Mom and Nina Visit

Mom and Nina arrived the night of November 4th, and I met them at the La Palm Royal Beach Resort. It was late, so after they checked in, we ordered dinner in the room and played catch up for a little bit before bed.

Sunday morning I woke up early and played around with my digital camera while I waited for Mom and Nina to wake up. I had a photo project due the following week and decided to document Mom and Nina’s first few days in Ghana, which they were really good sports about. Nina decided to sleep through breakfast, but Mom and I hurried downstairs to check it out before it closed. After breakfast, we explored the La Palm complex – which is huge – and has everything from an ice cream parlor to a casino. Unfortunately the pool was under construction, so there was no swimming to be had at the hotel, so Nina and I tanned for a little while on the room balcony.

While Mom slept, Nina and I checked out the lunch buffet, which was good but ridiculously expensive for what it was. Later that afternoon, Nina came back with me to the NYU compound. NYU had organized a “Cooking with Linda” activity for the evening. Linda’s our CRA, and everyone was cooking in House 3 (my house a.k.a. the best house ever!), so Nina got to meet most of the kids in our group here. We helped out in the kitchen, making a variety of different salads, fried plaintains and chicken. After dinner, we introduced Nina to Nerts, a card game that Ben introduced us all to, and we’ve pretty much played every day since we’ve been here. It’s a mix between Solitaire and Spit, and it’s basically the best game ever!





Nina and I spent the night at the hotel, with plans to go to the market bright and early Monday morning. Nina decided to sleep in, so Mom and I headed to Kaneshie Market for some one-stop shopping Ghana style. The market is both indoors and outdoors. When we first arrived, we walked through the outdoor market which is primarily comprised of various food vendors selling everything from tomatoes and onions to pig feet and cow tongues. The first floor of the indoor market is an extension of the outdoor market, selling mainly food products. The second floor is full of household items and jewelry vendors, and the third floor houses all the fabric stalls and seamstresses. Mom and I bargained for a few necklaces and bracelets, and Mom bought some fun fabric to make a tablecloth.





Nina came to dinner with me at Tante Marie that night, the restaurant that serves us five nights a week as part of our meal plan. She spent the night at the compound. I had a presentation and a midterm to prepare for on Tuesday, so I couldn’t play, so Katie and Del – who are the best roommates ever – showed her a good time. Nina slept in on Tuesday while I went to journalism class in the morning. We met up with Mom for lunch at Ashesi. I took her to the close canteen which is run by Auntie Vic, which Mom was really excited about because one of our aunts is Auntie Vic too. After lunch I had to run to my Traditional Medicine class, so Mom and Nina hopped in a taxi and headed to the STC station to get our bus tickets to go to Cape Coast. After class I spent several hours in the digital photo lab printing out pictures for my photo project, and then I met up with Mom and Nina at the hotel. Nina came back with me to spend the night at the compound. Not much was going on, and I felt badly that I didn’t take her out or anything, but going out in Ghana is just not as easy as going out other places. During the week most area bars and clubs are pretty dead, so even though the taxi fare is really cheap, it isn’t worth it. And walking to places in the neighborhood at night can get unsafe at times because the streets aren’t well lit.

After photo class on Wednesday I took Mom and Nina to the National Arts Centre, which is a big tourist trap but is a great place to get gifts via one-stop shopping. They sell everything there from jewelry, sandals and paintings to drums, masks and kente cloth. The sale strategy there is very in-your-face, which can get very stressful but Mom and Nina were cool about not cracking under the pressure, and we made some good purchases. I wanted to bring them both to dinner that night at Tante Marie, but Tante Marie ended up catering at the compound, and since our family and friends are not allowed to eat the food that Tante Marie provides us as part of our meal plan, we decided to go out to dinner elsewhere. We went to Mamma Mia in Osu, which has delicious pizza, a little on the pricy side, and definitely an obruni spot, but it was nice for a change of pace, and everyone at the compound appreciated our leftovers.

On Thursday morning Ben and I went to West African AIDS Foundation to talk to Edwina and Mama Lou about setting up a program to help pregnant women living with HIV/AIDS in Ghana. It’s going to be hard to get a lot done with the little time we have left here, but if we can at least establish a foundation for the program and get the ball rolling then hopefully the students that study abroad here next semester will be able to pick up where we leave off and really get a good thing going here.

For lunch Mom and Nina met me, Ben, Molly and Lisa at Sunshine Salads, which is right around the corner from where we live. It just opened several weeks ago, and it’s cheap salads and Magnum ice cream bars have been all the rage at the compound lately. After lunch Mom and Nina and I took a trip to Makola Market, which is mainly outdoors and in my opinion, much more hectic than Kaneshie. Nina found some fun fabric to make a dress. I looked at a bunch of fabric, but most of the vendors weren’t selling less than six yards, when you usually only need two or three to make something. I do want to try to get some fabric to make pillowcases and a bedspread before I leave, and that will probably require twelve yards or so, but I still need to figure out what kind of design I want.

