The Trip: USA to Dalun

On May 28^th I flew out of John F. Kennedy International Airport in NYC on a 6:30 pm flight. First, I would fly from JFK to Amsterdam Schiphol. From there I would go to Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana.

The plane landed in Amsterdam around 8 am local time, which made it very early in the USA. My cell phone was no longer working, so I called my Mom from a pay phone to let her know the first leg of the trip was over, and had gone well!

I was very exhausted at this point, so once I boarded the next plane I slept most of the way to Accra. Every now and then I would wake up and realize “I’m almost in Africa!” and as the sun moved lower and lower in the sky my nervous excitement grew. It was dark when the plane landed and as we walked onto the tarmac I breathed in African air for the first time. There was a dry freshness to the air, and we were emerged in an orange glow from the lights of the airport.

My guesthouse was located near “Circle,” the shortened name for the Kwame Nkrumah Circle, which is a very busy area of Accra named for one of Ghana’s first President. Circle was bustling with people selling things, others just strolling and making noise.

The next day I explored Accra and had some interesting conversations with locals about their perceptions of education and northern Ghana. A man I met in my guesthouse lobby expressed that in the south of Ghana public education is inadequate, the teachers are not being supervised by superiors, and the students are not being supervised by the teachers. He said that if you want your child to have a real education you have to pay for them to go to private school, which is very expensive. His perception of education in the north was that the free public education was much better, but families do not push their children to go to school and do not take advantage of the “free” education. He also mentioned that he has never been to the north before, and I left our conversation very interested to see how his opinions of the north meshed with my experience of it.

I bought my STC bus ticket and prepared to make the ride to the north. The next day we left Accra on the STC bus around 8 am. I felt very lucky to be in seat number two, right behind the driver, with a spectacular view out of the front window of the bus. I quickly learned a lot about driving in Ghana, foremost that horns are used very frequently to move people, animals, and other vehicles out of the way. Horns are also used when passing, which happens often; I soon learned not to be scared as our bus careened into the opposite lane to pass a car in front of us. As we rode over bumpy dirt roads towards Tamale I took in the gorgeous lush landscape, very jungle-esque in parts, and less so in other parts. Villages appeared suddenly out of the brush: mud huts with thatch roofs dotting the road and disappearing as quickly as they appeared as the bus flashed past.

By 9 pm we were in Tamale, where Fatawu and Habib picked me up. They brought me to the Simli Center, my new home, and I was so happy and relieved to have finally made it to Dalun!