Labadie Beach

Day 2 - Labadie Beach
Well, today was a relaxing day. We were waiting for the rest of our group to get here and so we got to sleep in, and play. We went to the local public beach today, it was called Labadie Beach. It wasn’t the nicest beach, but I am sure that it also wasn’t the worst. The water was fairly clean, for Africa. Only a few pieces of trash washing up with the tide. There were garbage piles down the beach a bit, and a couple of old abandoned buildings.

Entrance to Labadie Beach

Just me, on the beach

There are also restaurants right on the beach. As soon as we got there, the owners of the restaurants were swarming us, trying to get us to sit at their place. It was crazy. We would have about 5 people all around us trying to get us to sit there, telling us not to worry that it was free, all we had to pay for was our drinks and food. It was funny. Once we sat down, they immediately expected us to get drinks. We did. They had fresh pineapple, watermelon, orange, mango, and any other fruit juice you can think of. It was pretty good. Needless to say, we stuck out like a sore thumb. Not even a minute after we sat down we were swarmed with people trying to sell us their hand made jewelry, carvings, drums, paintings, wooden cars, boxes, and anything else you can think of. One lady even tried to paint my nails. It is hard because they just don’t stop. You can’t just say, “no thank you” you have to be very firm and tell them no and even then they don’t leave you alone. They want you to buy what they have to sell. Sometimes they will even say, “it’s for my family, I need to have money to buy them food.” Which is very sad because you can tell that it is true, but you can’t just go around buying everything. We were bombarded with sellers for about 4 hours. They didn’t leave us alone. They are very nice though, once they understand that you aren’t going to buy anything, they will sit down and talk with you for hours if you would let them. They want to tell you everything about the country, it’s history, about themselves and anything else. What they have to say is very interesting and I love to learn more about their life and the history of this beautiful land.

This is just the beginning of what was to come. They would just lay all their stuff down and talk with us untill we were either firm enough for them to understand that we weren't going to buy anything, or until we gave in a did buy something.

Some of the girls with our pineapple juice

Tere were a lot of locals on the beach. There were tons of super cute kids just playing and loving the water. The beach there was very wavy. The waves are big and there are a lot of them. There is only about a 100 meter area where you are allowed to swim. They have a lifeguard watching, and they told us that if you went swimming beyond the flags that mark the 100 meters the current is so strong it would take you away. Needless to say, we didn’t test it out to see if they were right. It was just so interesting to see all the people crammed into 100 meters of beach and water when it stretched on for miles!

Yes, that is a horse's head. People were giving rides to make money.

One of the old abandoned buildings that were on the beach.

We also found out that President Obama is coming to Ghana while we are there. He is coming next Friday, the 10th to speak at the beach that we were at today. I think we are going to go and see him. Any time anyone asked us where we were from and we told them America, they just had to tell us, “well you know your president Obama is coming to Ghana” We heard it about a thousand times!! They are so excited for him to come. They are selling Obama T-shirts and everything. They LOVE him here. One lady who was trying to paint my nails was telling me that he was coming, and then she said, “you know, we are a lot like America, we change our presidents here now too.” It was sweet. Everyone here knows so much about America, and they are so excited to see American’s. Little kids stare at us and smile and get shy. People are constantly surrounding us and asking us what we are here to do, and when we tell them, they are all very supportive, and say, “it’s nice of you to come and help our children.”

Signs like this one are all over around here. They are so exc ited for Obama to come to Ghana!

Here is one of the locals selling Obama T-shirts in the street

Ghana is also a very God fearing country. There are signs everywhere that say things like, He never fails, Trust in God, Power in God, and such. In fact, I learned today that the Ghanaian motto is, “Trust God” On the back of almost every taxi cab there is a spiritual saying. It’s very sweet. That pretty much concludes my 2nd day here in Africa. It’s a very fun place to be, and I can’t wait for Monday when we get to go out into the villages and start teaching, although I do have to admit I am nervous! Wish me luck!

This picture has nothing to do with my post, but I found this sand dollar on the beach, it is whole, and it is green. I will bring it home and hopefully it doesn't break!