The original plan was to go to Cape Coast on Thursday, but tickets were sold out so we got tickets to leave early Friday morning instead. Mom and Nina couldn’t extend their stay at La Palm because a big conference had booked the hotel for the weekend, so Mom got a reservation at the Paloma Hotel for Thursday night. After Makola, we checked into the Paloma Hotel and packed up everything we weren’t taking to Cape Coast for the weekend and stored it at the compound for the weekend. The Paloma Hotel is right next to Champs Sports Bar, which we’d been trying to get to all semester, because they’re the only place in town that serves Mexican food! Molly, Ben and Lisa and I had been talking about going there all semester, so Nina and I picked them up at the compound to join us for dinner. It turned out to be another hopping obruni spot, but the food was good and the company was fabulous.

Mom, Nina and I crashed early because we had to get up bright and early to make our STC bus to Cape Coast. We had paid for an air conditioned bus, but it turned out to be without air conditioning, which meant refunds for all! Déjà vu to fall break! This ride wasn’t so bad though, because it was only three hours and it wasn’t raining like the eight hour ride from hell to Tamale. There were no buses still available to Accra on Sunday, so we got tickets to head back Monday morning.

We took it easy Friday afternoon, ate lunch and dinner at the hotel – the Coconut Grove Resort, the same one we stayed in on the NYU trip at the beginning of the semester - rested in the room and by the pool. Saturday morning Nina and I woke up for buffet breakfast at the hotel, then swam in the pool while Mom made plans for the day. That afternoon we arranged for a driver to take us for a tour of Elmina Castle. Our driver’s name was Jojo and he was so nice. He was really excited about our visit to Cape Coast, and wanted to show us all around. We visited the castle in Elmina, and while we paid for a guided tour, Jojo became our unofficial tour guide when two groups of Ghanaian schoolchildren joined our tour and it became impossible to hear anything our tour guide was saying. They are also in the process of restoring the castle, so there was lots of noise, so it was really nice that Jojo knew so much of the Elmina Castle history.











After the castle, Jojo drove us around Elmina and Cape Coast, and we stopped at St. Jago’s Fort and saw the first Catholic church in West Africa.



Then we ate at Castle Restaurant for dinner, next to Cape Coast Castle. Mom really wanted to get some Ghanaian music while she was here, so Jojo said he would make some CDs for us. We went back to the hotel after dinner and crashed early because we had to get up early the next day to go to Kakum National Park.

Jojo met us early Sunday morning with three CDs in hand with mixed Ghanaian and Nigerian hip life music. We listened to cassette tapes he had of similar music during our drive to Kakum National Park. The last time I went on the canopy walk I spent a lot of time helping Lisa and Molly across because they’re afraid of heights, so I was excited to go on it again and really take it all in. Nina and I had a great time up there together, and Mom said her share of Hail Marys to make her way across. After crossing the seven bridges, our guide offered to take us on a nature hike for about an hour in the park, which was great for Mom who was excited to learn about all the different plants.















On the way home from the park, we stopped at Hans Cottage Botel, the restaurant our student group ate at over the crocodile pond. The food was much better this time, because we ordered off the menu instead of eating buffet style. Nina and I also took one of the yellow paddleboats around the crocodile pond, but only saw a few crocodiles close to shore.





When we arrived back at the hotel, Nina and I spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool while Jojo played the CDs he made for us in the pool bar and wrote out the titles and artists for all of them. Mom, Nina and I ate dinner out by the beach, which took a little longer than expected because the power unexpectedly went out while our food was being prepared – déjà vu fall break again!

Our bus back to Accra was scheduled to leave at 10:30 Monday morning. Mom woke up early and went with Jojo to visit a traditional medicine clinic in town where she met some local nurses.





Nina and I slept in and ate the buffet breakfast again, and then Jojo took us to the bus station. We checked in at Labadi Beach Hotel, and then I went back to the compound to work on my presentation for Traditional Medicine the next day.

We didn’t have journalism class on Tuesday because the graduate class at Legon had ended and our professor had gone on vacation for the week, so after my presentation in Traditional Medicine that afternoon, I met up with Mom and Nina at the hotel. Nina had spent the day at the pool and Mom had gone to visit the Artist Alliance Gallery in Teshie. They had planned to come to dinner with me at Tante Marie, but ended up eating right beforehand, so Mom stayed at the hotel, while Nina came to dinner with me and then spent the night at the compound. I didn’t want her to spend two boring Tuesday nights here in Ghana, so a bunch of us went out to the After 1 Spot for a little bit, which we frequented a lot in the beginning of the semester, but hadn’t been to in a while.

