Final couple days

Well, 2 more days till I come home...I've got mixed emotions. I really can't wait to see Audrey, get to work and school, etc but I've made some good friends here I'll miss and I've really had a good time.

This weekend I went to Kumasi with 4 volunteers. Two from the US and two from Holland. I drove them around Friday to Lake Bosomtwe and Saturday to Adanwomase - the kente weaving village - and Kejetia Market - the largest market in West Africa. They left for Accra on Sunday while I went to visit Holy Trinity Lutheran Church again - the choir performed there in May.

Tuesday I took the bus to Tamale in the Northern Region. The first half of the ride was quite bumpy and slow - about 5 hours. Then we stopped in Kintampo at the rest stop before continuing on a great road for another 3 hours. In all - 8 hours! When I got there I checked into Tamale Institute of Cross Cultural Studies (TICCS) Guesthouse. It is run by a Catholic group and they have a cross cultural library and I think classes were being held while I was there. It is a very nice, quiet place for only $14/night! I had a cheeseburger with a middle-aged British man who is volunteering in Tamale at the Jungle Bar at TICCS - not bad. Then I met up with our crew from WAAF who had just arrived to do CD4s and surveys across the north.

Wednesday the three guys from NYU med school called me to see if I wanted to go to Mole (pronounced Molay) National Park - of course I did! We hired a taxi for the day - $130 including gas. Its about a two hour drive to the park. On the way we drove past many villages where people live in very traditional style homes - round mud huts with thatch roofing. The mud huts are arranged in tight circles with a wall connecting the huts. Each hut is like a room in the house and the courtyard is used to do most chores and sometimes to keep animals. Most of these villages did not have electricity.

Mole was great! As we were driving to the park a Red Patas Monkey ran across the road in front of us. When we got to the park we paid the entrance fee - $4! Then went to the Mole Motel which is on top an escarpment or ridge with 2 water holes directly below the hotel where the animals come to drink. It is an amazing view. We had lunch by the swimming pool while watching elephants play in the water hole! After lunch we had to wait for the Safari Walk to begin so we just hung out at the hotel. Suddenly a gang of Baboons invaded the motel! They stole food off of peoples' plates, stole a ketchup bottle, tried to enter a motel room, one even jumped on a young lady to steal her package of biscuits (cookie/crackers). It was all quite humorous! A few Warthogs also came to graze on the motel's grass.

We took a 2 hour Safari Walk through the "Guinea Forest." There we saw at least three species of antelope - Kob, Waterback, and Bushback - including a large buck and a doe nursing her baby. We also saw a herd of male Savanah Elephants - I learned that there are two types of elephants - Forest Elephants and Savanah Elephants. Forest Elephants are smaller, have smaller ears and their tusks are straight while Savanah Elephants are larger, have larger ears and curved tusks. They travel in groups according to sex, males with males while females and babies travel together with the dominant male who protects them. They have an average life span of 70 years while some live up to 120 years. Their gestation period is 22 months and they are the second fastest land animals in the world traveling 90 kilometers per hour - the first is the cheetah at 120 kilometers per hour! These elephants were huge and we were able to get about 50 meters away from them. Their scent is powerful - you can smell 'em before you can see 'em! We followed the herd around for a while getting some good pictures. We also got up close to some Warthogs. That was it for animals species we saw on the walk - most of the animals are nocturnal. After the walk we drove back to Tamale.

Thursday I checked out of the hotel, had the worst pizza ever at Swad's Fast Food, met up with the WAAF group at a clinic - ironically, construction of the clinic was funded by the US Department of Defense?? - and had another lunch (the pizza was that bad!) at the STC bus station before I headed off back to Accra at 4PM. I was given the task of delivering the HIV-positive blood samples. After stops in Kintampo and Kumasi I arrived in Accra at 3:30AM this morning!! The ride was not as bad as I thought it would be. We watched several Nigerian movies - including one with Nigerians playing Americans which was just plain funny (the stereotyping was very humorous). At one point we directed off the road and waited for 15 minutes then a truck full of police escorted us for a stretch of road - apparently there has been a problem of armed robbery on that stretch. I was able to sleep some on the bus and now my neck is hurting! I delivered the blood to the clinic and walked home. I got to bed just in time to hear my usual 4:30AM walk up call of "Allaaaaaaahu Akbar, Allaaaaaaahu Akbar" blasting from the mosques in the next neighborhood over.

This morning I woke up around 8, did some laundry, and went to Ghana Immigration Service to pick up my passport - I can now stay in Ghana until August 13 if I want. By the time I got to WAAF all the volunteers had left. They went to Cape Coast for the weekend so I am here with the few staff who didn't go up north. I think I'm gonna go out with the Lab Technician - Rolland - and Emmanuel for some drinks tonight. Well, I probably won't be able to leave another post before I'm back in the US so...........see you soon!

James