Day 9 - Of Monkeys and Security Guards

Sunday, March 20 – Day 9

I fed a monkey a banana today. It was awesome.

After staying out at the bar until the horrendously late hour of midnight (a far cry from the usual 9:30), we woke up shortly before 5 AM to go see monkeys. We enjoyed actual interior lighting and a flush toilet for the first time in ages; Dodowa’s electricity has been off more often than on during my stay thus far and we use a half-bucket of water to flush our toilet since the volunteer house has no running water. “Simple” things greatly aid many pre-sunrise actions.

Tamar, Emily, and I were able to get seats on a mostly full trotro headed north to Hohoe by 5:15 AM. The last seat took 30 minutes to fill and trotros depart when full so it was 6 AM when we reached the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary turn-off. It took us another ten minutes to reach the sanctuary itself by motorbike. My last-choice mode of transport, it was an ‘opportunity’ that thrilled Tamar and Emily. Fortunately, our driver (Tamar and I shared as I refused to be the single) went fairly slowly and knew the quiet dirt road very well. Wonderfully, our guide arranged for a trotro to swing through and get us on the way back and Emily joined me in expressing a 0 to -10 interest in another longer ride.

A friendly local guide named Michael met us at the Sanctuary entrance, collected a bag of bananas from somewhere, and led us onto a path in the forest. Suddenly, a monkey darted here or there high in the trees. Very soon, we reached a pair of branches that had grown across where the path now is about six feet off the ground. Our guide made his monkey-call noise and three Mona monkeys appeared on the branch in front of us. We spent the next 20 minutes or so happily feeding the speedy little monkeys bananas. They jumped from their perches to a banana-bearing arm and unpeeled at race pace. It was so much fun.

Note: Bananas do, it seems, have their purpose: attracting monkeys.

The rest of the day passed in a tumult of moments. We went back to the main junction for breakfast of the local variety – rice, beans, red sauce, and fish – at the roadside. It was 8 AM and felt like the afternoon. (Indeed, I accidentally greeted someone with “good afternoon” on the way out of the sanctuary and had to quickly correct myself.) Tamar made friends with a group of the motorbike drivers, who walked over to chat until we caught a trotro back to Ho. A random guy with dreadlocks and a picture of Jesus hanging from a sign around his neck gave Emily a book of love poems as we hopped into the tro after she complimented his hair.

A view of Ho

Once in Ho, we met up with Eric again and caught a trotro with him back to Dodowa. At one of the police blockades that check vehicles about once an hour along the main roads (mostly for traffic violations such as too many passengers in a trotro), we all had to get out of the vehicle and walk to the other side of the blockade. A guard sitting under a tent summoned Emily, Tamar, and I for questioning as we crossed. That conversation summarized:

Guard: Do you have your passports?

Us: No. [We were advised that we don’t need them in-country and they’re safer left at home.]

G: Why are you in Ghana?

U: Volunteering.

G: What organization?

U: Volunteer Corps Ghana.

G: How long have you been here?

U: Two months; one week; five weeks.

G: Do you have proof of volunteering? They should have given you volunteer cards.

U: No.

G: You don’t have volunteer cards?

U: No.

G: Okay, you can go. [He waves us off.]

If it weren’t Ghanaian security, that could have gone much worse.

[Note from the future: One of our few other direct encounters with Ghanaian security took place at a bank in Medina. Emily, Sophie, Niki, and I went to an ATM we had been to once before. The security guard, who had kindly pointed us to the ATM just outside the bank's door on our first visit, wandered outside to say hello. He proceeded to ask Emily if she would marry him. When she politely declined, he turned to Sophie and asked her to marry him. Ah, budding love.]

The rest of the three-hour tro ride was uneventfully smooth except for us getting a flat tire just before Dodowa which the driver swapped out with minimal fuss. I got a FanChoco out the tro window when we stopped for gas. It tasted like a Wendy’s frosty in a bag. Delicious. We spent the next five-ish hours, before a very late dinner, at the orphanage, where Eric held a mini-clinic to examine as many kids as feasible. Emit and Chica drew all over my skin with (washable) markers. Beauty fell asleep in my arms, which was wonderful.