India (Day…um…4?)

   I gotz my groove back!  Today was fantastic!  Not even a hint of feeling crummy like I have been feeling.  It's amazing how one day I can hardly walk and the next day I walk for hours and hours.  No complaints though!

   I found out this morning that I didn't have my tickets for the field programs for today and tomorrow which either means I didn't get in, or there was a processing error and I'll get the ticket for tomorrow sometime this evening.  It didn't matter as much for today because I was a total goof and got the time wrong.  I showed up at 10:10 when the trip left at 10:00.  (I thought it was at 10:30.)  I had been thinking about skipping it anyway, so I think it was just my subconscious making the decision for me.  haha

   I spent the rest of the morning relaxing and eating free lunch on the boat.  :0)  I had planned to go out on my own, but I met a group who were going where I wanted to go so I decided to tag a long.  Our final destination was a place called Jew Town (yes, that is quite possibly the best name EVER) but we took our time getting there.

 

Lots of people took pictures of our boat as we went past.  :0)

 We took the water taxi to what we thought was Jew Town but turned out to be somewhere else.  Unfazed, we shopped there for quite a while.  I was excited to get a beautiful red sari after some unintentional awesome bargaining.  It was originally $60 so I kept trying to walk away until it was down to $35 and I really had to buy it then.  It's funny how bargaining works.  I really was leaving the store and not trying to make a deal at all.  But I'm not complaining!  

  In our wanderings, we found a store one of the girls had been to previously to buy some sultan pants.  She was going on and on about how amazing these pants were and I didn't quite understand until I tried on the pair I bought just now.  THey are like heaven!  The guys at the store were SO nice!  Some of the girls bought some pants and then we asked to see his other store that he had just opened.  We walked a block or two and came to another store filled with beautiful things.  Some of the girls bought some bedspreads and things and then we hung out with the guys for a while.  It was SO much fun!  One of the guys, Muhammad, was really into earthquakes so we had a lot to talk about.  I told him about the website where all earthquakes within the last week were displayed and he was really excited.  Nerd bond!  haha  We ended up taking a bunch of group photos and swapping e-mail addresses!  I love how shopping here ends up as an awesome social experience!

  From the guy's new store, I somehow knew where we were!  Go me and my improving sense of direction!  IT was right near the Chinese fishing nets, so I led our group over there to we could see those and shop some more.  

   We started heading to Jew Town, but since we didn't know where that was, we were just kind of walking.  Finally we stopped and asked someone where it was, and it was too far so we took a rickshaw.  So much fun!  All four of us somehow squeezed into it and we were off on a very exciting ride to Jew Town. 

   The shopping in Jew Town was also really good.  I split off from the group part way through because I was wearing out and I still wanted to get to the synagogue.  I expected to be nervous being on my own, but I actually felt just fine.  I found the synagogue by asking around a little and headed inside.  

   I was really excited to meet the lady who took my ticket.  SHe is the only Jewish woman of childbearing age left in the area.  She has been under enormous pressure to marry her second cousins to keep the line going, but like a boss, she refused because they are not her type.  I guess she has a reputation as  being quite a grump but she seemed nice as long as people were nice and respectful to her.  I wanted to tell her that I thought she was awesome for standing up for herself, but felt that was SO not my place.  So I just smiled.  

   The synagogue was very old, dating back to the 1300-1500's (part of it was older and part of it was rebuilt).  It was very peaceful and beautifully decorated.  There were no cameras allowed, so I did my best to memorize every detail.  I'm not religious, but it was still pretty meaningful to come to this place.  The state we are in in India has always accepted people of any religion.  It was nice to think that there was at least one place in the world where Jews were welcomed.  

  

 The acceptance of all religions is still very apparent today.  The state is known as "Gods own Country" because everyone here is deeply religious, going to pray at their place of worship at least once a day.  Most people are either Hindu, Muslim, or Christian or even from mixed families.  Even though people are very religious, there is really no tensions between the different religions.  From what I have seen, this state is a good role model for the rest of the world. 

