School Visit

Like most of my posts, this was written a few days ago and is just now getting posted. Sorry!

Today was…frustrating.

It started my leaving my house at 5.45 to make it to the office by 7.30. I wake up with a spring in my step, put on a new tank top (thanks to my wonderful parents), grab my mountain of stuff and head out the door. My mood just keeps getting better as I walk to the tro station because the weather couldn’t be more perfect. The tro ride is even fine…I have to sit in the front (which I really don’t enjoy) but for more then half of the trip there isn’t anyone next to me (yes, 3 people in the front…with a stick shift…talent). But then I get out of the tro and the pleasantly cool breeze has turned to a gusty, mean wind and all of the market women start to cover their stuff…I swear they have ESP or something…if they’re running- you run, if they are covering their stuff you have about 5 minutes to get wherever you think you’re going. If its more then 5 minutes away…figure it out. So that’s what happened this morning. I see the covering and I’m more then 5 minutes away from the next station I have to get to….crap. So I attempt to make a run for it…thinking that maybe, just this one time, the market women are wrong. Ha ha ha. Yea. NOT! The heavens open up and I start getting soaked. I end up getting trapped under a random awning for more than an hour. Universe, consider that lesson learned.

Anyway, after some CRC confusion and more of me waiting in random areas of the city (for 2 hours!!) we are on our way to Anlo Beach, in the Shama District. Since it rained so hard earlier in the day the dirt road is a total mess, mud everywhere and big erosion ruts. Aikins end up trying to drive the car up the side of an eroded mountain and we slide into a ditch. The underside of the car is resting in rock/mud and the back 2 wheels are not touching any ground. The education guy (reluctantly gets out of the car) goes to the nearest school and wrangles the biggest kids to lift and push the car out of the mud hole we fell into. Only in Ghana can you pull kids out of class to hike down the side of a muddy mountain to lift your car out of a ditch.

The car gets out and we drive a bit down the road to a safer area. The education guy has captured one of the boys (keeps him from going back to SCHOOL) to wash his shoes off…not kidding. Once his shoes are free of all mud he tells the boy to start cleaning my shoes. I have to make a scene to get him to leave me and my shoes alone. At one point I tried to explain that keeping this kid from going back to school so he could WASH YOUR SHOES was inappropriate. Didn’t get through but made me go halfway insane with frustration.

After all the hassle and crap of the day I get back to Takoradi, treat myself to a Fanta at my favorite spot and chill out for an about an hour.

Then, the icing on the whole day happens on the tro ride home. The tro is more crowded then usual…well, maybe its not actually more crowded but there’s more stuff then usual but the same amount of people crammed into less space. Either way, it was crowded. I didn’t even notice how crowded it was until the women sitting on the inside, next to me, needed to get out. I end up tangling myself in the seat, my own backpack and the backpack of the person sitting next to me (who refused to get up!!!! Serious pet peeve) all the while carrying a plastic bag with 4 eggs, which I am seriously guarding (eggs are the most expensive grocery I buy…3 eggs for 1 cedi…oye). I’m sure, if you know me at all, you can see what happened next. I tumble headlong out of the tro and into a group or people AND a table with a plantain bowl/grill (a big metal bowl with a grate over it and burning wood bits in the bowl…bowl grill?) It all turns out fine, and with minimal blood shed on my part (and NO broken eggs)!!! But everyone is “Oh! Sorry-o! Oh! Sorry-o! and its really embarrassing. So usually when I come home from Takoradi I ask the tro to stop at the by-pass junction so I can get out early, turning my 2 mile walk into about a half mile. But when the time comes to ask the mate to stop I am still too embarrassed from my fall that I just let the tro keep going to the station and angry power walk home. By the time I get home I am feeling much better. My housemate and his friend who is staying with us are not home (we’ve had some…frustrations… the past few days), the sun is going down and the sky is beautiful, and there’s a wonderful, cool breeze in the air after the mornings downpour and the following grey skies blew away. I’m so excited to get inside, put my stuff down, change out of my still damp clothing and relax in my plastic chair outside….so excited that I forget I have a bag of eggs in my hand and bash them against the wall. YES! That’s right; I make it through a crowded tro and then falling out of that tro only to break them in the doorway to my house. Luckily, at this point my good mood has made me delusional and I don’t even care.