Ghana! A Travel Journal of Ghana and West Africa

Seeing as how I'm American, and I'm in Ghana right now, I figured, logically, I must celebrate Canada Day! My Egypt friend Kayla is Canadian and invited me, Kiran and Jared (from the camp and no mom that's NOT Kiran, Jared and I!) to a Canada Day celebration at the High Commissioner’s (basically the same thing as anAmbassador as far as I can tell) House here in Accra. What she failed to tell me was that this would be a classy celebration. So when I showed up at her house before hand in shorts and a T-shirt Kayla’s mom (who works at the High Commission) took one look at me as said 'no no, you’re not going like that'

Her mom was very nice though and lent me a button up shirt to wear. Now, I'm not complaining at all because it was very gracious for her to take us, but the shirt she gave looked like it was straight out of a priest’s wardrobe, and combined with the shorts and tennis shoes I was also wearing made for a very comical outfit.

We show up at the high commissioners house, which is crawling with ambassadors and diplomats and such from all over the world all dressed in nice pressed suits. I stroll in this outfit, all scruffy from living at camp, and line up behind everyone in suits to shake the commissioner’s hand, as he does to everyone who came. He comes to me and as he reaches out to shake my hand and takes a steps back and, very obviously, looks me up and down with a ‘who the hell let this guy in’ kind of look on his face. I felt VERY out of place!

Later that night we met up with this Egyptian guy we had met earlier in the Lebanese part of Accra. And so started one of my weirdest nights so far in Ghana! We went out to a club that he’s friend owned, which turned out to be a strip club. Strip clubs I think are sketchy places in America, but this place took the word sketch to a whole new level. The guy was sweet, in a creepy, sleazy kind of way (I took a picture of him that I’ll post when I get that chance, he looks like the stereotype of a pimp- the silk shirt, the sunglasses-at-night, and everything), he was just SO eager to impress us with how rich and all he was. But we decided to get out after the strippers showed up!

On a completely different note, I’m halfway through my time at the camp now. We have a new batch of volunteers coming in and all the June people are leaving. Its amazing how fast the time goes and how little work I’ve gotten done so far! Two months is not going to be nearly enough time to settle in and do half the things I had wanted to. I know understand why the peace corps is a 2 year program- and I’m sure even that is cutting it close!

Ok running out of internet time. I’m going to Togo (the country just to the east of us) this next weekend so I might not be able to get online for a bit- just so no one worries! I’m excited though, I’ll finally get to try and practice some French!