Jake's Journal of Ghana Trip: Days 1-2

Jake told me last night that he journaled each day that he was in Ghana!!! I was so surprised...I had no idea he was doing this. He wanted me to be able to post each jounral entry here on the blog. It will be great to see what he did and saw each day, and to hear about it all from his perspective. So, here we go....also, lots of pictures are below:

TRIP ONE: 2/11/2009 – 2/18/2009
Day One-Two: 2/11/2009 – 2/12/2009
I wish I could say that the flight to Ghana was uneventful, but then I would be lying to you all. The adventure actually began before we ever left Des Moines, Iowa. As I was walking into the airport I decided I could stuff one more item into my overly packed suitcase. This was not a very good idea because that one extra item must have made the bag slightly overstuffed, and the zipper ripped while trying to close it. I was forced to buy an orange (and if I was really honest, pink) duffel bag for my first trip to Ghana!!

After the bag situation was taken care of it was time to check in and settle in for a long, exciting trip to Africa. But, things would not be that easy. Our first flight was scheduled to fly into Chicago, and we found out it had decided to thunderstorm with wind gusts of 40mph there. So, our original flight was canceled but they put us on the only other flight going to Chicago that day. Since we were scheduled to catch a few other connections throughout the world in order to arrive in Ghana, they had to keep us on track and on time.

Once we finally made it to the gate we were ready to head out. The flight to Chicago was a little exciting as we never were allowed to take our seatbelts off and I thought I was on the worst rollercoaster ride of my life. However, we made it to Chicago safe and sound and we soon would be getting on our connection flight to Frankfurt, Germany and then to Ghana, Africa.

We caught our connection in Germany with time to spare and hopped on the plane to Ghana, or so we thought. After another seven hours of flying we were finally landing, except somehow we were landing in Lagos, Nigeria. Chris Gardner (who was traveling with me) and I looked at each other like “Did we just get on the wrong plane for seven hours?” Luckily the stewardess ensured us we were on the correct flight but we had to stop in Lagos first. She also added that she did not recommend that we leave the plane because Nigeria is not the safest place for foreigners.

We stayed on the plane and waited about one hour and soon we were back in the air off to Ghana, Africa. It was about a 45 minute flight to Ghana and we soon landed and hopped off the plane. To our amazement we were in the middle of a runway and a bus took us up to where we were supposed to pick our luggage up at.

We thought the journey to Ghana was over but to our bewilderment the evening was just beginning. As Chris and I stood around a 16th century baggage terminal waiting for our luggage we noticed that nearly an hour had passed and there were no passengers around us. We were alone with NO LUGGAGE. We ventured over to the “Lost and Found” counter and the desk clerks said ‘we hope your luggage arrives tomorrow’!! At least that is what we think they said. They took our names and said to stop by tomorrow to see if our luggage had arrived.

So, we were in Ghana, Africa with no luggage but I guess who really cared - we were finally there. Pastor Sam was at the airport to meet us and drive us to the City of Ho (which was the former capital of Ghana). Pastor Sam is the individual helping to coordinate our adoption (on the Ghana end of things) of a little 3 year old boy named Solomon. We met Sam and his wife directly outside the airport and after a quick stop at a local convenient store we were on our way to Ho. Chris and I were under the assumption that the city we were heading to was only about 20 minutes away from the airport but soon to our surprise we were on another three hour journey to Ho.

Immediately after leaving the airport in Accra we would begin seeing what Ghana, Africa was all about. To sum it up as quickly as possible, there were people everywhere and every few miles we traveled we went through a new village. There was poverty like I have never seen before with many people living in small clay and straw huts attempting to sell items along the road. As we entered each village there were manmade speed bumps on the road every 100 feet or so. These speed bumps are created by the digging of holes in the road that cover the width of any particular street. There is no speeding through a village and if you decided to try, well, let’s just say one of these manmade speed bumps would be sure to flip your car upside down. After three hours we finally arrived in Ho and our final destination for the day: The Freedom Hotel. We entered our rooms took a shower with ice cold water and we were soon asleep excited for what the next day may bring.

Pool at hotel

Looking out from hotel.

Barber Shop.

Selling bread.

Mechanic

Security guard for our hotel....sleeping!