Sunday's excursion

Friday evening and Saturday were fairly unremarkable with the exception of the prunes my hands turned into from washing clothes. They don't have privately own washing machines here. There don't even have laundromats. You either handwash your clothes or pay a "cleaner" who uses their washer and dryer to wash your clothes. I only do the latter for my towels and heavier clothes (jeans, khakis, dresses etc) which means hand washing the rest. It's somewhat funny to walk across campus because each dorm seems polka-dotted with color....until you look closer and realize that everyone has hung their clothing out to dry on their balconies.

Sunday was our first group excursion. First we visit the Aburi Gardens. This is a botanical garden approximately 45 minutes outside of Central Accra. It was first established by the British and has since flourished as a public park made up of 10 lawns. Lawn 1 is also referred to as "The Presidential Lawn" because many world leaders have "planted" a tree there. Obviously I do not mean that Queen Elizabeth II actually got out her trowel and planted a mahogany seed, but she visited the gardens and had a tree planted in her name. Prince Charles, the former leaders of Romania (random?) and Nigeria, as well as many of the Ghanaian presidents have also "planted" trees on this lawn. We asked if Obama had planted one and were disappointed to find that Obama didn't visit the gardens; apparently he was far more interested in the slave forts in Cape Coast. I suppose I won't hold this against him.

One of the most odd things about the garden was that admist the beautiful and exotic trees was a giant, broken down helicopter. Oh don't worry, it gets more bizzare. The Ghanaian Armed Forces decided they would donate this decrepit vehicle to the park "for the children to play on." This is exactly what my tour guide said and the explicit purpose behind the donation. I will post a picture of it because it is just tetanus waiting to happen. Not exactly the safest play structure. Nonetheless, we all immediately scrambled to climb on it. One of our Ghanaian U-Pals was especially enjoying sitting in the cockpit with a boyish grin on his face. Inevitably he whipped on a pair of aviators and struck a Top Gun-esque poise. He seemed quite proud of himself.
Pictures to follow.

After the helicopter, we got to see an interesting plant called "The Strangler Ficus." Apparently my knowledge of plants in woeful because I had no clue that ficus' often grew on the branches of another tree only to eventually strangle it's host and envelope it. We got to see the ultimate outcome of just that scenario. The ficus had killed it's host and surrounded it, forcing it to disintegrate. This left just the shell the ficus had created - a hollow tree! We were able to climb inside which was pretty neat.

We left the Aburi Gardens and headed to our next stop:

This cocoa farm is the oldest in Ghana. Now I don't know just how much you all know about Ghana's hand in cocoa production but it's far larger than I knew. Ghana is second only to Cote D'Ivoire in amount of cocoa exported and is globally ranked as number one in quality of it's cocoa. In other words, cocoa is Ghana's largest cash crop and therefore, the backbone of Ghana's economy. The cocoa farm we visited actually has two of the very first cocoa plants planted in Ghanaian soil. These plants are still in production!! Our guide walked us through the process of harvesting and fermenting cocoa, which was really interesting. When you first crack open a cocoa pod, the seeds are covered in a fruit that tastes a lot like mango. Weird, huh?

After the cocoa farm came my favorite part of the day: a woodcarving village. Village is a generous term. It would more aptly be described as a woodcarving street but it was wonderful all the same. Each artist has their own stall and the group was set up about 50 years ago so that the trade of woodcarving could be more widely and easily taught. The carvings were absolutely beautiful. I bought a small welcome sign (it actually says "Akwaaba" which is the Twi word for welcome). It depicts a mother with her baby carried on her back in the traditional Ghanaian way and a basket on her head. I absolutely love it.

The next few posts will be pictures of what I've just described!