Cape Three Points & Busua

First week of work is almost over, it’s Thursday evening and I’m absolutely knackered (so forgive me if this blog post doesn’t make much sense), but also veeery happy! It’s been a great week so far. I have not been eaten by a snake (yet), even though there was one tiny one in the class, one big one somewhere in the school yard and today around lunch time one just in front of our house. How lovely. But anyway, to the point

So, last weekend, on my first days here, we went to two amazing places. On Saturday to Cape Three Points and on Sunday to Busua. Let me tell you a bit more about these places!

Cape Three Point is at the southernmost tip of Ghana. Just the drive there was already amazing – we drove through some tiny rural communities and “towns”, and then we got to this interesting off-road surrounded by rubber trees. We got to see how fresh rubber is collected, before it’s sent off to Europe. It seemed like there was endless forest of rubber trees, have to say it was quite extensive plantation. And I heard these rubber trees were planted by Ghana’s first president! Not sure if that’s true story though.
After a looooong bumpy ride we reached Escape 3 Points Ecolodge. Such a chill place, basically in the middle of the rainforest, surrounded by nothingness and the sea and long beach. A dream destination for relaxing, would love to go there again and stay for one night in one of the bungalows.

So, we spent the whole day there. It was a cloudy and a bit rainy day, but still warm (hot) as usual. We hung out at the lodge, played pool, drank bloody marys, hung out at the beach, walked to the end of the beach and got lost in the rainforest (surprised that we made it back from there), walked a bit more on the beach, ate, chilled, did nothing, did something.. Somehow the day just passed, and all the sudden it was getting dark so it was time to start heading back to Takoradi.

Here are few million photos from our trip Cape Three Points:

Rubber trees!

Cuuute rural communities

kids getting some water

Escape 3 Points Ecolodge

This moment = happiness

I just cannot

On our way to the rainforest (at this point we didn’t know what was waiting for us)

Then, Busua. It’s a place I think and hope I’ll go often (maybe this weekend!). To be more specific, the beach is from where I hope to find myself regularly.
Busua is about 30km away from Takoradi, not far, buuuuut as we are in Ghana, it takes a while to get there.
To be honest, all I saw from Busua area was the beach, but what I have heard the village is kinda touristy place. Didn’t really notice that on the beach, luckily! When we got there, the beach was still basically empty – I could see maybe 20 people around, and btw that beach is long one, so there was plenty of space for us all. Later on I spotted few groups of westerners, but I wouldn’t say it was a tourist beach. And trust me, I have seen tourist beaches, too many of them. And now when I say this, next time at Busua the beach is packed and full of Finnish people or something like that.
Anyway, so we parked ourselves to place called Alaska Beach Club. Left our stuff there, got some beers and headed to lay down at the beach and well, laid there for 8 hours. No, not really, I think after few hours I had enough of the sun and I retired to lay in the hammock, which was equally good option. And to all my friends who were asking, I did not burn my skin! I think I even got a bit tanned, wohoo.

I was too busy enjoying of the beach life that I did not really take photos. Just few videos and that’s it – but as I said, I think I’ll be going there again so maybe next time I can try to remember take some photos. 

Sorry, I lied. I took four very important photos; one of my drink, one of my food (they look kinda bad but they are gooooood !) and one of cute pupper, whose name is Rabies. Seriously. And then, ofc I took photo of the palm trees, I just can’t get enough of them!

Welcome to my house

Hello from Ghana! Time has been flying, I have been constantly on the move since Friday when I arrived to Takoradi. I haven’t  even unpacked my backpack yet, and my room is a mess! But I don’t mind, the first days have been amazing, I’ve been able to travel the West Coast a bit. Ghana is so beautiful!

Now it’s Monday, and today was my first day at work, and also today we organized a lecture about periods & reusable menstrual pads for high schoolers i  the town of Agona. I’ll tell more about this period-project, my first day at work & my West Coast travels in the upcoming posts, when I have time! But now, since so many have been asking me to show photos of where I live, here you go (btw I unpacked my backpack and organized my room just so it would look good on social media) :

Entrance

Living room, we have a tv and it actually functioning!

Kitchen (they have just finished doing new kitchen for us, it’s basically behind that wall where fridge and stove are)

My shower, that yellow bucket is the backup-shower (FYI mom I have just cleaned the shower so it looks nicer IRL than in the photo)

We have a laundry machine AND it also works!

Idk if this is interesting, but yeah on the legt shower, toilet on the right and the sink yay! We both have our own shower and toilet facilities which is nice!

Don’t ask... My room is the one with Trump-looking guy on the door.

My room



Simple is beautiful, right?

View from my room is just goooorgeous

This apartment is quite nice. I share it with a Finnish girl (hi Eveliina!) who is doing her internship here as well, she’s in the end of her studies to be a teacher. Also from the University of Jyväskylä. So she’s teaching the kids, whereas I’m teaching the teachers, thus we make a great team!

