day eight!

 well, today was an experience. 

we got up extremely early and met frank down in the lobby. mike came to pick us up and we began our 3 hour voyage to Togo. we all talked a little at the beginning...i learned a lot about frank and his family and so on. he has such an interesting job and lifestyle. i cant imagine being his wife though. he travels all the time and sees his wife every few months! i asked him if he hated it but he said they both enjoy it because theyve been in a long distance relationship since before they got married. i mean, some people can do it and i respect that!! anyways, mike took this kind of back way to Togo. big mistake! the road had been made only 4 years ago but there were HUGE potholes in it already. and i dont mean 5 ot 6 potholes...there was one every few seconds or so. mike had to swerve left and right to avoid them. it was a pretty scary car ride to say the least. people kinda just drive on whatever side of the road they want here (unless there is a car coming). its almost like they play chicken. i swear we came close to hitting like 3 cars head on but mike swerved right at the last minute...and i thought i was a risky driver! gosh! 

the scenery really caught my eye, though. we passed tons of little villages in the countryside. it was so different than urban ghana. there were mud huts like you see in the movies...chunks of the homes were missing, though. roofs had caved in and you could see where random parts of the wall had just fallen off. but people still live in them...crazy! i also noticed that almost no homes were finished. frank and mom my explained how people build as they go. if they have 20 cedis (ghanian dollars) left over (which doesnt really happen) they buy 20 cedis worth of material and add a few cinderblocks to their unfinished home. it sometimes takes up to 20 years to finish a home here. so on this 3 hour drive i just saw tons and tons of homes that were in all different stages of development. some looked so close to being done and others had like 10 cinderblocks... also, in the villages, theres no running water. every village look pretty run down and a lot like Neema, the ghetto of Accra. each village seemed to have their own craft as well.. one village had straw art, another pottery, and another wood art, etc. people stared as we passed and many children waved. we slowed down at one village because mike was dodging a pothole and i caught a little girl staring at me. when we made eye contact she smiled and waved and i returned the favor. i dont know why that stands out in my mind, but its what i remember most about today.

after traveling 3 hours to Togo, we stopped at a gas station right before the border. my mom had to talk to the immigration services, because something was wrong with my visa. the lady was very rude and so my mom went to talk to her supervisor. i dont exactly know what went on but apparently we werent allowed in Togo because all 3 of our visas were limited. my mom argued and begged with the guy ubt he didnt seem like he wanted to budge. frank and i just kinda stepped back to let my mom deal with him.. we had no idea what was going on! all i was thinking was "we just drove 3 hours and now we have to go right back, awesome! (not)" my mom came out of the office looking somewhat victorious. she said we had permission to walk into Togo for like 10 minutes if an officer was with us. after dealing with another mean guard we finally got in! our officer was a nice Ghanian woman who seemed to agree that this whole situation was stupid! but we were in Togo, a different country! we walked along the beach, which sounds luxurious, but it was disgusting. trash was everywhere and kids were squatting and peeing all around us. the people in Togo speak french so it was handy having my mom along. frank and i just pretended like we understood the situation but of course we were lost. we kinda walked into the village, but it was honestly a complete dump. so our 10 minutes were up and we walked back across the border to ghana! i probably should mention we had to bribe 2 guards to get into Togo as well. there was a big sign saying "do not bribe the officers, it is an offense" but everyone knows that the guards will do almost anything for a bribe, so we got to walk into the beautiful (NOT!) country for a few minutes. 

when we walked back to the gas station, where our car was waiting, a girl and her grandmother walked up to me asking for money. all i had was tootsie pops so i handed her a handful. she was very grateful! i guess she started a trend because then i had like 10 other guys come up to me asking for lollipops. luckily, i had a whole bag so each guy got like 5 or 6 suckers. they were all really nice about it too, saying "God bless you, sista" and "thank you white girl" one guy who was asking for a sucker said to me "ey, sista. look at our skin. i am your brotha. (points to his very black skin) we are the same. right, sista? help your brotha." that still cracks me up when i think about it. well, eventually i ran out of lollipops so we got back in the car and headed home on the 3 hour journey. this time, we took a smooth road home. (thank God!) we got stopped like 4 times by the police though. the police here sit on the side of the road and make their own checkpoints. they tell you to stop and open your trunk and then ask for a bribe. its so stupid! there is absolutely no reason to give them money and i hope no one does. we just lied and said we had none...that shut them up for the most part. 

on the way home we saw the same kind of villages. i saw a couple of older ladies just walking on the side of the road with no shirts on...they were just hanging everywhere! i saw lots of baby goats which were so cute! they just kinda roam wherever. we passed by a river and lots of girls were washing clothes in it and little boys were swimming. i was glad to see some kind of fun going on. the closer we got to accra, the less villages there were. it was really cool to see a different side of ghana though. i wish i could have stopped and hung out with a few of those kids. a lot of them were just sitting on the side of the road looking bored and hot. 

somewhere during this day i messed up my camera, which already is severely scratched from the orphanage. it doesnt zoom right anymore...ah, im still getting over this.

my mom, frank, and i went to dinner and now were back at the hotel. we leave the hotel tomorrow at 7ish and our flight leaves at 10:20 a.m. its about 11 hours and then we get to NYC at 5:00. i should get home around midnight. basically, its going to be a very long day. i already miss ghana, though. i think about how different those documentaries you see on TV are from real-life africa. the people here are friendly and hardworking. the kids are suffering, but dont seem to notice. when i got here and saw the orphans and etc., i felt a sense of hopelessness in the air. everywhere you go here there is suffering and poverty. but the people here seem so hopeful and loving for having such...crappy... lives. i kept thinking about how much i want my friends to experience africa. like my best friend melissa or my amazing friend jaimie, both of them have such compassionate hearts and i know they would feel for the people here and become as attached as i have! hopefully one day they will get to come here and experience what i have. and hopefully, i will get to return many many many more times!

thanks to everyone who has read this blog, i hope you have gotten a feel for how Ghana is and how i have felt about it. i cant wait to see everyone and share my experiences firsthand!

also, please pray for the orphans at Osu Children's Home. they truly need the thought. ill be praying for my koby and addo every night! and everyone else too, of course. :)

-helene