Sorry Yo, Sorry for you

The above is my apologies for not updating this sooner. It is also a saying frequently heard in Ghana and a lot at happy kids. If you hurt yourself people will say sorry for you as a way of comforting/asking are you OK. At happy kids though you usually see one kid push another to the floor and then when they start crying look at them and say sorry yo, sorry for you. Ummmmm I don't think that entirely appropriate if your the one that inflicted the pain onto the fallen comrade. OH HAPPY KIDS

Anyways since last update there is now a house full of people instead of the pathetic 2 that we had for a week. There all from either Canada and USA. Everyone is pretty chilled and there are two other volunteers at happy kids, Alisha and Jamee. Jamee is in charge of the older kids and Alisha and I try our best to entertain the little ones, which is harder than it seems mostly because none of them speak English and when we try to get them to sit down and be quite they never listen to us so although on the most part they're pretty good kids when they want to play up it's absolute mayhem then Elizabeth (the lady in charge of happy kids) sticks her head round the corner and says 'quiet OOOKKKKK'in which the kids reply 'OOOKKK' and some order is restored, for a minute. It also doesn't help that there's no materials so were trying to get creative. We've made fans, hats, paper planes and Jamee's class did outline's of the kids and they coloured them in which was so funny to watch them all laying down being traced around, they thought it was the best thing ever. This Friday we're having a party at happy kids coz it's Jamee's last day and we're going to bring in a cake and play pin the tale on the donkey, bob for apples and more so I can't wait to see how that goes since they have no concept of parties at all.

Last weekend we went to Lake Volta which was the second time for me but we stayed at a pretty decent hotel by Ghana standards and every morning we woke up and had our breakfast while on a boat riding around Lake Volta... from experience I can see it's one of the few ways you should ever eat breakfast. A feeling of absolute contentment. We also went to the Cedi bead factory where you can see how all the beads here are made which was really interesting to see. It take's a lot of effort and it's all hand made it's ridiculous how cheap it is to buy them, so I bought a lot !!! On the Saturday we went to a 'club' which was an experience... I wasn't feeling too great as it was and then walking into the club we became the main attraction with the novelty wearing off after... well it was never a novelty but every time you tried to dance you had people surrounding you from every angle so I was quite happiest we were only there a couple of hours.

Lake Volta

Breakfast on the boat

(Lindsay, Emma, Libby & Dana)

After the club 'experience'

(Dana, Lindsay, Jamie, Alishia, Jamee, Mary, Emma)

Then this weekend we went down to cape coast which is about 6-8hrs away depending on traffic (about 8.5 to get down there, there was a lot of sitting in traffic but we did find a garage station that sold diet coke, ice cream and proper chocolate so we were all in heaven since these are rare commodities.) So we went to the hotel we had booked for and there was no room ... apparently we told them that we wanted to stay there Saturday. Sunday, Monday ... ummm no. So we all had to traipse to another hotel after almost 9 hours of driving which I was not impressed about but also not surprised in the least bit that it happened. So the next day we went back to the original hotel and I negotiated a good deal and we snuck one extra person in so we got our own back. Although not for the first time one of the hotel staff asked me to take them back to Australia. I'm not sure why they ask and waste their breath, do they honestly think that I'll turn around say OK here's my credit card grab yourself a plane ticket and I'll meet ya there. Same goes for the countless marriage proposals, one day I want to turn around and say OK and see what happens.


Anyway so on Saturday we went to the Kakum national park where we went on a canopy walk which is a walk 40metres off the ground consisting of some wooden planks and rope. Absolutely stunning! We then we to Elmina castle which is one of the oldest if not the oldest slave castle in the world. Walking in is a little annoying because you get mobbed by people wanting to sell you shit since it's so touristy. One guy asked for Alishia what her name was and she told him. So after we got out he gave her a shell with her name on it and a little message. Then asked her to 'donate' some money for his 'soccer school' which she did just to shut him up and get him to go away. Turns out this guy has robbed tourists yanked camera's from people's necks, bashed people up and robbed them and been in jail so in retrospect it was good that some money was exchanged. Back to the castle. It was beautiful which is ludicrous for all the atrocities that happened there. When you walk into the area's where the slaves were kept you can still feel the heaviness of the energy there. There was one room which was a punishment room if the slaves were misbehaving. They put as many slaves as needed to be punished into this small room and wouldn't open the door until everyone of them had died so you could be the last one alive with 5-10 dead bodies surrounding you until you yourself gave up and died. There was also the governor's balcony were he stood and made all the female slaves come out and he would pick out which one he wanted to rape. It's crazy to think there was a time where this behaviour was ever acceptable. Finally there was the door of no return where all the slaves were lead out of onto all the slave ships, no slave that ever went through that door stayed in Africa.

