Movin' On Up

So I officially ended my Cross-Cultural Solutions program on July 23rd and have been in Tamale for the past 4 days. My goodbyes in Hohoe were difficult, and a little too rushed for my liking, but perhaps it was better to have it all happen quickly rather than dwelling on it. My last day at the school was awesome. I took a ton of photos with the kids and staff and despite all the hugging and "farewell for now"s it seemed like more of a celebration and a temporary goodbye than anything else. A couple of my girls cried, which broke my heart, but I reassured them I would be back to visit one day and that I would stay in touch through letters and photos in the meantime. And I meant it--despite all the challenges Ghana has handed me since I arrived here the kids at Gbi Special School made it all worth it. They made me fight to get better quickly when I was in the hospital and stopped me from booking a flight home early multiple times. They are the one thing I have never lost faith in while I have been here, and I would never fathom leaving such amazing relationships behind once I get back home. Just before I left the school I handed out lollipops to all the kids, which caused complete chaos. The processing company of those suckers definitely gets the award for most child-proof packaging--not a good thing considering I had 100 of those lollipops to open up. Anyway, it was a good time and I left feeling happy only having shed tears of joy.
I left for Tamale on a 3AM bus Saturday morning. My first leg of the journey was from Hohoe to Kumasi and took about 7 hours. It wasn't so bad because the bus was pretty empty and I was able to nap a little across some of the seats. The second half, from Kumasi to Tamale, was insanity. The bus was full, every seat taken and the aisles piled full of people's things including bulk packages of food. I had to bribe the driver $5GH just to make sure my luggage made it into the storage compartments underneath. And, of course, I ended up in a seat right between the two largest ladies on the bus. So I really had more of 1/2 a seat and was unable to move during the entire 8 hour bus ride up to Tamale. On the bright side I met two really friendly people who looked out for me--Valentine (a student from Rwanda who is studying Tourism, Hospitality, and Management in Accra) and Victoria (a business woman married to an army sergeant, also from Accra but originally from Tamale).
My first night in Tamale I stayed in a really sketchy place called Las Hotel. The rooms were decent, but pretty rundown, and the building looked like a warehouse inside with really ugly yellow-brown walls. To top it all off the nightclub on the ground-floor had re-opened since the last time the Bradt Guide was updated so there was music blaring and drunk people yelling outside all night long. I whipped out my earplugs for the first time since arriving in Ghana and managed to get a pretty good sleep. The only brownie points the place got was being located beneath the best Chinese Restaurant in town (so I had a really good veggie noodle dish for dinner) and having a receptionist who couldn't do math properly and accidentally forgot to add the VAT taxes to my hotel bill.
On Sunday I moved to The Tamale Institute of Cross Cultural Studies Guesthouse, which is located in a much better neighbourhood, has extremely clean rooms, friendly staff, is less expensive, and has a lovely compound with a courtyard and library full of books on Ghanaian culture and history. It is also right around the corner from Swad Fast Foods, a terrific restaurant with an extensive vegetarian section on the menu. I was in heaven. There are also a ton of international travelers who stay at the Guesthouse so I had no trouble finding people to hang out with, which was nice. On my first night I had dinner with a Dane, a Swede, and an Australian and quite enjoyed myself!
Monday was a busy day! I went to meet Abdul-Malik and his family in Tuunaayili, a suburb of Gumani. He has grown up so much since the last time we received a picture of him. No more baby fat and a lot taller than he used to be! He's still adorable though, and his shy mannerisms just make him that much more loveable. Our visit went extremely well and afterward I was taken to meet a women's cooperative that was established as part of a microfinance program that our monthly donations help to support. I will likely post more about Christian Children's Fund and their activities in another blog later today--I was happy to discover the organization is very legitimate and completely transparent. After my adventures I was feeling pretty weak and realized I had sunburned my scalp pretty badly (I had my hair plaited) and was likely suffering from heat stroke so I spent the rest of my day in bed.
Yesterday was pretty low key. I bummed around my room, wrote a really long journal entry, napped, and started my internship report. Last night I went out for dinner at Swad with two girls from Harvard who are here working on thesis papers. They are really nice and I had a lot of fun.
Today I am just going to be running errands and exploring Tamale a little more. It's raining so I'm not really looking forward to walking around outside but oh well! Tomorrow I'm off to Mole to see some elephants and on Saturday I head to Accra! I will likely post a little more later on, so stay tuned!