12th update
Kumasi. Last stop before returning home to Akonfudi. I return a day earlier than planned due to illness (fever, headache and sore body) - the illness sucks, but returning today suits me fine. I look forward to get home and have a last week in Akonfudi. The stop in Kumasi was to do internet but the connection is horrible and the photo upload program is not installed. Crap. So not very successful - and my patience is not very big at the moment..!
Anyway, my last part of my travels around Ghana has been very good. I haven't been too tired of Ghana and Ghanaians and have instead had some really nice days and experiences.

On the 7th of January I made a daytrip to the Burkina Faso border town, Paga. First I had a small village tour where I saw 200 years old clay huts build in a very special way making it possible for the people living there to hide on the flat roof or inside the hut when soldiers came for slaves back in the days. The entrance is only about 50 cm high which means that you need to bend with your head first when entering the huts - this made it possible for the people hiding to attack the soldier coming in. After the village tour I rented a bicycle and cycled to a former slave camp where the most impressive was the handmade eating bowls made in big rocks (it is easier to understand when you see the photo.. I will do my best to get the last Ghana photos uploaded in Accra before heading to Tanzania). I then cycled to the palace of the Paga-chief which also was pretty impressive with huts similar to the first ones I saw on the village tour. Before I headed back to Bolgatanga I cycled into Burkina Faso (in return for leaving my passport with the immigration officers), cycled around in Burkina for maybe ten minutes and then headed back to Paga and Bolga in Ghana. A good trip :)

On the 8th I made another daytrip - this time to a small small village called Bongo. SO remote, rural and poor! Getting there was in an old taxi with one driver and six passengers… When I arrived and was about to find my way to the famous Bongo Rock (which plays a different sound depending on where you strike it - like a natural drum) a young boy ran towards me and said that I needed to see the chief first. Visiting ceremonies are a part of Ghanaian traditions and in particular in the rural areas. So I went with him - the son of the chief it turned out - and was asked to wait a second. Shortly after, the chief came out dressed all in white, wearing gold jewelry and sunglasses (while the rest of the town is very poor) and placed himself on the three steps high platform on the different animal skins and nice leather cushions. Immediately after a blanket was folded out in front of the platform and four old men kneeled and started to pray to him for maybe ten minutes and afterwards crawled up the steps, head bowed, and kissed the chief's hands. Seriously - I am not kidding. The chief is SO incredible high in the hierarchy - he is the politician, the judge, and the god people pray too. If you want to do offerings you also come to the chief and have him to do it for you. It was an amazing experience. I still cannot quite believe that this is actually how they live and behave. After the prayers the chief turned his focus to me and asked what my mission in Bongo was (this is a common part of the visiting ceremonies in Ghana - the mission-thing). I told him, as the tradition says, that my mission was peaceful, and that I had come to experience the town of Bongo and see the Bongo Rock. He gave me his permission to do this, then I should of course make a donation (but I was fine with that since the experience was so unique and amazing), and afterwards I went with the young son to the Bongo Rock. On my tour to the rock I also saw the facial scaring that people in this part of the country is known for - it is amazing: like a spider's web. It must be so painful to have done… Before I could leave Bongo again I had to see the chief once more to ask permission to leave, and he used the occasion to show me around in his compound where there was space for all of his three wives and all of their children and other family members.

After the Bongo-trip I went back to my accommodation, packed my stuff and took the delayed bus back to Tamale, where I met up with Tom, the Australian guy I met on the Kumasi-Tamale-bus, and his organisation coordinator, Fredrick. I stayed one night and early morning on the 9th we drove to Mole National Park. When we got there we had some time at the motel pool before we went on the afternoon walk where we saw one huge elephant pretty close by (maybe just 50 m from us) but hiding behind some trees, and we saw lots of warthogs (reminding me of Pumpa from Lion King) and antelopes. The morning after we also went on a walk where I saw even more elephants including one pretty close by on an open field so that we could really see him and take photos :) We also saw lots of warthogs and antelopes again, as well as crocodiles and plenty baboo monkeys, which are quite big monkeys! Tom and I had company of two Dutch girls and a Danish girl who all volunteer in Tamale.