Kakum national park canopy walk

Canopy Walk

Elmina Castle

Elmina Castle

Punishment Room

Coconut grove beach (2nd hotel) @ Cape Coast

So after a heavy day we went back to the hotel which was on the beach and played in the waves until after it was dark. Although the beach isn't as nice as the ones back home it still did the trick. We then went to have dinner and decided we'd just have pancake's for dinner. They were finished ... In Ghana you need to pick a top 5 things that you would like to eat because in most cases the menu isn't actually what they have just a general idea. And when they don't have something they say it's finished giving the illusion that at some stage they had it, which usually isn't the case and if it is they finished serving it several months ago. Then on Sunday we laid around the pool, got tanned, went in the ocean and generally relaxed which again was lovely. So today is Monday and we in the van about an hour and a half away from home. We stopped at a shopping centre in Accra which was the weirdest experience. It was so western, the only place i've been to where you could forget for a second that you were in Ghana. Stocked up on some diet coke, got some pancake mix and ate pizza for lunch mmmmmmmm.

So plans for this week are our big party on Friday then some new volunteers are coming again. It's so strange the time of concept here is totally off. It feels like the new volunteers only just arrived but at the same time it feels like they've always been here .... really hard to explain.
Oh on a quick note we seem to be making a little progress at happy kids. We are going to start implementing some hygiene into it. Buckets to wash their hands, designated pee area's, not just on the dirt floor where the classroom is. Although I would love to try and get some order in the schooling aspect of it (and I think I'll go in with a translator,Elizabeth barely understands English, and do a few information sessions with Elizabeth) it will take months to start implementing anything that is sustainable but hopefully we can start it and other volunteers will be able to continue on with it. It just kind of baffles me why parents send their kids their because it's in essence a private school and there are public schools in Ghana which are much better equipped. It confuses me and seems ridiculous but so does a lot of things over here so I've been resigned to the ridiculousness found in most situations from transportation to education and medical care.

Caleb

Happy Kids in homemade hats, h, h, h.

Pirate Cynthia, known to gouge eyes, bite and even pinch friends and foes alike

Love Jamie xoxo

Photo's finally !

Ok here is a random collection of photo's in the last couple of weeks. Mostly of the kids a couple of my little vacation but in no particular order since it was a massive deal just to download them but I hope you enjoy.

My baby Cynthia sleeping

Harriet

Our taxi in a ditch notice the driver's t-shirt: "moving on up" not quite mate

You think it looks bad imagine the smell... the toilet at the Tamale tro tro station

Busted up tro tro that nearly exploded and collasped

Turkey and little deer in the 'zoo' at the hotel ???

Move over ranger Stacey!!!

Prince, Issac, Precious and I

Precious and I

Peter and Paul

Pee leg... thanks Cynthia

Paul with his massive bellybutton

Me painting at happy kids

Melodie with her pot bandana

Junior and I with a snotty nose and a grazed nose since he continually falls over and fails to put his hands down.

Junior after been given a texta, apparently he didn't like drawing on the paper as much as himself.

Junior crying which he usually does in the morning but for some reason is always in a fabulous mood in the afternoon's singing to me and everything.

Enyonam

Enyonam

Elikplim/Gollum/Vampire boy

Elephant at Mole National Park (Mol-ay)

Elephant at Mole giving him/herself a rock shower

Cynthia

Caleb

Caleb

Call me crocodile Dundee

Enyonam & Cynthia, they have a love hate relationship this is a rare moment where there not beating on each other

Caleb sleeping

Caleb

This is the wanted photo that will be circulated when I kidnap Caleb

Moda after a bath

Cynthia in a 'mood'

Love Jamie xoxo

Lions and tigers and bears oh my !

