Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

During my time in Ghana we had had fun with the kids lots of times by recording different songs with my cell phone. Once a little girl was singing 'Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year' to me (in the middle of summer!!! :)). I thought that it would be perfect for now, so here it is: Happy New Year to Everybody!!! :)

Find Out About Your Twi Name

I just remembered that this misght still be interesting for you: in Ghana everybody has at least two first names - one usual English name (like Vanessa, Anthoney, Daniel and so on) and also a twi name. This twi name is given to them according to the day of the week when they were born. Therefore for them it's not only the date of birth that's important, but the day is at least as important. They all get their twi names depending on their birth day and also their sex and in their family most of the times they are called by this name.

This way just for fun, you can also find out about your twi name. The first think you have to do is to find out what day you were born. Just for people like me who had absolutely no idea about what day this specific day was in their birth year, here's a little help:

Follow this link, choose the month and year of your birth and click on make calendar.

Once you have found your day of birth, you can easily look up your twi name in the table bellow. Have fun! :)

 

(By the way, I'm Afia... :) )

Ghana's True Faces

Recently I created a video of some of my pictures in Ghana. I was trying to show you what I really experienced in Ghana and not what our stereotypes are about Africa. Because these are two very different things... Anyway, watch the video and enjoy it! :)

I miss you...

I have already been at home for more than a week, but somewhere I feel that half of me is still left in Ghana, especially at the school…

I miss getting up early in the morning so that I still have some time alone with my thoughts in my room… Then I miss having my bath with that bucket of water that was so strange on my first day, but became so natural in a very short time… I miss being at class by 7 o’clock and starting to clean the louvers while the four-year-old kids are coming to school, proudly showing me their homework and also while teachers are saying good morning smiling through the window… I miss learning the alphabet, numbers and maths with the kids, and also drawing cats, houses and buses on the board so that they can copy them… I miss them calling my name just about hundred times a day, asking for eraser, pencil or telling me about who beat or pinched them… I miss them shouting ‘Me, me, me!’ when we asked who could answer a question…  I miss telling them stories and also when they were telling stories to each other even though lots of times I could hardly follow these stories… I miss telling them so many times to keep quiet… I miss sitting on the bench after closing when kids would come to me chatting… I miss all of them asking me to draw boardgames for them and teaching some of them how to make dice out of board paper… I also miss learning twi, the local language and trying to figure out what they are all talking about when they are speaking twi… I miss watching TV together with the kids while they are asking all kinds of questions from me… I miss when they hide under the table while I’m eating and pretend that they are some kind of small animals… I miss all the good Ghanaian food and I don’t know what I’m going to do here without eating fufu or banku… I miss everybody calling me obruni when walking on the streets… I miss all our great excursions with Richard… I miss squeezing into trotros and I also miss going all around Kumasi in trotros to get home since all the straight trotros were too busy… I also miss all the evenings spent at prep at school helping the kids with learning and being called to at least three places at a time…

I guess I could continue this forever, but the point is: I MISS YOU GHANA, I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU GHANA, I LOVE YOU GHANA!!!!!

Goodbye Emmanuel School

Unfortunately nothing can last forever and the end of this great four month that I got to spend at Emmanuel School came to the end too. Honestly I knew that saying goodbye would not be easy, but I didn’t think that it would be this hard. I guess somehow I thought that four month would be a longer time, but believe me, it’s way too short if you are spending it at a place like this.

But before leaving I still had a great day that I spent together with the kids and the teachers as well!! On the last Wednesday before I left, we had no classes in the morning, instead we had a program so that I could spend some more time with the kids. It all started with some speeches: at first Richard, my volunteer coordinator talked about what volunteering means and how I got there at all, after which two students speeches as well to say goodbye – one of them was talking in the name of all students and the other one in the name of the boarders – the kids who are staying at the school, so they were the ones who I spent most of my time with. They were so great, really, I just felt like that I cannot leave yet, it would be absolutely impossible. Because I love all these people so much… I was just struggling with crying and I couldn’t even talk when it was my turn. Ok, part of the truth is that I’m really bad with speeches in front of a lot of people, but the other part was that I was really touched by all these speeches…

After this I got tons of letters and presents from all the kids and we still had some time just to party together. All the kids and teachers were dancing together to real nice Ghanaian music (I got a CD full of this music, too before leaving! :)) and we really had great time together.

