Jan 13 2008
100% Humidity, Rations & A Botel
A few days ago I checked weather.com for Accra Ghana. I was stunned to see highs of 91 and lows of 77 with 100% humidity. I don’t think I will be wearing my Signing Time sweater while we are there. We are basically going to live in a sauna for 10 days. Feel free to check out weather.com while we are traveling. You can see what time it is in Ghana. Ghana is 7 hours ahead of Utah.
Today I rationed out all of our food that we are bringing to Africa. We have dinners “catered” each night - I can’t wait to report on what they make for us. From what I hear it is mush and spicy stuff and always a hard boiled egg. Breakfast and lunch are up to us. I guess the easiest way to describe packing for this trip is to imagine a game. In this game you can’t bring chocolate or anything that will melt. You can’t bring anything that you don’t mind eating even if it is smashed to bits. You can’t bring anything that might pop or explode under pressure, turbulence and general baggage handling. Only bring things you are sure you want to eat even if they are warm. Bring small packaging, but not too small if it has extra wrappers. Think Skittles, not Starburst. Bring things that don’t require refrigeration… remember if the power is on for 20 hours, it will soon be off for 20 hours.
I had bought some dried apricots and dried blueberries as well as a huge bag of trail mix with dried fruit in it, but I realized the fruit will probably plump up in 100% humidity and end up moldy. I will return those tomorrow. Besides we can eat fruit there, as long as it has a thick rind that is cut off. We can eat bread there as well. We packed peanut butter and tuna fish and beef jerky as our main protein. I laid the food out for each person and then put 2 days worth of food in a gallon ziplock bag. That way we can grab a ziplock and toss it in our backpack every couple of days.
We can’t eat a lot of things. No vegetables unless thoroughly cooked. No thin skinned fruits. From what I have read it is best to consider all water polluted unless it is bottled and brought in from somewhere else like Europe. SO I am thinking no fish:) Most people can’t afford meat. It’s sort of like Survivor Ghana - but only for 10 days.
I found 3 skirts for Leah and 2 for me on ebay. Walmart had t-shirts for $2.50. I have 4 dark blue shirts and 4 bright blue shirts. When you see the pictures and it looks like I only have 2 shirts, just know I actually have a fresh one each day. Curry from SOHI suggested a shirt a day rather than doing laundry (BUT remember we don’t want to look like we have 10 different shirts). Our laundry would be done by hand by the girls (me and Leah) some locals would come show us how to do it, which by all accounts means scrubbing until your hands blister. In the humidity your clothes take 3 days to dry. While drying, bugs land and lay eggs, so you have to iron everything before wearing to kill the bugs and eggs.
Since we are there over a weekend, we will be able to travel. Now, Ghana is not safari Africa with lions, it is more rainforest Africa with monkeys. We will visit Kakum National Park When we travel we will be staying at a botel. Say hotel but with a “B”. You may be asking what is a botel? Well it’s a hotel over water and the best part is there are crocodiles in the water. (of COURSE there are!)
Remember when I suggested you ought to donate just to see what happens next… yeah that was before I knew we were sleeping over crocodiles…. LOL If you haven’t Chipped In already, what are you waiting for???
