!*?! Things in Ghana...and often not in America!

by Hailey & Mom

• Wild African animals - elephants, monkeys, baboons, warthogs, antelopes (many species), insects, butterflies,crocodiles, hippos, etc!
• Dead pigs on a cart without their heads
• No seatbelt laws
• Red dirt roads - lots of them
• Millions of seashells on the beach
• Warthogs sleeping at your doorstep
• People carrying things on their head - wood, food, water, tables and refrigerators
• Shoes hanging on the side of the road for sell
• Sitting in traffic and being able to buy anything out your car window
• Tree trunk hollowed out and made into a store
• Bats (fruit bats) flying all over during the daytime
• Trucks and buses with people on top
• Tro-tros packed with people!
• Baskets on people's heads selling things in villages
• People always waving at you and smiling on the side of the road
• Lots of sodas in bottles
• Water in bags - water saches
• Wood carvings and masks
• Tons of mango trees and mangoes
• Yummy pineapple
• Machetes
• Kids carrying machetes down the side of the road-they use them to cut grass!
• Grass cutters - a large rodent here. They kill them and sell on side of the road
• Monkeys running across the road
• Goats goats everywhere - goats as pets
• Chickens and roosters  wandering about
• Cows blocking the road
• Lots of potholes in the road
• Open gutters and sewers on the side of the road
• People walking long distances always
• People peeing anywhere in nature
• Young babies and toddlers "backed" on their moms or older siblings (cloth wraps around to keep them on). And sometimes these women then also have a bowl with firewood on their heads too!
• Colorful buildings in the cities
• Gates with barbed wire or broken glass around homes in the city
• Off road and sideways driving (Hailey's favorite) in the ditch
• Kids driving (well Hailey & Zachary got a chance to steer on the dirt roads!) And they did well!
• Mosquitoes and other pesty bugs (but we are lucky to be here in dry season so not so bad)
• Hand painted glass beads
• Dirt everywhere
• Cool bugs
• Laundry drying on the side of the road
• Killy Willy -fried plantain!
• Tampico - mmmm frozen treat
• Warm water (hard to get it cold!)
• Pumping water from wells
• Kids playing with sticks and tires
• Slingshots
• Fishing boats and nets
• Dried fish for sale
• Dirty rivers
• Castles and old slave forts
• People sweeping the dirt
• Mud houses
• People sleeping on roofs (to keep cool)
• People making fufu and pounding it
• Yams growing everywhere in mounds with grass sticking out the top
• Plantain chips--yum!
• You can buy your cell phone minutes when you are stopped in traffic to add to your phone
• Open sewers
• Young children walking alone on side of road
• Random street signs everywhere
• Almost naked or naked people sometimes walking around
• Water tanks and generators in backyards of houses in city
• Kids in uniforms--brightly colored and different for each village/area
• Flip flops on everyone's feet everywhere
• Bricks hanging from trees and bushes everywhere to shape them
• Homemade toys--made with cans/sticks
• Bottle cap game
• Oware game
• People in traditional African clothing
• Jimbaes (drums)
• Wood-made xylophones
• Other cool wood-made instruments
• Cool headwraps
• Adinkra cloth
• Toilet paper being sold on side of road
• Soccer fields everywhere - even in the middle of small villages in the middle of no where. Wood soccer posts even!
• Wood fishing boats and tiny nets
• People driving on any which side of the road, especially when there is traffic
• Big black ants
• Recycled ice cream bags made into purses, messenger bags, coin purses, etc.
• Donkey carts
• Wild dogs everywhere
• Lots of magpies
• "Houses" with no doors
• Art stalls on side of roads
• Words/sayings on back of tro-tros and taxis
• Road "gates" and barriers made out of sticks/wood
• Pretty flowers and birds
• "Goods" made or collected in villages bagged and left on side of road - for "exporting" to another village or town!
• Cool trees and some huge leafs!
• Bathrooms without toilet paper or with toilet paper but you cannot flush it
• Hotels with no water during the daytime (our one in Mole only had water in sink/shower in the morning hours!)
• Hot and humid - you can't see this but you see the droplets on your face sometimes!
• Beautiful baskets
• Fishing boats (small wood/canoe boats) and fishing nets
• Grounds nuts - again sold on side of road in twisted "saran-wrap" into 4 bags and you pull them apart! Yum!
• Sideways driving
• Soccer goals everywhere--sometimes made out of wood!
• You can buy anything on the side of the road in the cities and markets
• Huge giant snails (to buy and eat!)
• 
  

• ....and we'll add more later! Fun memories.