It is Friday. We leave work early to go to a different orphanage, Home of Hope, where Projects Abroad is organising a clean up exercise. The rooms are already empty, all mattresses and beds put outside. On a table shoes are piled up, waiting to be sorted out. The walls have to be scrubbed, as well as the floors. Soon, there is water everywhere, kids having fun pushing it around with mops. Trousers spotted with the blue colour that came off the walls, I withdraw to a small room where other volunteers are sorting out clothes. Each child has a box for his or her clothes but the floor is covered with things as well. One boy helps us bring back some order to the place. We hold up a piece of cloth and he can tell us at once who it belongs to. The room does look tidier when we are finished. After this work, we all go to a park nearby where we have races and play football. A boy comes up to me and says he wants me to win but I have to disappoint him. Having seen me be last, he decides, I am not his friend anymore.
It is time for us to leave anyway as many of us volunteers decided to spend the weekend in Busua, a beach paradise west of Takoradi. The traveling is surprisingly easy. We get Trotros and find taxis without having to wait long and soon arrive at Peter‘s Place, the guesthouse we are staying at. It is already dark though. We buy some food from a woman on the street and I decide to go for an evening swim. Peter‘s Place is directly on the beach. The water has an agreeable temperature for the soft evening air, the waves are low and the ground falls only slowly. This feels wonderful. Still, it is a little bit scary in the darkness and I don‘t stay in the water for too long.
Next morning comes with blue sky above blue ocean. Now I see the little island a small distance out in the sea. The beach is deserted except for two dogs and two or three men strolling along the water. I can‘t resist, change and go for a swim. The water is cooler now after the night and refreshing in the already hot sun. The first volunteers wake up and together we go to see Frank, who has a tiny restaurant on the other side of the road. He makes the most delicious pancakes, we hear, and it is true. They are big, tasty and served with banana and chocolate. They are good.
Melanie and I don‘t want to spend the whole weekend on the beach and decide to go for a day trip to Cape Three Points. We are not sure what we are going to do or see there or how we can get there. But we know it is close and it is the most southern part of Ghana. So we set off to the next main trotro station and ask for a Trotro to Cape Three Points. There is a Trotro, they say. It is on its way and will be here soon. However, it is the only Trotro that day and there won‘t be a car to take us back. We should take a taxi instead, explains a man to us. He also mentions he is a tour guide there. At first, we are optimistic that there always is a way back. However, even though we are assured the Trotro will be here any minute, we wait and wait until we don‘t want to wait any longer. After some discussion, we decide to take a taxi, ask the driver to wait for us there and bring us back again. We also ask the man who said he is a tour guide to come with us. We‘d pay for his taxi and he‘d give us a tour for free. He agrees and off we go. The driver takes a second boy with him and we don‘t ask why. The road is dirt and stones. Dust comes into the car and covers everything with a reddish brown layer. We listen to Ghanaian music and enjoy the ride. Climbing up a hill, the car stops. We roll back. We stop, move forward and roll back again. I see us getting out of the car and pushing but then the wheels get a better grip and the car is heaved on top of the hill, racing downwards again. Finally we get out of the car at some dilapidated buildings. The driver‘s friend‘s hair and eyebrows lost their former colour. It looks very funny. Only later I hear that they are constructing a guesthouse here. To be honest, it wouldn‘t be the best location to attract tourists. There is nothing but rough coastline. Beautiful coastline, though. While the driver wipes the dust from his car, we are led to some rocks pointing into the sea and our eyes follow the coast in both directions. This is the second spit of land of the three points that gave the place its name and it is the one that reaches furthest out in the water. Melanie speaks out loud what I am thinking. We could stand here for hours and watch the waves break on the rocks, splashing high into the blue sky, palm trees and other green bush in our back, to our left and to our right. The view is even better from the top of the lighthouse. I feel like falling backwards when I climb up the stairs but it is definitely worth it. The view along the coast is stunning, amazing, beautiful. Again, I could spend hours here. Unfortunately, we promised our driver not to linger there too long so we set off again, back along the dusty road. We stop at the village, a group of mud houses. The villagers are either farmers or fishermen here, explains Bernard, our guide. He directs us through the huts to the beach, where the boats are laying. Some children are playing in the water, other villagers are sitting in the shadows. One young man is getting a new hair cut. Probably most villagers are at work, on their farms or out on the water. The rest watches us, but we are not approached as usual. Only on our way back to the car, a group of children spots our cameras and wants us to take pictures of them. We oblige happily. Then we say goodbye to Bernard and leave the quiet village behind. The road runs through a forest and only now I realise what I saw on our way earlier. To almost every tree a small bowl is attached in which a liquid that runs down spiral cuts in the trunk‘s bark is collected. Rubber, explains our driver. It is too soon that we come across a tarmac street and head back to Busua.
Melanie and I hurry along the one main road Busua seems to consist of to get the highly recommended egg sandwich at a stall. While we were traveling, I didn‘t feel that I was that hungry. The sun is already low when we join the others. The water is high now, leaving only a small strip of sand. It is refreshing when I jump in to wash the dust of my skin. The waves are stronger than in the morning though and suddenly I find myself too far from the beach. It is difficult to swim back as the waves pull me to the open sea and my feet barely touch the ground. The sea is always stronger, I think as a catch my breath looking back to the water.
Dinner is rice and spaghetti with a very hot sauce from the street and then we sit together at Alaska, the neighbouring guesthouse, and enjoy the evening. They have a hammock there, between palm trees, facing the sea. A bonfire has been lit and some drummers entertain everyone who wants to stop and listen.
Next morning, we allow ourselves a second breakfast of Frank‘s pancakes and swim one last time in the refreshing water. It soon is very hot again, too hot for healthy sunbathing so we retire to the shadows under Alaska‘s roofs and have lunch before we finally set off to Cape Coast.
