Another week down, 8, well 9 more to go! I hope they go really really slowly! Because I am loving it here.

Everyday brings a new experience, and everyday I feel more and more comfortable with my surroundings.

It took me about a week to get used to the taxi’s here. I know now how to wave a taxi down appropriately, I know the general cost to get where I want to go, and I know how to argue with the drivers when they try to overcharge me with their Bruni price (the white person price).

Getting the Bruni price on things is very common. I am still not very comfortable with bargaining, and probably get ripped off on the things that i buy off the streets when i do not try to negotiate the price down. But, slowly, i am learning by doing.

I don’t know if i am repeating here myself or not, but oh well. During the times of 5 AM to 10 PM I can get a 10 minute taxi from my house in Abra, into town for 1,700 credis, which is about US $0.18. I can get a 15 minute ride from the office to Elmina (which is where the other volunteers are living) for 2,100, which is about US $0.22. And I can get to the market in Town (where my office is) from the office for 700 credis (about $0.07).

Usually the taxi drivers are pretty honest with their prices. Sometimes when i get a ride from my house to Town, or vice versa, the driver will take 2,000 credis instead of 1,700. Which means they take about .03 cents from me. Usually when this happens, i usually don’t say anything, but at times I do. It just depends on how I am feeling at the time.

Here’s a really good example of an attempted Bruni price for taxi service, that was ultimately negotiated down to a reasonable price. When me and 4 other volunteers just recently went to Kakum National Park in the Mid-East region of Ghana, we approached a taxi driver right outside of the office and asked his price for the hour and a half drive. Initially he said 500,000 credis, which is about US $50.00, for the all of us in total. This was absolutely rediculous, because Renae (Abaya is here Fanti name) had just told us we could get a taxi to take us for only about 40,000. He was definitely thinking we did not know what we were doing here….and so one of the volunteers was like, ‘uhh…no’ How about 40,000? He started laughing and we told him that we knew the price was 40,000. Then Karen (the volunteer doing the negotiating) said, we will give you double the cost, 80,000 and that’s the final offer. And he took it, of course. I highly doubt they could make anything near this during a regular day of driving.

So, what the hell were we going to do in Kakum? Well, stay the night in a tree-platform in the middle of the forest of course! :-)~ Yes, that is exactly what we planned to do, and did.

When we arrived at the village at the park entrance, we were surprised to meet a group Australian dancers and teachers who we just met a few days before at the Ahanti Dance Theatre show. They were at the village to stay the night. Some were going to teach at the local two room school, and others were there just to watch another dance show that the village puts on for visitors.

It was about 3:30 when we showed up, and we were all very hungry. The Australians had just eaten dinner, and so the food was still fresh. The cook made us all up a very nice dinner. We had beans, rice, and a really nice pepper and tomato sauce. Then, she brought a big plate of pineapples. Yum Yum. The fruit here is so amazingly good. I think it’s one of my favorite things to eat here. So satisfying. So juicy, and sweet. Yum Yum.

After we ate dinner, we walked around and watched the Australians teaching in the schoolhouse. I know that must be very difficult. Then after they taught for an hour or so about the History of Australia, they brought the students out and taught them some Australian dances. The kids all really seemed to have a lot of fun with that part of the lesson!

As they were dancing, we were setting off on our journey into the forest.

First off, we walked through the village and picked up our two guides. Once had a nice big machete and held some sleeping pads, and the other had a backpack and a big gun. They explained that no visitors were allowed in the forest without someone who had a gun because you could cross paths with dangerous animals. They said they would not use the gun to hurt the animals if we were to see any, but if they came to close they would shoot to scare them away. Well, the gun was never used during our trip, and actually, we never saw in animals period, except some birds and bugs. But that was fine because the trip was still a really awesome experience.

After we picked up the guides, we began a trip down a long dirt path for about 30 minutes. Then, we left the dirt path and started walking down a path in the forest.

