Easter Weekend at Busua Beach

Thursday afternoon, the four obrunis of Kasoa commenced a weekend journey to the beach. 

The journey began by tro-tro. Tro-tro: Definition: rickety vehicle equivalent in size to an airport shuttle van, crammed with 30+ cranky Ghanaians and, on this Thursday, four naive  obrunis trying to soak up some holiday sun. Five  massively sweaty hours later we transferred to a taxi, and another hour later we rolled into the blacked-out town (brief electrical failures are very common all across Ghana) of Busua. We had just travelled a little less than the equivalent of Seattle to Portland on roughly six American dollars.

We checked into our homestay at "Auntie Elizabeth's" for another 10 cedi per night each, or less than 5 American dollars. The locks on our doors were literally identical to the one I had on my diary in fourth grade. Super safe, right? We optimistically decided yes, dropped our minimal belongings and headed to the beach. 

That night I had my first Ghanian beer, served in 750 ml bottles. After sweating all day in the tro-tro, we were all starving and parched and the Ghanaian equivalent of PBR beer was like heaven. Our food took forever to arrive, cooked by "Auntie Florence" in a little shack-like restaurant feeding the town from a Coleman stove. We headed to bed happy, stuffed and buzzed.The next morning I paid the price. Dehydration had set in, paired with the beer and strange food. My stomach was not a happy camper. However, Auntie Eliabeth had cooked amazing fried crepe-like "special pancakes" served with sliced bananas and avocado. We also had the luxury of coffee! Who cared if it was instant Nescafé powder? We were thrilled. I managed a little special pancake and a cup of coffee and hoped it would settle the unpleasantness I was feeling.

That day we spent on the beach with another female traveler we met at breakfast, from England. The other great part about this town, there were more obrunis! It was nice to be a little bit less of the minority than in Kasoa, where we live as the only white people and get heckled and stared at consistently. That day we slack-lined on a line set up on the beach, kicked a soccer ball around with locals, played in the water, surfed, and burned in the African sun. (...fine, I speak for myself here. The other girls toasted nicely. I am the unfortunate lone tomato of the crew.) 

We met Ben, the owner of the Black Star Surf Shop. Ben is a mid-twenties blonde from the UK who was awarded a grant to start a business in Busua after falling in love with the town while volunteering short-term. He moved to Ghana permanently and opened up the shop, which along with its rival surf business, is by far the main attraction of the area. He's regarded as a local and is beloved and respected by both visiting obrunis and the Ghanaians alike. I was beyond impressed with his story and life track.

There were many activities planned for the Easter weekend, the highlight being a widely advertised but vaguely described "Jungle Party" planned for Saturday night in, you guessed it, the jungle. It was the talk of the town from the moment we arrived. There was plenty of action on the beach that evening too, a huge sound system had been set up at Black Star and there were several young locals participating in a rap-off. It was wild, mostly a very distinct electronicy reggae-ish beat style peppered with the "rap air horn" and a lot of putting your hands in the air. 

We enjoyed the action on the beach for awhile. At one point a few Ghanaian little girls came up and started playing with my hair. They spent a good twenty minutes "braiding" it into a tangled mess (that would later lead to significant hair loss while trying to run a brush through it). I loved how bold the girls were though, and how much fun they had playing hair salon with the obruni. 

Saturday morning the other girls decided to check out a semi-nearby village built on stilts. My stomach was definitely not going to cooperate with a two hour tro-tro ride. I had also made endless promises to my family before leaving that I would avoid rivers and canoes after hearing about a crocodile incident in Tanzania (doesn't matter that it's a completely different country) years ago. My two year old niece Sam had warned me with a giant "chomp chomp chomp!" complete with arm motions of crocodile jaws, and my silly fear combined with upset stomach were reason enough for me to stay behind from the excursion that day.

I spent the day with Dave Eggers's "Zeitoun" in a hammock. I also drank out of a real coconut, just to complete the cliche. No complaints about missing out on alligators here.

The other girls arrived home around five pm, one extremely sick and another feeling mildly unpleasant. The functioning among us gathered for dinner back at Auntie Florence's (I didn't have to wait for my dinner here. I had initiated a diet of bananas and Sprite, which would continue for the next four days.) By the time dinner was over, three of us were not doing well, me being in the best shape among us but definitely not 100%. 

Fast forward an hour, and our poor homestay had transformed to an infirmary. I'll spare most of the details, other than to say:

1. I was fine, just drained. And not totally comfortable. But not dying, unlike...

2. Our English friend (here's where you see the importance of anonymity). Who had the most unpleasant, awful, literally gut wrenching violent sickness I have ever seen, and I've been the unfortunate sufferer of some serious stomach flus.

3. Another girl in our group was in a 12 hour fetal position suffering from what was later self-diagnosed as food poisoning  from a hard boiled egg ingested over lunch.

Only two made it to the jungle party. 

One ended up rushed to the hospital 40 minutes away.

One remained in fetal position. 

The remaining was rendered paralyzed by fear over what she had just spent the night witnessing in the next bed over, and wondering what on earth was she doing in Africa!?!? Three guesses on which one that was.

The next morning (Happy Easter!) we got the rundown on our English friend who had been rushed to the hospital. She had malaria. Which she had contracted even while taking her anti-malarial medications, presumably because she had been sick a few weeks earlier and deducted that the medicine hadn't absorbed properly during that time. Terrifying. Once malaria is contracted, a person has it forever, and has to manage flare-ups for his or her life. It's fairly easy to treat if monitored correctly, but still. It's malaria! 

The rest of the trip had a bit of a damper on it. The girls who made it to the jungle party were not feeling hot from the festivities, I still had zero energy and a hateful digestive system, the food poisoning victim was still suffering from that episode, and, obviously, the malaria trumped all those things. We were a sorry crew. But we decided to stick out one more day, mostly to put off the trip back to Kasoa. 

We spent a quiet day recovering, but the fun had to end. In the morning we said our goodbyes to our malaria-ridden English friend, Auntie Elizabeth and Auntie Florence, and made the trip home. It was not a happy 5 hours for anyone on board that tro-tro, but I guarantee the four obrunis aboard were the happiest to arrive back in Kasoa. 

That night I celebrated making it through one week in Ghana.