In the afternoon I had some time with the teachers too, when I got an amazing citation from them in which they are appreciating my volunteer time at the school, and I also got a beautiful banner with the school’s and my name on it, written with famous Ghanaian kente weave. We also had good food and drinks together. Right, and later I got an amazingly beautiful real Ghanaian dress, too to wear when I’m leaving Ghana. They are just so good to me that sometimes I’m not even sure that I will be able to pay it back…

I guess the point is that it’s really hard to leave a place like this, but this day we still had a great time together and I’m also sure that I got such experiences here that I will never ever forget these people!

The Roles of a Queenmother

The last time we went to Ghana’s Most Beautiful (a poplular TV show in Ghana that I have already written about earlier), the topic was the roles of the queenmothers in their community today. The contestants had to act as if they were the queenmother of their region and explain what role they were playing there.

It seemed to me that the role of a queenmother pretty much represents the role of a woman in today’s community. The point is that she can show and teach her people how a woman is supposed to behave, mostly as an adviser of the men (and the chief), as she represents the women’s side in all discussions. The women’s role is reflected in her behavior also, when she sits down by the left hand side of the chief so that he can protect her. It’s also her job to empower her women by ensuring their education (which is supposed to be a right and not a privilege and in which the parents have a great responsibility, too) for example by providing scholarships that will make it possible for them to be successful in their own business, while she also encourages them to believe in themselves and ‘make an impact on somebody’s life’. Girl child education seems to be a problem though concerning several regions, since traditionally a lot of girls dropped out of school so that they could help their mothers at the markets. Besides the queenmother is to be a royal mother to all of her people who takes care of good food, and health issues as well, for example by organizing cleaning projects, or by educating people about how to maintain good health. She is also the one who deals with marital problems – in this regard she plays the role of a psychologist of the European world by trying to find solutions for disputes between wife and husband.

Besides all these she deals with several current issues of her region. In lots of cases hospitality, taking care of touristic attraction and preserving culture is a very important point that she keeps in mind. One of her most important tasks is connected with the annual festivals of the region which is based on traditions and also an important opportunity to keep in touch with the people of the region. In the Upper West Region for example the queenmother considers herself to be the ‘ears and the eyes of the chief’ who is able to communicate the people’s problems to him.

She is also the one who can deal with such current issues as reducing the cost of funerals, which are way too expensive at the moment (e.g. Ashanti Region), arranging water storage for dry season farming, improving the safety of the rivers or getting involved in such projects as packing salt more attractively in order to get more business out of it (e.g. Greater Accra Region). She can work on water projects in order to provide good drinking water (e.g. Upper West and Bong-Ahafo Region), as well as she can fight against women violation (e.g. Upper East and Upper West Region) and teenage pregnancy by health and sex education (e.g. Brong-Ahafo Region)

Obviously the queenmother doesn’t work on all these projects just by herself, but together with different nongovernmental organizations and foundations. By fulfilling all these roles she doesn’t only help her community, but also greatly represent the women’s role in this developing country: which is to support the men with advises representing the women’s side, while also ‘believe in herself’ and ‘make an impact on other’s life’ by getting involved in all important issues that she is capable of helping with – but still remaining a sensitive and submissive WOMAN in the meanwhile of all these.  

Art at Emmanuel School: Children's Drawings

Let's get back to some of the things happening at Emmanuel School again: besides all the serious subjects, paying attention on how the children develop their art skills, is very important, too. Beginning from the youngest kids, up to J.H.S (Junior High School) level, they all have some kinds of arts in their timetable as well. For the samllest kids this might mean only scribbling, or let's say, pasting a leaf in their book, but for the older kids there are some more serious drawing lessons as well.

The children also love drawing out of school time. One day for example I drew some animals on the board since we were learning about domestic and wild animals. When the bigger kids saw these drawings at the end of the day, before I could have realized, I found myself locked in the class with 5-6 older kids (alright, older than my four-year-olds) teaching them how to draw elephants, horses and all kinds of things.
Since the kids don't only like drawing, but they also love it when a picture is taken of their drawing, I have quite a collection of children's drawings, so I thought that I would share some of them with you here to make your virtual experience at Emmanuel School more alive. :)

To see this collection, click here.

