Expedition Asomdwee

So we’re home! It feels wonderful to be back and I’m loving every second of it. I think back across the month of July up until just a couple days ago, and I wonder “did that just happen?” It’s a lot like the days leading up to the trip when you aren’t fully aware of the gravity of an entire month in a different continent, thousands of miles away. You’re doing your daily things, sort of blissfully imagining the alternate lifestyles in another UNIVERSE, it seems. So very far removed from your own life.

I can say that now that I’m home I can tell I got everything I wanted from the trip, but not everything I expected. I learned so much from everyone I met. Everyone contributed to my experience in a different way. Whether they were people on the streets, sisters and brothers at my home stays, Moses and Walter, or those in the Expedition Asomdwee group. Through my experiences with them I learned a little more each day about Ghanaian culture and about myself. One of the things I had expected was to become sick of the group I was going to be traveling with, but happily I was far from it. The particular group of kids I was with contributed in so many positive ways to my time and actual view of Ghana.

At this point it’s hard for me to know what to say. When you tell someone you’re going to Africa you can see in their face that they’re a little shocked, a little concerned, and very confused. And that’s such a shame! Just before leaving I had the thought that it makes a lot of sense for me to travel to Africa. It is, after all, just another place in the world. The world is where I live. It would be a real waste to reach the end of my life without seeing 90% of it. I’d liken it to having one house to live in and spending all of your time in just one room. Now that I’m home and telling people I’ve BEEN to Africa, I get the same looks, haha, but now instead of just justifying my actions with opinions, I can educate! I can let everyone around me know that Ghanaian teens are shockingly similar to American teens, that Ghanaians in general are the nicest people you’re probably ever going to find, and that I’m just as safe walking down the street there as I am here, but 10x more interesting.

I have DEFINITELY changed from this trip in so many subtle ways, but also in ways that I could notice as soon as I was walking around in San Francisco. I feel so much more confident and sure of myself. I really feel like there’s nothing to be afraid of while I’m home. I’ve seen and done so much, stretched my limits so far, there’s really nothing in my current life at home that I can’t handle. Whatever small new challenges come my way, I can know without any hesitation that I’ve taken on so much more, so there’s nothing to worry about. From spending a month around such caring and openly inquisitive people I’ve also thought a lot about the social boundaries people in America, and specifically California, have put up for themselves. In Ghana we experienced the open hospitality of so many people, but hearing about it from the queen mother really hit home with me. She talked about the familial atmosphere in her community and all over Ghana, and it’s importance in a healthy society. I walk down the street now looking forward to seeing people, whether I know them or not, so I can greet them and pass on the good will I was wished by so many others.

Upon leaving Ghana- the country I had grown so accustomed to- I felt regret, excitement, and even a little anxiety. Of course I was sad to be leaving a place I had enjoyed with so many great friends, a place where I had become so proud of myself, and at the same time was feeling unsure about how I might adjust once I got home, but once I was on the plane I thought of all the fantastic stories and feelings I’d get to share with my family and friends. I’d be coming home anew and, in my opinion, improved me.

Something I’m going to be working at is making sure that my time in Ghana stays more than just a  wonderful daze now that I have my regular problems to deal with. I have to get right back into thinking about school and getting a job and driving and voting and scholarships and so many things… Still, keeping these recent experiences alive is something I owe to myself, and even though it will be difficult I have a team of supporters backing me up- filling in blanks and keeping my spirits up when the general depression of living such a routine life sets in.

So even though I have some important things to attend to now, I’ll be looking out n the horizon for more traveling opportunities. I’ve always wanted to explore the world, but, without a doubt, this trip has solidified my interest in travel whether it be on my own, with more organizations such as Afripeace, or in school. I am so grateful for this whole experience. Just getting the opportunity to get in to Ghana, being able to see the south, up north, cattle herders and shopkeepers, real family interactions, and the treatment of tourists. I feel like I made a difference while I was there and I hope to make a difference here at home through all of my experiences.

