Of Religion and Vegetarianism

This weekend I went to the nearby Kakum Rainforest Park to visit the much touted canopy walk. It’s the first of its kind in Africa and the only place that you can view the rainforest from above the canopy in 7 suspension walkways. Although there were a ton of obrunis there I still enjoyed it and was very glad that I got to see it before I left Ghana (one more week, just when I’m getting settled in to the lifestyle!) Unfortunately besides some birds, I didn’t see much of any wildlife in the rainforest although it was still interesting to learn about the different types of trees and their uses. I was also pretty proud of myself when I found out from the other obrunis that I’m the only one who came to Kakum by way of tro-tro; a common public van that Ghanaians take all the time. The tro-tros usually run between cities and pick up and drop off passengers along the way, I think it’s a great mode of transportation and super cheap! For an hour and half journey with 3 major stops it took me $2. Awesome! Anyway, for anyone planning to visit Ghana I highly recommend the tro-tros, and I can vouch for their safety, well at least from the other passengers, they’re still driven by crazy drivers!
I spent the night in a hostel outside of the national park called Hans Cottage Botel. It was a super cute place that was surrounded by a pond with crocodiles. I had dinner with the owner who told me about how he started the place and how all the crocodiles he owns were supposedly “domesticated”. He said if I wanted to I could take a picture with my hand in their mouth…um yeah no thanks, Steve Erwin also thought the same thing about sting rays (too soon?). After dinner I hung out with some of the people who were staying there a German (yes another one), an Israeli from Tel Aviv and some Ghanaians. It was interesting to learn from the Israeli about the difficulty he has explaining the fact that he doesn’t believe in Jesus to the Ghanaians. Even explaining vegetarianism to the Ghanaians is a tough concept. My roommate told me stories about how the chop shops didn’t understand that she didn’t eat meat and would ask would you like fish instead? It makes sense that some of these concepts are so foreign to them since the Ghanaians are pretty homogenous in their beliefs most are Christian except for some who are Muslim. The Israeli was here finishing a project that he started as part of his NGO in Barcelona, its so crazy to me how many volunteers are here helping the Ghanaians, not really sure if that is a good thing or not since it seems like the people have come to depend on the fact that the volunteers will take care of whatever instead of learning the skill to take care of it themselves when the volunteers leave.