   I took a rickshaw back to the water taxi with only one stop at a store so the driver could get a point.  The taxi and rickshaw drivers get points for every person they bring to a store and I think they can exchange enough points for money.  As a result, most taxi or rickshaw drivers will try to take you to many different stores you aren't actually interested in going.  It's not really a big deal though.  If you insist they keep driving, they usually will.  I just walked through the store because I had time and what the heck.  :0)

  

 I was afraid I wasn't going to have an easy time getting back to the ship because the driver and I had a lot of trouble understanding each other.  I was pretty sure we had the same idea of where I wanted to go, but I wasn't sure.  I decided to just hope for the best and it turned out well.  He drove past the water taxi stop, but I spotted it and had him stop just in time.  He wanted more money than we agreed upon, but I knew he already overcharged me so I said no.  We thanked each other anyway and I headed off to the water taxi.  That was a little confusing also, but I managed to figure out how to buy my ticket (after first getting in the "men only" line) and got on the next boat.

  

 The last bit of walking form the water taxi to the ship seemed miles and miles even though it just a few hundred yards.  I was SO happy to get back into air conditioning and lay down on my bed.  I feel like I definitely earned my right to go to bed at 8:00 tonight!  What an awesome day!  

Ghana (Day 4)

  

 So yes, it was an early morning on my fourth day in Ghana.  I dozed on and off from 4:30 to 6:30 am but then the youngest woke up and was having fun poking me and playing with my hair.  :0)  I spent a last half hour with my host family taking pictures and playing clapping games with the kiddies.  When it was time to go I thought I may cry, but I held it together.  I hugged the kids and shook  hands with their grandmother and headed off to breakfast.  

   I had learned at this point to take tons of extra food so I could share it as I was eating which was fun.  One of the older girls came around to write the address for the village down for me so I could send letters that the elders would pass on to my host family.  I could tell she was really bright and probably the best at writing and English in the village.  I had already given my pencil to Sara so I rummaged through my bag to find a sharpie for her to use in school.  She was so excited, I wish I had brought more school supplies!  We talked for a while in between her being needed to write for other groups and she ended up writing down her facebook information so we could be facebook friends!  (The village has one or two computers that the kids and adults can go use in a central building.)  I was really excited!  Knowing that I could stay in contact with the people I met and stayed with made the fact that I had to leave slightly easier.  

    When breakfast was done, all that was left to do was get back on the bus.  I dragged my feet again by taking lots of pictures and giving lots of final hugs to my homestay mom and Kafi who had wandered over.  As the bus pulled away I waved and blew kisses as we pulled away from the crowd.  A bunch of the kids ran with the bus yelling and laughing until we picked up speed.  All of the sudden it was over.  It was a strange feeling of happiness that I was going back to the comfort of the ship, and sadness that I had to leave the wonderful community behind.  

    On the way back, we had one more adventure in store.  We stopped at some sort of wild animal reserve/park and picked up a guide who worked there.  The bus drove a ways and then let us out to what seemed like not much.  Then the baboons came!  These things are cool from a distance and kind of terrifying up close.  They are rather large, have sharp teeth, and their butts look like something that died of a horrible infection.  The guide said we could feed them popcorn that he brought, so naturally I ignored five years of biology class telling me this was a bad idea and fed the baboons.  I was amazed how close they were willing to get to us!  It was really fun while at the same time it made me sad that the wild animals were not so wild.  Even though it would have  been less of an experience, I would have rather watched the baboons from a distance with binoculars and known that they were still 100% wild.

                  

(She is not amused.)

   We got back on the bus and started driving down an awesomely rough dirt road through the bush!  We were in luck and spotted on of their herds of antelope!  We were all supposed to stay in the bus to take pictures, but me and a couple others managed to convince the guide to let us sneak out to take some pictures.  Then there was more awesome bus-offroading and we got to the trail head for the hike to the cave.  I was feeling pretty invincible so decided to go along.

