Being in Accra

Amanda doing a "load" of laundry

Last night was designated as cleaning night.  Amanda and I did some laundry in our bathroom using the bucket and laundry detergent we had bought.  We each took turns washing a few things in our little bucket.  Soaking them for 20-30 minutes, squeezing out the soap into the shower, and then rinsing from our shower head for a few minutes to get rid of all the soap.  These were all fun (at least for me) because we got to play with some water and bubbles!  The not so fun (and more tiring) part was wringing the water out of our clothes.  Jeans and towels are a lot of work.  But the shirts and shorts weren't so bad.  We wrung out the clothes in the shower, and then hung (more like layed them out as we don't have hangers) the clothes all over the room to dry.  Since it is so humid in Ghana, it will take a few days for our clothes to fully dry.  They would dry much faster if our patio door would work and we could put our clothes under direct sunlight.  It was a fun experience, but we are excited to see a washer and dryer again soon!

Using the resources we have

While we were at the mall, we also purchased little bottles of Savannah Dry cider to drink while we were doing laundry.  We went to open the bottles, and realized that we didn't have a bottle opener.  Leave it to two librarian grad students to be resourceful.  We looked around the room for things we might be able to use, and I found my keys from back home.  I proceeded to try and open the bottle with the keys, and it worked!  It took a few minutes to get the first one opened, but it was much faster when I was trying to get Amanda's opened (only about a minute!).  We were very excited about this and felt proud of our accomplishment!  The cider wasn't too bad--it was a bit warm for our liking (since we don't have a fridge).  But it was good.



Sweeping the floor with a shoe brush

We also desperately needed to finish and resweep our room.  So while one person was soaking their clothes in the bubbles, they took a turn at sweeping the floor.  The other person was busy rinsing and wringing out her clothes.  We had a nice system working and it was more fun than either of us had anticipated.

Tomorrow, we are hoping to stay a little closer to home than Cape Coast, and check out a bit more Accra.  Our plan is to leave when we wake up for Independent Square which commemorates the independence of Ghana (some sites say we are prohibited from taking photographs of the Independence Arch, Black Star Square, and the Liberation Day Monument--which will be a bit sad as far as scrapbooking and sharing our experience with everyone!).  From there we hope to check out the Osu Castle (which also prohibits photograph taking), then a market with ticket prices for their items (no more bargaining for these two obrunis!), and a used bookstore, a restaurant called Melting Moments, and if time permits, a trip to La Beach which is Accra's most popular swim area on the Atlantic Ocean.  We plan to do more walking around so we can see more of the city and check out a few things we wouldn't be able to otherwise.  There are still a lot of different suburbs in Accra to check out, so we will be quite busy!