Day 15 (saturday)

The peacocks were aplenty!

Me standing at the gates to the entrance of the kingdom.

Me and the Alaskans (aka, Monica and Alice).

This couple was just fascinating!  As we were originally crossing the street, the woman was walking out of a store and almost stumbled over, fortunately some people were right by her and prevented it, kind of sad.

 

Woke up quick, at about noon, just thought that I had to be in...ok that's not true, I got up at around 5 then laid back down until 6:45.  I went to the kitchen to warm some water for breakfast and decided to do all the dishes from the cakes as well as some others from other house mates so Maureen wouldn't have to and just as I finished, the water was ready.  I went to Maureen's (Abana is her Ghanian name) room and told her I had warmed some water for her for some coffee, to my surprise, she accepted and had a cup with me.  The power is on in the rest of the house but unfortunately not mine (I guess the manager has to go buy some credits).  We waited around for a bit and Maureen rested for a little while and then Monica and Alice (the friends from Alaska) phoned us around 12:30 and we got up and going a short time later.   We met them on campus and brought them back to the house so they could relax for a little while and have some lunch and drop off their bags.   Then...we set off for the Manhyia Palace (the Ashanti Kingdom).   First to ted junction and then another to the palace. We arrived and I was so excited to take pictures and really capture some of the history.  When we first got onto the grounds, there were beautiful peacocks all over the place and the grounds themselves were pretty well manicured.   We got to the office to pay (for local Ghanaians it was 2-3 cedis but for non-locals [mostly what i've been told is the “abruni (means white person in their language)tax”] it was 8-10 cedis) and there were signs everywhere that said “Absolutely NO Photographs!”  I was bummed for sure but was still looking forward to the tour.  We watched a 10 minute video on the history of the kingdom and then began our tour.   Just as we were about to enter the original palace (not the place where the king actually stays...you have to schedule an appointment and they have to invite you to his section of the palace), original being the one constructed by the British in the early 1900's because they demolished it during the war, the guide reminded us to turn our phones on silent or completely off...well, half-way through, guess who forgot that they even had a phone...ME, yep, started ringing, sort of embarrassing but we got a good laugh out of it.  There were so many cool artifacts in the palace like guns from 300 years ago, original knives and various precious metals, statues and furniture (the ceiling fan and refrigerator were more than 50 years old and still worked), old radios and even a television, as well as some wonderful fabric.  We left and had to take a taxi to the stop before ted junction.  Maureen wanted to buy some red plantanes and the other girls wanted to buy some mangos so we crossed the street and waited for Maureen to find what she needed. In the meantime, things started getting quite a bit busier...first, there were a lot of people wearing black traditional clothing (signifying that they had just come to or were going to a funeral), I saw a sweet old lady who walks hunched over (almost at a 90 degree angle), saw a taxi stall in the middle of the road then get side swiped by a huge truck (busted the side view mirror off), watched the girls get the attention for once (they are much more the targets of harassment though and at least 3 people asked for their phone numbers of which they said they didn't have phones) then try to find a taxi home.  We finally got home and showered and Maureen was preparing some dinner. I was excited for the Champions League Final (completely disappointed by the result!) so I watched it in the common room with a couple of the other residents.  It went on for quite some time and by the end I thought I was going to have a heart attack, instead just sick to my stomach (figuratively)...off to bed, what a wonderful day...It's a Beautiful World!