Are you going to Takoradi?

Transportation in Cape Coast is rather interesting. There are thousands of taxis that are constantly driving up and down the roads. If you're going to town, you flag down a cab, hop in, and get off where you want to the tune of about 35 cents, or pesewa. Taxis are definitely the most common form of transportation for getting around town. The majority of the cars have a religious phrase, usually in Fante, on the back windshield. Sometimes they are unintelligible English, like "Culture" or "Great Paul" or "Touch Me Jesus Still". For longer trips, one takes a trotro. A trotro is a 15 passenger van that one can travel in for at least over an hour for less than a dollar, or a cedi. At the junction of the road I take to school and the main road the school is on, there are usually several trotros driving pask. The main road leads to Takoradi, which is where the title of this blog comes from. Almost every morning I am yelled at from a man leaning out the open door of a trotro, "Where are you going? Takoradi! Takoradi!" Or sometimes, even, approached by someone and asked bluntly, "Are you going to Takoradi?" Leigh, Sara, Nordia, and I, who walk to school together, are always confused by these people. Do they see a clear group of foreigners and think that they MUST be going to Takoradi? What's so great about Takoradi? Is it Ghana's hidden Shangri-la? I'm currently not going there, so I suppose I'll never find out. Leigh and I are tempted to one morning respond, "Yes, we ARE going to Takoradi! What a coincidence!" Or, in response to the hundreds of rapidfire "Where are you going"s, we would like to say, "I don't know! I was thinking about Accra, but Kumasi is supposed to be nice, right? (then, yelling as they drive away) WAIT, WAS THAT AN EXISTENSIALIST QUESTION?!"

Tomorrow I leave for the North of Ghana. I'm going to see Bonwire (the home of Kente cloth), a carving village, the slave resistance walls in Gwollu, Mole national animal reserve (moneky and elephants! yay!), a leather market, and several other things I'm forgetting about currently. My internet access will be spotty whilst there, but expect an extended entry around the 25th of March.

If you have any souvenir requests, now would be the time to make them!
Love and miss you all!
Emily

p.s. Alex and Uncle Matt- My e-mail is acting a little wonky right now, so I wanted to give you a reply on here- Of course I will do Flat Stanley! Keith, Deb, and Christina did that for me when I was in elementary school when they lived in California. I can't find a color printer here, so I think the photoshop option would be best. I'll use my tiny llama, Gaston, as a Flat Stanley place holder for now. I will send you some pictures upon my return from the north. I hope that's soon enough for the assignment! Take care!