The cute little land of Osu

A day in Osu (a little town right outside of Osu) provided lots of entertainment for Julie, Leah and me yesterday.  We started off by going to the Ghanaian national museum (mom you should be proud, i willingly went to a museum). It was a nice museum.  Mostly it was about African religion, traditions and slavery.  Overall, informative but kind of...strange with the religion.  I was told that this particular museum has the largest and most intact collection of African artifacts in the world.  Unfortunately, the budget for relics (museums, castles etc) in Ghana is very small.  So, most of the artifacts are in storage.  Sad but more then likely true.  

This is a loom with traditional Keni fabric.  Kenti is the most expensive fabric in Ghana.   

Stools that chiefs sat on.  The stools all have different meanings based on the carvings on the base.   One of the stools was called the woman stool.  A man would buy his wife this particular type of stool after she has given birth. (future suitors, i want a new piece of furniture for every kid :) )

The Goddess of fertility

the priestess...i was slightly uh...creeped out (sorry, but it's true)

Drums! We were told not to touch, hehehe

I was more interested in the dancers.  We learned all about the different styles of dances (if i could remember how to spell them i would tell you all about them)

This dance was really funny!  It's a comical dance where the woman stuffs her booty with pillows and cushions and then shakes it like crazy.  The guy dressed in western/modern attire (note the tie and hat and trousers) and basically just stares at her booty.  It sounded rather funny.

One of the ways of 'showing off' is to call someone out and compare 'magical powers'.    Here the man is showing off the ability to not cut himself with a sharp knife on his tongue.

These are not fighting swords.  They are actually honorary sword things.  After a president is sworn in he has to swear allegiance to Ghana with one of these swords (not quite sure how it all worked, the guide talked really fast and had a heavy accent)

 After the museum we were so hungry! so we went food hunting and look what we found!!!!

Yet another funny African sign

sunglasses shopping.

They carry around these large boards with glasses on them (usually on their heads).  I ended up buying these glasses and turning them into a mask for a masquerade ball tomorrow (yay!)

We walked past a stand selling what looked like hamburgers.   I think the ladies told us that they were slightly spicy and were actually plantains...? i think...not sure....

The CUTEST ice cream and coffee bar! They made the ice cream there, it was very yummy!

We had such a good girls day out!

We had a great day! Took a tro tro back home.  Tro tro rides are always exciting and interesting.  We did a lot of walking yesterday and i was very glad to get home and be able to take a shower and drink some nice cold water. Im going to be sad to leave Ghana, i've really enjoyed it here.
night!

Oh the lovely beach

I can't believe it's already the 28th! Where has this year gone?!? In the past i have mentioned some of the terrible ingredients we get on the ship.  Here is an example of some of the eggs we get.  Absolutely would never see these in an American store...it's been weird to deal with.  I've gotten used to cracking eggs into a separate container because of the fear of getting a bad egg in with all the other good eggs you have already cracked.

Today Julie and I decided to go to the beach.  It was GORGEOUS!!! We were told it wasn't to touristy but i'd say of anywhere i've been in Ghana so far (which isn't that much) it was the most touristy.  The beach was quite pretty though.  Lots of shells and pretty rocks to collect.  The water didn't have to much garbage in it either (always a plus).  We didn't go swimming because we were told that the rip currents here are very bad.  However, a lot of people were swimming so we probably would have been safe...but...better safe then sorry.

This was the sign board at the entrance to the beach.  It cost us 15 Ceidis to get to the beach and then 3 ceidis to get into the park.  

There were two very large hotels located on the beach.  Also, lots of beach clubs and bars.  As you can see in the background, there were a fair number of people at the beach.  

Horse ride anyone?

I just thought this was pretty cool.  The guy on the 4X4 was riding up and down the beach  on two wheels.

I'm holding all the shells and rocks i collected.  Some of them were really pretty!

Toes in the water!

We were stopped by so many people who just wanted to say hi that we finally asked someone to take our picture.  It took a couple of tries before they figured out my silly touch screen phone but eventually we got a nice one ;)

While walking around on the beach we came across a fishing boat with some guys mending nets.  We asked to take their picture and they agreed.  i think they wanted us to either buy them drinks or they wanted to buy us drinks...we said no either way.

The back of the fishing boat.

After walking up and down the beach for a bit we stopped at one of the restaurant/bars and got a delicious pineapple drink.  It was so good!  people kept coming up to us and trying to sell us stuff though.  This lady had a chart with all the meanings of the necklaces she was selling.  We didnt end up buying anything from her.

The lovely drink...i would totally get it again.  Wish we had it in the states.

These guys were weird.  It was a band of people playing Christmas carols on their drums and whistles and something else i didn't know what it was.  Then there was a guy dressed like a woman dancing to the music.  It was really strange.  We were told that they didn't have a woman dance because people thought it was funny that the man dressed like a woman.  We just thought it was kind of strange and slightly amusing.  

These two ladies kept coming over to our table and wanting us to buy pedicures or manicures from them.  Finally Julie caved and got a pedicure.  The other lady wanted me to get one too but i just didnt want to.  I dont like spending money on stuff that i cant take home.  But she just wouldn't leave me alone.  I felt very rude being so harsh and saying no so firmly but she still wouldn't go away.  No matter how many times i said no she just pressured me and pressured me.  So finally i just let her paint them so she would go away.  It was quite amusing how many people came up to our table to try to sell us stuff. 

