Senase Homestay Day 3, Ghana

The next morning was another early one as we were supposed to be in the town center and ready to dance at 8am. True to form, Ghanaian time changed things for us. This time however, we were ready—the elders weren’t. To kill time we went over to the school and sat in on classes there for a bit. This time went much better because I was with older kids who could understand me, and the teacher was really cool. He let me talk with them and teach what I wanted, but then he took over the real lessons so I wasn’t completely out there by myself.

When we were ready to go the kids all crowded us again and the picture bonanza continued. The teachers and principle even wanted to get in on the action. We obliged but then had to get going for our performance. Obviously, the town center wasn’t set up for us yet either. So, after helping set up the tents and chairs for the elders and audience to sit under, we finally were able to see our dance outfits! Made from African Kenta (sorry I have no idea how to spell it) Cloth, the girls got skirts and bandeau tops while the guys got some pretty sweet looking shorts. We were very vibrant in all of our color to say the least. After changing, we didn’t even get a chance to run through our dance before we had to go out there and perform for the town elders and the entire village. It was really intimidating. The music started and we could hardly hear it so the whole time we were all off, none of us knew what was going on. We must have looked like fools. They were all pointing and laughing like it was a comedy show. They even sent in a few local girls to help us because we were screwing it up so much. I think they enjoyed it though and I know we did. Now at least I can say I performed an African dance in Ghana in traditional costumes.

Seeing as it was getting so late, we really had to get going after that. We jumped on the bus and started the long journey back to Kumasi where we stopped at the same place for lunch and shopping. I got a really nice bag made from that African cloth and some other small things too. My lunch was mixed up with someone else’s though so it took forever to get my food. Finally, it came and I inhaled it all. Kim goes, “Do you even know what you just ate?!” I didn’t even care I was so hungry.

With our bellies full and wallets empty, we got back on the bus to start the last leg of our journey home. We kept ourselves entertained with Disney sing-a-longs that the entire bus was getting into, even the guys. Finally, after all that excitement, a nap, and a good few hours of bumpy bus time, we were back to the ship. We were all just dying for a shower so we got our stuff as fast as we could and got in line.

Well, we got on and were greeted by the worst possible news ever. The water was off on the ship. I’m pretty sure at least one of us shed a tear and we all had some sort of break down. No water at all. After three days in the village like that, I would have rather just stayed another night. Here we could see where the water should be coming from, but it still didn’t work. It was so frustrating. A couple of us took a bar of soap up to the pool to at least wash off our feet, but seeing as it’s saltwater it didn’t do much good.

Not wanting to sleep in our filth again, we stayed up really late and helped with the Hershey valentines campaign. Ghana provides a huge percentage of the world’s cocoa. Cocoa is notorious for using child labor. So, we sent hundreds of valentines to Hershey’s CEO asking him to stop using child labor. Hopefully he’ll get the message.

Sometime around 3:30am we gave up and went to sleep. I baby-wiped my arms and watched as my skin literally changed color. A guy came into the room where we were all working on the valentines and someone jokingly asked him if we stunk and he goes, “I wasn’t going to say anything, but yea. You really do.” We were all pretty bad. I woke up early the next morning and took a 25 minute shower—so much for water conservation. Blah. I would like to say though, the grime was totally worth the experience. I had an awesome time on our village stay even if I was the dirtiest I’ve ever been.