   It was less of a hike and more of a rock climbing experience.  The trail went almost straight up with huge boulders jutting out.  I kept up pretty well though.  I wasn't even last to get to the cave!  The cave was pretty cool, but not very big or dark like I had envisioned.  THe best part was that it was filled with bats and their associated chirping noises!  I had never been so close to so many bats so it was cool!  Our guide said that we would have a better view of them if we crawled through this crack in the wall and hiked up a bit more.  Unfortunately that space we had to crawl through was lined with bat poo.  And let me tell you this stuff does not smell good.  I was gagging and my eyes were watering.  It was that bad.  Still, I shimmied through the nastiness to get what was arguable a worse view of the bats.  By this point my legs were starting to shake which is a big uh-oh when I knew I had lots of steep downhill to go.

   For the decent I wasn't nearly as successful as going up.  I was way slower than everyone else so one girl and the guide stayed back with me.  I was pretty much walking on jelly legs that kept partially collapsing underneath me so it was quite an experience.  I was barely able to get onto the bus and needed extensive help from my arms to get me up the two stairs.  I was fully expecting a complete shaking and weakness episode, but it never got any worse.  In face, as I was sitting on the bus ride back to the ship, I actually got most of the strength back!  Yippy!

    Between spending the day and night in the dusty village without a shower and crawling through bat poo, I'm pretty sure I had never been more disgusting in my life.  I was SO happy to get back in the ship and take a really long shower to scrub all that nastiness off.  I rested for a bit, ate lunch, and then ventured out onto the pier to check out the vendor stalls there.  I was surprised at how aggressive the sellers were!  I hadn't been anywhere touristy in Ghana yet, so I hadn't been treated like a tourist until then.  The guys would literally grab my arm and not let mea leave their stall.  Luckily I'm somewhat used to this from traveling to various places so I wasn't as overwhelmed or scared a some people probably were.  I basically figured out that we were playing a game.  They were trying to sell me things for as much as possible, and I was trying to buy things for as little as possible.  Other than that there were no rules.  It was just the best player would do the best.  With this mindset, it was much easier to shop and bargain.  I fully understood that they didn't really think of me "as a sister who will take my name to America" and they were certainly not cutting me a deal because I was a "poor starving student."  I'm like, you can't expect me to think that you believe that as I get off this huge cruise ship.  I bought a small gift for someone at the first stall and then skipped to three or four down the line where the sellers were less intense.  I  had my eye on one of the African dresses so I opted into the game by asking how much it was.  The seller quoted me 37 citi which was a bit to high for me.  I said I didn't have that much with me, but thank you very much and started to walk away.  He said, "wait!  Wait! How much do you have?" and I lied and said I only had 15 citi with me.  (We both knew I was lying.  Its part of the game.)  He laughed and said that was not nearly enough and quoted me 30 citi.  I kept just saying that I only had 15 and there was nothing I could do thinking I would just go on to the next stall.  When I finally started to walk away, the guy said, "Ok, ok, I give it to you for 15."  I was actually really surprised and pleased with that!  I gave him the 15 and thanked him very much.  He sort of smiled at me and approvingly said, "I like you.  You good." which I hope meant that I had mad bargaining skills.  True to my word, I told the other sellers who descended on me as I left the booth that I didn't have any money.  One artist said he just wanted me to look at his paintings and I thanked him and went over to see them.  They were really beautiful and I may end up getting one.  After he showed them to me, he asked if I wanted any and I said I didn't have any citi left.  He then offered to trade with me, one 30 citi painting for an iphone.  I laughed and said I wish I had an iphone to trade, but I don't.  After much haggling, I said that I really didn't have any money but I loved his paintings and would hopefully come back if  I could figure out a way to get more money.  He said he would save my favorite paintings for me which is a well accepted lie that is part of the market experience.  I thanked him very much for his time and told him he was a really gifted painter and headed back to the ship.  I used the "I have no money" approach all the way back and was largely left a lone which was nice.  I think I'm sharpening my bargaining skills.  :0)