1st weekend!

Sooo I realize i have been slacking on the blogging so hopefully i can sum up the last week. The culture in ghana is really different. The way time goes here is the days move slow but the weeks fly by. Nothing really exciting happened until thursday. All i did was learn a little twi(local language) and hang out at the orphanage. On thursday i traveled to Accra, the capital with a guide and some volunteers. I expected it to be a little more advanced and developed but it wasnt. It was the same informal street markets, no sanitation or any type of infrastructure within the city. Every was was screaming obama at us because he was to arrive in accra the next day. I saw independence square, the art market and the national history museum. All of it was not very exciting. Then friday began my weekend. Some other volunteers and i planned our own weekend outing to cape coast and turned out to be one of the most awesome weekends ever! Friday morning i helped take the babies from the orphanage to a clinic to be weighed. It was difficult to get them there because it was pouring rain in the morning and rain in africa is not like anything ive ever seeen. when it rains it POURS. So we came back from the clinic and headed to cape coast around 3. it takes about 3 hours to get there by tro tro. Transportation in ghana is really easy and really cheap. tro tros are large buses that are like taxis that you hop on and hop off, no worries i took pictures. It get dark around 7 so we wanted to leave asap. The ride was long and hot but totally worth it. We stayed at a cheap hostel where i was eaten alive by bugs. This was the only place open because obama was coming to cape coast on saturday so people were coming from all over. saturday morning we walked around cape coast and observed the masses of ppl gathered there to see obama. then we took a taxi(which is also super cheap) to ELMINA castle. We(as in kate, claire, peter, alicia, julia and carol and myself) took a tour there. it was amazing it used to be used as a slave fort and has a lot of history. some of the rooms and things the guide was explaining gave me the chills after that we traveled back into town where it was complete madness. Everyone was dressed in obama gear and there was a festval going on for his arrival. It was way too hot and some of my friends wanted to head back to the hostel so we did. We had lunch ontop of a hotel and saw obamas car drive by. Later we went out to a place called oasis and met some other volunteers and locals to hang out with. We went to bed early because we woke up super early the next morning. Sunday morning we woke up and traveled to kukum national park. Highlight of the trip! its a rainforrest with a tour. You are guided on a hike up to the begining of 7 canopy bridges. The bridges are wooden planks supported by rope that hang above the canopies so you can see the whole forrest below. that was so much fun. After the park we went to have lunch at a crocodile restraunt that serves 'american" food. While we were there i pet and sat on one of the live crocodiles there. (no worries i have pictures of everything this weekend). after lunch we began our three hour tro tro ride home. when we arrived back at the hostel i showered and hung out at the orphanage. There is no way that this post does anything i witnessed or did justice but i have about 5 minutes left on my time limit.