And yeah, that JUST happened.

P.S. So you guys, when are we going to India??

Wow, where to even start? It is absolutely unbelievable to think that just days ago I was in Ghana, across the world, and after just two plane rides I am back in Sacramento and back to my daily life. The past month was chock full of just about every emotion an individual and a group could possibly feel, and every single one of them was worth it. Thinking back to when our group was waiting at the San Francisco airport in July, I don’t think any of us knew what our time in Ghana would hold for us. Not even Predko. At the time, a month sounded like a long time and walking into it was nothing less than intimidating. But what will always inspire me was the way we were welcomed with open arms by every individual we met along the way. That ability to love might have been normal to them, but it meant so much to me. I will always appreciate that.

Sitting here now, I cannot believe how fast a month can go by. It feels like only a week ago when we had all just arrived in Accra for the first time, completely at a loss for words for everything we saw. Everything was so different, so new, so unexpected. After our time in Ghana, I am happy to say that I truly believe we really experienced a good portion of what this country has to offer. I am so pleased with how much of a variety of situations we experienced, with everything from a king’s palace to sleeping in a village compound. At the same time, I feel like we have just grazed the surface and I know that there is so much more to be seen. I cannot wait to see where this experience takes the lot of us because there is no way anyone could not grow as a person after something like this.

This was honestly one of the most (if not the most) inspiring events of my entire life. This country is just so amazing and full of life! It makes me smile just thinking about it. I know I am going to miss it, but I also know that it will always be there and always in my heart. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity, and could not have chosen better people to have shared it with me. I have not yet found the correct words that could possibly describe everything that this trip and these people mean to me, but let me tell you, it’s nothing to sneer at. Even though our trip has ended, the memories we have shared together and bonds we have formed are not going anywhere. All my love, Sophie

I’ve been on American soil for somewhere around 48 hours, but in some ways it feels like I never left. It was far too easy to fall back into the comforts of American life. As a result, Ghana feels so far away. It’s hard to believe that less than four days ago, we were all there–it’s 8,000 miles and an entire culture away. Right this very moment, Ghanaian life is bustling the same as it was when were were there, but it’s so hard to picture because I’m surrounded by American amenities. To help me remember and truly see Ghana again in my imagination, I’ve been reviewing all my pictures by myself and with my family, looking at all the goods I brought home with me, and telling many stories, but it’s just not the same. What I can replicate here at home is only a fraction of my experience. Photos, stories, and items don’t say enough.

I didn’t really sense the differences between Ghana and America immediately after returning. My head was still too cloudy with jet lag and my readjusting body to be that observant. It began, though, when I started telling more detailed stories to my family. For instance, my mom seemed to think we met the queen of Ghana because she read on a blog that we met the Queen Mother. I had to explain that there is no queen of Ghana and what a Queen Mother is. Also, my dad had trouble wrapping his head around the idea that Ghanaians don’t like to be photographed without permission and occasionally ask for money if you photograph them without their consent. It just didn’t make sense to him and he found it so strange. Mom, Dad, if you’re reading this, don’t feel bad. It’s okay, you just didn’t know. That’s my point exactly; The cultural differences are many and mysterious to someone who hasn’t yet had an explanation. But how do you verbally describe a culture? You can’t really.

It really blows my mind that my family and friends will never know. No matter how much I try to express to them what Ghana is like, and what my particular experience entailed, it will never be sufficient. It’s even more mind blowing to me that only nine other people in the United States of America share the experience with me. It’s a bond that will link us for life, for I’m confident every single one of us will never forget our journey or each other. I’m not quite sure how I’ve changed between July 7th and August 5th, but I know for sure that I have an entire understanding of another culture that I would not otherwise know of. I have dreamed to see the world since before I could even name the continents, and this was just the beginning of my travels. But really, I can not express what an excellent start it was. A million thanks to everyone and anyone who made it possible.

