like if I tried to do that someone would end up in tears. -Either me, the merchandise or several innocent bystanders.

Ghana is the first English speaking country I've been to here in Africa and that makes things easier for me, but I worry I'll forget my French. Eva and I meet 2 other couchsurfers, Meg and Steve for lunch one day and it turns out Steve is a web designer and invites me to his office to start this blog. Without his help there would certainly be no pictures on this blog so kudos to Steve, yeah??

I wanted to go to Cape Coast after Accra, only a 2 hour journey, but no.. At 11am I arrive for the 12pm bus I'm told is sold out. I meet Patience who's in her 60's and is very nice and trying to convert me to God (the first in a series..) as I wait for the 2:30 bus which does not show up until 4pm and breaks down at 5. I give up on the bus and take a tro-tro that is flagged from the road. A tro-tro being a van piled with people that stops to pick up and drop off people constantly. 11 hours later I arrive..

The next day is Valentines' day and I meet 3 single women traveling solo, -Lisa, Jessi and Isabelle- (back off boys). We went to Kakum National Park where there is a canopy walk thru the treetops and where we were invaded by a 20 strong tribe of noisy Korean missionaries. What missionaries are doing in Ghana, the Land of the Already Converted, is a mystery. Every taxi already has "Dr. Jesus" or "Merciful" written on the back windscreen even. Jessi, the American girl, is a horticulturist so we had a free tree and plant guide which was great! Her, Lisa and I then opted to take ourselves on the guided longer walk, but we were guideless and we lost the trail a few times. We were fine... until we reached the road. There we were trying to flag down tro-tros who couldn't work out why we're flagging them when they were full. We get one to stop and ask directions to park HQ. About 5 people point back into the woods trail we just came out of saying, "It is there!" and "Go straight!" Which brings us to directions in Ghana. (By the way we did find park headquarters, I'm not writing you from the woods.)

This 'go straight' thing is quite a theme in Ghana. Any question of "where is (enter place name)?" is always answered with, "Go straight" or "you just go straight" with a general pointing that in no way matches any road and sometimes is directed at a building. (But... I can't fly. how do I get to where I can start going straight??) Directions don't seem to work in African languages here either we learn as taxi drivers ask directions for us and we still do circles on several occasions. Perhaps we should ask, "Hi, can you please tell me how to get to (insert place name) without using the phrase 'go straight'?"

This night is Valentines's night and the 4 of us spent it at dinner and beer complaining about men. Best Valentine's day I've had in years. :)


The beach... I'm still trying to do something to fix this tan. Jessi, Lisa and I spend a day at the beach near Elmina. Beautiful, but the surf was really strong. That afternoon we wanted to go to Elmina castle, one of the slave forts. Walking down the road a taxi comes the other way, stuffed to the gills with people and leaves as if a tree had been crammed into the trunk and back seats. The guy says, 'I'm coming!' as he speeds by. And so begins one of the more interesting taxi rides of my life. First you have to picture this taxi. It looks like a jigsaw puzzle cutter has cut this taxi apart and it's been soldered and mismatched back together. Including the windsheild which looks as if a soft bodied object has landed square in the center of it.. it's welded together with that glassstickbacktogetherstuff. Whatever it is. Now scrape the whole thing along in the dirt and bang it around a bit and there you have our taxi.

We haggle them down to a reasonable rate on their return, there are now 3 of them, soon to drop to 2 and the trees are gone. In we get and they start asking us where we want to go. Haven't we done this part already?? We're looking at each other. We drive for a bit and then they pull off on a bad dirt road. We're going through a village and I'm not so concerned because there are people around, but why are we here?? Chickens are scurrying in front of us as we bounce along with the engine revving because the taxi wants to die. Jessi is tapping the driver, "um, why are we here?" Lisa has a hankie over her face complaining about the taxi's fumes which are awful. My door doesn't open. The passenger guy is then out and they seem to be looking for someone, (the real taxi driver??). They're yapping away to each other and ignoring our questions. Then off we all go again, but the driver can't maneuver over a road obstacle and now they are deep in debate ending with the passenger getting out and going round to the drivers side and the driver keeping one foot on the gas to keep the jigsaw puzzle alive and sliding over to the passenger side. The new driver solves the Road Obstacle problem with speed and dives through, the car body scraping against the wheels because the shocks are long gone.
We're asking, "where are we going?"
Driver, "ababadabu!"
Passenger, "eebida obida oobida."
Us, (WHAAT??)- looking at each other. They speak English here in Ghana and their English is very good. But we can't work out what these lot are saying.
And suddenly we're hurtling toward the road which is up a hill. Never mind the parked van, the food stand, several goats, or that we're coming onto this road at an angle I'm convinced is going to land the jigsaw taxi on it's side, -my side! All is solved with speed and we survive to the road like as if The Dukes of Hazard Go To Africa.
The taxi guys are back to saying stuff we don't understand and asking us where we're going again.
We're saying Elmina Castle again.
Looking at each other again.
Lisa is talking about fumes and lack of driving skills again.
They start blinking lights and making hand signals to oncoming traffic. The cars and trucks respond. And they keep doing it. Strange.

