Ups & Downs

Today we went to Aburi Botanical Gardens. The drive was about an hour, but the scenery on the way was beautiful. We have been in Accra, which is relatively flat. However, it didn’t take long to find the mountains. The whole way to Aburi was uphill. The drive was a bit scary because it was on the side of the mountain, we could look down and see all of Accra. Before we got to the gardens we stopped to buy authentic wood carvings. I went to the back of the shops to look at the scenery, but instead I found the actual building where the men where carving the masks and figures. It amazed me to see the artwork they could create with a tree trunk, a chisel, and a hammer. Everything was beautiful and had a rich meaning. I got quite a few masks. I think they will look good in my room.

At the gardens we got to see so many plants. I got to smell the leaves of the cinnamon tree, which are ground to make cinnamon powder. I saw cocoa trees, 100 year old palm trees, trees planted by famous people, a tree over 300 years old, trees that are used to make gin J, and so much more. The most interesting thing to me was a tree called to strangler tree. This tree grows by attaching itself to the trunk of another strong tall tree. From there the “free loader” tree grows around the other tree. It actually wraps around the base tree so tightly that you cannot see the base tree through the strangler’s roots. Once the strangler grows higher than the other tree it slowly grows its roots into the base trees trunk. This act kills the base tree. After the tree is dead it slowly rots away and the strangler is left standing. I thought this was such a sad story. Because the base tree is in the middle of the strangler once the base rots away the strangler is hollow inside. We actually got to see a strangler that had killed its base tree. We could even walk through the tree because it had no middle.

really big old tree and me :)

Group looking at Cinnamon Tree

Palm trees that are over 100 years old

After we returned from the gardens a few of us went to the beach. The beaches in Accra are not the nicest but nonetheless they were still fun and packed with people. The ocean had trash in it and wasn’t extremely blue, but hey it’s a beach. I didn’t get to enjoy it much because we had a writing assignment to do that was due later that night. I keep forgetting I’m taking a class here. I started to complain about doing the assignment but then I realized that writing a two page lecture summary on the beach wasn’t so bad.

Later that night we went to Professor Gilbert’s (the main maymester professor) house to have discussion and eat. The discussion was insightful and the food was pizza! The day was coming to a good end. Then my group got bad news about our project. We were going to be working with an NGO called Today’s Choices, which rescued girls from sex trafficking. All my group members, myself included, were deeply vested in the organization. However, Dr. Gilbert called us into her office to inform us that Today’s Choices completely lost all funds and had disbanded. When I heard the news, my heart sunk. The worst of it all is that no one knows what happened to the girls that were in the program. After the bad news, Dr. Gilbert gave us the some good news: she found another very similar organization for us to work with, called Self-Help Initiative Support Services. To get re-grouped we would be meeting with the director the next day. My group and I left disheartened and stressed about the next day.