Travel Day and Cape Coast

7/12/17

Today we depart for Cape Coast via Winnaba! Our day started with a drive to the Leprosarium where we donated some basic supplies to the community. We had a brief presentation of the items and got a short history of the community and why it was founded. The community members were eager to say hello— although none of them spoke english they had huge grins and bright eyes.

After our brief stay at the Leprosarium we drove to Winnaba which is approximately half way between Accura and Cape Coast. It was about a 2 hour drive with traffic. In Winnaba we had lunch at Aunt Mary’s house— an old home designed to create cross breezes from the the ocean to keep it cool. It’s a beautiful two story, white-washed house with rectangular slats cut into the walls so that a gentle breeze is constantly flowing through the hallways. Aunt Mary provided the best meal of the trip so far— our lunch was comprised of Palvala Sauce with boiled eggs and salmon, Boiled yam, plantains, rice and red red. Red Red is a mixture of black eyed peas stewed in palm oil, onions, tomatoes and chili pepper. The sweet crisp plantains entwining with the spicy beans was fantastic— and the hard boiled eggs provided a stark contrast with the pavola sauce that was also really yummy.

After the meal we headed over to a a center for mental health and wellness for a Lecture on Malaria. It was boring and very scientific given by a very young doctor. He was excellent and was excited to connect with the program. He may end up building a partnership with NEU for future trips to the area. He also connected us with a Nurse who runs various mental health programs and he gave us a brief overview of mental health programs and challenges in Ghana. 

After the lectures we had a cooking lesson with Auntie Mary. Unfortunately for me, we didn’t learn any of my favorite foods from Ghana— but she did take the group through the process of making pastry dough— and the students made a variety of meat pies and fruit tarts which we enjoyed enroute to Cape Coast.

Adrian is our most devoted photographer

Auntie Mary's Compound

The bus ride to Cape Coast was our first real long drive at night. The lights of the neighboring cities flickered as we rolled up the coast. This highway was narrow and every few miles there were check points set up to force cars to turn around barriers. Lining the highway were shops and stalls and in the flickering yellow of car lights we could see merchants peddling their wares along the sides of the road— no different than any rush hour commute.

7/13/2017

Cape Coast is lovely. Everything is much closer together and their is far less traffic. The primary road runs along the ocean where giant waves pound gray beaches. This water appears much cleaner than the black speckled plastic waves of Accra. As we drive along the water you can see long, narrow boats on the horizon. 

Blurry from the bus, the boats here are similar to those we see dotting the horizon

We started our day with a brief overview of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) and a tour of campus. Cape Coast is the former capital of Ghana and often had a large student population.  The University was originally started to train teachers. UCC (the third ranked University in Ghana) is the only university to offer degrees in every major field. They have 20,000 traditional students and run a distance learning program. The distance learning program sends professors every weekend to different communities where the students take courses and their exams.

We saw more than just school building on our tour...

After lunch we had a Tour of the UCC Medical Center and a lecture that provided a detailed overview of “Ghana Health Systems, Challenges and Opportunities.” It was a detailed lecture and most of the students seemed to get a lot out of it.

After the lecture we had some free time which led to adventures at the beach. I had planned to write and try to update the blog. Alas, the waves were calling our names! They were huge. Most of the students and TA’s decided to explore the beach. The water rushed up the shoreline with incredible force dissipating into foam. As we danced along the water line the foam squished under our feet. I’ve never felt such aerated water. The water rushed up around our legs like water boiling over in a pot— the bubbles jumping along.The light white foam was akin to a bubble bath— you could stick your hand down and pick up the water. Your hand would feel dry until moments later, the foam drained away. Naturally, being by the water the students were posing for pictures. The waves lapping at their toes as they grinned unaware of the looming wave behind… shoes were lost, a phone and camera likely lost  (not mine, never turn your back to a wave!) but memories were made.

We had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant!! Heaven. I had a creamy-curry vegetable pasta and a banana smoothie— and ordered a banana-chocolate pancake (cross between a crepe and a pancake) to take home for breakfast. I went overboard. This was a true local shop— no more than a small shack where they cooked and a small covered court yard with room for three tables. We managed to squeeze 19 of us into the space— their were three cooks and no wait staff so we rotated out as folks got their food.

After dinner we headed to Oasis for drums and dancing by the beach.