We get to Elmina center and we want out. Then the taxi stalls. Good. But traffic is honking and the passenger has jumped out to push. Jessi has opened her door to escape and has one foot out, SCRRRAAAAAPING along the pavement.
She's saying, "look this is fine we can get out here."
People on the street are waving to the taxi driver to stop the car because they can see her trying to get out.
Lisa's saying, "oh, I'm gonna be sick from these fumes."
I'm thinking ' is this the time to throw a proper Foreigner Fit and get us out of this, oh but wait my door doesn't open.' Shit.

Then the car starts, passenger jumps in and driver says his only decipherable phrase, "Close the door!" (Ah-ha! I knew they were speaking English!) Off we go. We get to the castle and they drive in and all the way around and soon to be back out again with all 3 of us saying, "OK! ok. stop! This is it!" ...Jesus... Those 2 have been sniffing too many car fumes.

Now the castle was a slave trading fort and loads of sad horrible cruelty happened there, but if you want to read about it look up "Elmina Castle" because I can't possibly make it more interesting than the taxi ride getting to it in this particular story, Sorry. There's also a similar story for Cape Coast Castle which we visit the next day. The Winning Question of that guided tour being asked by an English girl, "So the slaves were given food on plates?" -Well done darling, you get first prize for that. Makes you wonder what the guides have amongst their winning questions. .

Lisa and Isabelle head back to Accra after this and Jessi and I went to Kumasi. The posh bus experience had air con, but was made excruciating by one (it only takes one) shrieking boy of about 3 years old. He screeched at the top of his lungs every 60 seconds or so. Jessi had a headache from this. I spent 5 hours with my fingers in my ears. And the 3 women with this child thought he was cute. People, Please Note: A shrieking child is only cute in the privacy of your own home. Thank you. This has been a Public Service Announcement. We treated our shattered nerves to an air con room and a spendy feed at an Indian restaurant that night. Some things are just unbearable anywhere.


Kumasi was fun, but the hat museum we were keen to visit was closed and then it was Sunday (Survival Sunday) where everything closes save church. And we still forgot to go even with all the hymns echoing over the hills. Imagine that.

Next day there was life again in the village and... There is a large colony of fruit bats who hang out shrieking in certain trees near the National Cultural Centre (a sort of artist co-op) in Kumasi. Note: Shrieking fruit bats ARE cute even if they don't go to church. People vending on the street in front of them were telling us, 'money' 'sweet' . WHAT? Turns out you can eat the bats of course, but luckily we didn't see anyone selling them. I like them alive.

A Ghanaian trait I notice... When men here don't like something they'll say, "Oh!" or "Ah!" really high pitched. The women are opposite. When they don't like something they say, "Oooo!" really deep and low. Example: One male tro-tro driver when we were sitting up front said, "Ghana driving. Oh! It is not good." (And Jessi and I had to pretend we're laughing at something other than the 'oh!'). And Example 2: When Steve gave me a lift back to Eva's where I was staying in Accra, 4 neighbors (all women) jumped in the back seat for a joyride. Giggling and being noisy of course. Steve told them to stop it or he would 'drop them out in the middle of nowhere'. All 4 stop their chatter to say "Oooo!" deep and low, and then ignore him. This role reversal of manly men and relatively girly women is something I find quite amusing. Jessi and I were constantly sneaking sniggers together about this.

We took a day out of the city to visit the Bobiri Butterfly and Nature Reserve where we saw tons of beautiful flutterbys, a large scampering mouse with a fawn patterning of spots, several funky beetles, and... leaping and diving away from us through the fallen leaves -a shiny black 3 foot long cobra! Note: Cobras leaping and diving AWAY from us are also cute. TOWARD us would have been decidedly less cute. We asked several people to make sure that really was a cobra and yes indeedy it turns out they're quite common here. We got a ride back to town with 3 Ghanaian PHD students studying butterflies (part of the Cobra Confirming Crew). Which brings us to another Ghanaian peculiarity.

