Planes, Tros, and Automobiles

Seven weeks. That’s how long it takes to transform 11 complete strangers into a family. Last night, at Kotoka International Airport in Accra, OGWAD 2011 officially came to an end. Eight of our nine family members checked in their bags and boarded their flights heading home. Not Sandema home, but home home. And tonight our final member, Colleen Grande, will be getting on her own home-bound plane.

Disorientation at Princess Town, staying at Fort Groot Fredericksburg, a castle-turned-guesthouse, was a great way for all of us to reconvene after our individual adventures during ITT. Every single person has an epic tale to tell, and we’ll leave it up to them to tell it (seriously, they’re pretty epic). When we got back together we kept the energy going – canoing through the jungle on our first day, and hiking six hours through the rainforest in the pouring rain to the southernmost point in Ghana on our second day. We fished with fishermen, chased goats, climbed coconut trees, and all-round had a great time. And, to top it ALL off, Joseph Mensa – the incredible caretaker at the castle – spoiled us rotten with his incredible cooking and his magical knack for finding the perfect-est of pineapples.

Then on Tuesday morning we made the long journey back to Accra. We stopped at Cape Coast for a delicious lunch of grilled-cheese egg-and-bread (shout out to Polly, Ben, and Jen – PB&J – for that tip) which, I must humbly admit, ended up being the best egg-and-bread in the country (Mama Hanna is still M.I.A. … hopefully we’ll be able to find her soon for a rebuttle). We arrived in Accra Tuesday evening, and spent the evening hanging out, having a good time, going over the previous seven weeks. Then, finally, last night we heard the turbines roar as their planes went over-head and we gave our final salutes to our friends.

Safe journey, and always remember: when nothing works, everything works out. Agomacha.

Taha and Kelly