Ok it was more like elephants, crocodiles and baboons but you get the idea.
So decided to make the long and arduous journey to Mole national park swinging
past Paga 'on the way.' What a fucking nightmare!!! The transport in the country has
a lot to be desired although it makes a good story after the fact.

First of all lets start leaving Hohoe to make our way to Kumasi which is meant to take
7 hours 'theoretically'. So the bus is meant to leave at 3 a.m. but we get there at 1:30 AM
since we needed to secure our seat as sometimes the bus gets sold out. So we sit outside the bus station waiting for the ticket seller to get there and let us on the bus. Make it on the bus and the bus leaves at around 4 a.m. not on time what's new? This is referred to as Ghana time. So try and get in an as comfy position as possible on a pretty uncomfortable bus when they decide that 4 a.m. is the perfect time to blast the radio on the We love Jesus channel which is a mixture of religious songs mixed in with some guy preaching at the top of his lungs and in a pretty angry voice which is how people pray to Jesus over here for some reason. Then on my row of 3 seats there were 5 of us...

There was no sleeping.

So got into Kumasi at around 1ish. Kumasi is pretty full on city. There is people and stuff and people selling stuff everywhere you look which was kinda full on especially in my sleep deprived state. Headed to get some street food which cost $.50 and tasted really good (it's so cheap coz you take a gamble on whether it will make you sick or not) but stuck to rice and sauce so it's a pretty safe bet. And got some pure water another thing we were warned against but it's fine. It's basically filtered water in little bags that cost $0.05 each. We then headed to an Internet cafe where I could write some whinging emails to make myself feel better. Then on another bus at 6:30pm to Bolgatonga. This bus took about 8hrs. We got there at 5:00pm to get seats
and it was meant to leave at 6. The station is absolute mayhem where everyone is calling Obruni or white woman and expecting some kind of response so walked around for a whole 2 minutes on my own before I gave up in my sleep deprived state. So the bus finally left (there were bags of yams and people in the aisles as they try and cram as many people on the bus as humanly possible) Then some guy decided to stand on a bag of yams right next to me and spent the next 30 minutes preaching ... not fucking impressed mate!!! I was extremely tempted to push him off the yams but being one of the three white people on the bus I thought I might be a bit conspicuous and then the rest of the 8hr bus ride might be a little uncomfortable. After the preaching he then spent the next 20 minutes trying to sell medicine to the whole bus ... I should of pushed him when I had the chance. So after he finished I breathed a sigh of relief hoping that I might be able to get some sleep, yeah right. This particular bus had a tv at the front which in Ghana I would usually find a luxury but when I've had no sleep and it's bed time even on a bus I don't appreciate Ghanaian films being screen on maximum volume for the entire bus ride. But that's just me since no one else had any complaints. Even though most of the plots entail 2 people wanting to get married finding out they're related and can't then that's the end of the movie. Luckily Becky had sleeping tablets so down that went and I managed a couple hours sleep.

So we arrived in Bolgatonga at about 3am and managed to find a 'hotel' there was no running water but there was a bed so it was great. Woke up and found our way to the tro tro station to find a shared taxi to Paga to see the crocodiles. It's about 30 minutes away and we went to one of the crocodile ponds in which we proceeded to sit on the crocodile and see a guy feed a couple of them chickens that we bought for $3 a pop. (Amber, I refused to buy a chicken but Becky and
Victoria did I couldn't help but film them eating the chickens, i'll send you the footage). Then we went to Paga palace, what a waste of time there wasn't much there but a couple of mud buildings.