They have all this good African/Ghanaian music lying about, but no.. they're playing Michael Bolton, Whitney Houston and gospel. Singing along with it even. The 3 PHD students are singing along to "Josannah, Josannah! Let the people sing! Let the people dance! Let the people bring His love into their lives!" -complete with a Rapstar type DJ over the top shouting, "Come on come on. Welcome Him into your lives! Welcome him in I say! Raise your hands in the air!" Jessi and I look at each other.. again..

I mean I'm pretty sure there is a God, -this for several fine examples, I'll give you one:
It was a dark and stormy night..... ok, no it wasn't. I'm sorry. I just wanted to start the story that way, but it's not true it was daytime. So daytime. And I'm rushing through Vietnam to catch a boat I'm late for. I'm carrying too much stuff because I gave up on sending a parcel home the day before because the woman at the post office had made her fine self so incredibly problematic. All the stuff I'd meant to send is in a cheap gym bag on my shoulder, my backpack on my back and a small pack over one shoulder in front. Suddenly the gym bag strap gives way and the bag crashes to the ground behind me cleanly breaking off the sole of my sandal. The entire sole. I quickly grab the bag and limp on wondering why my sandal feels funny. After about 10 steps there appears a shouting little Vietnamese man under my nose blocking my path and flapping the sole of a sandal in my face. I of course can't make out what he's saying, but I'm pretty sure this has something to do with why my foot feels so strange. I grab the sole and limp off to try to catch the boat with 3 bags, my shoe sole in hand and a bunch of people staring at me. Now, if you can explain how a sequence like this can occur without a God sitting up there on His Cloud WREAKING THIS HAVOC, then have at it.


The day we want to go to see The Sword, the taxi driver doesn't know what we're talking about and asks a priest who's walking by the car. Waves him over with, "Father father!" Father explains and I make sure to ask the price while Father is still there. :) He says 30,000. Jessi says we're not stupid. I say 10. Father says take them. In we get. Unable to resist needling the taxi driver, I say, "Hmmm. That one kinda backfired on ya, didn't it?" Everyone laughs, the taxi driver very much in that Indonesian style of 'te he he, ha ha, you win this one' that you so often see there when you catch them out with their little scams.

We get to the Akomfo Sword, a sword stuck into the ground symbolizing unity of the Ashanti people, -the main tribe here in Kumasi. Legend says if the sword is pulled out the unity is over. I asked the guide if we could have a go at pulling it out, but he said no. Mohammed Ali got to give it a try. It's not fair.



























This afternoon (feb 21), we're on an air conditioned bus back to Accra, but the air conditioning is broken. When the driver gets on he stands up front and announces, "Praise be to the Lord God Almighty we shall go to Accra this afternoon if He so chooses, Ahmen." The Bus says, "Ahmen." Jessi and I look at each other wondering if we're on the wrong bus. And we were. For 5 hours. Our seats near the front, we were subjected to the bus's painful horn which the driver thought was an integral part of the engine. He'd honk when something was in front of us or when nothing was in front of us. -These were the only 2 conditions under which he would honk. The only time he would forget to honk was when his cell phone would ring and he could shout on the phone instead. His cell phone ring tone was that of a meowing kitten. Jessi and I tried meowing a few times to distract him from the horn, but I think we were laughing too hard to meow effectively... And so. again, Jessi gets a headache and I spend another bus ride with fingers stuck in ears.

It doesn't end in Accra when at hotel number 5 or so we finally find a couple empty rooms. One skanky fan room, one passable air con room. We quiz the reception desk about electricity and they assure us the generator will come on if the electricity goes out for the air con room. I have just enough time to take my braids out and watch a small rainstorm which bring the frogs out onto the pavement who happily roll about and rub their bellies along in the water and wipe it over their faces in exctasy at seeing water... when the electricity goes out and the air con stops. And no one is about. And the water does not work so I can't even cool down in a shower. Fantastic.

