Top 10 West African Things I Will Miss

10. Vibrant markets - always the same, always different. The further north you go, the more colorful they get. The best tourist activity in every city and all the villages you pass along the way.
9. Fresh tropical fruits and juices everywhere - floral mangos, juicy pineapples, tart tamarind, ruby red hibiscus, and spicy ginger.
8. Clay homes with thatched roofs and granaries - depending on where you go, the styles may differ, but the concept is the same.
7. Laws of physics taken to its limits - self made jalopies loaded with passengers and stacked with cargo and women using their heads to transport anything from ceramic jars of water to a pile of wood for cooking.
6. Dusty, red, potholed, unpaved roads.
5. To in Burkina, pate in Togo/Benin, and tizet in Ghana - a cheap street starch that always comes with a tomato based meat or fish stew. Think dry, thick Farina.
4. Getting back to basics and off the grid - brown-outs, bucket showers, and squatting in holes.
3. The sweltering heat - 100degF and hotter is still better than snow, any day.
2. The ORIGO guys - Paulin for organizing and storing the junk now being sent to Brooklyn, Marcel's swift maneuvering to avoid potholes, people and livestock on the road, and Soul for always looking after our best interests and tolerating Alex's difficult moments.
1. The genuine smiles and bonne arrivees you are greeted with everywhere you go.

If you go, go with ORIGO

If you have the urge to see Africa as it was and continues to be, check out Origo. But don't expect luxurious accommodations and western meals. They will give you a West Africa that puts you a little bit closer to how the people actually live it. And so far, we love every bit of it.

Market Maze

We snaked our way through the biggest market in West Africa - Kejetia or the Central Market as it's known in Kumasi. And on Sunday, it seemed like some of the merchants decided to sleep in.

A Date!

It's official: January 24, 2011. First stop, Belgium! I know, Belgium doesn't sound very adventurous. We have to pay a visit to the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) for our shots. Travel medicine is hardly ever covered by insurance in the US and certainly not by NYC Dept of Ed's insurance policy! The agent at the ITM stated that our shots in the US would cost 4x more in the US than in Belgium. That was a no brainer. We'll be there a week and then hopping on a 10 hour flight to Accra, Ghana.

Unfortunately, the plans to meet up with my former professors and some current OT students have been nixed. Just could not get it together before the end of January. And since the next semester begins in February, they'll be long gone by the time we get there. We decided to stick to Accra anyway. At a recent Christmas get together, we met someone who is married to a Ghanian and was there recently. She said that it was fairly hassle free to get around and would be easy with a kid.

The Travel Independent website speaks frankly about the pros and cons of West African travel. This author found Ghana to be a highlight in the region for it's friendly people, better developed (by W. African standards!) infrastructure, and variety of things to see and do. Buses that run on time? Good cheap food, beer and accommodations? And yet no McDonald's in sight? All sounds just right to me.

Back to School in Ghana

Looks like this vacation is going to begin with work - or I should say, school. Recently, I received a flyer in the mail from the NYU Occupational Therapy department. I thought to myself - Doesn't NYU have enough of my money??? But upon skimming the specialty courses, I discovered that my former professor, Anita Perr, was offering a course titled: Disability in a Global Context: Ghana. And it was scheduled for January. I took this as a sign that we definitely had to start in West Africa, and that now, there was a purpose, and there was a definite place to start. Shortly after I put this together, I e-mailed Anita with our tentative plans and basically offered free labor for this course. I waited and waited for a response. But nothing. Did she forget who I was? Was she not allowed to take former students who were too cheap to pay for the course? Did she think I was trying to get a plane ticket and lodging? Did the e-mail end up in her spam? After 2 weeks I got this response:

Hi Christine,

I was hoping to have some answers for you but can't wait any longer to email you back. I'm SO excited about this. Karen Buckley and I are co-teaching so I'm copying this to her too. We'll be in Accra Jan 4- 3(ish). I will send you the schedule when I know it. I'd like to figure out a way to get you involved in the class. I think we can figure out some guest lecture/dinner or something at the very least.

Anyway, we'll figure something out. How great!!!

Anita (and Karen)

I suppose this means I can start searching for tickets to Accra. My Lonely Planet Africa guide has named Ghana: Africa for beginners. We surely aren't beginners to Africa, but looks like were going to begin this adventure there. Anyone have contacts in Ghana? Better yet, any Ghanian babysitter recommendations?

Looking at the Map

So the big question is: where are you guys going? Here is the tentative itinerary:

1. Africa: Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Niger, Cameroon, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt
2. Middle East: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan
3. Asia: India, Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, China, Japan
   
4. Australia and New Zealand

Latin/South America and Europe are being left out due to our (relative) proximity to these places. If anyone has any suggestions about these places, please let us know. We are very open to adding and deleting. We like it somewhere, we stay. We don't, we move on.