Ghana Love It Part 3

Mma Ache everyone, - Now edited with photos!

The Colorful Fishing Harbor of Cape Coast

Another blog update! This one was supposed to contain pictures, however I had taken the wrong flash drive. It may not work anyway, so just pretend I'll still only have pictures at the end of my trip (sorry!) My friend and roommate from the UK is taking better pictures than me anyway, because she has a very nice canon with zoom lens, so I am going to steal her photos.

It was a bit cloudy

Mosque

Last weekend we visited Cape Coast, which was kind of nice; the castle/fort was a whitewashed abandoned slave trade building in which we took a tour around. To get to Cape Coast we had to take a gruelling 4-5 hour bus ride, but we got through. I went with a bunch of my other friends from Projects Abroad, Alice from UK, Merlouse (spelled incorrectly) from Holland, Marine and Alex from France, Sanne from Belgium, Danielle from Austria, and a couple others I'm very unfortunately forgetting at this moment. All of them besides Sanne are in the veterinary program, so we do have a lot of members but unfortunately many of them are leaving soon. Touring the castle was very interesting as we got to see the rooms thousands and thousands of slaves were stowed in for years without light... It was very interesting and horrifying at the same time. Walking through the male dungeon (which was under the church??) was near oppressive with the dark arches crowding us into a small place that would fit thousands of starved human beings. The top museum was interesting as well as it dove into much of America's slave history and 50's civil rights, of which I was the only American in my group to recognize most all of the stories from previous history classes. In Cape Coast we stayed in a small hotel called Prospect Lodge, which was nice considering the price we paid for it.

Streets of Cape Coast and a Fish Vendor

A fish vendor and a cloudy beach

The Historic Cape Coast Fort

The hull of a colorful boat in a harbor outside the fort

History buffs would love to visit here

Inside the fort, cannons ready

Part of a dungeon in the fort

The next day we took a trip to Elmina, which was the first part of Ghana that was vacation beautiful. Cape Coast was small and crowded with many sellers and sounds like most Ghana cities, whereas Elmina was quiet, peaceful, palm-tree fringed with beautiful sand beaches and a light turquoise bottle green sea of the atlantic. There were colorful fishing boats lined up in the beach and as I walked to the beach I could see the much larger and impressive Elmina Castle on the peninsula with its coral roofing and white walls. Here the beach was lovely to sit on, as well as wonderfully quiet with the whoosh sounds of the waves crashing on the shore, as well as the "thunk" sounds to be heard from the nearby workers carving out large wooden boats with axes. At least until the local Ghanian kids found us (though it was still funny). They tried to tell us they were 15 years old (Maddi was 16.. and they looked around 12) and asked us if we were married (of course.) I told them yes, because for the purposes of Ghana I am married (people always ask, so then I usually say yes, then they say "are you pregnant" to which I say no, followed by their "why?" It's just usual talk here, they don't mean it in a bad way. They respect mothers and children in this country.) It was quite funny talking to the children all excitedly telling us about their fake girlfriends. We then went home after that, and had a wonderful relaxing day (in Ghana it's so rare to be in a relaxing atmosphere... so we took advantage of it.) Sanne, Maddi and I were staying I believe in the Almond Tree Hotel, which was a moderately priced hotel for Ghana (50 cedis each, or 25$) next to the more famous Elmina Hotel. It was a wonderful weekend, though I had gotten sick (and was panicking at one point, thinking OH IT'S MALARIA WHAT IF IT'S MALARIA until my roommate Sanne who worked in public health told me I couldn't have Malaria, because it takes 7 days to incubate and I had only been here for 5...) but I had managed to get some relaxing time in before I went back to work.

Wooden boats along the shore

Clearly old enough to marry.

Yesterday I worked in the clinic, the most interesting case of which to come in was a small dog with a Hematoma (spelled correctly?) from which ticks fell out like rain (typical here in Ghana.. most all dogs come in needing deworming and rabies shots). It is very difficult seeing animals treated at a clinic without some means to fully treat them, or if their owners can't afford to give the full treatment (most owners will try not to pay, many dog owners in Ghana do not treat their dogs as family and more as items) and so this dog had only local anesthesia to take care of the hematoma, which was in its ear in a very painful location. The next day we went to outreach, which I enjoy quite a lot as I just love going around to different farms in Ghana and seeing the similarities and differences in farms here vs farms at home. This is where I wish I had pictures the most, because some of the farms here in Ghana are so pretty, liked terraced farms overlooking a valley with colorful houses dotting the other side. I have lots of pictures with me giving vaccinations to and deworming goats, so no worries there - I just wish I could post them! The goats and sheep in Africa are quite small, so they are somewhat easier to handle. Apparently on thursday we are doing pig castrations, so that should be very interesting. Anyway, that will be all from me from now, I apologize for not having pictures but I promise they will be worth the look once I upload them!

EDIT AUG 29th - I forgot to post about Kakum National Park!

Wow this update has a lot of photos now.

Don't worry it's safe!

Kakum National Park is one of the main tourist attractions in Cape Coast, particularly its Canopy Walkway. It's connected by several large rope bridges that can each hold around 8 elephants' worth of weight. For this tour we had to pay quite a bit of cedi, and we were shown around by a tour guide but only given 20 minutes to view the canopy (though we stayed longer anyway. We paid money, we're going to go on the bridges longer than 20 minutes..) It was a very lovely trip but not for those who are afraid of heights.