A fine mess of contradictions

Well, I'm still in Accra. I decided after the insane bus ride Gill and I endured to get here that it was worth staying here for a few more days. Sure I'm sleeping on the floor without a bug net, but who really needs sleep anyways? Also, the Dutch volunteer that I mentioned earlier is quite ill and in the hospital so I decided to stay so I could visit her and spend some time helping out if she needed it. She is having some sort of allergic reaction to her malaria pills and has been sick for the 5 weeks since we got here and is really deteriorating. She has open sores now, and blisters all over her up body and I'm really freaked out. She needs to go home because the doctors here have done almost nothing to help and if anything they have made her worse. She is really depressed about going home I think, but everyone is very worried. I spent the past few days in hospitals pretty much, and I'm not a big fan of them at all! Kersten our coordinator here is also very ill, so it hasn't exactly been the best of times, but hopefully things will get better for everyone.

There was a party at the house thrown by one of the tenants on Saturday and it was nuts. Half of the backyard was filled with people dancing and having a good time and the other half of the house was inside lying down beside buckets. It was not the best party ever to say the least. It seemed like so many people all got sick in one night, it was a fight for the buckets, and people were resorting to anything! I'm not a fan of people being ill, but everyone seemed to have something different, from malaria to food poisioning or who knows what, so I tried to help out. I could never be a nurse, but I'm trying.

So, I decided I could either take a bus back to Kumasi and brave another potentially insane bus ride or stay in Accra and go visit Linsey (very sick Dutch girl) and celebrate Ghana's 50th anniversary. The former Gold Coast- now present day Ghana -was the first African country to gain independence from colonialism. We were here for the momentous event of their 50th anniversary of independence from colonialism. I'm such a nerd, but it seems like I'm actually getting to experience things that I learned about in school and it's really exciting. The celebrations were so great. I just can't believe the way things work here- half the time I'm shocked and the rest of the time I just can't believe how amazing people are. The celebrations were held in Independence Square, and over twenty five presidents were there as well as chiefs and ambassadors and other such important people. The square was packed and all of us felt a bit nervous that if something went wrong that we would inevitably be trampled. But for some reason, and I don't understand this and I think it's because I grew up in pushy Toronto, but people were nice to us. At a concert or event or even the subway at home, people will shove you and push you just to get by, and yes it happens in Ghana, but at this event it was so different. This one Ghanaian woman took us under her wing and kept trying to get us to go inside the gates and pushed us to the front numerous times. She really wanted us to see the celebration- their celebration- because we were foreigners. They were so proud of all that Ghana has done. A lot of people were very angry that the government spent over 24 million dollars on 3 days of celebrations, because hospitals are closing down, roads need work, schools need support, but some were just happy to have a day to celebrate. It was hot and we couldn't really see or hear much, but the crowd was wild. There were people jumping fences despite guys with machine guns and people were blocking everyone's view by crowding the fences. So of course the crowds in the stands decided that if they couldn't see they would have to entertain themselves. They started buying sachets of water and throwing them at the people crowding the fence and blocking everyone's view. It was hilarious, people being pelted with basically water balloons from above. The crowd was just so lively and so happy. People called to us from the stands and helped us move up to the top so we could see more (I could still only see the military marching back and forth for about 3 hours which wasn't very exciting). I just couldn't believe that people would help us out in a huge crowd to show us how proud they were. And some fights broke out among people blocking each others views, and the crowd would get so rowdy and start cheering, it was so funny. Everyone had a Ghana shirt on, braided hair in Ghana's colours and people were giving us all flags for free. It was fun, but hot and we actually had no idea what was happening in the ceremony! The sound system sucked so people at home probably had a better idea of what was going on that day than we did, but we don't have a television so we couldn't watch it on recap on the news.

We decided we couldn't take much more sun and on our way home we were called into a backyard by a group of women. They gave us free Cokes and Fanta's and were so excited to hear us speak a little bit of Twi. My name is Akua in Twi (because I am Wednesday born) and whenever people ask me I tell them that name and they just freak out. Clapping, and laughing and they think it is great. One older woman there had been around for the first independence day and had a cloth skirt on from the celebrations. They were so nice to us for absolutely no reason. Still getting used to the Ghanaian kindness, it really throws me off sometimes- it's just so different!

Well tonight I head back to Kumasi- it has been a holiday so I will have to get back to work tomorrow. I also forgot to mention that I got my hair braided. It took 3 and a half hours, but I get so much funny attention. It's much cooler despite the fact that its hard to sleep on. Rasta's love it, and yell "hey rasta!" or "rasta baby!", and people seem to get a good laugh out of this obruni with braids. I don't look too bad, a little like a pumpkin head, but its really fun to have while I'm here. Me and Gill did it together and had our heads pulled in a million directions at once, each of us surrounded by 4 or 5 girls ripping at our hair! When in Rome...

I will post some pics- it has been next to impossible with the internet here, but check them out if they work! I really don't know how to rotate, and I know its dumb, but the internet isn't so great and I just can't be bothered in case I lose my whole post. The pics above are from Mole National Park and Kakum National Park. Sorry there aren't more, I will definitely post lots when I get home of the insane children that I kind of love!