On Wednesday morning, the band broke up. We started the morning with
breakfast in Bekwai, loaded up the big bus and retaced our steps through the Ashanti region back to Kumasi. At that point, on the side of the road next to a busy traffic circle, four different groups
splintered off... Some going straight back at Accra to catch flights
home, some off for a little more adventure (for one member of the team, Adam, he was catching a flight to Thailand to do another Habitat build... What fun!). Steven and I met up with our Humjibre driver Hodge, who was going to be taking us down to our R&R spot in Elmina Bay. The two of us rode together in the big van, snacking on biscuits and looking back every once in a while at the three empty rows of seats behind us where for the last couple of weeks, 14 of us had
squeezed our mortary, sweaty bodies back and forth to the build site.
After a 3.5 hour drive through beautiful foothills and mountains, hodge delivered us safely to the Elmina Bay Resort. It's gorgeous. A series of two-story pavilions overlooking the ocean, with a great pool and restaurant right up against the water. And I am not just talking beach view... last night at dinner, I was sitting with my back to the ocean and at some point recall asking Steven to warn me if a wave was coming over the railing. Mostly, though, the proximity of the ocean is
a cautionary tale and a sad reminder of how Africa and traditional African obstinancy can ruin a great thing. Our hosts, Ben and Suzi, explained that Ghanaians have been engaged in the practice of "sand winning," which is basically taking dump truck loads of sand from the local beaches to make bricks or sell for construction. A little bit of this practice would probably be fine, and could even be regulated in a
way that benefits both the economy and the beaches. But, between 40 and 50 truckloads per day have been "won" from the beach around Ben and Suzi's, and as a result, they have lost 30 meters of beachfront. It's absurd! I didn't quite realize how much that was until Suzi showed us a photo of the restaurant and pool area from 14 months ago. The restaurant used to front on a long, broad sand beach where now it is basically cantilevered over the crashing waves. A gazebo that used to sit on the edge of the same sand beach has now fallen into the ocean. I am not always a strident environmentalist, but given my family history and my grandfather's
commitment to ocean preservation, I feel deeply for Ben and Suzi and their fight to save their little spot of heaven.
In any case, the hotel is lovely. We reveled in the small luxuries
that we had been missing in Humjibre:
Cold drinks
Cool breeze
Showers
Hot water
Fresh fish
Elmina really is a cool little spot. Our hotel is about 5k from the center of town, but this stretch of beach is quiet and beautiful. Right next door to our proprty is a thatched-roof backpackers' lodge called the Stumble Inn, and about 1/2k beyond that is the Coconut Grove resort, which I found out is owned by the family of one of my friends from Princeton! I e-mailed him last night and we had a great
back-and-forth about Elmina, and how small the world is when I am eating my dinner at a hotel that his family owns and runs in Ghana, half a world away. He is currently living in DC, so we will need to meet up and trade stories when I get back.
Yesterday, our adventures included the Kakum National rainforest canopy walk, which is an adventure of long, swinging Indiana Jones suspension bridges that criss-cross the enormous trees of the Kakum rainforest. It was so muc fun, like being a tightrope walker 150 feet above the jungle. We got some great pictures from way high up there and I amused Steven by whistling and humming Strauss waltzes as I
tiptoed across the rocking bridges. It just seemed the perfect soundtrack.
On the way back down to ground level, we came across a man with a pile of coconuts and a machete. For 1 cedi, he would lop the top off of a
coconut for you so you had a 100% fresh, cool in-its-own-container drink. Now I am known to most folks back home to be a terrible hater of coconut water (I think it tastes like feet, to be honest), but this was a totally different experience. Fresh from the nut itself, this stuff was sweet, refreshing and perfectly balanced. And besides, what
is a more appropriate picture than me jauntily hiking down the side of a jungle hill, drinking out of a giant coconut and singing Strauss? Really, just a normal Thursday.
After the canopy wk, we met a Kiwi med student named Jen, went to a
monkey sanctuary run by a crazy (and not the fun kind of crazy) Dutchman, ate lunch at a crocodile farm, and got caught in a downpour. After that set of odd enounters, we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon lounging by the pool, swimming, and walking on the beach.
Every day is an adventure here. How often do I get to say that back home?
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