Thursday, May 27, 2010

Fast and the Furious

On Monday morning we found out that Tuesday was "African Unity Day"... which means NO SCHOOL. God I love Ghanaian Holidays!!! Knowing 15 Holy Cross College students were in Cape Coast staying with the brothers, we decided to go visit them. The brothers told us that on Monday night was the 10th Anniversary of the 2 week Holy Cross Service Learning Ghana Experience Program FAREWELL PARTY. Wow that's a mouth full. When we heard the word PARTY, we knew we were going. So after school, we rode the bus to the junction at the main road, hopped into the back of a random truck to hitch hike into town, and jumped on a TRO TRO heading to Cape Coast. The 2 hour journey was a breeze, minus the goat in the back kicking our chair, and we got dropped off in Cape Coast. We were walking down the main road in search of a taxi when one of the HOLY CROSS vans pulled off the road to pick us up - PERFECT TIMING. We arrived at the Brother's Compound and met all of the Holy Cross College students. Megan had a friend from high school in the group, Kaitlyn, who was GREAT. She even gave us her left over food, shampoos, etc. etc. ETC.!!! She was our MRS. CLAUSE and provided us with the best ever Christmas in May. The night's festivities included dinner (pizza, french fries, and ice cream... not really the Ghana experience but hey we loveddd it!). We got to know some of the students and enjoyed having American conversations. We have discovered that our English has turned into Ghanaian English and we struggle holding a conversation with anyone above a 2nd grade Ghanaian mentality. Our word choice and grammatical structure are seriously suffering. Oh well... I bet you guys don't know what WA BO ADOM means. GOTCHAAA. We stayed up until 2am, wayyyy past our Grandma bedtimes, enjoying music, drinks, dancing, and visiting with my fellow Americans. The next morning consisted of early morning mass, quick breakfast, and loading up the cars for the students' last day in Ghana and a tour of Accra-the capital- with a quick stop in Kasoa to show them the Sisters' house and school. Megan and I rode with one HCC student and Brother Stephen in the pick up truck with ALL of the luggage tied down in the back, followed by 2 15 passenger HOLY CROSS VANS driven by Brother John and Brother Ken. And we were off- making GREAT time to Kasoa... the Brothers must be great drivers.
In Kasoa, we showed the students around our classroom and the school. They were very impressed comparing our school to the ones they had volunteered at in Cape Coast. We continued to Accra and this is where it got interesting.
To start off the drama, Brother Stephen received a phone call from Brother John in one van saying, "Black BMW side swiped the mirror off Brother Ken's van..." It was now OUR responsibility to chase them down. And so... WE WERE OFF. And I mean OFF... flyinggggg down the road, dodging, weaving, and swerving in and out of everyone chasing down this awkwardly nice car in Ghana. Cheers could be heard from the back seat from Megan and me. Once we spotted the car, we discovered the driver was female. When Bro. Stephen yelled out the window at her... you could see her quivering lip and stressful character. Bro. Stephen could sense her frazzled-ness and asked her to pull over to talk it out. She refused, thus creating more of a car chase down the road... where we cut her off in a turn lane, Bro. Stephen jumped out of our car, leaving us behind in the middle of the road, to go confront the driver. Much to his surprise, the husband had switched places with his wife, and was now in the driver's seat. Sneaky little guy huh? At this point, the 2 vans had finally caught up, and parked on the side of the road. Brothers Ken, John, Stephen and Tony surrounded the black BEAMER encouraging them to take responsibility for their actions. Still refusing, a policeman came onto the scene and as we know here in Ghana, the RELIGIOUS are always right. The police arrested the woman and her husband, but refused to pay for our mirror. We were off to a gas station to get it fixed yet we were on GHANA TIME AS ALWAYS, so 2 hours later we left the gas station and were off to the Cultural Center in Accra. From there, we toured Accra seeing the President's House shaped like a stool, the Black Stars stadium, and Independence Square. We arrived at the airport for a nice dinner, and then checked them all in for their flight. We tried our best sneaking onto the plane, Megan was fully prepared with passport in hand, yet we were denied. We will have our turn in 35 days.

To wrap this up, we LOVED our time with the HCCers and can not thank Brother Stephen enough for allowing us to be a part of the HIGH SPEED, GHANAIAN EXTRAVAGANZA HIGHWAY CHASE OF A LIFETIME.

3 comments:

  1. Oh what a day!!!

    Guliver

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  2. Pictures of this adventure, please.

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  3. Can i request another blog entry, please?! especially since it will be ending soon :(

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