Vacation Part 1

Hi there -

Sorry for the delay ~ Things are still crazy here (when are they not?) Basketball is going to finish on April 9th, so hopefully I will have some more free time soon. I am setting a goal of 9 more weekends or Mondays of consistent posting, and then on the 10th weekend I will be home in Vermont! The countdown is on!

Three Saturdays ago, my friends Adiya and Ella and I set out on a fun African voyage, my first visits to any countries in Africa that aren't DRCongo. I have lived here for over a year and aside from the Casablanca airport, I had never been to another African country until this trip. We headed out from TASOK at about 5am and out from Congo at about 8am, and then we changed time zones and planes (the only reason we made our flight, we gained an hour) in Togo (which has the coolest airport worker pagne uniforms ever!) and arrived in Accra, Ghana, to a very warm welcome from one of my students I had last year and his family. We got settled in their awesome house and the next day headed out to the beach! While there is beach in Accra, we took a drive to a lovely beach with a less urban feel and some awesome chairs and palm trees to complete the experience.

I did take a dip, though I hate salty water in my mouth! 

Adiya and Pippa getting ready to head home.

The next day it poured down rain (to end the Harmattan, winter desert wind) and we toured about the city a little bit before picking up the younger kids at daycare and heading back to the house for our afternoon nap!

The next day the weather was back to normal (warm!) and we went out to the market to buy fabric. I was categorically ignored, which is not the norm in Kinshasa (with much more aggressive salespeople) and had a great time, got two fabrics, one just pretty and the other one not typical in Kinshasa.

We also saw this sign, which had us giggling pretty hard.

On our last full day in Ghana, we walked to the neighborhood pagne store, which had fabrics that we can get in Kinshasa, but at better prices, and I bought a very fancy fabric not so much because of it's pattern, but because of it's amazingly soft feel. It is much more silk-like than regular pagne and I think it will actually drape. We had a great lunch at a place in the neighborhood and again took a nap all afternoon! We headed out the next day.

Overall, I really enjoyed seeing my former student and his family (who are British) and talking non-stop about all kinds of random things, including the vast differences between American and British English. It was also at about this time that Adiya realized that I have a Vermont accent, so we also got to throw that one into the mix.

One of the most striking things (aside from getting ignored at the market! Holy cow!) was being in a neighborhood where we could walk around and there were shops and amenities, including a mall and multiple restaurants a few minutes walk from the house. There are small free standing shops with nice signs on the streets that sell vegetables and fast food, all kinds of things. In Kinshasa those are not allowed so the street stands are more temporary.

The traffic in Accra is pretty intense, and we didn't see really much rural aside from heading to the beach (next time!) but I really enjoyed speaking English, seeing the market, eating Jolof rice, and napping all afternoon. It was really a vacation! THANK YOU Rich Family!