Mole, Malaria, Fun!

So of course this is Ghana and yesterday did not go as planned. Sorry to disappoint. Hah. Instead Alice and I went to Vic Baboo's to say goodbye to Maggie, who is flying home today, and then to the market to pick up some stuff. The market is unbelievable. I see entirely new little alleys each time. It's really exhausting but satisfying in the end because I got everything I needed. I was in really high spirits afterwards, and Alice and I decided we were exquisite market buddies. I'm not sure that anyone has ever enjoyed shopping with me before...interesting. So I got home and as we were eating dinner Francis said "I don't think you get malaria" in his cute little whimsical way. So Alice and I conducted a really sneaky conversation basically telling him that I had all the symptoms and wanted to know if I had it ("but what if you have a cough too? And what if your fever is only a little one?") but he really didn't get the hint until I blatantly told him I wasn't feeling well. I hate mentioning that I'm sick, or talking about my symptoms a lot, but I realize that I have a very high tolerance for sickness and pain in general so I have probably driven Alice crazy with constant updates of my wellbeing. But I can't ignore it as I would at home, because if I do wait too long then I could get into quite a bit of nasty trouble. Luckily she understands and is being really cute about asking if I need water and stuff. Francis convinced me to go the pharmacist last night and get some antimalarials, so hello my friends I have malaria. Not to worry, we have caught it early and although I did not go to work today I am feeling well enough to make the 20 minute taxi ride to get here and I will be going to the weekly meeting for dinner tonight. I avoided going to the hospital today (I won't bother trying to cover up how terrifying a prospect this is), but might go tomorrow if I feel worse. Not to worry mum, Alice says she watched the phlebotomist (if you can really honor them with such a title?) open the needle in front of her so they're not going to jab me with a needle that's dripping with AIDS. I've made sure to read all the information on my medicine and it's not going to kill me either. So yeah, other than the horrid combination of confusing symptoms known as malaria, I'm happy and healthy.

Mole! Pronounced like the mexican sauce, btdubs. Which is so much more festive than the burrowing animal. I'll give you a little background on how to get there. You first take a nice bus at 10am to Tamale (lots of mexican influence, eh?), which is 6-7 hours away. From there it gets difficult - it is 4 hours to Mole from there, but there is only one daily bus to get there. It leaves at 2, technically, so there's no way you can make it if you got there that day. So you must "organize" your own transportation to the park, which for us meant following a boy for 20 minutes who said there was a tro leaving. Turns out the tro was full when we arrived. We were flooded with various offers from men who were eager to fit 9 people into a small taxi, and after an hour of dark and stress and crowd and annoyance, we were forced to accept the most auspicious offer - a man offering to take us in a truck for 80 cedi. We squished an impressive 6 people into the cab, but 3 people (me and two german boys) offered to ride in the back in case the backpacks got lonely. Well...it was kind of a thrill for about 5 minutes. Then the paved road went away, and we entered what is known as the worst road in west africa. Manuel was quite a trooper and entertained me by singing the entire discography of queen, pink, and rammstein, and by the end we got Eric to join us in a chorus of beat boxing. The high speeds and ridiculous holes were terrifying, but worse of all was when we slowed down through the villages and all the townspeople swarmed us and tried to "take us as friends". The stars were amazing though, and the milky way was quite apparent. At the end of the 4 hours, we finally arrived in our guesthouse and my fellow travelers found my appearance hilarious. My face, clothes, and hair were absolutely covered in red dirt and my hair was a huge dry tangled mess. Imagine someone coming out of the mines with teased hair, and there was Julia on friday night. I'm happy it was me, though, because I really don't mind uncomfortable situations but I would have been bothered by someone else complaining about it. I was slightly displeased at the lack of shower at the establishment, but c'est la vie. I no longer feel any cleaner after showering, anyway...

The next morning I had my first motorbike ride ever, which was fairly exciting. We then went on a walking safari and were greeted immediately by baboons, warthogs, antelopes, and other monkeys. And then elephants! I tell you, disneyland and zoos have spoiled us. We all felt as if there should be a guy with peanuts hiding behind the tree, but no! Real, wild elephants just chilling out in Ghana. Amazing, terrifying, surreal. We spent the rest of the day at the pool, where baboons and monkeys regularly approach you. One approached my Irish friend and she responded quite casually, slapping the chair in order to prevent him from sharing her pineapple. Wish I could have got it all on video, but everytime it happened quite suddenly. Cheeky little devils. The motel there ($10 a night! luxury!) even had filthy towels, a scorpion, and a connected bathroom for us! I almost felt like I was back in the first world. When we woke up the next morning (at 6, naturally) we went and had breakfast, leaving one person in the room. She ran to get us, exclaiming that there were elephants outside our room! Realists, we assumed she meant she could see them in the savannah. But, much to our surprise and joy, elephants really were parading about in front of our bedroom door! We took loads of pictures and videos and watched for a few hours as they ate and walked and eventually went back down the hill for a swim. Amazing. I have now been 10 feet away from a wild elephant, and lived to tell the tale.

In the afternoon we went for a bike ride to see the oldest mosque in ghana. Oh dear. 2 of 6 had to turn back as either their bicycle broke or the heat and exercise was to much for their poor malaria-infested bodies, but the rest of us survived the trip, which involved a piggy back ride through the bog and plenty of heavy hassling from rude men. The mosque was tiny and could not possibly have been built in 1421, especially so conveniently close to a national park, but it was something to do and the bike ride was funny.

The only bus out of Mole leaves at 4am. The bus to Kumasi leaves at 7am. Convenient, yes? We thought we had arranged for a guy to pick us up at 2pm on Monday, but he called at 2:05 to say that his tro had not been fixed at time. The funny thing about Ghana is that nothing ever turns out how you expect, but things always manage to come together. Perhaps because our standards have dropped to about negative 3, but still. Eventually our guide for the safari called his friend, who an hour later brought an enormous and rickety bus for 170 cedi. We picked up 2 austrian girls we had met and were well on our way to Tamale by 4. Luckily crew has enabled me to sleep absolutely anywhere, and I even took a quick nap despite legitimately wondering if 1)I would fall through the hole in the floor 2)the side of the bus would collapse 3)we would be struck during the insane lightning storm that began shortly after departure 4)we would have to get out and push the bus through the washed out streets. We got to Tamale by 9, and were followed to dinner by the workers at our guest house. They turned out to be very creepy but harmless, telling us that one day the blacks would make slaves of the whites (which was already beginning with Obama as president). An amusing night...


The next day on the bus I felt really horrid and headachey but when we got home Alice and I were quite productive - we did our washing, went to the internet cafe, and visited Andrew. And, well, I told you about yesterday! 


Well, we're going to be Ghanaianly late if we don't leave for the meeting now. So until later!


ps. I can't believe I've only got 2 weeks left...it feels like time has gone by so fast. I need to buy so many more souvenirs!


pps. I've been reading the comments and as much stuff as possible on facebook but it just won't let me respond quickly enough. But I do appreciate the correspondence and will reply asap! Miss you all.