Traveling

I have not blogged in a while, as I have been so busy with exams and traveling and finishing up my stay in Accra.

The past few weeks have really been a blur. We had a five day break so my roommate and I decided to go traveling outside of Accra and explore Ghana a bit more. The first two days we had really unfortunate and hilarious luck, but after that things got much easier.
We traveled East to Ada Foah where the Volta River meets the Ocean. It felt like we had walked to the tip of the world, it was so breathtaking. But it took hours of exhaustion, dehydration, and frustration to find the ocean and struggle to the end of it.
The next day we went to Shai Hills and saw baboons and climbed a mountain. I thought I was going to die of dehydration and exhaustion because I wasn't prepared to literally climb a mountain, and was wearing flip flops and had no water. But it was worth it because we got to see a natural rock formation where the Chief of the Shai tribe hid during war. It was so incredible and educational, but I had to awkwardly ask our guide to get me water, like immediately, or else he was going to have to carry me back to the main gate. He was nice and did so.

We walked to our hotel (so exhausted) and they informed us that they had no rooms. I asked nicely if they did not even have a small closet we could sleep in and they said no. I thought maybe we were going to have to return to the nice woman we had bought yams from earlier and ask to sleep on the floor of her stall, and we started walking back to where we came from. After walking, hitching a ride, and getting a taxi, we finally stumbled across a very strange and out of place ritzy hotel in the middle of absolutely nowhere, that had peacocks walking around and air conditioning.

After that we went to the Volta Dam on the world's largest man made lake. (Paddy I have pics for wiki.) We stayed on the Volta River and visited a bead factory and market, and made friends with the founders of a cool international fair trade organization called Global Mamas.

Now I am back in Accra packing and learning about different NGOs that I might volunteer for. I was having a hard time with the NGO fair because of my beliefs on volunteering abroad and the privileges that I specifically am privy to because of my skin colour and nationality. I have a hard time with people who volunteer abroad - especially students who have no essential skills to offer and are basically there to fulfill their own needs morally. Because that is not my motivation for being here, because I am here to further my knowledge of privilege and difference and the inequality in the distribution of wealth globally - actually participating in an NGO makes me very uncomfortable and make me feel like I am being put on a pedestal I do not deserve to be put on. So I have been talking to my wonderful friend who is second from the top in an organization that I really believe in and appreciate. It is called CPEHR - the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights. It fronts as an organization that deals with HIV/AIDS (which in truth, they do, but not primarily) , however in reality they are basically the only organization that's foundation stems from resistance to homophobia and oppression based on alternative sexuality. Specifically male to male sexual relations in Ghana is still illegal - a law that is impossible to enforce and denies an extremely high number of the population one of their basic human rights. Because of this many of the activities have to be discreet or secret, which is tragic but none the less, an extremely effective method of widespread resistance.

Tomorrow I move to Tamale where I will have less access to internet but will have more independence in terms of eating/sleeping arrangements. I am looking forward to the change but am anxious to rearrange the routine that I have set for myself here. My hands hurt from doing laundry by hand....after the godforsaken trek to Ada Foah down about 3km where all we could see was sand my clothes may never be the same. When I washed them water came out brown and grey. Literally my sweat blood and tears - but seriously, so worth it.

Hopefully the trip to Tamale isn't so bad tomorrow, and my guitar survives the trek. I will try and blog again soon to keep everyone posted on the differences that I notice between urban and rural living in Ghana.

So much love,
Claire