Ghana Day 4 031612 The Beach

Ghana Day 4 031612 The Beach

Our villa

Hannah relaxin

Friday, so we arrived at the ophanage/school yesterday, and did some initial chores and evening rituals.  This morning, we experienced the wakeup and morning/breakfast routines. 
In planning our time in Ghana, we also hoped to visit a few landmarks, including the beaches.  Ghana's beaches are on the south shore in the Bay of Guinea.  We've heard that the water is quite compromised with sewage and debris in many locations, and that the cleanest beaches are to the west, since the current flows west to east.  Today, even though we had barely begun our volunteer assignment, the timing was right to take 24 hours away to visit the beach.
We are still largely newbies in the travel business,  and really poor at the native language of Twi, so our IVHQ hosts were watching our backs and insisted on accompanying us in our travel.  The beach that we selected, because of its beauty and cleanliness, Kokrabite, also had the worst reputation for pickpockets and thieves, so we went along with the offer.
We found ourselves prebooked at a delightful hotel called Big Millie's Backyard, and after a taxi and short tro-tro ride, we arrived at a small resort, filled with fellow obruni (white people), comprised of small little freestanding villas.  We opted for the two room, accommodation, sharing this with Hannah, our teen Australian new family member.  We also opted for the 3 Cedi (about $1.80) Air conditioning upgrade, and spoiled ourselves.
The checkin/registration office carried strict warnings about not taking any cameras or valuables to the beach.  "There are bad boys there," we were told, and a walk on the sand revealed beach vendors selling brightly colored everything and many fishing boats pulled up on the sand, readied for the next day's work.
We easily shifted gears from the simplicity of our volunteer assignment existence, to this more indulgent tourist resort.  A circular tropical bar was the center of the small resort compound.   Penny and Hannah both booked an hour long massage session for 20 Cedi ($12) and we enjoyed several cocktails of the locally made rum and fruit punch. 
The beach was clean and beautiful, very windy, and the surf was up with a powerful undertow. The bay water was warm and refreshing and we played in the waves for a long while, drinking in the time of relaxation and leisure. The photo above shows the community pulling in the fishing nets that had been cast early in the morning.
We enjoyed a buffet dinner of local food, and had front row seats for a drumming concert at the resort, after a few more drinks we retired early, realizing that we had been up since 5 am.  Ghana really wakes up early, even before dawn.  We slept wonderfully on soft mattresses with the AC set very low.  A wonderful, relaxing day in the sun.
We checked out on Friday around noon, dragging our gear through some pretty sparse areas to get to the taxi, and had a suspension-destroying ride into Barrier, where we would get our tro-tro back to Kosua.  There we checked into the Internet Cafe, to connect back with civilization.  The Internet cafe is truly a misnomer.  The WiFi service was intermittent at best, and I found myself resetting the connection every 15 minutes.  There is no cafe component at all as signs read "No Food Drinks."  It is basically a small space with about 15 small computer carrels, half missing computers, the remainder with vintage equipment, and everything covered with the signature layer of brown dust.
Hannah was attracting boy attention at the "cafe" and when she logged into Facebook, discovered a backdrop of young men peaking at her logon, followed by a flurry of "Friend" requests from foreign names.  Everyone here wants to be our friend.  White, "Obruni", seems to be equated with money, and no one here wants to let the passing contact expire.  We packed up and left in a taxi back to our host home, but the driver stopped midway on the short trip because there was thick smoky engine exhaust coming through the firewall, front air vents and radio of the car.  After fanning this with his right hand and steering with his left, he suddenly felt that the promise of our fare wasn't worth losing his engine, and transferred us to a different taxi.  I kept wanting to measure distance with these taxi rides, but we were never in one with a working speedometer, fuel gauge or odometer. 
Only slightly impaired from the carbon monoxide infusion, we arrived back "home" and did our evening volunteer chores.  The kids were really anticipating our arrival. Penny and I have been nicknamed Mommy and Dad.  They call Hannah, "sister Hannah". Seemingly starved for touch and affection, they attach all of us us with open arms and smiles, even as we are newcomers, welcoming us with hugs.  "Daddy, me, hold me."