The first part of our trip through the forest was nice and open. About 15 minutes into the first leg of the forest, we came across a small village. As we walked through, many people began to come out of their huts to greet us and we waved. Then, right after we left the village, we began to trek through the dense, lush areas of the African Jungles, well, what i had thought to be African Jungles anyway. I began to hear some chainsaws in the distance and asked the guide why we heard them. It struck me as odd to hear trees being cut down because we were in a National Park. But the guide informed us that we were actually walking through Cocoa fields and that the Agricultural Ministry of Ghana had recommended to the cocoa farmers that they should cut down the trees on their farms because it encourages more cocoa growth when there are less trees in the area. Nonetheless, the sound was not very encouraging, but it brought a sound of reality to the trip.

Another interesting sound that made me think about how much our world is changing was when I heard a loud thunder in the distance. At first i thought it was the first signs of rain to come, but quickly i realized i was really just hearing the roar of a huge airplane. There is no where, even in the depths of the African jungles that is free from human interference, and this is made clear by such real time occurrences.

Then, after a good 20 minutes, we came to the border of where the cocoa farms met with the national park. It was quickly obvious that we were about to enter into the actual forest because everything got dark, and the trees became very dense. We had to walk about one hour through the forest until we got to the tree-platform. The trail we were walking on was not exactly well cut. The last time someone went to the tree-platform was 3 months ago. So, there was quite a lot of overgrowth, and a number of fallen trees, and other obstacles blocking our route. We were ducking under trees, hoping over huge roots, dodging holes and trying to avoid being scratched by the spiked plants stems that hanging in our way. There was a couple of times we’d have to stop and use the machete to cut away the excess overgrowth so we could continue on.

One of the things that keep running through my mind was how mind blowing is that I am walking through a rain forest in the middle West Africa. I kept imagining a map in my mind. I kept seeing America, then Africa, then America, and the Africa. It rather difficult to imagine that I am really this far away, and in the place that i am.

Once we arrived at the tree-platform, we all were very glad to be at the end of our journey. I keep calling it a tree-platform, instead of a tree house because it was really only a platform with a room in a tree. It was quite amusing when we walked up and gazed at the tree. We were shocked at how high up it was, and we laughed at the thought that we’d all fit into it.

One of the guides pulled down the latter from its’ raised position, and we each took our turn walking up the shaky, rather bendy metal ladder. We all made it up, and all stared down and out in amazement.

After we settled down, and cleaned off the platform, we started laying out all of sleeping pads and some of the volunteers set up mosquito nets (i did not). Which, much to my surprise, mosquito’s and all bugs did not bother us at all while we stayed through the night.

After we squeezed into our tiny sleeping areas, we all relaxed and started telling stories and talking about all sorts of stuff. The guides ended up falling asleep within on an hour (it was about 6:30 when we got to the platform, and by 7:30, they were out). The rest of us stayed up chatting and listening to the sounds of the forest until about 11 PM.

Once we all feel asleep, things got very quite in the tree-platform. But the world around us began to move. We heard many noises coming from within the trees and right under us. I imagine there were numerous nocturnal animals rustling around beneath us throughout the night, but we saw nothing. It was much to dark.

As the night progressed, i awoke on several occasions out of discomfort. There was nothing i could do about it though, because there were 7 of us in the tiny area and i was left with no run to stretch out. So, i dealt with it, and slept when i could.

When i was not sleeping, i was listening to all the noises. There was an amazing rhythm in the air. Sounds oscillated around me in-sync with the constancy of classical music. Then i would fall asleep. And wake up again. This time to loud monkey (i assume) calls coming from the distances. Then I would be out again, and strange dreams of being back in the States, in a tree house clouded my mind (yes, really that is what i dreamed about).

Then, we all woke up around 6:30, packed up, and shipped out. We took the same
path as we took into the forest as our way out. And an hour and a half or so after we left, we made it back to the village where we had started. All of us were very tired, and hungry. And luckily there was food ready for us when we arrived. We had eggs, bread, tomato and more wonderful pineapple. We also got a very nice music and dance show from the village inhabitants that lasted a good 15 minutes and then another 10 minute ad hoc dance by the Australians. They performed two traditional African dances that they had been learning since they arrived. It was a lot of fun. (Pictures can be found at drpooville.org)

After the dance, we got lucky again because the Australians were leaving and they had a nice and relatively comfortable bus that was on there was back to Abra, which is exactly where we needed to go. They gave us a free ride all the way back home and we got to know some really cool people too!