for those reading this blog i wish to apologize again to for having not written this sooner so you (my friend and family and the student’s parents) could enjoy before the return of your sons and daughters or myself. anyway back to the one more thing in the last home stay in the village.

so if you haven’t already noticed or guessed, when the students were in a home stay, so were mr. predko and myself. anyway in our first home stay we shared a room that had two twin beds. this time predko and i shared what might have been a “double-twin” of foam with a sheet on top. that was placed off to the left in the room we shared (however because i got sick it was only for one night… thankfully… haha). anyway, for the record i have no recollection of this, but predko informed me in the morning that i had rolled over and “supposedly threw my arm over on him” and then rolled back over. again this is all speculation. haha. anyway while we had breakfast the next morning of bread and maize porridge and tea, we were again treated to an audience. this time it was just the young children. i couldn’t tell you which of them were there the previous night as we enjoyed dinner with the audience of 27. it was a bunch of younger boys and the little girl from last night. one of the taller/likely older boys had a few playing cards in his hand, but definitely not a full deck. it was then i remembered i had brought from home a pack of cards with the peanuts (chalie, lucy, snoopy on the family) on the reverse side of the diamonds, hearts, clubs and spades. with the very little/ to no language in common between the kids and i, i realized that trying to teach them to play a game might be asking a little too much for us to accomplish. so the first thing i did was shuffle the deck in front of the kids complete with a success bridge, which impressed the heck out of them. note: i was never completely success full with another bridge. from shuffling the cards an idea popped in my head. i turned the cards over and began teaching the names of the peanuts gang to the group. “snoopy” i would say and they would with great vigor reply “snoopy!”. “charlie brown”… “charlie brown!”. “lucy”… “lucy!” however i ran into trouble with marcie and neither predko or i could remember franklin or sally (charlie’s sister). sorry mr. schultz. they had trouble remembering the characters name when i show the character again on another card in the deck, but would always respond with a shout when i told them the name of the character. i knew these cards would go to a good home with these boys, but i emphasized with hand gestures that the cards were for all the boys and they were to share; when one tried to commandeer the pack another had to remind him with a few words (and the hand gesture i show with the loop of a finger around the boys) that the cards were for them to share. as we left the boys to find elana and caitlin to meet the chief and go milk a cow, they had assembled in a seated circle and one began dividing up the cards and a game insued… probably the go fish of the peanuts gang… “do you have any schroeder’s?”… “nope! go fish!”… maybe that was just me wishing…

Tamale: the farthest North we have gone yet. This is also the location of our second home stay, in a small village called Wovo-Guma. And here comes the best part…there was only one person in the entire village who could speak English. Unfortunately for Haley and me, he was not in our compound. As we drove up, I was thinking “How hard can it be to with someone you can’t talk to?” I definitely underestimated the power of language. Even something simple as asking if we should turn out the light was almost impossible to communicate. But given the option of having them all fluent in English, I don’t think I would have taken it. It was quite the experience to try to talk and motion and get nowhere, but we all started cracking up which sounds like something small but was the coolest thing. We come from completely different continents, lifestyles, family lives, but we still had something to bond over, and that was laughter. It was amazing.

My god, I have so much to say but the time is running out so I have to stop here. Ahh! Until next time.

By the way, I plan to keep my rasta braids in until I get home. Yesss!

hello! hello!

i have to make this blog short because we are about to head out to our
last home stay. prekdo and i will be staying with the queen mother. i
have pancake mix to give her as my gift. yesterday we left tamale and
i wasn’t feeling to hot. the day before i finally succumbed to the
sickness that all but one of the students have been experiencing. let
me just say i wasn’t a pretty sight, but a strict diet of cipro and
water with additive has quickly put me back on the road to recovery. i
hope to be at least 95-100% before we leave accra and back to the
states next friday.

