Is it time for my hot shower yet? Now edited with pictures!
No, not yet, because I still have one week left in Ghana! One of my two other vet students, Daniella, is leaving this thursday, so Alex and I will have our work cut out for us, though I believe that soon we will go around vaccinating stray dogs.
This weekend Maddi, Lien and I decided to go to our host mother's church service, which is fairly important in Ghana as there are a large amount of Christians in the country, and most all Ghanians get very dressed up for saturday or sunday mass. One of the best thing about Ghana is that even though it may have varied religions such as Christianity and Islam everyone is unified as an entire nation no matter the different beliefs. The church service itself was set at Amakom Adventist Church, which had 3 different services going on at the time we went, divided by age. Our service was preceded by a bible study session, which unfortunately I was unable to hear most of due to the volume of the other bible study sessions occurring next to ours (in English). Afterwards the service began, in the church with white walls, dark pews and around 200+ people. My host mother was in the choir up front, and when the church played a hymn EVERYONE sang. It was wonderful, the entire place filled up with song. I sang along too, though some of the songs were in Twi and I had a harder time with those songs (the lyrics were hard to see from the far back). It was a really interesting service, and I'm glad I was a part of it.
The next day, Maddi and I (unfortunately it was Lien's turn to go back home) went to Lake Bosumtwi, a large crater lake that is one of the largest bodies of freshwater in Ghana. The day itself was a bit grey, and we took various taxis and tros to get to the lake during which we met a nice German family traveling Ghana. When we drove to Abono, the springboard town for Lake Bosumtwi visits, we got stopped on the way for a "2cedi road toll" which was a scam, but me and madi just forked up the 2cedi and rolled on through anyway. It was just two guys in t-shirts with a rope across the street, apparently using money for "roadwork" but according to my guidebook was a tourist trap. Still, I didn't read my guidebook before going, which was a mistake because there was another tourist trap waiting at the information center, which we were told we had to go to in order to register ourselves for lake visits. The two men there gave a slight introduction about the lake showing some interesting posters but not really talking in detail about any of them, which would have been cool as they were actually research posters about the lake. Then they demanded a donation for "building trees around the lake" or we wouldn't be able to tour, which is bs (not just because they wanted us to put the money in their pencil box) because touring the lake is free. They asked for 30 cedi donation as a good amount, and the poor nice German family gave 15, while me and Maddi decided to just each drop a 1Cedi note. We knew the money was just going straight to their pockets, but after that the day improved as we actually got to walk around the outside of the lake. It was quite scenic as it was quite large and reflective, with an interesting mountainous border with various palm trees lining the beach sand. There were nets in some parts of the lake as well as an interesting fallen tree me and Maddi took a rest on, and a small stone shrine on the sand partway through our walk that natives used for various practices. Some of the hotels hidden behind the palm trees were some of the nicest I'd seen in Ghana, and the lake itself was so quiet in comparison to noisy Kumasi. The water was fairly clear and warm, though I opted not to swim in it. I think it was a nice relaxing trip to make before Maddi made her trip back home the next day. That night we got dinner for Maddi's goodbye party with Will, Francesco, and Stella back from their trip to Mole National Park.
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| Stones weighing down fishing nets used by the locals |
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| My bad attempt at Ansel Adams art. The day was nice and cloudy |
Today I said goodbye to my first roommate from the UK, and traded contact info as well. I hope I can keep in touch with all my friends I've met while abroad. As for outreach today, we performed more injections at the same pig farm (antibiotics, vitamins, and dewormer.) It was extremely tiring, and I look forward to a shower.
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| One of the farm kittens at the pig farm. The kittens were scared, but the mother was quite friendly. |
That's all I have time for today, I hope it was a good read and in one week I will upload photos!
-Marisa
Next - Part 8
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