I have been wanting to update for the past 4 days but all of Ghana has conspired against me. Friday was a holiday (Farmer's Day - like Labor Day in the US), yesterday was a sunday which usually means most things are shut down but because it was ELECTION DAY, things were all wonky on top of that. And then today is also a holiday. I have no idea what for, so don't ask...
Anyways, I went on my fantastical vacation with Kym last week and it was fantastic and a little ridiculous. We went to Cape Coast for a day and a night and it was absolutely wonderful. Cape Coast is to Accra as Boston is to New York City. A little more laid back, a lot more homey, a little less to do. We had already done the main tourist stuff there (slave castles, Kakum National Park) with Tufts when we went way back in August. We basically just got to our hostel, dropped off our stuff and walked in a direction. Which landed us in some pretty awesome places. My favorite of which was Baobob Children's Foundation. They are amazing and you should look them up. Honestly, if I wanted to come back to Ghana for any extended period of time, I'd want to volunteer/work with them. Check them out at http://www.baobab-children-foundation.de/index_en.html
We also met some fun people and generally wandered the streets. I bought a ton of stuff for Christmas presents and now am seriously in trouble for trying to pack for the plane ride home. I hope the airport people are nice...
The next day we headed to Green Turtle Lodge for some general R&R. 3 tro-tro rides and one tire blow out later, we made it all in one piece. We sunned, we baked, we fried. I got bitten by either a large colony of sand flies or the most voracious mosquito known to man. My legs are COVERED in bites that are extremely itchy. I want to bathe in calamine lotion...
We stayed for two days and I had to tear myself away from their hammocked, sandy, sun-filled life and put myself on another 3 tro-tros and a taxi. The last tro-tro ride was FIVE AND A HALF HOURS LONG... Why, you ask? It should have been 4 hours or less to get from Takoradi to Accra (and we should have been able to take the regular state buses) but EVERYONE was going to Accra for the election. Then we got to the outskirts of Accra and we were stuck in dead traffic for two hours because NPP was having a rally. People were pouring through the streets, not allowing any cars to get anywhere. They were playing really loud music (the NPP song. All of the parties have a song. You can probably YouTube them, they are pretty great) and dancing in the street, on top of cars, on the sidewalk. Everywhere. It was insanity.
We finally got home to witness full election fervor in a campus setting. I went to get dinner and was accosted by a 40 person brass marching band and about 250 people dancing, singing, chanting, and parading themselves right past nightmarket! They were also NPPer's (most of the people in this region are...) and boy were they excited. It made me really sad that I missed this whole experience at Tufts last month...
So yesterday I didn't really go out into the city because I had to study/I didn't want to be out and about in case something bad happened during voting. But I kept my ear on the radio and really... nothing all that exciting happened. Lights went out at a bunch of polling stations (big surprise...), a few "macho men" went to one polling station and tried to intimidate people into voting one way or another. Someone tried to steal a ballot box and was thwarted by the police officer standing RIGHT next to it (dumbbb). That's about it.
But as usual, things are happening very slowly and vote counts are trickling in still. I have no idea who is going to win and just want them to figure it out already! I'm in the throes of studying for my hardest final and then I have one more exam before I go home... I have so much stuff to do before i leave!! AHHH. I don't want to PACKKKKKK.
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