We had a great day! We started walking back to Tema (it was probably 15 miles) just because we wanted the exercise and it was still a very nice day.  Traffic was pretty bad so we were moving just about as much as the cars.  A taxi driver stopped us and said he would drive us as far as he was going for free.  So we got in and he ended up driving us most of the way to Tema.  It was so nice of him.  I think he wanted to marry one of us to get into America.  So we told little white lies that we were married...just bending the truth a little right?  We took a tro tro (the ghanian version of a poda poda) the rest of the way to Tema.  Boy was that an experience! At one point everyone in the tro tro was bickering about how much we had to pay.  There is a driver and a collector.  The collector sits at the door and lets people in and our and takes their money.  The collector was trying to overcharge us and the other people in the tro tro wouldn't let him.  Julie and I were just sitting there watching the whole thing take place.  It was a matter of pennies that they were talking about.  i was amused by the whole scenario.  We made it home safely to our wonderful Africa Mercy though.
Tomorrow we set off on another adventure into Accra.  Should be fun.  I will keep you posted. night!

"For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given. And the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace"

 Isaiah 9:6

Merry Christmas! Or as I learned to say in Norwegian God Yul (it's easy to write but the pronunciation is rather difficult).  I will start with the events of Christmas eve and eventually get to to days festivities.  Yesterday i did not work but Julie and I spent the day decorating our fabulous gingership.  However, earlier in the day I helped decorate the dinning room for our big Christmas eve dinner.

We didnt have enough bead necklaces to decorate the tables so we went out to the gangway and took off some of the decorations out there and brought them into the dinning room.  Only problem was that the beads were REALLY dirty from being outside.  So we had to clean all of them with a wet rag.

showing off the beads i cleaned :)

Kim (a teacher at the Academy) looking lovely hanging up some tinsel.

  After decorating Julie and i went to work on our lovely ship.

adding railing to the bow.  As you can see we have teddy grahams in the bridge windows for the Captain and officers

The Lock Nes monster is slightly out of it's usually swimming grounds...but hey this is Africa! Pretty sure anything can happen!

It got very humid and hot in the galley so we had to very carefully move the ship (it's maiden voyage) to Ken's office where the AC was more controlled.   It was so humid that everything was starting to melt!

 Christmas eve on the ship was really special.  We had a really nice meal (everyone got all dressed up).  It was nice because everyone ate at the same time and i was able to drift between tables and talk to everyone.  After dinner there was a Christmas Eve service.  It was full of special music (just like home!).

After the service I got together with some of my friends and we all brought some of our gifts up to midships and opened them in a group.  It was a blast!!! we set the camera to take 10 pictures in a row and then we tore into our gifts.  I havent seen those pictures yet (but hopefully i will get them soon).  Someone sent one of the girls a 'make it yourself' snow kit.  Just add water! We made snow and then kept showing people that we had snow in Africa! It was fantastic! It sure didn't feel like snow but it looked like snow.  We hung out and talked and shared candy and talked about our different family traditions for a couple hours. A lovely Christmas Eve.
 OH! probably one of the coolest traditions on the ship (and one i plan on carrying with me when i have a family) is the christmas shoes.  You put your shoe outside your door on Christmas eve and in the morning it's filled with goodies and gifts from friends.  I ended up being a little elf last night helping put out little gifts.  I walked around the ship probably 5 or 6 times with different people.  It was so fun! I saw one person dressed in a costume tip toeing around with a bag of gifties.

This is what our hallway looked like.  

 Christmas day (today) was very eventful! We had a big brunch in the morning.  I got up so early (i only had four hours of sleep because of all my elfing).  It really felt like Christmas in the galley though.  We had so many people that it didn't feel like work.  It was just like hanging out and making brunch for a really big family.  Peter Koontz (my boss) let his kids come to work in the galley with us.  So Malachi was my little bread helper today.  Having the kids in the galley was probably one of the best parts of my day.  It just made it feel like home.

Olga and Mal shaping bread (yes i taught him how...so cute)

Danielle arranging the fruit and cheese display

Rachel and Danielle

Our wonderful Gingership!

We made Pepper Cheddar bread...it was so good!

The creative masterminds!

People absolutely loved the ship.  We hid a lot of little detail things that people (thankfully) found and thought were hilarious.  Like a flip flop floating in the water, and a pallet of Milch on deck 8.

Mal guarding the door to santa/Kens changing room (also known as the galley office)

They actually had this costume on the ship, it fit Ken so well! It was awesome! such a good morning

Breakfast buddies

After breakfast Jillian and I went down to my room and we finished opening our gifts.  Thank you to my family for sending me such wonderful gifts! I miss you all so much!

I feel like it's tradition to take a pictures of all the wrapping paper....my mom calls it the 'carnage'.  

on the 19th we had a door decorating contests and today they announced the winners.  This is our door.  It's hard to tell in the picture but it's a 3D fireplace (the logs were actually sticking out) with stockings and every one's name.  We got i believe the most creative award...i can't remember.   After the door judging awards we had hot apple cider and watched the veggie tales movie "a little drummer boy".  it was a really cute movie...however i'd only had 4 hours of sleep so i went and took a nap about half way through.

Carol and I waiting for the movie to start, drinking our hot apple cider.  

I was sort of worried what Christmas would be like away from family and on a ship in West Africa.  I had no idea what to expect.  It ended up being such a special Christmas.  I was so blessed by everyone on the ship.  Thank you to everyone who made Christmas so special this year.  A special thank you to everyone who worked today to help put together the festivities.  I will end tonight with a picture taken a couple of weeks ago at the Winter Wonderland Market

(Krissy and I didn't know they were taking four in a row...thus the reason our expressions are the same in all of them)

Have a very Merry Christmas and may God continue to bless you in the coming year