new adventures

well yesterday was the day we made it to Lake Volta. It was a day full of craziness. We had to get up at 5am because our bus was coming to pick us up at 5:30, and there was a huge storm the night before so the thunder and lightning kept most of us up, so needless to say, 5 came real early yesterday. We drove into town to catch another big bus. While waiting we met 3 guys from Newcastle England – Josh, Ed, and Doug. They are spending 8 weeks here doing something with their university…it kind of sounded like study abroad but they are medical students and one of the classes they take is to go somewhere and work with a hospital in their host country. We spent pretty much all our traveling talking to them.
The bus to the lake took about an hour and a half from where we are staying. When we got off the bus we were all standing in around in a circle just talking to each other when i noticed the crazy lady.
[[Okay now for those of your pirates of the Caribbean fans, think back to the second movie i think? well the part when they get in that tiny boat and go through a swamp type place and meet the crazy voodoo lady with dreads.]] OKAY she lives in Ghana. haha. While we were standing there talking i see her coming up to us, and no one else saw her because their backs were turned. She was giving me the death stare and moving her hands around in a weird way witch like way while talking to herself in twi so sadly i couldnt understand her. By the time she was a few feet behind us i told everyone to not freak out or turn around at the same time, but there is a crazy lady behind yall. Haha and of course they all turn around at the same time. She went a little nuts saying things and moving her hands around us like she was casting a spell upon us. We referred to her as calypso for the rest of the day. At one point, how she did this i have no idea. She ended up right behind me. It scared me so bad because i wasn’t expecting her to be there.

Anyways that was fun. We then got on a ferry to cross the Lake. For those of yall who havent heard of Lake Volta, it is the largest man made lake in the world as well as the home to many children who have been sold into modern day slavery and made to be fisherman. Many of the kids from the village of hope have been rescued off of this lake. We saw many fishing boats out on the water when we crossed. Kind of surreal. When we made it to the other side we drove a good 2 hours into town and walked around there for awhile. Went to the local hospital, radio station and school. When we were done we rode a tro tro (which is a taxi van that crams well over 25 people into it) back to the lake. Instead of waiting for the ferry to get back, we took an actual fishing boat to cross the lake. Being on an actual fishing boat on the Volta lake was crazy. I just thought of all the kids that have to be out there everyday. When we made it to the other side we were greeted by all these young boys helping us get out of the boat.When we got out we walked through mud houses and everyone said hello. This country may have the most hospitable people, i love it.

We finally made it home at around 6 and we went to bed not too long after that haha. The experience was awesome and i am so grateful we had the opportunity to go see it first hand. If you have never heard of this place, go to touch a life foundation website and watch the video about lake volta in their videos. Def eye opening!

We go back to the village of hope on thursday!!! I am SOOO excited to go back and be with those kids but i am going to miss the kids here as well. It will be bitter sweet for sure.

I hope everyone back home is happy and healthy. Everyone here is doing just fine and enjoying Africa.