We do have electricity and running water. Most of the time. But it’s not uncommon that one, or if very unlucky both, of those luxuries do not work. Like on my first night here, we did not have water or electricity, but it wasn’t a problem. We have our little helper David, son of the school owners, who carried us some water for showering and we have gas stove so we don’t need electricity for cooking. AND surprisingly, how smart of me, I brought a headlamp. So we are just fine, with or without electricity and water!

Besides water and electricity, the apartment is equipped with variety of pets. Like cockroaches, I have killed about five of them so far. Big ones. One of them is living under the couch (any name ideas? I think her name could be for ex. Silvia Z.). Then we do have ants, who love sugar, but funnily enough they seem to reeeaaally dislike salmiakki (salty liquorice I brought from Finland). Our another armchair has been conquered by small, but scary spider, so we don’t really use that chair. And then, I have two lizards living in my room, they are cute, well-behaving and harmless roomies. 

And I’m sure there’s lots of other kind of creatures we just haven’t met yet. As long as none of these do not come to my bed, I’m fine with it. I just hope they will respect this rule.

Oh and let me introduce you my Torakkatossut (cockroach shoes), thanks to my dear friend Raul, I have something between my feet and the bugs if (when) I step on one when I walk around the house. 

Bus to Takoradi

Right now I’m sitting on a bus on its way to my new hometown, Takoradi. By so far, it has been interesting experience. I arrived to the ”bus station” around 9am. A local friend helping me to get around bought me a ticket and told me to take a seat. And then, 45 minutes later when the bus was finally full, it departed. No schedules, the bus leaves only when it’s full, and it can take a while, and obviously the doors are open so it gets very hot in the ”air-conditoned” bus. People come and go, there are lots of people selling stuff like mentos, drinks, pizza, bread and so on and they enter and exit the bus constantly. So loud, so confusing, passengers sitting down but then running out of the bus to buy some last minute things. So, 45 minutes of this - people going back and forth, parents lecturing tp their children who constantly run away from the bus as they are bored, people selling the most random things, oh and one bling guy praying for us. Have to say, I wasn’t bored while I was waiting for the bus to leave, and I do love people watching so this was kinda cool. The only thing bothering me was, or is, the heat. The bus is sort of air-conditioned, but still feels like very humid sauna.

And when the bus left, one of the passengers got up and started singing some sort of religious song and the others joined him. ”God bless you” said the passenger next to me, so I guess we all are now safe on this journey. Now the same man has been preaching something for about 20 minutes, and I wonder if he will keep doing this for the whole 4 to 7 hours. If I only could understand what he’s saying.. Onnibus from Helsinki to Jyväskylä is going to feel so basic and so boring after this.

The good news is, seems like my local sim card is working well and I have pretty good internet connection (at least for now!).

First post

It's 6.30am and I am writing the very first blog post here. I have a well deserved glass of white wine in my hand (don't judge, read further) and I am almost at the end of my layover time in Lisbon. Thank god.

So, at the moment I am located in Lisbon, more specifically at the airport, at ANA lounge. I was supposed to have a good night sleep in a hostel 3km away from the airport, but as usual, things did not go as planned. So, the first 5 hours of my layover I spent sleeping on the airport floor, until finally at 5am the lounge opened. Might not be the greatest start for my 3 month long trip to Ghana, but at least I will remember this forever. Besides, luckily I am very accustomed airport sleeper. Once I spent more than 24 hours at JFK, and by the way, there wifi was free only for 30 minutes, and you all know how boring airports can be.. So, things could be much worse. And this lounge is pretty cool and worth every penny!

Anyway, if everything goes as planned, I will arrive to Accra at 2.25pm today, and actually I have no idea what is bound to happen after that. Most likely, I will go to and change my euros to local currency cedi and get local sim card for my phone. And then, to be honest, I would just like to sleep and prepare myself for the four (4) to seven (7) hour long (?) bus drive to Takoradi. I really hope the duration of the bus trip is closer to the 4 hours than 7. Long way to go still, can't wait to get to my actual final destination!

To conclude my first post; Welcome to follow my (already eventful) trip to Ghana. I will be telling later on more detailed about the whole thing, now I just wanted to introduce the "name" of my blog and ended up ranting about my first leg of the trip. So, here’s the explanation:

Obi nnim a, obi kyere is a twi proverb (I've heard that Ghanaians love proverbs!), literally meaning that "if someone does not know, someone teaches". The deeper meaning behind the proverb is that there is no shame in not knowing something, and that knowledge should be shared to improve one another. Failure to share knowledge to one other will lead to "ignorant society that goes backwards, not forward". I really like this proverb, it is pretty accurate and goes perfectly with the themes of education, professional development, collaboration and communities, which happen to be main themes of my trip.