We're awake all night and delerious the next day after 2 nights with no sleep since the last night in Kumasi was lights off (this where the electric is turned off from 6pm to 6am once every 5 days to conserve energy) -=Sleepless night for overheating foreigners, but we accept this because you know it's happening and you don't splurge on air con rooms on these nights. Having managed a hostel for 9 months I know there are times to complain and times guests are being high maintenance. This was a time to complain because we'd specifically asked about electricity before we chose the a/c room. We won another battle here through patience and paid only the fan room price which is what we would have taken had we known we'd have no air con. Fair enough.


Exhausted, we take a taxi to another hotel in the morning... and it's always in these times.. the taxi driver's first question: "So are you Moslem or Christian?" Me, "Ah, neither." Driver, "Oh! (high pitched) you must believe! You must believe in Jesus and accept God!" on and on. He's really on a mission here. I'm saying well if there is a God it's probably best I slip under His Radar. He's saying "No! God loves you!" Jessi is desperately staring out the window back there trying not to laugh (I'm in front), but she loses it when I lean out the window at a traffic light and say, "please help me" to a woman walking by selling something. Taxi Driver, "Do you think I'm funny?" Me, "no, no, well yes. But if you weren't funny you'd be boring so funny is good." Jessi has stuck her fist in her mouth. He's satisfied with this and goes back to His Mission. He brings up Noah and I pipe up, " Oh yeah! That was my favorite story from the bible because I like animals. Animals are cool. Except I don't know how he would have chosen which animals to save. Me, I would have taken them all." on and on.. anything to distract him. Jessi is eating her fist and the taxi driver is staring at me perplexed, (in between occasional peeks at the road), and I can see he's thinking, "What's wrong with her? She's yapping away about animals when I'm trying to save her wretched soul!"

We escape to the new hotel and please can I sleep tonight, please?? One thing is certain. I cannot live in a climate like this for long. Give me rain and a place where I can sleep under covers.

Jessi leaves for Tanzania this night and I wind up drinking beer with a motley crew of ex-pats.


Oh by the way, I saw on BBC that the US plans to install it's "Son of Star Wars" missile defense shield system and it wants missile silos in Poland, radio stations in the Czech Republic and possibly those missiles designed to shoot down missles staged for them 'on UK soil'. Presents for you, all my international friends! Now you too can be a Hated Target if you weren't already, isn't that nice?


The expats consist of a Swede, a Dane, A Dutch girl, a Congolese guy and 4 Nigerians, -3 men and one woman who's just married the Swede. The Nigerians are pushing God, and Nigeria as a travel destination. Nigeria-which has one of the worst reputations in the world for corruption on all levels and bribes and scams.

I have personal experience with extremely aggressive Nigerian men (the women have always been nice). I know a doctor from South Africa who volunteered there for 6 months or so. He'd worked all over the world before. -Says Nigeria was the worst experience ever because he literally had to bribe everyone, including the guys minding medical supplies to keep them from selling stuff out the back door. I've heard there is a warning about Lagos Airport because apparently planes have been hijacked between landing and reaching the terminal by pick up trucks outfitted with machine guns.

The Swedish guy is arguing that for us it is dangerous to go there. The Dane is listening. The Dutch girl is saying the only way she made it through there is because she'd latched onto a diplomat's wife when she traveled through. The Nigerians are arguing no no it i just a little problem. little. .. Then the Congolese guy who's been quiet up til now steps in. He sometimes has to travel there and says that the amount of bribes he has to pay to get through Nigeria is more than all the other countries he has to go through put together.. He says the rest of the region doesn't come close to having the same scams and bribes as Nigeria. And oh now the Nigerians go nuts. No one is angry, but suddenly there is this passionate inter-African argument between 5 Africans waving arms about and all 4 of us whitey's are quietly looking at each other with a bit of a grin. Interesting stuff.


I've a plan with Steve to drive from Accra to Akosombo, the southern port of Lake Volta, where I'm to take the boat to the north of the country. But the plan goes a bit astray as Steve is a graphic designer and like 2 of my best friends in the States, gets trapped by clients who show up on a Friday afternoon and want something done by Monday. Then they'll want to change it, twice, and then wonder why it's not done at 8am on Monday. Please people, be nice to graphic designers. Really there needs to be a Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Graphic Designers. ... On the bright side, I get to work on my blog here and Steve helps me put some more pictures on it so thank him for making it less boring.


On the way to Akosombo, Steve points out Shai Hills Nature Reserve, the place where he had his most interesting wildlife experience. A large monkey came out on the road with a branch and waved the branch for traffic to stop. Small monkeys then crossed and the large one moved off. I know of humans incapable of that kind of advanced thinking (George W. Bush and Dublin's knackers leap to mind, but it's debatable whether they're human.)

