Meet some of my new friends in Ghana...Left to Right...Me, Diana-American-Florida, Carolien-Netherlands, Sarah-Canadian-Toronto, and Ana-GermanyWe are having lunch at Oasis on the ocean in Cape Coast after our tour of Cape Coast Castle.
One reason I love traveling is meeting such inspiring and highly motivated people along the way. I learn something from each person I come across and it makes me reflect constantly on my own life and where it is going. Everyday I hear a new story from someone walking down the street, in a tro tro, a taxi, or over breakfast at a hostel on the weekend. Here are a few stories...
Diana teaches Class 4 at Wisdom. Would you believe she taught English in Korea for 2 years, flew home to the US for a few days to see her family in Tampa, Florida and then hopped on a plane to Ghana? She is leaving Ghana in 2 days, seeing a friend in London for 3 days and then going to Bulgaria for a week to visit a friend in the Peace Corp there and then back to the US to find a "real job!" She has been my weekend travel friend for 2 months and I will miss her company. Diana graduated from University of Florida and wants to try living and working in New York for at least a year. Her dream would be Paris.
Carolien is from the Netherlands and very proud of being Dutch. Fasinating woman...she has been in Ghana for 9 months now and leaves in December. She is an eye doctor by profession. She met someone at home that wanted to fund a program in Africa that would do eye examinations on children and provide them glasses if needed at a small cost so she said she would go. She was orginally going to work out of Accra but found her way to Cape Coast instead. All equipment was shipped from the Netherlands which took many weeks. Carolien visits schools in the Cape Coast area and also pulls children from the streets to do exams. The other day she had an entire day of examinations in the Cape Coast Castle, any child living in the area could go. The lenses are bought at a discounted cost in Accra and the frames are shipped in from the Netherlands. She said that the glasses cost the children $1, $2, or $3 US. She has done over 1,000 examinations and about 100 needed glasses. She does not work alone. She contacted University of Cape Coast and asked if they would be willing to lend her some students studying to become eye doctors to go with her to the schools to do the exams. The University said yes so she has many students under her and also teaches a class at the university. Wow, uh?! She is keeping good records for a future book or medical journal and a friend of hers is doing a documentary on her work. When she goes back to the Netherlands in DEC she will become director of the organization she is helping. She will work on putting the website in English when she returns but for now here is her site....www.theopticalfoundation.com
Sarah is from Toronto in Canada. She attends McGill University and is taking a semester to study at University of Cape Coast. She is taking 5 classes for the bargain price of $500 US. What a deal! Met her in Kumasi one weekend over breakfast at the hostel and we have kept in touch. She lives in the dorms and was supposed to have a roommate but never got one so she told Diana and I if we ever came to Cape Coast for the weekend we were welcome to stay. We took her up on her offer and just got back from the Cape this past weekend. Loved meeting all her Ghanaians friends and loved the 35 cent fried egg with onion and tomato on whole grain bread I had for dinner SAT night at the market on campus. Many women stand outside and cook all night for the students. Sarah was going to study at Cape for 2 semesters but has decided to volunteer at the Liberian Refugee Camp instead and return to McGill for the fall 2008 semester. Sadly, I have heard from many university students that I have met (they are everywhere, mostly though at University of Legon. Sarah is 1 of 7 non-africans in the entire Cape university of about 10,000 students, it is like A Different World if anyone remembers that show!) that the professors basically read directly from their notes and the class copies, Sarah's professor even says, "OK, new paragraph!" and so the whole class skips one line in their notes, indents and keeps writing. So if you are coming to Ghana for the education you might want to study somewhere else and come to Ghana to volunteer or to just travel. I have asked many of the students at the university's this and they all agree that had they have known they would have studied elsewhere. Sarah's friend from Toronto is at Legon which is closer to where I live, about 45 minute tro ride, I am going to sit in on a few of her classes and learn more about African History.
Ana is from Germany and also studying at Cape Coast. I do not know much about her story yet but she is very nice and I will be seeing her again another weekend.
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