12 Hour Bus Ride to Tamale

The bus I traveled to Tamale in!

This is small bus station that I waited at before I boarded my bus to Tamale.

A street vendor at the bus station in Accra.It is very common for vendors to balance their products on their head.

Daniel: My Unite for Sight Co-Volunteer!

Buses have always been villains in my life. I despise long bus journeys due to many bad experiences with bumpy potholes, throwing up in plastic bags, trees falling in the pathway and incredibly horrible weather.

Surprisingly my twelve hour trip to Tamale was very comfortable and I learned a lot of random facts about Ghana. Oh, I completely forgot I first have to introduce you to my sidekick/ Co-UFS Volunteer that will be accompanying me on this entire trip: Daniel Yeboah–Kordieh. Daniel is a 21-year-old born Ghanaian that is currently a sophomore at Princeton University in New Jersey. Daniel attended one of the top high schools in Ghana : Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School and then for his last two years came to an international high school in New Mexico. He currently is pursuing a major in Chemistry at Princeton and wanted to get a taste of Public Health through this Unite for Sight program.

Daniel was the perfect companion on the bus and on this trip because he has such passion for public health, he knows enough about the U.S. culture and at the same time he has a lot of knowledge on Ghana and its conditions!

Here are just some of the things I learned on the bus trip to Tamale:

1.Ghanaians are never on time and are just like Indians – always running late. My bus ticket said that boarding time was 10 A.M. Guess what time I got on the bus? 1 p.m. Many people assured me that this would happen more than once and that if I don’t want to wait, I should always come late.
2. The people of Ghana are obsessed with the Bollywood industry. Bollywood stars are used for ads, the music is sold on the streets and many Ghanaian channels play Bollywood movies with Ghanaian subtitles. When people saw that I was Indian – they were trying to impress me by showing the Hindi they learnt from the Bollywood movies. The two Hindi words most people knew: Pyaar (love) and Nahi Nahi (No No).
3.The Ashanti tribe is the largest tribe in Ghana and one of the few matrilineal societies in West Africa. They are known for the splendor and wealth of their rulers; they are most famous today for their craft work.
4.Soups are the primary component in Ghanaian cuisine and are eaten with fufu (either pounded plaintain and cassava or yam), kokonte (cassava meal cooked into a paste), banku (fermented corn dough).
5.Soccer is a religion in Ghana. Everywhere you look people are wearing soccer jerseys, playing soccer, selling soccer balls, watching soccer and there are many statues of important soccer players.
6. As I looked outside my window and we passed the cities of Accra and Kumasi, I noticed that Ghana's urban centers were dominated by European-style buildings, a reminder of its British colonizers.

Daniel also introduced me to a lot of African Music Artists and I love the diversity of African pop,rock and rap.

Here is an African Song that I currently cannot get out of my head:

Click to listen: No One Like You - P-Square

Oi eh eh eh eh!!

Well anyway, I am almost in Tamale and I will write more when I reach there! Tomorrow is my first day at the Tamale Teaching Hospital with Dr. Wayne! I will get to shadow him and observe cataract surgeries!