GHANA - first day

We arrived in Ghana at 8:00 AM this morning. There were some drummers meeting the ship and it was fun to watch them. They announced last night that no drums would be allowed onto the ship and the students were all disappointed. The reason is that they are concerned about the animal hides used to make the drums and told the students they could ship them home, but they are still grumbling about that. We are warned the night before arrival in a port of all the do’s and don’ts. We are advised about mosquitoes, water, food and bacteria that our bodies are unfamiliar with. One thing they stress is to wear closed toe shoes, and most of the students disregard that and wear flip flops.

We were supposed to go to a chocolate factory but they were not open on Sunday so they took us to a fishing village and that was a lot of fun and interesting. There were several children there and they live right on the beach. The kids all wanted us to take their pictures and of course we obliged. The people living there build their own boats and they had several in progress. It takes them about two months to make a good sized boat and less time if it is not real big. They use nets to catch the fish and they put on a demonstration for us on how they do that. Then we followed the women and watched them clean the fish, put them out to dry and then smoke them. They say they are one big family and everybody knows everybody else. Their homes are quite small and open to all of the elements. The goats and chickens live on site and walk around and into the homes. Most of the children were dressed, but there were some with just underwear and some completely naked.

While riding on the bus we saw a lot of people walking along the street carrying larges bowls on their heads filled with fish, bananas, ice and other items. Not a lot of people have cars and transport many things on their heads and backs. The women in the fishing village had babies sleeping on their backs while they cleaned the fish. Most of their houses are just one story and to get good television reception they use a long bamboo pole with an antenna on top.

Our guide told us that the Ghanaians are a religious people and most of them are Christian, but they also have some Muslims and Hindu. They all go to church on Sunday and they get quite dressed up for it. After church some of the shops opened up and the bus drove us through the market. There were a lot of used shoes for sale and the guide said that they were supposed to be donated shoes from the USA but they are trying to sell them. Some of the students got off of the bus near the market as they saw an ATM machine and then they would have to walk back to the ship, which is at least a mile. There is a duty free shop directly across from the ship’s exit and we will probably shop in there before we depart on Thursday.