Heather, Jackie, Carla, and I paid a driver to take us to Tafi Atome, Ghana. It was a six hour drive to the village in a cramped little car. My back is still hurting from it. The roads were horrible, paved or not. There were giant holes in the road all over the place. Our driver would speed up when the road was nice, but then slow down a few minutes later to maneuver around the holes. I was getting carsick for the first time in my life.
On the way to the village, we stopped at Wli Waterfall. It was hundreds of feet tall, and we walked to the bottom of it. On the rocks next to it, we could see thousands of fruit bats hanging there waiting for the night. It was a 45 minute walk to the waterfall, and we crossed over 9 bridges to get there. The water of the falls was so cold, so Heather and I only waded in. Other people had been there swimming in the water.
From the waterfall we had an hour long drive to get to the village. We were too hungry to go that far, so we stopped at a hotel restaurant. I just had Chicken and French fries, but it was delicious. I also tried a pancake, which is considered desert, and it was also great. It was covered in butter and was very thin.
When we got to the village we split up into groups of two and went to our homes. Most of the time our family just talked to themselves in their language, but there was a boy just a little younger than us who spoke English with us. They made us Banku and groundnut soup for dinner. The banku is like corn dough and the groundnut soup also had fish in it. You took some of the Banku on your hands and dipped it in the soup. The first few bites were fine, but then I couldn’t stand the taste anymore. The family expected us to eat it all, so we ate what we could, but eventually I felt like I was going to get sick. One of the pregnant daughters had to finish it for us. Poor Heather got sick from it later. Jackie and Carla had a better experience. The family spoke English with them, and there were many kids to play with. The rooms were alright; Heather and I had a real bed with lots of room, while Jackie and Carla had to share a twin sized bed in a room full of belongings. Our room had two giant spiders in it, one of which I killed. The roofs were made of tin, so we could hear the critters falling on it and walking down. This is something that woke me up many times during the night. After one thing fell on the ceiling, a mouse crawled across a rope from one side of our room to the other side. We didn’t see the mouse again though.
The boy we talked to was named Ernest. He was 18, and he had just finished school. He was planning on going to a university for business. He says that many of the kids there do make it to school. His sister, the one who finished our meal, is 20 years old. She has a 4 year old soon and is expecting this month.
The man in the waterfall picture is our driver.
No comments:
Post a Comment