The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

As my time in Ghana comes to its conclusion, I have been thinking about all the things I’m leaving behind. The food, the people, the culture. Some of it’s good and some of it’s bad, and here’s a list of it all. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Singing Sweet Caroline with the kids from the village. Definitely part of the good.

While this list is meant to be the “bad” list, the negatives made my time here all that much more unique. So here goes, some of the things that I won’t be sorry to leave behind:

1. The traffic. Kumasi traffic patterns are so unpredictable. There is no such thing as rush hour, because rush hour is all the time.
2. The wifi and toilets, or lack thereof. The wifi at the office is slower than a turtle. Sometimes it goes out for the entire day. Flushing toilets are also a rarity here, which is unfortunate when you are afflicted with traveler’s sickness.
3. GMT. Greenwich Mean Time is the timezone, but the actual time is Ghana Mountain Time. This means that when you’re told that you’re leaving at 6 am, it probably means 8:30 (not exaggerating here). Being “on time” is practically unheard of.
4. Getting ripped off. As obrunis, it’s principle that we are overcharged when we’re buying food or paying for taxis. You learn to haggle, but it’s still annoying when you’re charged the “tourist” price.
5. Twi. If I never have to hear Twi again I will be overjoyed. It sounds like loud and annoying gibberish. Needless to say it is not a language of romance.
6. The smell of burning trash. You know when it’s trash day, which is pretty much every day, because you can smell it burning from a mile away. It’s possible that polluted air here has taken away years off of my life.

Now that I’ve established some of the negatives, here are all of the things that have made this summer great.

1. Our morning journey to the office. When we catch a taxi, we walk by a family who sells things (not sure what) and we wave to them and say good morning. Then we hop in a taxi where I watch the world go by. It’s a quiet time where I can observe the world and absorb my surroundings.
2. Bernice’s laugh. Bernice, our boss, has a laugh that echoes through the room and you can’t help but smile when you hear it. She cracks herself up and she repeats the same jokes everyday, but the rest of us can’t help but laugh along with her.
3. The office. We have learned to joke with everyone at the office and we have learned our way around the area. Everyday we journey to get lunch or buy groceries for dinner and we say hello to the friends we’ve made who sell their goods on the streets. It’s a place where I feel comfortable.
4. Alison, Nick and Zipporah. We are all very different people, but I would not have made it through the trip without them. When I am confused because everyone was speaking in Twi or annoyed because the taxi driver has taken us the wrong way, I can look at all of them and we laugh together. I am incredibly thankful to have them by my side.
5. Morning workouts and cold showers. Every day I get up an hour early to work out before heading to the office. I am able to release some energy and work up a sweat before taking a cold shower. Although we are limited to working out in Bernice’s yard, which I refer to as my prison yard work out area, it’s definitely helped me stay sane.
6. The kids. Ghanaian kids have a unique cuteness about them. They can always bring a smile to my face no matter what kind of day I am having. One woman actually asked me and Nick if we wanted to take her baby back to the states and I gave it some heavy consideration.
7. Coconuts, plantains and Ghanaian bread. While most other Ghanaian food isn’t anything to write home about, these three have grown on me.
8. Being blissfully unaware of where I may end up in the coming days. Whether we’re running errands with Louis or doing a high fashion photo shoot in a junkyard, every day is an adventure

These are the outfits we wore for our “high fashion” photo shoot. Fingers crossed that our pictures end up on a Ghanaian billboard.

The summer definitely has not been a walk in the park, but that’s what had made it worth it. My first few weeks in Kumasi were probably the most uncomfortable weeks of my life (besides middle school) but my time here has taught me more about the world than I could have learned in a book. So dawn goes down to day, nothing gold can stay.

Pictures from a day of filming about our solar bikes project. Definitely adding lab coats to my everyday wear.