Kumasi and the Core of the Ashanti Culture

The sixth region I have visited is nothing else, but the Ashanti Region, which is the center where most of Ghana`s traditions originated from. The story of this area looks somehow like this:

Once upon a time there was a powerful kingdom, called Asante (or Ashanti Kingdom). It was founded by King Osei Tutu in the eighteenth century. His powerful priest, Okomfo Anokye based the unity of the kingdom by a Golden Stool that mysteriously descended from heaven to unify the Asanti states. Besides the Golden Stool, there were two other symbols that provided unity: a sword that was placed into the ground and could never be removed and also a bag that could never be opened, otherwise the unity of the people would fall apart. The kingdom was ruled by the king and the queenmother – the king always sat on a golden stool (but not real one of course!), while the queenmother was seated on a wooden stool. The two of them together ruled and took care of the people of the kingdom, that in the in the eighteenth century was even larger than the current Ghana. Whenever a king died, some of his people volunteered to be killed so that the king could be accompanied by them to death. Also, his stool was painted black and named after him (if he was a good king – if he wasn`t, they didn`t name any stool after him). The next king was always appointed by the queenmother from the male side of the family. After this point the new king didn`t use his former name any more, instead, with his eyes closed he touched the black stool of the king who passed away, and this way, he got his name as well.

The Ashantis were peaceful people, who liked celebrating various events. For example for them one month didn`t consist of 30 or 31 days, but 42 – and in every 42 days they celebrated the days passed and gave thanks to the gods for what they have received from them in the past month.

Although they were very peaceful, at the same time they were also ready to defend themselves if needed – either by power or tricks. In the nineteenth century when the British wanted to colonize the Ashanti Kingdom, they heard about the Golden Stool that was said to hold the strength of Asante. They demanded this stool from the Ashantis, but at last they got a fake stool – still, it took them decades to find out that they were tricked. Besides this, the people of Asante did go to war, too: these times they were wearing thick clothes on which various bones and stones were hanged that all held magical power to protect the soldiers. The last uprising against the British was in 1901, led by a brave queenmother, Yaa Asantewaa, who was already 65 years old when she led her people against the British!!! Still, after she was captured and taken to the Seychelles, where she died at the age of 85, the Ashanti Kingdom was colonized by the British and only gained independence again in 1957 as a part of the current Ghana. 

Based on this strong culture, today you can find a busy metropolitan city, Kumasi (it has about 3.5 million inhabitants!!) in the middle of the former Asante. The streets are full of people rushing from one place to another, selling and buying all kinds of goods or apparently trying to get a trotro to get to work or get home from there. One of Ghana`t largest markets can be found in Kumasi, too, which is always crowded – ot would be pretty hard to go against the crowd there. Getting a trotro is not easy either, usually you have two choice: to wait in a queue for a long-long time or to travel in a big circle all around the city to finally get home. Altogether in Kumasi I felt like that it was a large, moving and living city where everybody is busy doing whatever he has to do to make a living. 

But at the same time under the layer of the metropolitan city, the Ashanti traditions are still alive, too: besides the government, the area is still ruled by the king and the queenmother as well and they still celebrate various festivals, when the king and the queenmother come out, too, they are carried on richly decorated seats and dance to the traditional beats of the Ashanti drums.

Besides, if you only have a few days to discover the culture of the Ashanti people – like we had now - , you can gain an insight by visiting Manhyia Palace, which was the former home of the kings, and also the Cultural Center where besides the museum (with a very friendly lady to show us around) there are also various art crafts for sale.

Well, I`m really happy that I got to experience this region as well – I guess without seeing Kumasi, I couldn`t have said that I really understood what Ghana was about.

Kundum Festival (Western Region of Ghana)

This weekend I added two more regions of Ghana to the four that I have already seen (Greater Accra, Eastern, Volta and Central Regions), meaning that now I have been to six regions out of all the ten!!!

Now I`m going to write about my experience in the Western Region, where last week the people celebrated the famous Kundum Festival. This traditional festival is celebrated by the chiefs and the people of the region: starting in Takorade, which is the capital of the region, and then followed by town to town – every week it`s celebrated in different towns and villages.

The core part of the festival is the special Kundum dance, when people dance around and around to the beats of the drums played in the middle of the circle. Earlier it used to be also a time to show off with beautiful dresses, although today most of the people don`t wear their traditional dresses any more for the festival.

