Even More About Ghana

Hi everyone! I will now tell you even more about my travels in Ghana. On the 12th my mom and I came where we are now, Kumasi. Kumasi is the second largest city in Ghana, after Accra. The ride here was very long and boring. We took an STC bus, which is pretty comfortable, but the ride was 5 and a half hours, so... Once we got here we were really tired, so we just stayed here and rested for the rest of the day. On the 13th we went to a place where they make brass objects. It was really cool! At the end we got a ton of brass pendants and a couple gold weights and things. That was our only excursion of the day. On the 14th we went to the largest market in all of West Africa, Ketejia(Ke-ta-jah). It was very overwhelming and crowded, but we managed, although we couldn't have with out our guide! We got beads, beautiful cloth and a set of gold scales for my mom's classroom. After that we went swimming, much to my relief. Yesterday my mom and I went to a kente(cloth)weaving village. It was pretty cool! We started the tour by looking at a lot of cocoa trees(I know, not weaving). There were a lot of chickens there, poking around in the leaves. Our guide opened a pod for us and let us have a seed from it. They are slimy, but sweet, like melon, not at all like regular chocolate or even really dark chocolate! Then we went and saw all the weavers weaving. It was really cool! We then took a taxi back and stopped to swim. There were a bunch of annoying people there who were all there because it was Happy Tuesday!(buy one drink, get one free!), who were amazed by me because I did an underwater handstand, which they hadn't known was possible. So I was just trying to swim, and they'd keep bugging me. Some of them even asked me if I could teach them how to swim, while only one of them couldn't. Meanwhile, when half of them were in the pool, the rest were asking my mom "what is her name and how old is she?","do you have an e-mail, facebook etc.?", "where are you from?" or others. Finally, we escaped and came back to our hotel to chill out. Today we will go to a adinkra stamping village. Goodbye!

More About Ghana

These are some of the things that I have done since I last posted. After I went to Cape Coast Castle my mom and I went to Kakum National Park, a canopy walk/rain forest sanctuary place. We shared a taxi with a family that had a really cute 3 year old girl named Alex. She was adorable! After we did the whole Kakum thing we went to where a family made palm oil(on the same day, in the same trip). It was smoky because they had to boil the palm nuts that they used twice. After we saw that we went to a really touristy hotel for lunch where they had crocodiles. When we had finished lunch we went outside and pet a crocodile because the older ones had grown used to humans! One of the hotel workers somehow froze it(like a snake charmer, I think). The next day we went to Elmina Castle and came to Busua, a small fishing town. Elmina Castle is the same kind of place as Cape Coast Castle except it is bigger, was established earlier and was run by the Portuguese and later the Dutch, not the English. After we finished our tour we just came to Busua and did nothing really, really exciting for the rest of the day. Yesterday we justed stayed in Busua and did small things such as playing pool, swimming in a pool, walking on the beach and reading. It was overcast the whole morning and poured the night before. Today we went to a village on stilts called Nzulezo(In-zoo-lay-zoo). It is literally a village that is built on top of stilts. After we got to the destination we would leave from we canoed for a bit less than an hour. When we got there we met with the chief and he told us some of the history of the town. The people originally came from Mali and a magic snail(yes, I'm serious)told them where to settle. After that we went and walked along the main street. We stopped at a school and gave the children presents. After, we met with the vice-chief and gave a small donation for the school. Then we canoed back and took a long taxi ride to our hotel. Bye!

Ghana!

Hi everyone and sorry I haven't been posting for a while! Right now I am in GHANA! In case you don't know Ghana is a country in West Africa. I have been here since the night of the third of February. If you are in the Eastern Time Zone then I will tell you that Ghana is 5 hours later than where you are now. I will be in Ghana for 3 weeks, London for 3 weeks, too, and Israel for 10 days. Only my mom and I are going on this trip. I am being pulled out of school for 2 months and my mom is homeschooling me. I was in Accra with my mom for 3 nights and 2 days and now I am in Cape Coast. My first and favorite field-trip so far was going to the National Museum of Ghana. I drew things such as gold weights, adinkra stamps, a bow and arrow and a xylophone. There were many groups of school-children there at the same time as us. We arrived in Cape Coast yesterday and when our bus stopped a taxi driver came on, grabbed me, and insisted that we use his taxi. It was intense! Today we went to the Cape Coast Castle. It was pretty gruesome because basically the whole tour was of the dungeons where they kept hundreds and hundreds of slaves. Other than that, the trip has been wonderful. Right now I'm on a timed computer and I have to go. Bye!

The Caribbean

You know that I went to the Caribbean, right? Well, now I will tell you about it. First of all, it was really fun! We swam and snorkeled a lot. We also hiked, which was pretty fun. Some of the creatures we saw included rays, turtles, regular colorful fish, donkeys, goats and one eel. Probably the coolest thing other than the eel was a tiny fish that followed me everywhere on my first day there. I'm actually serious about this. I could almost touch it and it wouldn't dart away! That was really cool. The whole trip was fun, but those were my highlights.

Soccer Sadness and a Fun Trip

Last Sunday I had a horrible soccer game. We lost 9+ to 4. I scored two goals. One of them was a penalty kick, and the other was just a regular one. We keep on losing because our best goal-scorer broke her leg and can't play, but also because the teams we play are just plain good.

On next Thursday morning my mom and I are going to meet my dad and brother in St. John. The bad part about that is that we have to leave the house at 4:30 in order to get to a 6:30 flight. It's quite sad, but it will be really fun in the Caribbean! I will tell you about it when I get back home.

Hello

Hi. Sorry it's been a while since I posted last. I'm going to sort of fill you in with whats been going on in my life in the past two months. First of all, school started in September. I am in 5th grade. So far my school year has been pretty good. I think it has been good because I like my class and teacher.

I also did outdoor soccer and now indoor soccer. It was really fun. On our first indoor soccer game I scored the winning goal with 2 seconds left, making the score 5-4. I also played goalkeeper in the first half. I let in 2 goals. The second game I scored 3 goals, but we lost 7-4.

I am doing piano for my third year. This year I started doing more jazz and folk (I used to only do classical). Right now I am working on 2 songs, Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho and a song called Peter's Song, and doing some short songs in a workbook. So far piano has been really good!

As you all know, Halloween was on October 31st. I was a fire nymph. I had a very awesome time trick-or-treating and ended up with a little less than 100 pieces of candy.

Now you know what I have been doing for the last two months! Bye.

My Birthday and Dance Camp

Sort of recently(as in in this month)it was my birthday! I had a dinner party. To start we painted picture frames. Mine was a bunch of colors making stripes with blue polka dots on top of them. After we all finished our paintings we had dinner, which was lasagna, salad and homemade pickles. Then I got to open my presents! They were all really cool! I got stuff like a rock candy growing kit, earrings, and a lot more awesome presents. Next, we made a fire. We had s'mores and played games. After that everyone left.


A week after that my mom and I left to go to Dance Camp. It was really fun! I met a new friend and did stuff with old friends. I was also in the 9-12's for the first time, even though I was 10(I wasn't at camp last year). The 9-12's is a childcare thingy that people who are nine to twelve years old go to. I had good counselors and did fun activities. My favorite activities were LARP(Live Action Role Playing), and foosball. LARP...is kind of hard to explain. It's like a fantasy world where you are on a quest and you fight monsters with foam swords and spells, but better than it sounds. In the end of LARP for the year we all got a necklace with a shell pendant on it. Dance Camp was really fun!