GHANA Day 1

Everything is a lot slower in Ghana and nothing, I mean nothing was even close to being on time. There was a lot of things that I wanted to do in Ghana, but getting around was so difficult.

My first day starts with me waking up later then I wanted at around 9:00. The ship is supposed to be cleared by 9:30. I look out the window and I can barely see land. I am like WTF we are never late for getting into port. Well, we were this time. We docked at 10:00 and were not clear to get off until noon. So my field trip to the Botanical Gardens and the Dam was three hours behind schedule.

So there are some problems with this port. We do not dock in Accra, because Accra does not actually have a port so we have to take either a 15 minute shuttle bus to get to Tema or an hour shuttle to get into Accra. Absolutely nothing was in walking distance from the ship like in Spain and Canada.

But interesting Fact: We docked in Tema, which is the closest landmass to the center of the earth (zero degrees longitude and latitude) Also each time we went into Accra we had to pass the Prime Meridian to do so.

So there first day I go to the Botanical Gardens and the Akosombo Hydroelectric Dam. My experience with the Dam was pretty cool. I had to do some research on it for one of my classes, then do a presentation based on that research. Then I actually got to go to the Dam and then later on present on what new things I found out. So I now I know a lot about a Dam that’s half way around that world that has affected many people’s lives both positively and negatively.

SO basically the day consisted of a lot of driving, but by far the most memorable event was lunch.
So we had a packed Ghanaian lunch and the options were chicken or fish. I was about half way back on the bus and everybody in front of my got chicken, so there was only fish left. I am not the biggest fish fan, but I can eat it if one does not look like a fish, two does not have visible scales, and three does not have that fishy taste. That’s why I can eat Chicken of the Sea in a sandwich.  So I get my fish in my closed boxed lunch and I am praying that there are no scales. I open it up and was very happy to see no scales.

Then my friend Bert next goes, AAWWWW a head, and I look down and to my horror there is this giant fish head, just the head staring right at me. I am not really sure what I did next, but I made a lot of noise and closed the box and took a few breaths before I opened it again to confirm that I actually saw what I saw.

So we took some pictures with the fish, and I ate all of the side dishes and I took a small bite from my fish head, but it is traumatization like these that make people go vegetarian.  Well, I am not vegetarian, but I prefer to only eat meat that does not resemble the animal it used to be.