Well, we spent two days here, in the Western Region, during which I could get a taste of the festival: I got to experience the drumming and dancing both in the evening and early in the morning. I didn`t see too many people in traditional dresses, instead some of them were wearing crazier and crazier outfits: some people had white paintings on their faces, while others were wearing strange helmets.  Some of them where dancing around with children sitting on their children, others had whistles to provide some additional beat to the drums. Although first I felt more like an outsider trying to take pictures of this extraordinary event, soon I found myself between some of the people of the village, moving around the circle too and trying to imitate their dance. It was really a lot of fun, although again, I couldn`t really avoid getting into the center of the attention – it seems my skin was glowing too much in the dark… :)

Anyway, I think pictures can tell you more details than words, so here are some shots taken at Kundum Festival: 

School Activities

Although last time I wrote about how much the very small children are supposed to know here, it would be pretty far from to truth to say that at Emmanuel School everything is just about learning. Dealing with the students as whole persons who for example also need to have fun time, have common activities, or experience spirituality is just as important objective of the school as providing knowledge. The school`s motto is nothing else, but `Integrity, Knowledge and Power`, in which I think `integrity` refers perfectly to this concept: the goal of treating a child as a whole person with all different kinds of needs, not just somebody who is here to be taught.

As I see this objective is represented in a lot of ways: in the forms of the assemblies every morning (where they sing together the national and a school anthem), the worshiping every Wednesday morning (which also includes a lot of singing here) and the form of the school activities every Friday. These include various fun activities that the children can all enjoy together. One Friday for example they had a competition of filling up bottles with water that they had to carry in their hand, and also eating apple that was tied up over their head. Another day it was poetry recital, then next week we had  spelling competition. Although the smallest children are not always part of these afternoon activities, but sometimes we also have separate activities for the children in nursery and kindergarten. Last Friday for example we also had a competition, where they had to fill bottles with different colours of water, during which besides having fun (they really enjoyed it!) they also had an opportunity to practice the names of the colours.

This Friday our school activity was a lot fun, too: the members of the French club performed a play in French, where they presented the news of Emmanuel School for the first week of the reopening. We had two people presenting the news and also some reporters who `went to the field` and took interviews with some of the teachers and students (who were of course also all acted by students). They asked the administrator for example about how he felt about the reopening, they asked some new students about why they came to this school, then they asked the pastor who came for worship on the first week about why is it important to worship at school. Even I was the part of the play: I was asked about my opinion about the school and supposedly I said that that I love it here a lot and I like all the people at the school, too (which is very true! :)). They even had a guy who was acting the cameraman, filming the news! It was really a fun activity that the audience (meaning the other children and the teachers (enjoyed a lot, too).

Here you can watch the whole video of the sketch as well, so feel free to click on the video bellow: :)

Again another week we had a program like this: we had a quiz show which included all kinds of questions starting from English grammer and later continuing with general knowledge about Ghana's history and also some questions concerning current changes in the government and including the names of the new ministers. All classes starting from class five were represented by two people whom the questions were asked. In the case they couldn't give a correct answer withing a ceratin time, the question was passed to the next pass as a bonus question. Just like at every school activity all the other kids were present as an audience so that they could cheer for their class and also learn from the competition.
You can also watch the videos of the qiuz show under the following links: (For me the most interesting part was part 3, since that's the one which is about the history of Ghana.)


Quiz Show Part 1
Quiz Show Part 2
Quiz Show Part 3
Quiz Show Part 4

Lets See the Teaching Plan: What are the Four-Year-Olds Supposed to Know Here?

Since nowadays I spend all my day in one class, namely kindergarten 1, I thought that it makes sense to write a little bit about the content of the education - in more simple words: to write about what these little kids learn here. Alright, children here already start actual learning in the nursery, which usually means the age of 3-4. By the time they go to kindergarten 1, they are already supposed to be able to write the alphabet from a – z and also write numbers from 1 – 50 (although this doesn`t happen in the case of every child…).

As I said, since we reopened in September, I`m teaching K.G. 1  (Kindergarten 1) together with another teacher – although considering that there are almost 35 children in our class, lots of times the two of us doesn`t seem to be enough at all, I often feel that if I had 10 clones of me then that would be almost enough. But anyway, at the beginning of the year we mostly revised the letters and the numbers with these children. Since then that from maths they have a lot of matching exercises– like matching certain numbers of object with a written number. From English they are learning simple grammar, like the use of `a` and `an`, learn how to read two letter words and later also three letter words. From letter to letter they learn the phonetics, too, so that they won`t only be able to say the alphabetic sound, but also the phonetic one, which will make reading a lot easier for them. We also have picture reading here which means for example having pictures of different activities and saying simple sentences with them – like `He is bathing.` or `She is cooking`. A lot of time is spent with drawing and writing, which includes copying of `uuuu` and `mmm` patterns and also different patterns of lines, as well as copying different words, but developing skills of art and creativity is also an important part of the teaching plan. They also have science, from which the most recent topic was for instance making a difference between living and non-living things. Besides all these we also have to prepare them for practical life: this week for example we learnt how to bath properly: from the top of their head down to the toes. 

