The Volta Region

Two posts in a row! You're welcome. Here are some entries from this weekend. 

Oct. 13

We got up early this morning to head to the Volta Region for the rest of the weekend. We were in the bus for most of the day. The Volta Region is the eastern part of Ghana. It is home of the Volta Lake, The Akosombo Dam, the largest waterfall in West Africa, and really cool mountains. Our first stop was the dam, which is on the Volta Lake. The Volta Lake is the largest man-made water reservoir in the world, I believe. The dam provides 60% of Ghana’s electricity. It’s pretty impressive. Unfortunately, the building of the dam made it so some communities had to be displaced. After we saw the dam, we went to a village call Djemeni. The town is made up of a group of people who were displaced by the dam. It’s a fishing town, so they’re right on the lake, just north of Akosombo.

We got back in the bus after our tour and took a crazy ride up the mountains to our hotel. It was a quaint little place. We arrived in the dark, so we couldn’t see the view, but when I woke up in the morning, I found out we had an incredible view of the mountains.

Happy Birthday, Nana Parker! Hope you had a great day! J

Photo Credit: Hayley

Oct. 14
After breakfast, we got back into the bus to head to Wli Falls. It took forever to get there, but it was worth it. It has rained a lot recently, so there was a lot of water coming down the falls—So much that you could feel the mist while standing about a football field away. The rocks around the falls are also home to thousands of fruit bats. We saw them flying around the top of the waterfall. Roland let me borrow his binoculars to get a better look. Those things are huge!

We hiked back from the falls, ate lunch and got back onto the bus to travel a few more hours to a monkey sanctuary. I forgot the name of the village, but it is the home of about 500 Mona monkeys. The town believes them to be sacred animals because they represent a deity that they worship. We saw a small group of the monkeys and were able to feed them! They sat on our laps and shoulders—one even gave Josh a back scratch! I couldn’t help but think of my mom. She would have loved it.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay with the monkeys forever, so we boarded the bus made the long trip back to campus. We were welcomed back by a power outage and no water. Typical. Oh well, the power came back about 45 minutes after we arrived and I was able to Skype with my Dad briefly.

This week is going to be crazy. I'm giving a presentation on Tuesday and I have a sizable paper due next week that I need to get to work on. Hope all is well back at home!  :)