So I left off when we were going away for the weekend to Cape Coast. Got there, no problems, as there is a direct trotro line.
We arrived ready for a delicious (western) dinner- we had steak and it was glorious. Next morning, after we all called home to let everyone know we got there safely we headed to Kaum National park. This park was beautiful and with seven canopy bridges to walk across and take pictures on, we spent all morning there.
These bridges are amazing, so high and a little rickety which some of the girls found a little worrying!! But lots of fun and got some great pictures of some monkeys, which apparently is really rare, so we were pretty excited about that!
After kakum and quickly doing some postcards, we then drove to Hans Cottage. This guest house is so popular due to its crocodile population, and the opportunity to sit on an alive croc and take pictures. Unfortunately, when we were there, the crocs were in the pond and not on the banks so we didn’t get to sit on one -which some of the girls were quite relieved about I think!!
We came back to town for a big lunch and then had a pretty relaxing afternoon of reading in the hammock, swimming in the beach- the waves here are simply enormous, and two of the girls got their hair braided- which took 6 hours each!! We got to see another amazing African dancing and drumming show, which goes for hours!! During this, we had a big power cut and the whole cape coast was out, luckily Oasis (our lodge) had a back-up generator so we didn’t miss much of the dancing show, but it was quite eerie, to look out over a completely blacked out town!
The next day, we enjoyed another western breakfast- in which one of the girls had cereal with long-life milk which she was so excited about, as Ghana doesn’t have any fresh milk and mostly only evaporated milk, so long-life was quite a treat!
We spent this morning at the best internet cafe ever- so quick and cool (fans!) to rely to some emails and generally catch up with life back home! The afternoon, we spent time at cape coast castle. This was such an interesting expedition. Cape coast castle, is one of the old slave forts, and it was very shocking to see the conditions that these men women lived in before they were shipped out to America (cape coast was used to hold slave that were in the transatlantic triangle- Europe would provide Africa with goods, Africa would provide America with slaves, and America would provide Europe with the materials and tools to make the goods).
There is also a really interesting museum there, that explains all the history and has old shackles that were used to restrain the slaves. Along the castle wall looking out over the sea, there is about 20 huge cannons preserved there which was amazing to see.
Feeling quite sombre after all this, we headed back to Swedru. On Sunday morning, we went with our host family to church, and this was so much fun!!! Ghana church services are so LOUD, I felt like I was in a nightclub, and when I left my ears where ringing!!! But this experience was amazing, they clap and sing and everyone gets into the centre aisle and boogies! We are allowed to take pictures and videos, so we got some great footage of some Twi and English preaching. We spent the rest of the day with our family and doing another hand-washing session- the novelty of this has worn out very quickly now and I appreciate washing machines so much!!
On Monday,we didn't go to the clinic, as there was a funeral going on next door, (an old lady who was 70 + - which is very old in Ghana, and died of 'old age') which we got to sit in on and take pictures of. It was very interesting to see all the differences between Australian and Ghanaian funerals and it was nice that they let us join in. This week of work was good, we saw a couple more births and even saw a premature baby (26 weeks) be born, and it was amazing to observe the different care that they do for this child, as opposed to the care that they would receive in Australia.
We have become quite accustomed to being kicked out of our taxi each morning on the way to work, as the drivers have difficulty understanding where we need to go, and when we leave the village, they realise its 10 minutes away and refuse to go any further! We have started taking trotros now!
On our last day (we are going to the orphanage in our last week), we presented our orphange with some donations (thermometers- they only had one for 40 mothers and 40 babies, some gloves- 1 pair usually is worn for 5 HIV patients and just some extra books, pens, rulers and whiteout- which the clinic was desperately lacking in!!) so we left on a very good note!!
Then we went away for our last weekend.....
Missing you all (and the firstworld!) and cant wait to see you all soon!!!
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