First Weekend Explorations

**Apparently I can't write short posts - sorry! Hope it's interesting at least**

Last week, well this week too, was (is still) a tough transition for me. Even with Heather, my IntraHealth colleague still here, I felt pretty isolated and lonely. As I explained in my last post, the house I am staying at is very close to the school but very far from everything else. I am in a suburb and getting into civilization takes about 20-30 minutes and that's with a car that will take you directly where you want to go! Public transit is a whole 'nother story.

My first few days here I had only seen about a 3 mile radius from the airport, school, my house and a restaurant (the closest actual restaurant is 20 minutes from where I live, otherwise just street vendors. Grocery stores are even farther...but I think my new friend Rex, the IT guy with a/c in his office, will take me to one this week, now that I have a stove top!). So last weekend arrived and I was itching to meet friends and explore the city.

One of the lecturers/faculty members at the school has traveled to the US many times and said his favorite thing is when someone drives him around and shows him the sites and he offered to do the same for me. What's better than a local tour guide? Especially someone associated with me professionally and trustworthy. Saturday, Heather leaves for the US and my new friend, I'll call him Obin (name change) picks me up from my house. I didn't know where we were going but was excited to get out of the suburb.

Kumasi is a big city and is quickly growing. It is the 2nd biggest city in Ghana and rapidly approaches the same population size as Accra at almost 2 million people. The growth is apparent from all the traffic and the fact that Kenyasi, the suburb I live in did not used to be a part of Kumasi but Kumasi has grown to meet it in recent years.

We drove to town, avoiding the center since traffic is horrendous here, and first went to the Armed Forces Museum. The museum is an old British barracks and the tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and very enthusiastic. He showed us many old guns and relics from the 2nd world war, during which Ghanaian's (though at the time it was Gold Coast not Ghana) fought for the British. Then he showed us where prisoners of war were placed in confinement in groups of 10 or 20 with only standing room and left there until they died, all of them. He put our group in one of them and closed the door briefly - I was thankfully the last one in because it was really creepy and claustrophobic!! We left about half way through the tour after learning more about the Ashanti kingdom (Ashanti is the region we are in), and how they fought against the British.

Obin had mentioned driving to Lake Bosumtwi at some point and I didn't think it would be that day but that's where he started driving next. Traffic thinned out, the roads became thinner, less paved and more potholed and buildings grew scarcer. Like much of the African countryside I've seen, once out of town I saw many half-built buildings (actually those exist in town too) and many fully constructed and even freshly painted but abandoned windowless buildings. Much more frequent are the vendor stalls selling all sorts of odds and ends and necessities (tissues, powdered milk, recharge credits for your phone SIM) and the women and children walking along the side of the road with a big metal bowl on their heads selling Pure water packages or fried food. In between the stalls and clusters of buildings are vast fields of corn and lush greenery - if it weren't for the trash scattered all over it would be perfectly scenic. Driving in Ghana is like driving on an obstacle course, dodging potholes, avoiding other cars and people, trying to find the most filled in part of the road. And in doing that it means driving on all sides of the road, whichever is more flat, weaving right and left while still maintaining your speed only to slow down as you approach a pothole you can't avoid or an oncoming vehicle. It's amazing I have seen no accidents so far!

After about 45 minutes of driving we arrive at the top of the mountain from which we can look out and see Lake Bosumtwi. It's absolutely stunning as you can see from the pictures here.

View from top of mountain looking at
Lake Bosumtwi

Lake Bosumtwi

We made our descent toward the lake and got out to walk around. In typical African form, we were first stopped to pay a 2 cedi (about 1 dollar) park entrance fee, then asked for a donation at the information booth and then children came to wash the car while we were walking in order to get paid. All small hassles, which probably would have been worse if I weren't with a Ghanaian who spoke to them in Twi.

Town of Abono

Enjoying a beer in the mango garden at
Lake Point Guest House

This was Abono, the "main" lake town, which consisted of a small cluster of houses and shops and that was about it. We left there shortly after, traversing lakeside through another very small and clearly very poor town on dirt potholed roads and arriving at a gorgeous getaway, clearly popular by local volunteers and backpackers set back from the lake in groves of mangoes, with small huts as lodging and mini tables with thatched roofs delicately placed along the hillside. We stopped there to get a drink and relax for a bit. I definitely hope to go back there and stay a night!

Lake Point Guest House
at Lake Bosumtwi

The story kind of goes down hill from here. Short version is I realized that Obin was trying to get more from me than just my friendship. I had started to feel really uncomfortable by things he was saying at the guest house but never enough to say anything outright. Now that I've stewed over all the little signs from throughout the day I am even more put off and uncomfortable. Anyway, that was the last time he'll be my tour guide. It put an unfortunate damper on the day but I will try to just remember how beautiful the scenery was rather than his awkward unnecessary comments.

Whew ok this is already a ridiculously long post. Short-ish story for Sunday was that I felt like I needed to go exploring on my own rather than have a tour guide that had ulterior motives. So I walked out my front door, jumped on the nearest "tro tro," which are like Dakar's "car rapides" but WAY less decorated and a bit more safe....a bit, and I headed into town. Spent an hour walking around the central market, which is absolutely insane, and also happened to be on fire that day, so I didn't really go into it. It's one of the largest markets in Africa apparently so I'll have to go back another day.

Central Market on Fire

I got lost a few times, found a taxi and went to a hotel that had a pool. Ended up that hotel had drained their pool so they sent me even farther in the opposite direction of my house to another pool. I spent the afternoon happily swimming and sunbathing and getting stared at by a bunch of Ghanaian's who preferred to sit under the shade by the bar and just stare at the pool. And yes, I was the only Obruni there.