Nina wanted to come to my photo class Wednesday morning, but something she ate upset her stomach and she got very sick, so she just slept in my bed all day. I tried to get in touch with Mom at the hotel, but of course they put her in the room with a phone that didn’t work, and weren’t relaying the messages I left. It was probably for the better because Mom spent the day on her own exploring Osu worry-free. People get sick here all the time, and during the first two weeks we were here almost all of the students got sick just adjusting to Africa, to the temperature, to the food, to the living situation, etcetera (as my photo professor Lyle would put it). There’s also no concept of an urgent care facility here, so even if you just have a stomach bug, it’s off to the hospital if you want to get any sort of treatment. We do have a nurse on duty to help us with the most basic problems, but if anyone shows any flu symptoms, you’re assumed to have malaria until proven otherwise. Not that the otherwise really matters, because all the students who have tested negative for malaria have still been treated for it, just in case.

Nina spent the night at the hotel with my mom that night, and rested all day Thursday too. My African Art class went to the bead market in Koforidua, which ended up being an all day adventure. Our class is only supposed to run for three hours once a week, but it runs on Ghanaian time, so it never starts on time, and because it’s largely field trip based, usually takes up most of the day. The bead market in Koforidua was pretty small – you only need to spend about an hour there to see everything. Most things were very cheap – 3,000 cedis (40 cents) for a bracelet, 8,000 cedis (90 cents) for a necklace, and you can buy individual beads to make your own jewelry as well. On the way home we stopped at the Cedi Bead Factory, and learned about the bead making process. Most beads are made from clay or recycled bottles.









We arrived home just in time for dinner at Tante Marie. Unfortunately Nina was still not feeling very well, so they couldn’t meet me for dinner, but I went over to the hotel after dinner to check in with them. We were planning to go to the Liberian Refugee Camp in Buduburam tomorrow morning with West African AIDS Foundation, but Nina still wasn’t feeling well enough.

They ended up not missing much anyway. We arrived at the camp and were about to begin our tour when the authorities said we didn’t have permission to be there. Apparently WAAF was supposed to submit some authorization letter, even though they had visited the camp without one several weeks before, but because we didn’t have one today, we couldn’t take a tour of the camp. NYU had been nice enough to let us take one of the vans, so we decided to go out to lunch to make the trip not a total loss. Matthew, the head of WAAF, took us to this restaurant that a lady from his tribe runs. Yes, I said “tribe,” but that’s what he said, so as far as I’m concerned it’s politically correct. We all ate fufu, which is a traditional Ghanaian dish that consists of mashed kasava and plantain in soup with chicken or fish. You eat it with your right hand, and the mashed kasava and plaintain ball soaks up the flavor from the soup. The soup at this restaurant was very spicy, it was almost painful to eat, but so good at the same time! I was sorry that Mom and Nina didn’t get to try it, but Nina wouldn’t have been able to stomach it being sick and all, and Mom was pretty content with her red-red: beans and plaintains.

Nina still wasn’t well enough to go to dinner that night, but Mom came, which was really nice because all my friends really wanted to meet her, and were beginning to doubt whether she was actually in Ghana. After dinner Mom came back to the compound with me so I could pack a bag to spend the night at the hotel with them, since it would be their last night here. We shared a taxi with Franny to Labadi, and even though I had just eaten, Nina was starving when we arrived, so we went downstairs and ate the Labadi dinner buffet.

Mom and Nina’s flight didn’t leave until late Saturday night, so we had one more day to do our favorite thing – shopping. We ate buffet breakfast at the hotel, and as we were heading out, we ran into a few students in the program. They were fumigating our compound that day, so we all had to be out of the house. Emily wasn’t feeling very well, so Mom gave her some nurse/Mommy love, and we let her sleep in our room while we went out and about. First we went to Osu, which has some fun things, but they always overcharge. Then, we went back to the Arts Centre, which also overcharges, but Mom and Nina had their bargaining skills down, and we found some great kente fabric, leather wallets, jewelry, drums, and a batik tablecloth and napkin set.



We stopped by the compound on the way home, so Mom and Nina could pick up all their other bags to take home with them and say goodbye to all my friends. Then we went back to the hotel and packed up and ate dinner at the hotel restaurant. Mom and Nina’s flight left at 11:30pm, so they took the hotel shuttle to the airport at 8pm, to allow for things running on Ghanaian time. It was really great to have them here. I wish they could have stayed longer so they could have seen and done more, but I think they had a good trip and enjoyed themselves, and they got a taste of what it’s like to live here, and that’s what counts.



Love and miss ya’ll already!