My Dearest Mona Lisa

Liz K and I decided to devote today to trying to find drums to take home (Caitlynn came with us as well, so it wasn’t just the two of us).  We got up early in order to eat breakfast and get on the 9AM shuttle into Accra.  The shuttle was about a one to two hour ride depending on traffic.  Thankfully, we got there in 45minutes and headed straight for the ATMs.  We had been hearing a lot about a store call Global Mamas and decided to check that out before going for our drums.  It was a really cool store with clothes and other things made by local women.  We all bought a bit more than we had expected to, but it was all cool stuff, so it’s alright…  I guess that reasoning is good enough since it may be a few more years before I get back to Ghana.

The lady at Global Mamas said we could just buy a drum from one of the street vendors instead of going to the cultural center and looking for them.  We tried that for a few minutes, but there weren’t many and since we were short on time (it was already 11 and we needed to get back to the shuttle by 12) we decided to take a taxi to the cultural center.

First we decided to make a second stop at the ATM.  Some guy selling paintings followed us all the way down the street trying to show us his paintings, which was really annoying, but being white made us targets so there was no avoiding it.  He also tried to get in the taxi with us, but we didn’t let him.  The taxi driver told us we had to pay 5 cedi, but we got him down to 4 since we knew 5 cedi was too much and just what they charged non-locals because they don’t know any better.  After Tracy had talked to us about bargaining I really didn’t want to have to over pay for things.

We got to the cultural center at 11:30.  I immediately took us to the first drums I saw and started testing them out.  I don’t know a lot about drums, but after testing them a little I thought they sounded really good.  I wanted to try to get the big drum on the ship, but Liz K and Caitlynn thought it was too big and security wouldn’t let me on the ship with it.  The guy selling the drums first told us they were 65 cedi each.  We bargained him down to fifty each.  I had thought we were going to have to pay twice that and had way too much cedi left over, but that’s alright.  We found another taxi and headed back to the shuttle, making it back in time to get back to the ship by 1pm.  We had to get our drums back to the ship by 3pm and if we had missed the 12pm shuttle we would not have made it.

We dropped our new drums back in our room and took off once more.  We were on a mission to buy Fan Milk.  We took the shuttle back out of the port.  The shuttle was surrounded by taxi drivers when we arrived.  We pushed our way passed them and went straight to the Fan Milk dealer by the shuttle.  We bought about 5 each.  The Fan Milk dealer seemed completely delighted by the business.  We then had to wait another 20 minutes for the shuttle to come back.  During that time we had two guys come up to us trying to sell things (I bought one painting, but that’s it) and another guy who just wanted to talk.  He gave us his address and phone number and asked for ours as well, but we just said we would contact him.  I am thinking we could send him a postcard from the next port, but definitely not giving him any specific information about ourselves.

Back on the ship we didn’t do much until dinner time.  Liz K got her birthday cake a day late, so a bunch of us went to dinner and had some ice cream cake.  Then the Officer’s Club had a meeting.  During the show an announcement came on saying there would be no drum inspections!  So my drum (whom I have name Mona Lisa) will not be incinerated!!!!  I had been a little worried about her, but now I know I will definitely be allowed to bring her home.

I didn’t go to the reflection tonight.  I didn’t feel like I got anything out of the last one, so I decided not to go tonight.  However, if I had gone the one word I would use to describe Ghana is “affirmation.”  For years now I have said that I want to spend my life traveling and writing.  My experience in Ghana has assured me that I am on the right path.  God has showed me so many amazing things, people, and places during this voyage and I know I am still only at the start, but I want my life to be an adventure that no one saw coming.  As the voyage goes on, I am becoming more and more certain that God is calling me to be a traveler.