All these is happening half in the form of frontal teaching, half in the form of individual learning, during which we also help them with their work. It`s true that it`s not always easy to be at 35 places at the same time to help them, give them enough erasers and pencils (which is a usual problem) and also mark their work, but it`s really-really worth it and it`s a fun thing to do too! :) I hope I already made you feel like you should be a volunteer here, because the school would happily welcome any enthusiastic candidate! :)

Related to the topic you can see some more pictures here.

A Little Addition to the Wedding Ceremonies

Although a long time ago I have already written about a wedding ceremony that actually happened on my very second day in Ghana, I think it`s time to give you a little update about it again. I think it`s always the same way when you are getting to know something new (a new culture, a new person): at first you mark some of the differences and you think that you have understood something of the unknown, but later when you stop being an outsider and start getting involved, you realize that you hardly understood anything. Well, at least this is how I feel about the wedding ceremonies for instance…

The other weekend one of the school founder`s daughter got married. Alright, first of all I have a feeling that here the parents opinion about the ideal partner for their child counts a lot more that at home: without the permission of the parents a marriage would be a pretty difficult thing to carry out. Still before the engagement  there's a period of time called 'knocking' during which the families have time to make some investigation about the other family: they want to make sure that there's no genetic disease or unpleasent personality trait in the other family. Jumping a bit in time, about the actual marriage I was told that the preparations already started weeks before the ceremony, when the two families met to discuss the marriage: mostly the financial aspects – which means that they agreed about what presents and how much money the bride`s family was asking for in turn of the marriage. The man's family is supposed to give pre give presents to the bride's mother ofr giving birth to her, to her father for raising up her and to her brothers for taking care of her and scraing away all the other men who would want to marry her. To me all these show that the woman is highly respected and considered to be of a great value. The actual ceremony stared with a traditional part, just for the two families that this time was held on the school property. At first only the family members were present – the presents were given to the girl`s family. (Unfortunately since the ceremony was held in twi – the local language – I could only mostly follow it.) Later the guy`s family brought in the groom. He was asked some questions – like if he was sure that he wanted to marry the girl. Then before bringing in the bride, her family was asking for some more money: they said that otherwise they wouldn`t give the bride to the groom. All this of course also involved a lot of music and dancing. I was also told that this money question is already more like a playful thing nowadays, but in the old days it used to be pretty serious. After all these the bride`s family brought her in, too, and she was also asked some questions before she could take her seat next to the groom. She wasn`t wearing the typical white European wedding dress anyway, instead she had a beautiful blue and white Ghanaian dress. During this ceremony – which also involved a lot of singing and praying – a pastor was present as well, who at the end gave the rings to the bride and the groom and held a pretty similar speech to those ones that we have at an average European wedding ceremony. At the end, the two families also made a pledge that if  any problem occur between the couple, they are not going to get involved – although I was also told, that lots of time this doesn`t become the reality. Since hospitality is also very important to Ghanaians (which means that if you host somebody, you are pretty much supposed to give some food or something like that to them), at the end of this traditional ceremony, all the guests were given some packs of snacks, too. 

After this ceremony in the morning, a few hours later we also attended a ceremony at the church, where already a lot more guests were present. Here most of the ceremony sounded familiar, too, but an additional part was for example, that before signing their names as a confirmation of the marriage, the freshly married couple also had to kneel down so that they can be blessed by the pastor and also a lot of others. Besides, after all these we still stayed there for more prayer and dancing.

Finished with the ceremony at the church, we went to a very elegant hotel`s garden, where we still had some speeches, they cut the wedding cake and food was also served to everybody. 

An other interesting part though, that at the school property, we actually had a two-day-long party: a lot of the guest stayed at the school property all weekend, during which they were enjoying some music and drinks as well.

A Polarized View of the World

When I wrote about African modernity for example, I already referred to the unfairness of our European picture of Africa: we tend to think that no modernity has reached Africa, and that they have `nothing` here. Well, now I`m not trying to deny the poverty on this land, I`m just trying to say that the real picture is a lot more complex than that: they have a very interesting mixture of tradition and modernity, and an African way of involving European and American culture as well.

On the other side though, I`m just starting to realize that they have just as stereotypic picture of us, as we have of them: they usually think that Europe has `everything` - no poverty, no homeless people, no wicked people, thieves or anything like that. So many times I just find myself explaining how many problems we have at home and that our world is not perfect either – which is not the best thing to do, this is not the way I`m supposed to present my country, but at the same time, I just feel like that I have to balance this stereotypic picture.

