Walking in the clouds

Kakum National Park, Ghana

Three hours outside Accra, a few enterprising people set up a nice little attraction for Ghana's National Park Service: a series of net bridges through the rainforest tree canopy. There are seven bridges in total and hordes of schoolkids and tourists flood across the bridges to see the rainforest from above. They say it is the only canopy walk in Africa.

I went after my conference finished in Accra three other IRC staff from Sierra Leone, Pakistan, and Nepal. Not a place for people with a fear of heights... :)

The other side of the Door of No Return...

Every slave fort has a "Door of No Return" where the slaves left Africa behind and were loaded onto ships to the New World. As we passed through the Door of No Return in the Cape Coast Slave Fort, I expected to the open sea, but instead stepped out into the middle of a fishing village with men mending their nets... children playing on boats... and the waves crashing in on the beach below. A breathtaking slice of West African life...

Cape Coast Slave Fort

After the tree canopy walk, we looped by Cape Coast to see the UNESCO World Heritage Site Slave Fort. The tour started in the Male Slave Dungeons and ended with the "Door of No Return" where the slaves were loaded onto the ships to the Americas. It was an interesting history lesson for my friend from Nepal, who knew almost nothing about the slave trade... and a chance for me to see my American history classes come to life. The first picture is of the entire fort with the cannons facing the sea. The second is of the fort from the Door of No Return.

Darfur, Marriage and Babies, babies, babies...

I just spent 2 hours tonight with two guys from West Darfur, Sudan talking about marriage and children. The first one, Ishmail (in picture), has decided that he will marry one wife that he loves and that he will have six children. When I asked how he would take care of and protect six children in Darfur, he said with complete certainty: “God will provide.”

The second one, Abakar, is in a difficult situation: He will only marry rich women. He has five rich women that he could marry and he has to choose only four. He says that one is the daughter of his brother, one is the daughter of a friend who says that he will kill her if Abakar does not marry her, one loves Abakar and Abakar loves one. Which one does he not marry? And I sat there wondering,

1. “Is he serious?”
   
2. "Wasn't that four women anyway instead of five?"
3. “Am I really sitting here putting my valuable remaining brainpower into helping a man decide how he can marry four instead of five women?”
   

Ishmail then shifted his focus to me and my current situation. He says that George is a “very very lucky guy” to have me and that I will have to marry him and have six children. I said that I don’t think I want to have six children because having children hurts and I’m never really excited about volunatary pain. I told him that usually women get morning sickness in the first three months and he brushed off the whole morning sickness concept with a shocked face: “WHY THESE WOMEN GET SICK? You won't get sick. God will provide.”

And then he decided that maybe I could only have four children. Oh boy.....

6 Feet under in Style: Crazy Coffins in Accra

Check out these photos of the coffin shops outside of Accra... yes, the are coffins. The shops had coffins shaped like beer bottles, airplanes, shotguns, Nike running shoes, Nokia cell phones, chili peppers, turkeys, cobras, and crabs. If you would like to see more of these, I put lots of the coffin pictures onto a Powerpoint and can email it...

Meet George...

I think it is about time that I introduce everyone to my boyfriend of almost 6 months: His name is George Harrison Burrows IV (fourth generation makes him distincly pre-Beatle) and he is from North Carolina. He's one of the 6 Marines guarding the US Embassy in Conakry… has been to Iraq twice… likes books, computers, basketball, Hickory Farms summer sausage, and Grey's Anatomy (I got him addicted). He patiently laughs at my inability to pack and make decisions, talks about his family almost as much as I talk about my Hen-retta crew, and my drivers and housekeepers who are downright grouchy with just about everyone love George. He's huge though so maybe they're scared not to like him. :) He's just too smiley and dorky to be scary though (in my humble opinion).

George is about to get sent to another Embassy somewhere else in the world and I have agreed to stay here with the IRC until August 31st. I have no idea what I'm going to do next. I'm just playing everything by ear these days, trying to learn some French, wait on the 7th Harry Potter, and evaluate my situation as it develops.

At this point, I know that this Thursday, I'm going to Accra, Ghana for a week or so to an IRC conference on Youth and Livelihoods... never been to Ghana and I'm dreaming that maybe this fancy looking conference hotel will have a hot shower with water pressure... (ahhh... dreaming..).