Mole Park, Northern Ghana

"Hi Hunny,

I'm back from my 5 days trip to the North part of Ghana to see the elephants :) I'm glad I did it because I got to know the country better and how people live in many different places. As you know we spent 2 days traveling by bus to get to Tamale, from where we traveled 4 more hours to get to the Mole Park where we would go on the safari. The roads are really bad, and people drive like crazy so we had scary and funny moments. And when we got to place where we would start the safari I was covered in red dust, everywhere. I'm sure you would never recognize me if you saw me like that.

The safari was really nice, I got to ride on the top of a 4x4 jeep with a few other people. We saw many different kinds of antelopes, monkeys, wild hogs, birds, and of course the elephants. They are huge and wild, looking like dinosaurs with their gray and thick layer of weather-beaten skin. The real thing! I walked until about 20 feet away from them and when I was all excited taking pictures I had to back up because one of them got "mad" at me because of the flash of my camera, and even the armed ranger got scared. I wish I could send you the picture of his mad face looking at me.

We stopped by Kumasi, our favorite city until now, and got to know more about the history of the Ashanti tribe, one of the main tribes in Ghana. We saw some forts and even a three hundred year old sword.

People up North are mostly Muslims which made things a little harder for us because they clearly didn't like us, or any white people, mainly the ladies who sometimes wouldn't even sell bananas to us. But of course we also met some nice people. I saw many villages where they live in houses that look like Indian houses, made of mud and wood and covered with palm tree leaves, very different and interesting.

I was surprised to see so many people saying they love Brazil and soccer, in many places where they can barely get water to drink, they had Brazilian shirts. And whenever I said I'm Brazilian they would start a half hour conversation about games and the best players, asking me to "please tell Ronaldinho Gaucho that he is the man, the best ever", it was funny. They say Ghanaians became Brazilians when our team is playing :)

After 2 days traveling to get back "home", we arrived tired but were happy we got to see the elephants in their natural habitat as we might never see such a thing anywhere else.

It was one of the little boys' bday yesterday, one of those who came to play soccer with me in front of our house, so I took him and two other friends to the place where they have TV to watch the match Ghana vs. England last night. They were all excited and even though I was so tired I had fun seeing their happy faces, drinking soda and celebrating the end of the game with Ghana scoring in the very last minute.

Today I was back to work at Good Sheperd, and I spent the day working with the kindergarten kids. They are working hard and I can see a big progress after almost two weeks working only with them. It is for sure the hardest thing to do since they basically share the classrooms with 3 other classes, and by noon everyday I have no more voice because I have talk very loud so they can hear me and they don't really pay much attention since there is so much going on around them. But we will get there :) I take them outside a lot and we sit on the shade to read stories and they get to run around and spend some energy. I have plans to organize their "classroom" before I leave to work with the 1st grade, so I got paper with the alphabet, words and pictures to cover the holes on the wall.

There is no water or electricity here, they have a noisy generator outside to get the internet to work, so I got only a few minutes to write to you. I'll try to send the pictures sometime.

muitos beijos

Ely