Day 4 (July 29)

This is Ghana! The EWB crew traveled for over seventeen hours by bus today, from the southern coast to Bolgatanga, just south of the northern border and Burkina Faso. We saw lush low growth develop into towering palms and baobabs under the full moon, banana trees became fields of millet and peanuts, concrete blocks and tin became mud and thatch.

Just five stops in eighteen hours proved a challenge in gastro-logistics. We could not eat and drink quantities that might allow discomfort between pit stops. Evidently, the women’s facility adventures were more aromatic than the men’s, but that is a story you may ask them about another time.

Did you know it can rain inside a bus? It managed to—above Jared’s head. It must have been the lowest spot in the bus for whatever reason, and any dozing was sporadically shattered by a splash of dripped condensation on his nose or leg.

Trotta, a brilliant man, learned than two U-shaped travel pillows are better than one, and enveloped his sleepy skull amidst them. No potholes could wake the armored man!

We arrived in Bolga at 2:30 AM, where our friends, Nich Kumah, Director of the Ghana offices of Afrikids, and “Pok” Apokerah from the Ghana Poultry Network and an extension officer for the Ministry of Agriculture, were awaiting us. Can you believe that these busy men would stay up until such an hour to meet us! Not to mention that the bus had run late; they had been waiting at the bus terminal for over three hours when we finally arrived.

--Jared