however, let me just say our trip to tamale wasn’t a total no bueno
for me. so the highlight of our stay in tamale had to be the gift that
i had for our host family in the traditional village. i must give a
big shout out thank you to dylan predko (aka p-kiddie) for his idea of
the color changing markers. our host family had two children, one boy
and his younger little sister. they did not speak a word of english,
but it did not stop them from enjoying the gift. i gathered both the
young boy and girl over to a bench and using the color-changing
markers i showed them how to use the markers. like predko said, the
boy’s face lit up like it was christmas. i wrote out ‘my name is
kevin’ in red and using the color-changing side, drew yellow stripes
into the message. i showed the two children a couple of more times how
to use the markers and then had both of them try. they seemed to
really like the markers and i was glad i had two packs of the markers
so there was one for the both of them. unfortunately i only had one
drawing pad, but i don’t think that will dampen their mood. just
unfortunate i got sick so i couldn’t color with them on the second
night. while i was showering the boy showed the markers and
demonstrated the color changing to the women in the compound and it
was met with much chatter predko said. i’m glad they were a success.
again thank you dylan!

i have another story to relate about the home stay, but i will write
about it another time. see ya folks later!

Hi!
There’s so much to talk about. Crocodiles and cloth and Fanta catastrophes, and so much more.  Just look at Izzy’s blog for further info. I only have a few minutes left to write. And I just wanted to talk about how the trip is getting difficult in a new way.Ghana isn’t shocking like in the beginning. We’re just getting over the physical exhaustion bump. But the hard part now is keeping our heads in this trip.  It’s been difficult moving around so much. Just one or two nights in each place. And with all of the gift shopping, its been hard for me to keep my mind off of home. Just yesterday in the van I was daydreaming about stepping into the SFO terminal and into my family’s arms and I tried to imagine my feelings at that point. And the thought of having just left a place that I will probably never travel to again crossed my mind. And it shocked me. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? I had temporarily forgotten the uniqueness of ALL of my experiences here. It made me sad. And I’m grateful! I’m going to try hard to get everything I can out of this trip.
Gotta go! Gonna get kicked off the computer.
Love!

After the home stay in Swedru ended, we switched to tourist mode right
away. From Swedru we headed to Cape Coast, where we visited two slave
dungeons (one of which was in a nearby village, Elmina). Ghanaian
fishing towns are unlike anything you can find in America. Being there
makes you truly realize you’re not in America anymore.

From Cape Coast we headed to Green Turtle Lodge, which is near
Dixcove. Green Turtle is a total Obruni hangout. Our tour guide, Moses,
and our driver, Walter, were the only non-employee Ghanaians there. I
decided in Cape Coast that I didn’t like being with too many tourists,
but at Green Turtle I didn’t mind. It was nice to have an escape for a
few days. It is beautiful there–better than Hawaii I think. Take a
beach on Maui, then subtract 99% of the people, all the cars,
buildings, and smog, and you’ve got Green Turtle. The ocean is my
favorite place on Earth, and I loved having some solitude and
tranquility there. I spent a good couple of hours simply writing in my
journal and sitting in the sand. It was excellent.

From Green Turtle we went to Kumasi, where we visited the HUGE market,
learned about the Ashanti kingdom, and saw a football (soccer) match.
Next, we headed North to Mole National Park. The highlight of our time
there was definitely the safari in the morning, where we saw seven or
so elephants! Although elephants were definitely the coolest animal we
spotted, they weren’t the only. We also saw countless warthogs, birds,
and different kinds of antelopes. After Mole we headed North even more
to go to Tamale for our next home stay of two nights.

That home stay was definitely an experience. We were placed in
traditional villages made up of a number of compounds (one compound
consists of a few round huts all next to each other in a circle, with a
courtyard in the middle). Their English repertoire consisted of very
few basic words such as “you go,” so communication circled around
pointing and hand gestures. Sometimes our host mother would walk up to
us and say entire sentences in Dagbone, to which Caitlin and I were
baffled. It was tough to work around, but I’m glad we got to sleep in
a traditional village. It was a good experience, and two nights was
the perfect amount of time to stay.

