Christmas on the Beach

Weekend #2 here in Dodowa has come to a close, and it was definitely a success. All three of us have been determined from the start to take full advantage of our time here in Ghana and travel and do as many things as possible. So even though we stayed around Dodowa last weekend, as we were still in the process of getting settled, we knew that this weekend held much more promise for a travel adventure in lieu of staying home and staring at our computers! We started small and found out about a place not far from here called Kokrobite beach. Our travel books identified Big Milly’s Backyard as THE place to be, but since it was booked by the time we called, we settled on another place called Barbara’s Village. Not really knowing exactly what we’d find when we got there, we set out on Saturday morning on a tro-tro to then take a taxi out to Kokrobite. Besides the fact that it was the scariest taxi ride of my life (passing another car as you go around a bend as an oncoming car speeds towards you is not my idea of a good time), I could smell the sea air as we passed Big Milly’s and continued towards Barbara’s Village, so I was extremely excited to see where we would be staying. The bumpy dirt road brought us up to an enclosed little village, with beautiful flowers and trees, as well as a few small log huts and circular orange houses with straw roofs. A large area in the center of the circular village boasted low comfy chairs around wooden tables with a bar in the middle, and an eating area stood ten steps away from that. It was a peaceful little slice of paradise, quiet and secluded. Barbara, an Eastern European woman who runs the place, greeted us with a welcoming smile, and showed us our house, one of the orange huts. It was very simple, basically just one big room with a small bathroom (with running water, a definite bonus) partitioned off. It was still before noon when we arrived, so it left us plenty of time to go exploring. We headed to the beach under a disappointingly cloudy sky, and were greeted by the sound of crashing waves and foaming surf. One long beach walk and several sea shells later, we decided to continue on to Big Milly’s to get lunch. We could immediately see why Big Milly’s was such a popular place to stay. It had a similar set-up to Barbara’s village in that it had various small houses for guests to sleep in, but things here were much livelier and tourist-y. A variety of vendors sold souvenirs, clothes, and artwork, and a sign promised Friday and Saturday live music. A lunch of burgers, fries, and chocolate ice cream was the perfect departure from our usual fare, and the other patrons of Milly’s made for valuable people-watching, especially since we are not at all used to seeing anyone that looks even vaguely similar to us. We ended up spending the rest of our afternoon at Milly’s, where the award for creative African name of the day went to Christmas, a hulking guy with arms the circumference of a watermelon. Second place went to Jaguar, whom we met later that night when he and his friend Ari offered to give us drumming and dancing lessons at Barbara’s. Not going to pass that up, right? So I now have a super cool dance combination as well as a drum solo to perform when I get home. Our subsequent analysis of the videos taken of the lessons confirmed my suspicions that we all looked completely ridiculous trying to dance and drum like Africans-what a shocker. Other highlights of the weekend included finding a tro-tro for the first time on our own without Oti’s help (even though we got off too early for where we meant to go), stumbling upon a delicious gelato shop after making said tro-tro mistake on the way back to Accra (and making gelato our lunch for the day!), and discovering a taxi driver who will drive us from Accra to Dodowa for only 30 cedis (and without flying down the road with no regard for oncoming traffic/speed bumps/the safety of the people in his cab). The little victories are so exciting. Speaking of small victories that hold not nearly the same weight back at home, we also did laundry for the first time last night after returning from the beach! Using five buckets to soak and rinse, then stringing a clothesline across our front porch, we couldn’t have been prouder to see all of our clothes hanging up this morning. Stay tuned as to whether we actually rinsed them well enough and got all of the soap out…