After we made it home, we decided that we would again meet up that night (saturday) and go out to drink and dance. So, we split up, and all went home. Then, around 9 PM that evening, we all met up at Oasis Beach, where the music was bumping loudly and the people were drinking and dancing to their hearts content! This place was very nice, it was all outdoors, had a lot of space, many places to sit, a big dance floor and a nice bar. The one bad thing was that the Ghanaian men didn’t act very respectful to my volunteer friends or the Australian girls. Right when one of the girls (or more) would hit the dance floor, men would surround them start trying to bump and grind. This was not appreciated, and the girls began to have to push them all away and dance only when big groups of them all went onto the floor. They were more annoyed than anything else, and I can understand their annoyance. Fortunately for me, that was not a problem. Everyone really enjoyed watching me dance, and many grooved by my side. Some told me that they liked how free i was on the floor, and if i wanted to, i could have made many ‘friends’ that night, but turned them all down.

It is unbelievable how many locals have asked to be my friend in the past two weeks. They all say, ‘O Bruni! Hi, how are you? What is your name? Where are you from?” Then some say, “Give me 1,000!” and my response now is “No, you give me 1,000!” That usually makes them laugh and the leave me alone. Then always comes, “Do you have an email address? Where do you live? What is your address? What is your phone number?” I always say i don’t know what it is. None of these people are sincere at all and i don’t want them to bother me.

Then, at some point in the night after a couple beers had been taken down and i really needed to go pee, i realized that the reason that the place is called Oasis beach is because it was located right at the beach! I did not think about it when i arrived, but i knew the beach was right there. I just did not put 1 and 1 together until i saw the other 1. :-)

Around midnight, many of the volunteers began to leave. I decided to stay hang out with the Australians a bit longer. We danced for another couple hours, and talked for a while in between and around 2, i decided to leave.

At this time, i was still very wasted and had to get a taxi ride home by myself. I was expecting this to get interesting. But it went over pretty smoothly.

When i left Oasis Beach, i found a taxi driver that was sitting in the parking lot and asked him how much it would cost to take me home. Because it was really late, I was expecting a high price, but when he said 20,000 , i assumed he was ripping me off. I haggled with him a bit and then decided i would just wait for another taxi to arrive. I waited about 10 minutes and another taxi did arrive. I walked up to it and asked the driver how much. He said 40,000! I was like, DAMN! There’s no way i’m going to pay 40,000, how about 20,000? (i laughed to myself at that point…) and he said 30,000, i said, 20,000? and he was like, alright. So, whatever, i ended up paying 20,000 (US $2.00) to get home after all.

I struck up a conversation with the driver and we talked the entire way home. I asked him about where he was from and where he’d traveled, as i have asked a number of Ghanian’s. He, as well as many others all have lived their entire lives in the confounds of Cape Coast area. The farthest that many have gone is to Accra. Most people don’t seem to travel around in Ghana, even though it is so small. My host dad says the reason for this is that the cultures up north are in much worse shape than they are here and are looked down upon. So anyone who travels or lives up north is shunned.

Once i got home, i passed right out and did not wake up until about 10 AM. I hand washed my cloths, and cooked breakfast for me and one other volunteer. Then i cooked a a lot of rice, beans, fish and sauce that will be my lunch for the next week.

After that, i ran to the office for a couple hours to meet with Renee and Dave (her husband) to work on getting the computer network up and running so that all the computers in the office could get connected to the Internet. And in those 2 hours, after 2 weeks of messing with it all, we finally had success. Now everyone has access to the Internet, we even have wireless up and running. Everyone was so excited to hear and even more excited when they came to the office on monday and was able to use it.

Posted by drpooville_Admin as General at 10:32 AM PDT

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