Well I just decided I needed to get out of Accra for a few days, a long weekend was in order, Katherine was in Bolgatanga for two and a half weeks and it would be good to travel while she was up there.
So got to the bus station on Thursday evening (20 minutes before they close) to see if I could get a bus to Bolgatanga - no buses direct to Bolgatanga the next day, but could get an overnight bus to Tamale - I'll take it I said to the nice lady behind the counter, who informed me that the bus will reach Tamale at about 3am and I can sleep at the Bus Station until the Tro Tro station opens at 6am, and I can get a Tro to continue my journey. A bit scary but also a crazy adventure.
Well did half a day at work got to the Bus Station at 2pm, as instructed to check in for a 3pm departure, the bus ended up not leaving till after 4.30pm. Oh well I suppose less of a wait in Tamale, before continuing my journey
The journey itself was OK, only in that it took me 21 hours to reach my first destination - Langbensi a little village that welcomed me with a red carpet (notice the red dusty road) every item of clothing turned a beautiful rust colour - now I know why people just don't wear white
Stayed with another volunteer Sam in his five lovely round huts - his room, the chicken house, the guest room, bathroom and kitchen all surrounding a middle court yard. Ahh this is the life, I could stay here forever, only the temperature is 44-45 degrees during the day and cools down to around 38 during the night you can actually feel the heat burning on your skin even in the shade.
We got invited by a local family to dinner and there I learnt to pound Foufou - Foufou tastes wonderful especially with groundnut soup, but traditionally takes hours of laborious work to prepare. The plantain or yam and cassava is boiled first. Then you pound and pound and pound (these Ghanaian women are strong!), until the mix is soft enough to swallow without first needing to chew it. Apparantly I was just carressing the foufou with my attempt to pound it. I even found it difficult lift the pestle back out again.
We got invited by a local family to dinner and there I learnt to pound Foufou - Foufou tastes wonderful especially with groundnut soup, but traditionally takes hours of laborious work to prepare. The plantain or yam and cassava is boiled first. Then you pound and pound and pound (these Ghanaian women are strong!), until the mix is soft enough to swallow without first needing to chew it. Apparantly I was just carressing the foufou with my attempt to pound it. I even found it difficult lift the pestle back out again.The next day we went to the Nakpanduri escarpment in Gambaga, they told me I would be able to swim in the river at the bottom, decided not to once arrived, but still had a wonderful time and the picnic we had was the best; Goats Cheese and Tomato sandwiches - the Ghanaians can laugh as much as they want about goats milk, but they're the ones missing out.
In sweet little Langbensi I managed to find a shoe shop and it beats Jimmy Choos any day. These little numbers are handmade from recycled car tyres and yes they are all the rage in the red dusty streets of Langbensi. They had just my size and I was even able to have to them slightly altered as I waited, beat that for customer service.
While in Langbensi to go with the red dusty roads the only vegetable available were lovely red tomatoes and red onions. But there was enough of them even for me
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