Adventure or Bust!

Tuesday morning we left Mampong at 6am to head north.  After a 13 hour drive and a brief stop in Kumasi for a bathroom break, we finally arrived at Mole National Park.  In Kumasi we finally saw some other obronis, so of course we rolled down the van windows and yelled, "OBRONI!!"  They laughed when they realized that it was not an "obibini" (black person) calling to them.  The car ride was a bit of an adventure in itself.  In addition to the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, driving in Ghana is like Burger King (you have it your way!), the roads are pretty bad in some parts of the country, so it was quite bumpy at times, almost like bouncing on a moonwalk.  This was also my first long car ride without the luxuries of gas station candy, easy-to-find functioning public bathrooms, and the oh-so-crucial Chick-Fil-A breaks, but overall it was fun, relaxing, and a good bonding time for our team.  I enjoyed just looking out the windows and see the country.  The northern part of Ghana is much more rural and impoverished than the southern region, so all we saw for hours were villages of mud huts.  We arrived at Mole at nighttime and ate dinner, then settled in for bed.  We stayed at the motel in the park and although the tap water stays turned off except in the early mornings and there were fleas in the beds, it wasn't bad. There were fans in the rooms, which helped a lot and we were so tired we could have slept anywhere.

The next morning we left for our safari at 7am.  We walked around the park on foot with a guard.  We were a bit surprised that we were not going in a jeep or something because of the wildlife, but our professor informed us that "that's what the guard's gun is for!"  We saw baboons, antelope, an okope (Poisonwood Bible, anyone??), crocodiles, warthogs, and 4 elephants! We were able to get about 50 yards from the elephants as they were taking their morning bath in the river.  It was amazing!  Later that day, we went on a canoe safari near one of the villages.  We piled in the canoes and were a bit concerned that we'd sink since we were close enough to the water that a fish jumped in the boat.  We asked the guides if there were crocodiles in this river and he said "Oh yes, but don't worry, they won't harm..."  Even the crocodiles love the obronis here, how nice of them!  It was very beautiful to paddle through the wilderness and soak it all in! What a great (crocodile-free) adventure! I am so thankful for these opportunities!

Afterward, the guides gave us a tour of their village and told us about some of their customs.  We saw a woman making butter, climbed to the chief's lookout/announcement place, listened to their drums, saw their pigeon house, and, of course, were swarmed with little kids who didn't speak English but just wanted to touch us and hold our hands.  They told us how when twins are born, a pigeon is sacrificed and the meat is fed to the mother. If a young child has a persistent cough, they drop a coin in the pigeons' water bucket and give some of the water to the child to cure the cough.  We also got to see their burial cloths and learned about how they respect women enough that it is traditional to give them a bigger portion of everything, even in burial.  We returned back to the motel and I was so tired from the fantastic day that I slept like a rock.

We left this morning and drove back south to Kumasi, where we will stay for a couple days.  Along the way we stopped in a village to see a mud mosque from the 1400s.  Tomorrow we are going to a school and an orphanage.  Then our week of fun and tourism is over and we begin our medical work.  I'm very excited to get started!  The need is so great and I want to do whatever little I can.

Hope all of you are doing well.  Thanks for sticking with it if you are still reading!  Love from Ghana!