It seems that we all tend to view our world in a very polarized way: separate the `good` and the `bad`, the `rich` and the `poor` part of it, even though the reality is way more complex than that and it would be hard to say anything that would be indeed true in general of a country. Still, this is the way how we human beings make our world more understandable, even if this way we get further from the truth…

Well, as a conclusion, I think I could summarize my point in these two pictures:

Our world is NOT LIKE this:     

 
In reality it`s a lot more LIKE this: 

Visiting the TV again: Ghana`s Most Beautiful

It`s time for me to write you about another very interesting program, that we just watched live at the Ghanaian TV3. This time we went to watch two programs: the Ghana`s Strongest`s final (which is a usual competition about strength and completing different tasks like throwing 20 kg weighs above a pole) and also Ghana`s Most Beautiful. Now this second one seemed a bit more unusual for me. It`s not just an ordinary beauty contest, the concept behind the show is a lot broader then that. The point is that they have 10 women, each representing the 10 different regions of Ghana. Every week they have different topics that they have to prepare for: they have to make some research about the certain topic in their region and represent that to the public. In this way, the beauty contest has gained an educative and informative purpose that also helps the Ghanians to appreciate their own traditions and culture. I think the motto of the show represents the purpose of the show perfectly, so it should stand here, too:

Ghana`s Most Beautiful – Redefining Beauty to Promote National Unity

 Just so that you understand better, the week when we visited the TV, the topic was traditional musical instruments. Every contestants picked an instrument (they all kinds of different drums and stuff like that) that was typical in their region, talked about how it worked and on which occasions it was used, and then also played it, which was also accompanied with dancers` performance in the background.

Other then the topic the show works the same way as ordinary reality shows: they have judges, commenting on the women`s performance and the content of what they said, and also the audience can vote for them – so this way from week to week there will be less and less contestants who are still in the competition. 

Break Time!!! – Trips to Akosombo and Aburi

Since we ended the vacation classes the end of August and we only reopened for year 2011/2012 on 13^th September, during this break we took the opportunity to take a few one-day trips to see more and more of this beautiful country. This is how I got to see Akosombo, a nice town by Ghana`s biggest lake, the Volta Lake, and Aburi, which is located in the Eastern Region`s mountains and is famous for it`s botanic garden.

Alright, starting with the trip to Akosombo – finding a car to take us there was the first adventure of the day. We took a trotro to Accra central, but then there we were sent from station to station, because everybody was only sure about one thing: that at their station you can find no car to Akosombo. Until finally we found one, where somebody pointed to the building in front of us, saying that the car to Akosombo is leaving from there – I was seriously surprised at the answer, since I almost already started thinking that a place like Akosombo doesn`t even exist. :) Well, but it does, we got there finally. The final stop was a market at Akosombo, bust since we realized that the view was way better from the village before Akosombo, we took a car to take us back. Here – after having a huge lunch of fufu with some very spicy light soup (remember, fufu is one of the traditional Ghanaian meals, made of pounded cassava and plantain, and eaten with some soup with your hands) – we found a long and pretty modern-looking bridge crossing Volta Lake. Besides that the bridge itself looks really great, from the bridge you can also have a beautiful view of the lake, the islands on it and sometimes also the small boats going up and down. 

 




















On the shores you can find real Ghanaian villages where the children are very friendly when you go to see the lake by their house and if you are lucky you can even see a cow lying calmly among the simple houses. 

Another day of the vacation period or way lead to Aburi. Here we had no problem with finding the right car, but actually we intentionally got off a few villages after Aburi, just to get an opportunity to walk back on some of the way and get a taste of the mountains of the area. The mountains that look really great: covered with deep forest, where sometimes huge trees break the surface of the bushes. After some walking we decided to actually take a car back to Aburi – just in time, since a few minutes later it already started raining. By the time we got to Aburi, we were already pretty hungry, and also a trip like this wouldn`t be the same without a nice lunch of fufu (yes, I am getting a bit addicted to fufu, which has a pretty bad effect on my shape, though… :)), so as soon as we found a place to eat, we had our fufu – this time not with light soup, but with another soup that`s made of groundnuts and a whole lot of spices, too. It was only after this that we walked to Aburi Botanic Gardens, where walking through the paths you can see a lot of plants of a rainforest – each tagged with their names, too. When we got to the gardens, it was still pretty foggy and rainy, but I guess for getting to know the plants of a rainforest, it wasn`t such a bad timing to come now after all.