2012 – 2014. I lived in Bodada-Buem in the Volta Region, and I loved it. I’m currently getting
my MS degree in statistics from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks.
I can hardly believe that I'm six months
into my service. Some days drag on, but overall the time flies by. Next week
school is mostly just a formality, and all of the teachers will be recording
grades while the students take their last final exams. Before I get into
retelling some highlights of the last month, I want to write about what I did
today.
During the week I read The Dharma
Bums by Jack Kerouac, and I became inspired to lace up my hiking boots
(not a nice Italian pair unfortunately) and climb a mountain. Since today is
election day in Ghana I got the day off from school, and I had the perfect
opportunity to climb my mountain. I wouldn't say that The Dharma Bums turned
me into a Buddhist hipster, but it did reaffirm my thoughts about nature and
peace. After reading The Dharma Bums I wanted to have that
again, and I knew all I needed to do was climb one of the many mountains around
Bodada.
I think I have more shoes than any other
male Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana: Chacos (can't be a PCV without a pair of
Chacos), running shoes (I thought I would be jogging more), boat shoes (my
brown dress shoes), black Adidas (I can dress them up or down), soccer cleats
(I thought I would be playing a lot more soccer), flip-flops (known as
Charlie-waters or shower slippers here because you wear them while bathing),
and last, and until today least, my hiking boots (they're just so versatile I
couldn't leave them at home). I digress, but I think it's funny how many shoes
I have, and I like to laugh at myself. Anyway, I had hiking boots just like
Japhy and Smith, so at 8:30am I laced them up, picked a peak, put my water
bottle and camera in a bag, and started my journey. After walking to my school,
I realized that without a cutlass (machete for those of you who aren't privy to
Ghanaian English) I was just going to have to follow the farm trails and hope I
got to the top of a mountain. So I looked around again and spotted a small corn
field almost at the top of a peak that wasn't too far away. I followed the main
trail and turned onto a smaller trail when I thought it was time. Just
20-minutes after starting my journey, I was in that cornfield I had spied from
the school, and I loved it. Looking around, all I could see was jungle, hills,
and the occasional corn field. I took some pictures, but they really don't do
it justice. Then I started back down the mountain knowing full-well that I
wasn't finished with my morning adventure.
I got back on the main path (10 inches of
packed and worn dirt, kind of like good single-track mountain bike trails) and
continued away from town. I ran into the first Ghanaian I had seen since I
started. Fridays are taboo days (no one is allowed to go to farm, something to
do with local gods and resting, and you get fined if you're caught) so I hadn't
expected to see anyone. I greeted the man in Lelemi, and he asked me where I
was going. I shook my head and told him "Ni sa walk." which means
"I'm going walk." He just laughed and asked me if I was going
"back-back." I didn't really understand what he meant but said yes
anyway, and we continued on our respective ways. He just chuckled to himself
and said, "Obruni." I probably really surprised him. He probably
hadn't expected to see anyone, let alone a white man who greeted him in the local
language. Ghanaians don't really go for hikes, so he probably thought that was
strange too.
Shortly after that I started to walk
through a cocoa farm, and decided to help myself to a cocoa pod. There were
tons of ripe pods, and no one was going to miss one, but I felt kind of guilty
anyway. I decided that I would ask around and figure out whose farm it was and
befriend the owner. Fresh cocoa tastes nothing like chocolate, more like an
intense pineapple/mango sweetness with the texture of snot, and I love it. I
just needed a nice coconut to top it all off, but I made do with my stolen
cocoa pod. I walked on, crossing a small stream (that Ghanaians probably call a
river) a couple of times, and just enjoying the beauty and serenity of
everything. I came to a fork in the path and decided to go up instead of
following the stream, so I climbed to the top of another "mountain"
and continued along the ridge. I came across a small pineapple farm, lots of
peaceful looking bamboo groves, and eventually a palm wine and akpeteshie farm.
I was really hoping someone was at the palm wine farm because a couple
calabashes of sweet palm wine and a chat with a local farmer would have topped
off my adventure perfectly. I called out “Agooo” (which means “knocking”) but no one replied with “Ame;”
the farm was empty.
I walked on a little further, and I was
hoping to find a trail that would take me down to the road or some other trail
that I could loop back on, but I had no such luck. Judging by the big ridge on
the opposite side of the road, I guessed that I had hiked almost three miles
from Bodada, but it was a very pleasant three miles, and I wasn't disappointed
about having to follow my same path back to town. My only regret was that I had
no one to share my experience with, and I got a little lonely before deciding
to write about it in a blog post today and share it with the world. Bodada is
truly a beautiful place, and everyone should come visit me here (fellow PCVs in
Ghana and everyone back home with $2400 for the plane ticket and 2 weeks of
anything you want to do).
