BECA Travels: June 5, 2012 Kpando

June 5, 2012

We arrived in Kpando yesterday.  Amazing! Edem, the head of HardtHaven, met us at the airport, and it was wonderful to see him.

The glitches that began our trip continued through the journey up to seeing Edem at the airport.  Due to traffic at SFO, the plane left San Francisco an hour late, which cut our time in Amsterdam.  We had planned a trip into the city of Amsterdam for our six-hour layover, but the SFO delay cut the time.  Then we had trouble storing our carry-ons – the lockers provided in the airport for just such a purpose didn’t all work, so we had to wait for one of our lockers to be opened and to re-store some of our stuff.  Then we got our passports stamped and headed for the train into Amsterdam, but none of our cards – neither credit nor debit – worked in the ticket machines. So . . . we decided it wasn’t meant to be . . . and we just wandered around the airport.  Quite an amazing airport, with a free museum, a library, wonderful tulip and Dutch pottery décor, and any shop you might want.  We headed to our gate in time for the flight to Accra, only to learn that the battery on the new KLM plane didn’t work.  Rather than fix it, the crew decided to put us on a different plane.  But that meant another delay of about 2 ½ hours.  I tried to contact Sonjelle and Edem by email, but that didn’t work.  I’m not sure how – or whether – Edem found out that the plane was to be late.  And THEN Karla didn’t find her bag in baggage when we arrived.  We waited around for the last possible moment – and then talked with the baggage people.  Meanwhile, some of us had met Edem, and he came into the airport to talk with the baggage folks on our behalf.  Fortunately, Karla had moved her clothing into her carry on, which meant that the lost bag didn’t harm her as much as it might have.  But it was one more glitch!

All of us piled our luggage and ourselves into an air-conditioned bus – welcome given the heat and heavy humidity that hit us upon leaving the plane. We went to the guest house that had been arranged for us, and hit the bed. Also used for Peace Corps volunteers, the guest house is simple, safe, clean and modest.  We found a lack of running water – bucket showers – and buckets to use to flush the toilets – for the first time on the trip.

After breakfast and our first writing prompt of the trip, we went to an internet café before leaving to run errands at the shopping mall! Complete with Birkenstock and Swatch watch stores and a food court, the mall felt completely out of place in Ghana. Even so, Edem stocked up on groceries, we got cell phones, and we had a quick lunch before driving the four hours to Kpando.

The countryside is green, and we traveled across the Volta River and Lake Volta – now the second-largest man-made lake in the world since the Chinese dammed the Yangtze River.  There was plenty to look at along the way.  We finally rolled in to Kpando at dusk, settled into our rooms – separate large rooms with bunk beds for the “boys” and the “girls,” with Jean-Pierre and me each in single rooms. After dinner under the stars, we gratefully fell asleep.