I have a day with nothing to do in it and a cheap internet cafe, so buckle your seatbelts, this could be a long one...

I have now begun the "alone" section of my travels. Perhaps not technically started as I am going back to Accra tomorrow to do one more week of volunteering, but certainly have had a foray into the world of travelling alone. I like it. I have met some lovely, interesting and crazy people this week, but I have also had time to myself to explore, read, write and act on instinct without having to consider anybody else. Right now, I do feel somewhat as if the sun and the heat have sucked all the life from me and visualise myself as sort of shrivelled and dried up, like the chillies that are drying on the pavement outside. I think this has a lot to do with being kept awake all night as a dog chased a pig around and around my building for hours. Lucozade, however, is readily available in Ghana, and right now feels like a lifeline!

I'm going to do this one journal style I think.

Friday
After doing the first of the computer training sessions with my favourite women's group (difficult when the power is off) Sam and I commenced a totally ridiculous journey to Kumasi, the second biggest town. It's maybe 1/3 of the way up the country and should be a 4-5 hour journey from Accra. It took us, door to door, 11 hours. Firstly, we had to travel away from Accra in order to get a bus into Accra. We were very pleased when we practically walked off that bus and onto the Kumasi bus (if a little disappointed that we didn't get one of the shiny new red Kia coaches with aircon and massive seats). We were less pleased when we woke up an hour later to find ourselves sat in a petrol station in a massive rainstorm in the town where I had been that morning which is half an hour from our home, which we had already driven back past. Even less fun was the 4 hour traffic jam a further ten minutes down the road in our nearest big town. As the air on the bus was blowing and we were dressed for Accra heat most of the passengers left the bus to walk around the town. Some of the men tried to get Sam and I to get back on, but we didn't feel like it so carried on walking. A moment later we realised why they had done this, as we passed a crazy naked guy in the street. We got back on quite quickly then. When we finally passed the road blockage (which a roundabout would have solved easily) roughly half the passengers were still not on board. The driver seemed unfazed, but the passengers who were present were up in arms. Turns out the driver had good reason. After travelling for a few minutes we caught up with the others, who had walked a few miles beyond the town by the time we had got through the traffic. By this point we had already passed our supposed arrival time and still had 4 hours to travel.

The bus continued smoothly. It shouldn't have. It should have stopped at a police checkpoint.
"There is a problem with the brakes, and a toilet." we were told when we eventually did stop. The toilet was actually a wall, against which white people would have been a bit too distinguishable in the dark. The brakes, apparently were fine for us to continue. Both of these issues would have been non-existent had we been given a shiny new red coach. We held tightly onto our seats as the driver tested the brakes every few yards. Granted, they did seem to be working fine, but we wouldn't know if they weren't. Not stopping is the point of a long distance journey. Finally, 7 hours after leaving Accra we arrived! Kumasi seemed much smaller and more rural than I had expected. The man behind us then explained "Someone is getting off here, we have maybe one and a half more hours." Excellent. We had heard some unpleasant stories about travelling this road in the dark and were both eager to arrive. Although we knew it was probably still too early for anything much to happen, both Sam and I had been running through in our heads how we would react should armed robbers attack the bus (dear parents, please be advised that Ghana is generally very safe, and there is debate over whether these stories are in fact real). Sam's approach would be to hide in a ball and hope to not be seen. Mine would be to grab my debit card and tuck it into the padding pocket in my sportsbra. I maintain that mine is a slightly more useful approach. There was a loud popping sound and the bus leant to one side and stopped. This was it. They had shot the tyres. People started standing up and leaving the bus. I reached for my debit card.
"Come on," said the man behind us, " the driver has driven off the edge of the road. We will get another bus."
Unsure whether this was a fact or a plan we followed him into the dark. We were out of town, there were no taxis, or even houses. Ahead of us another bus run by the same transport company had stopped and was letting us all get on board. It was a big shiny red Kia coach.