Turns out Steve has a friend at the Lake Volta Transport company and we stay in rooms at the manager's house. Pretty cheap and air con -luxury!! I don't know how I would have gotten onto this boat without Steve's help really because all the listed hotels were quite expensive and the town is so spread out! This boat is much more a cargo boat than a passenger boat so facilities are not really there. I would have had no idea how or where to get tickets.





And.. coming out of my room one morning the transport manager says to me, "howz it goin?" I said, "fine fine, and you?" He says, "Praise be to God I'm doing fine today, Praise be!"

.... (HELP ME, I'm being exorcised out of Ghana!)....


The boat is called the Yappy Queen, oops spelling error, I mean the Yapei Queen. I have a second class ticket meaning I sleep in a room with lots of people because there are only 2 first class cabins. And then Oliver from France comes up and offers a bunk bed in a first class cabin to one of us girls, (I'd met 3 girls from the US and Germany). "Me! Me!" I blurt out, -the other girls never had a chance. My first instincts saying, "yes Chris yes! Throw all caution to the wind and sell your soul immediately for air conditioning!"

And then we wait... the boat is to leave at 4pm sharp. After 4pm sharp, someone decides that possibly it is a good idea to load the cargo on the boat. We passengers don't get on until 8:30. Boat leaves at 9pm. 5 hours late, -impressive faffing even by African standards. I slipped past the ticket checkers by following Oliver and ignoring them, determined that no one was going to prevent me from getting to the air conditioning. :) I offered to split the difference in price with Oliver, but he wouldn't have it saying the money is gone anyway so what's the difference which was really nice of him.


Lake Volta is wide and there's not much to see outside of the stops we make which are a flurry of activity. Forklifts haul crates on and off whilst people mill about moving in and out of the way with kids, live chickens (no African journey is complete without poultry), bags and an endless amount of varied goods piled on heads. People from villages bring goods on the boat to sell and the last ones disembark by leaping over the ramp as it is winched up, - into the water as the boat pulls away. (Imagine the law suits in the States for twisted ankles and bruised fruits.)

At one stop there is a truck waiting. What used to be a truck at least. Oliver asks a Ghanaian, "does that still run?" The guy replies, "accident, oh!" ...(no really??) The entire roof is flattened backwards onto the body of the truck leaving the drivers' cab exposed. The highest bit on this twisted piece of metal posing as a vehicle is the steering wheel. A thick shaft of metal that used to hold up the roof and contain the windscreen thrusts about 3 feet straight forward from the front of the cab like a jousting spear. Sure enough a guy perches himself behind the steering wheel and this is coming on the boat. People climb on to join their posessions which are strapped onto the squashed flat roof. This is not a dead vehicle in Africa for it has 'go'. ('stop' and 'turn' being less important.)


We arrive in Yeji and who is waiting to drive on for the southbound journey but the 3 Italian speaking Swiss people I spent time with on the beach in Lome, Togo! This often happens, this re-meeting of people because the traveling world is even smaller than the small world. Fun to see them again!


I stay the night and am off the next day to cross the lake to Mekongo and go North to Tamale. It was a bit of an adventure to get there involving a scrum to board the boat, an offer to get a ride in a broken down truck or a crowdy bus (I took the bus because it looked more capable), another bus and an extreme amount of red dust. So much that when I arrived in Tamale only one tout asked shyly, 'where you go?' and seemed happy when I said I'd walk. I thought hmmm that's strange. Once in a hotel room I happened to wipe my nose with a tissue and it's an impressive shade of burnt sienna. I look in the mirror and this dark redbrown dust has settled all round my eyes and nose. No wonder I've been scaring people. I look like some rabid raccoon. I had no idea I looked like this because no one else here is white!! It doesn't show up like that on black faces. I wipe off a bit and head for a restaurant where the guy asks me if I've just come from Mekongo. I say yes, why? He says "Ah, because people who look like this usually are coming from there." (Alright! Everyone just calm down. I'm gonna take a shower!)


NOthing is where it should be on my Lonely Planet map of Tamale as happens occasionally and I end up at a police stop where something else is supposed to be. Ok, so I ask the officers, one of whom is much more interested in telling me (after all the usual questions) that he wants to marry an Irish woman so he can move to Ireland. He says he's 'very serious about this' and asks me if I have a daughter of about 18 that he can marry. Um..no.. but thanks heaps for the compliment.