Bolgatonga to Tamale, the best bus we got the whole trip. Took about 3 hrs and although the radio was pumping it was the middle of the day. Got into the 'hotel' (these places are dives) and shown to our room which was so hot and again no water so we tried to get a room with air con, nope, on the bottom floor since it's cooler, nope, fine give us our money back, nope. He wanted to wait until some guy came until he gave us a refund even though we'd been there all of 15 minutes BUT he didn't know how long he was going to be and didn't have a way to contact him. The other girls were ready to sit back and wait, I wasn't. So after some 'discussion' between me and him and me standing at the desk staring at him for about 5 minutes he realized that he had a room on the ground floor which we moved into. As most people know i'm pretty chilled but don't piss me off when i'm tired or hungry for that matter. So we had to get up at 6am to buy tickets for the Mole bus that leaves at 2pm to make sure we got a seat. Done. Went back to the station at 1ish to make sure we found the bus etc no need since it didn't get there until 2pm and didn't leave until 2:30pm again with people in the aisle's. The bus was so bumpy (bumpy being a huge understatement) that we had to stop every so often to check that none of the tires had blown out. FINALLY got to Mole which was a relief and settled in for the night. We woke up bright and early the next morning at 5am to sit on the balcony overlooking the waterhole to see if we could see any wildlife. There were a couple of antelope nothing exciting but very relaxing after being constantly crowded for the past few days. The we went on the morning safari walk were we saw elephants, warthogs, baboons and antelopes. Seeing elephants up close was amazing and we managed to walk down to the watering hole just as about 10 elephants decided to have a bath and were play fighting. Very surreal experience and one that HAS to the make the whole hellish bus trips worth it. So left Mole that morning at 4am (along with the dodgy buses they choose really crappy times to leave) managed to get maybe an hour into the trip when we picked up some more people which of course took 15 minutes then went 2 minutes down the road and all hell broke loose. Apparently some people were on the bus that didn't have a ticket but the system of getting tickets is crap since there is one guy that wanders the bus getting your money. A cop came onto the bus shouted a little bit and fucked off. Then a whole bunch of people were shouting and shoving which while entertaining was annoying since all I wanted to do was get to tamale so we could get to Kumasi. So managed to get to Tamale and hopped on a tro tro. Big mistake. This car was on the brink of falling to pieces beneath our arses. The driver had to stop every 15 to bang something back onto the bus the stop it from falling apart. This mixed with the burning smell coming from the engine for the whole 8hr trip (it was meant to take 5), i'm pretty sure i'm lucky to be alive or at least not stranded on the side of a pretty deserted rode.

Then stayed overnight in Kumasi at a cheap, cleanish 'hotel'. So went to get on a bus to get back to Hohoe. BUT of course we went to the wrong station so we had to get a tro tro to just outside Akosumbo then from there to Hohoe.. easy right? Got the tro tro to Akosumbo which took ages because it went on the back roads, approx time 6 hours (should of taken about 4) then we got to the tro tro station and some guy was trying to get us onto his tro tro but he wasn't going to Hohoe so we said were waiting until one goes there and suddenly he changed his tune saying he would take us to Hohoe. So we got on and off we went. Again back roads for some of the way so was taking a while to get there then all of a sudden we stop about 30 minutes from Hohoe ... end of the line. Apparently he wasn't going to Hohoe after all and we had to catch a cab the rest of the way but OH they wanted us to pay the full fare ... fat chance !! So we stood in the rain while I argued with them for 10 minutes about how I was paying the fare minus the cost of the cab pretty standard well according to me anyway. So after that all 7 of us jump into a 'car' made for 5 and off we go. The roads in Ghana are notorious for there pot holes so our cab driver decided to drive on the very edge of the road to avoid one that wasn't even near him which resulted in us getting stuck in a ditch and ending up on at least a 45 degree angle all squashed together. So out of the cab we hop in the rain and of course the cab can't get out of the hole so we wait until enough cars come past so the people can literally drag the car out of the hole and continue on our merry little way... OH GHANA!

Finally got into Hohoe 3 and a half hours after we set off (usually a 2 hr journey) and made it back to the homebase by 9:30pm in which time I collapsed into bed after stuffing my face full of food since I'd been living off crackers and digestives for the most part of the 6 day journey.
Was it worth it? I'm not sure, but seeing elephants in the wild is a once in a life time experience and now I feel I can handle any kind of traveling after that bullshit. I even managed to crack up laughing when the cab went in the ditch, granted it was more a deranged, delirious
laugh to stop myself from crying laugh but it was a laugh none the less. I'm just happy it's over and I can say that I did it and saw a large portion of Ghana because I know I would of regretted it if I didn't.

As per usual photos will have to wait since the internet is being reliably slow.