After Mole NP I stayed quite a few nights in Tamale - a city I really enjoyed staying in. It was some relaxing days with good company - I spent time with both Tom, the girls from Mole NP, lots of German girls, and three Canadians. It is incredible how many volunteers there are in Tamale! I am glad that I am the only obruni in Assin Foso and around - it makes it more like "my place".
Anyway, besides from good food, internet, good value accommodation and good company I also went on a rural village tour, which turned out to be one of my best experiences in Ghana. I had the tour recommended by the friendly English/Ghanaian couple I met in Biakpa, so I called the guide Walisu and arranged a tour on the 11th. Walisu is educated in tourism and has chosen to work with helping women in very rural areas by bringing tourists out there and giving the women a big part of the money from the tourists. This makes it affordable for the women to continue their traditional works, such as producing shea-butter, making traditional clay pots, and spin cotton. He picked me up on his motorbike/scooter and we drove off. The people here were so friendly and had no problems with having photos taken - so I took a lot :) I helped making shea-butter from the bottom, which is quite an interesting process, I made my own clay pot (the woman doing the pots normally was very impressed :) ), and I saw how you traditionally spin cotton - what a tedious job! During my visit to the small rural villages I also got to see how extremely rural they actually live: no electricity at all, no pure water (like the sachet waters (water in plastic bags) you can get everywhere) - instead they drank rather dirty water, which they have to carry from far away. They also don't have any school for the children and having their stuff grinded (for instance the shea-nuts) they need to walk 6 hours in each direction carrying the nuts on their head all the way. It is hard to believe that this actually is how they live… All in all it was a really rewarding experience.

From Tamale I went to Nkoranza - I could have chosen an easy road but I chose the rough one to be able to take a one-hour ferry trip on the Volta Lake. This resulted in traveling for 10 hours in one day beginning at 4am! - and the ferry trip wasn't even worth it… Anyway, I arrived safely in Nkoranza on the 15th where I found my way to Operation Hand in Hand, which Lisa (the former OCEP-volunteer) had recommended. It is a home, founded by a Dutch doctor 17 years ago, for mentally handicapped people (mostly children) who live in these very nice surroundings in a family-like way: There are lots of smallish houses where three children live with one caregiver, and then there are 4 volunteers working at the project as well. It was quite an interesting place and good to see that the mentally handicapped are taken care of - it is unfortunately quite common that mental handicaps are not recognised in Ghana. Yesterday I spent my day more or less like the volunteers spend their days to see how the daily rhythm is at the place. It was a good experience to interact with these happy children and adults, but it must be difficult to work with every day - for me at least.

And today I have arrived in Kumasi and head home in an hour's time. That will be good. I look forward to see Dacosta and the nice families in my village and also to relax and have a lazy Sunday - I hope to sleep my illness away.

To sum up, my Ghana round-trip has been good. It unfortunately began with disappointments in Volta Region but ended up being really good with my experiences in the North of Ghana. The North is so so different from Kumasi and below. First of all, the climate: completely dry scenery and extremely low humidity which took some time to get used to - my nose, throat, eyes, and skin dried out so fast, so moisturizer and water was a necessity (you even needed to drink something else but water to get rid of your thirst). A part I really like about the North is that people don't yell obruni (white person) after you all the time - instead they say you are welcome, which is a lot nicer. Another part I like is the cycling up there - they even have proper cycle lanes! And in addition to the goats, sheep, poultry, dogs, and cats that run around everywhere all over Ghana, they have donkeys walking around in the streets in the North - donkeys are nice :) Another major difference between the North and the South of Ghana is the Muslim majority, so people are dressed differently and you see a lot more mosques. And as said before, the North is a lot more remote, rural and poor compared to the South, and the housing is different: very African round clay huts dominates the scenery as soon as you are just 5 minutes out of towns like Tamale and Bolgatanga.

What I enjoyed a lot when traveling was having breakfast from street stalls: Everywhere you see women making omelettes, oat porridge, and tea, which are dirt cheap and you can choose to have it to-go (she puts the porridge and tea in plastic bags, and then you just bite a hole in the corner and eat/drink), or you can choose to sit on one of the benches looking at the town waking up with shops opening and people on their way to work. I also enjoyed eating delicious sun ripe fruit and vegetables for lunch bought on the street: pineapples, mangoes, oranges, apples, carrots, tomatoes, and avocados. Mmh :)

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I hope you are all good.
Signe