I'm actually on my way to the tourist office to ask about the Kukou, (witches' camp), at Gambarga. See, the way it works here is that when men get tired of their older wives they can accuse them of being witches if something goes wrong in the village. A little 'trial' is held, they're accused and sent off to live at this camp. Isn't that convenient for men?? -So I'm gonna go visit and bring the 'witches' some gifts.


My morning doesn't start out so well trying to get to Gambaga and the witches camp. First off, the hotel takes all my change to pay for the room and then can't work out how to sell me a coke because they have no change. This is a recurring problem here to the extent that people lose business. At place number five, I manage to find coke, that's cold, and change for my 2 euro equivalent bill... I'm sorry to be spoiled but please just give me my caffeine fix, I can skip food.


Then I get to the bus station and have to wait for the bus to fill up. This takes ages and then 2 muppets are missing so we have to wait about 20 minutes for them to reappear! The guy behind me and myself were just about to pay the extra 2 places, had money out and everything, -and leave them behind -when they turn up. The entire bus is yelling at them including me. It's a combination of English and African because some speak the same language and some don't so they use English. The 2 guys are yelling back that they' had to buy medicine!!'. People are yelling 'how long does it take to buy medicine!!' Oh!' Ah!' Oooo!' I had to stop and laugh as the bus slowly makes it's way out of the bus yard, 20 of 26 people all yelling, waving arms, pointing fingers, 2 babies howling at the noise... -as all the sellers we pass are grabbing the buckets on their heads to steady them to turn to see The Shouting Van as it slowly trundles past. Hilarious. Ghanaian guy behind me was laughing too.


After lots of waiting, also for another bus, getting someone to take me to the project coordinators house, paying a small fee, going with him on a moto to the chief and paying a small fee (plus he pilfered my can of milo and a packet of cookies)... I was taken to meet the women. And that was fun. I couldn't bring enough treats for all of them, but I presented the big bag I had to the oldest and they were all quite delighted to hear through the project coordinator (they didn't speak English) of my travels and especially to see cookies and honey and treats they don't usually get to indulge in. They were actually quite smiley and friendly, but I could only catch one smile in a photo of them.

And then I had to go through all the waiting for buses again and make my way back on packed buses in the late afternoon to return at about 9pm and be unable to find food. But I was glad I went. And some people I'd met during the day were keen on what I was doing so I got some free rides back and forth, one from a group of Muslim men who talked to me for half an hour or so while I waited for a bus, asking about Muslims in my country 'are they black or white?', -who then rallied amongst themselves and took me for free on a moto to the next town where it would be much easier to catch a bus.




As for the camp itself and the program, it turns out they've sucessfully reintegrated quite a few of the women now that there are programs to educate the communities. The biggest problem was the villagers didn't know what things like spinal meningitis were so when a bunch of people died, they blamed it on witchcraft. They're holding seminars now to teach people the science behind death and illness and the villages have accepted the women back in many communities. There are now 85 women at the camp as opposed to hundreds before. And before the camp existed, they used to just kill them outright so things seem to be progressing in a positive direction..





It's been hard for me to find food here in the North. Restaurants generally don't have anything more than fried rice or spaghetti despite a large menu. Shops have the same thing as each other and there's only so many days I want to live on tuna and crackers, cheese and crackers. On my last night walking back to my hotel (with tuna and crackers), a woman who is selling oranges invites me to join her and her children to taste the food they are eating (how did she know??) I sampled some and told her I've actually had a hard time finding food here. She said, 'you have to learn how to eat here'. And she's right, but I hadn't yet. She then told me that if she knows in advance, she will cook for me. Which is incredibly sweet of her.

Too bad I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm almost tempted to stay, but just for dinner?? seems like I should go.. so I am going to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso... in search of food. :)

Apologies for lack of editing here, but Im lucky I got this blog done and that only with the help of Radek from Poland who is IT magical even without speaking French. And Matteius from Ouagadougou who invited us to use his personal computer for free when we were having trouble in the internet cafe. Again Im lucky to have bothered the correct people! :) I'm usually on a slow computer that will only talk to me in French so c'est difficile pour moi. Puet-etre je dois aller a une cher hotel avec les ordinateurs pour l'aider quand je fait mon blog! Ah! Mon Dieu.