Reflections Of a Murky Lagoon.

whats up! so its wednesday now and I am back in Accra.


So I left off last saturday when I was about to embark on my 17 hour bus trip to Takoradi. Flex and Mohammod took me and all my stuff to the STC station and saw me off at 1pm. STC buses are comfortable air conditioned couches used for longer trips which are more expensive but safer for night time driving etc which is quite horrendous here so it wasnt that bad.It was suprisingly not as ubnbearable as I expected. the worst part was the fact that most of it was at night time and the bus was in complete darkness which meant I couldnt read, so lots of thinking time. The only way you could tell the bus wasnt from the western world was the fact that the pristine luggage compartment underneath the coach contained a lonely goat locked up amongst all the suitcases! haha ah there are that many animal right violations here its extreme. when you think about the state of some of the humans own lives though that its not suprising or even appropriate to critisize in my opinion. I have been continuely reminded of the adaptability of humans on this trip. How quickly things become 'normal' and you aclimatise to shitting in urinals next to old ladies, eating the most stomach wrenching foods and even just simple things like not being bothered when the menu at every resteraunt is basically a fictious document disguising an extremely minimal pantry. patience and a high level of easy going-ness is neccessary to even breathe here and ive suprisingly found it easy...when theres no other choice you realise how much more you are capable of and how simple it is to just slip into things. anyway we had a few stops along the way, nothing that exciting happened on the bus, I met a ghanian monk and bought a few 1 dollar englightment books, was too dark anyway to read them anyway(symbolism anyone) gave a baby half my dinner and made him happy, and got asked to financially support the muslim man sitting next to me. thank you teacher...dont ask.


Arrived in Takoradi at about about 5 in the morning and asked a taxi driver how much to busua beach. He quoted me 30 cedis which I knew was the biggest rip so I ended up asking this girl who had been sitting near me how much I should really pay and turned out busua beach was right near her village so I could catch a share taxi with her and her friends and it would be much cheaper! yay they were nice girls who attend university up north and were coming home for the holidays. dropped them at their village and their brother cornelius (they have the most random english names here) came with me in the taxi all the way to busua to make sure I got there okay. the place the others were already staying was called Ellis hideout..and it was a hideout in every sense of the word. right at the end of these very long red dusty roads through really thick tropical vegetation there was a hardcore remote village called butre. A man called Solomon helped me carry my bags across this rickety bridge with the ocean on one side and a beautiful lagoon on the other. The sun was just coming up from the sea and it was a gorgeous sight. We trudged along the white sand and arrived at this absolutely beautiful little paradise hideout complete with palm trees, hammocks, rotunda huts , a bar and an awesome beach. It was bloody great. Saw danika first and we had a really good catch up and had some breakfast with the best lemon grass tea ever (real lemon grass!) Ag and Jessie (melbournians) woke up later on and we all relaxed on the beach for the rest of the day and did shit all. The water was really nice and the waves were a perfect size. That night we had a beautiful dinner of tomatoe fish with rice which was amazing! had a few drinks and all went to bed feeling very content. I find myself feeling really guilty reading over this considering some people here have seriously nothing, Im not sure what else to say about that but figured backspacing that sort of comment would be dishonest so there you go..

the next day was much of the same lazing around and we also went in a dugout canoe on the lagoon and saw all the mangroves which was beautiful. we had a bon fire that night and on tuesday Danika and I got a cab to Takoradi and caught a tro-tro bus back to accra. The bus kept breaking down during the last half hour of the journey and whenever we slowed down the whole engine would shut off so it took awhile to get there but finally we stopped at Kaneshe (they didnt bother going right to accra) and I got a tro tro and taxi to the boys house in Labadi. It was great to see them again and I realised I only have 9 days left of my time in Ghana! I will miss those boys heaps and am really happy with all the things i've experienced and learnt here..I have more ideas and more places to go and ideas to explore that I can even fathom now..but its all in the memory bank and I have no doubt will bring new inspiration for more years to come. I am so glad I came here.


today I went with the boys to their shops and bought heaps of stuff, so many presents and way too much money but its nearing the end of the trip and I had to bring something back for you lot! We went back to Kwasi's shop and we all sat around drumming, dancing and singing and all the kids joined in too. It was heaps of fun and really nice to see how imbedded music and rhythm is in these people. Its just this really lovely part of their nature and something I wish was part of australian culture too, everything has rhythm and melody and beat and it installs this really basic spirtuality that I believe can only come with freedom and power of music..(quite an outlandish statement but Im standing by it for now) I can pinpoint many times in this trip where I was confused and lost and off the planet and still have those times now to be honest. Times where I have doubted myself, felt insecure and fallen into the same self-dug holes I was falling into more and more this year. Its funny I think in some way I thought coming to ghana would automatically take away all that doubt and fear I would just snap out of any self depricating bullshit straight away. Like travelling here would be some magic recipe for my soul and Id be a changed woman. what it has done however is given me the realisation that things take time and it is a very pointless excercise to be constantly analysing yourself . sometimes who we want to be and who we actually are are very different things and being aware of this and have some level of contentment with that thought, for me has been an important idea and one that is still a work in progress. hm anyway enough of the self reflection Ill save that for myspace when I get back..haha. love you all x