Day 6 – “Bridges in the sky”

Leslie: Day 6, we got a tour of Kakum National Park, which included all of the following:

■       Obligatory pictures with adorable Ghanaian schoolchildren (also, a shuffle video with said schoolchildren, who were very good sports)

■       Terrifying (for me) rope bridges many, many, many too many meters above the jungle floor – tour guides claim they were ‘checked’ every two weeks for flaws, but the story didn’t really hold up…

■       A description of how ancient Ghanaians used the trees and plants around us (a certain Grinchy trip leaders questioned some of the ‘facts’ – like using one tree’s sap as perfume)

■       For the rest of the day, we rested at the hotel beach and bought souvenirs from passing jewelry salesmen. It was a beautiful, peaceful afternoon.

Andrew: I have a brief aside about our bus driver, Oliver, who an incredible driver of our 50-person bus.  On our way to the Kakum National Park, Oliver is dodging obstacles like potholes or pedestrians like a champion.  Then all of a sudden I hear this scream “you’re going to hit the baby goats!”  It was Irene.  We didn’t hit the goats.

Ting being mobbed was another theme of the trip.  First, it happened with the Chinese workers at Dangote Cement.  This time, the children we were shuffling with couldn’t let go of her. 

At night, there’s a party outside of Michael and my room.  Two games went on.  One was “Bowl of Nouns.”  You go through a series of nouns through multiple rounds.  Since you’ve heard all the nouns multiple times, the last round you only get to say a sound which led to some funny moments.  There was another game of “I love you” being played, where the goal is to tell the person next to you how much you love them and try to get them to laugh.  Andrew Garza’s implorations of “I’ll pronounce your name right, day after day” made sure Michael couldn’t hold it together.