Not the Black Market

May 24, 2015

This morning started way too early as the air conditioner started making weird noises at 5 AM. After turning it off to make the noises stop, all I could hear were birds and chickens next door outside, so I had to turn it back on to drown out that noise. It kind of worked then and I put earplugs that I got on the plane in. Those two things helped and I was able to get some more sleep.

We got up and headed over to the guesthouse where Kwesi is staying for breakfast. We had bofrot, which are basically fried dough balls, some mango and some porridge. Really good breakfast, though it didn’t help having that much food before headed to church.

Church was basically what I remembered. It had lots of music, lots of dancing and a strong sermon. New members were being added to the youth choir today, so there was a lengthy commissioning of that group including 4 songs being sung. It was rather warm in the church, like last time, which is why eating such a large breakfast did not help. We were still tired after all the travel as well and the full stomach made it tough to stay awake, but we all managed the best we could.

After the service, the seamstress from Winneba came by so we could pick out fabric for our clothes. I am pretty excited as I am going green this time with both shirts. While we were wrapping that up, we got to try eating a different type of mango by biting the top off of it, then squeezing the outside to get all the juice to come out the top. It took a delicate touch to squeeze the mangoes without causing them to burst, luckily I was able to keep mine intact.

We then headed to the ATM and to change money. The ATM was no problem for Leigh, but when we headed to change the money at a currency exchange, it was closed. Della, our guide, called around to see if he could find someone who could change the money for us. We headed to a different part of Accra and picked up a guy who would change the money. Long story short, the phrase “so yeah, that was the black market” was said at the very end of it. I never had any concern during the process, so it wasn’t a bad thing by any means, just a different experience.

We then had a late, big lunch of red beans and rice, a tomato beef sauce, some fish and spinich and cassava. It was all super good, so we decided to go for a walk after to work some of the food off. We stopped at a convience store and I picked up a Malta, which was a bad choice since I forgot that I didn’t like it last time. We did have Blue Skies juice earlier in the day though, so it wasnt a complete loss for the day.

This evening we chatted about what types of things to bring back to share for the trip, both items and memories. We also went through the donation bags to get them organized. We are waiting for dinner now, many of us rather tired and not that hungry, but I bet once the food gets here, we will all eat, then hit the sack for an early start to Kumasi tomorrow.