From the home stay we returned to Kumasi for just one night as a pit
stop on our way to our next home stay, which begins tonight. There is a
lot we did in the time I’ve discussed that I have failed to mention,
such as our near adventure into Burkina Faso (we ended up not going),
because I’ve just compressed ten days of not blogging into one entry.
But hopefully this sheds a little bit of light onto what we’ve been up
to! I cannot believe we have less than a week left!!

Until next time!

Mostly time goes by so fast that we never recognize that it has escaped our grasp until it’s already gone on its way; transforming from present to past. Time is feared by all, there is so little of it but so much to do within the time we have. In this past month time has been nonexistent, a part of me knows its there lurking in the shadows following us wherever we go but i still cant bring myself to acknowledge that with every second it’s inching closer and closer waiting for its moment to grab and consume me.
The people, the places, this entire country has become apart of me now i can feel it coursing through me with all of its splendors. I want to know more, i want to see more, like many i wish for more time. This has become my home away from home. I’m used to it here now, it feels right to be here; the sense of normalcy that I was at first completely devoid of now fills me up leaving no room for anything else. It’s hard to be sad in a place like this because when I think about it I am very sad to leave (or course, id be crazy not to be), but that morose feeling is over come with gratitude for my group, admiration for the Ghanaian people and their strength,hospitality, and eyelashes (hahaha), and respect for their culture. My feelings toward this country are what set me at ease because I know that there pull is what will bring me back here someday, I’m sure of it.

This trip has been the most rewarding experience of my life and i wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’ve always dreamed of traveling to far off places, of seeing the world but the idea is now more tangible. I have a determined feeling that i never had before.
Thank you to the group, you guys mean more to me than you’ll ever know. You guys shared an experience of a lifetime with me, the trip wouldn’t have been the same with out you, you made it what it was and ill never forget it or be able to thank you enough for it. I love you all, my Ghanaian familia, you’ll be in my heart forever (along with bushmeat and weaves.)

The road to Mole was definitely not as bad as they made it sound. They told us that it was a long long bumpy road that was just no fun at all. Yeah right, It’s 4 hours of paved road that’s totally fine and then 2 hours of dirt road that had just been fixed! I guess we just got lucky with that though. Mole National Park was amazing though! When we got there, we saw a ton of warthogs just walking around the hotel area. And they had a pool, which was super fun! The first night there, however, Caty got super sick. The next morning, Both of the boys were sick and decided to skip the morning safari. Right before we went on the safari, Rebekka and Sophie went into their room because they were sick too! So it was just Jessica Elana and I. But that morning, before the safari, I was woken up at around 5:30 by a ton of baboons fighting outside our window and running across our roof! I got up and opened the curtains, and there’s easily 10 baboons right outside! It was a nice way to start the day. During the early early morning walking safari, we saw more warthogs and baboons, and we also saw elephants! We got within in reaching distance of one, and also walked down to their watering hole and saw a ton of them bathing and playing in the water. It was amazing! Later in the day, after swimming and eating and giving away more donations to a village down the street, we went on an evening safari, where we got to ride on top of the van and drive through the park! We didn’t see any more elephants, but we saw a ton of antelopes and more monkeys!
The next day, we left for Tamale and our home stays. But when we got there, we had an interesting surprise: We would be staying in a traditional village! It was a really interesting experience. They stay in hut-compounds, and have more pit-toilets and bucket showers. Except this time, the showers were outside. Like I said, it was interesting. The family didn’t speak any English, so communication was a little hard for us. And I really couldn’t tell who was a part of the family and who was from another compound and just visiting.
Right now, we’re in Kumasi again. Caty, Elana, and I got the penthouse suit in the hotel! heck yeah. But we’re about to go to our next home stay in Abiriw, then it’s back to Accra. I’m really excited to go home, but I’ll be really sad when we leave Ghana. I guess it’s bittersweet in a way. But I’m tired of blogging so I don’t know if I’ll have another one. See you all in 5 days!!