"The Recap" - August 23rd and August 24th

It turned out to be a great idea to take an extra day in Sunyani because I was still fairly sick the next day. I slept in the next day 'till about 8am or so. I didn't do much that day besides go into Sunyani town with Br. James to figure out the best transportation to Tamale. While we did that we walked all over the city and made a stop at Christ the King Catholic Cathedral right off the main road leading into the city.

It was a beautiful Cathedral. We went inside to pray for a short while before returning to the city streets. It was pretty quiet everywhere we went. Even the stations were quiet compared to the other ones that I have experienced. Besides children calling out to me, "Bruni, Bruni! How are you? I am fine! Thank you!" the only funny thing that happened was a woman that ran out of her roadside kiosk to ask me if I would marry her sister. Br. James stepped in quickly and told her that I am a professed Brother of Holy Cross. Thanks James I didn't know what to say!;)

We decided that the best thing for me to do was to take a taxi to a small city called Techiman about 45 minutes from Sunyani and from there take a "207" to Tamale. After having completed our primary objective we decided to return to the house where I spent the rest of the day resting until Br. Raymond came back from school at the Catholic University. By that time I was finally feeling much better than I had the previous day. I was ready to continue the journey.

At around 10am the next morning I was riding in a taxi with Br. Raymond and Lydia, their cook and housekeeper, to the old market station to catch a taxi going to Techiman. We walked into the station area to find a fair amount of hustle and bustle. We quickly found a taxi going to Techiman and before I knew I had said good bye and I was on my way out of Sunyani.

My driver barely spoke English and the 4 woman crammed into the back seat were still giggling at the sight of the white man in their car. I was a little nervous about the change of cars that I had to make in Techiman. I didn't know much at all about the small city or even where the bus stations were in town. The only stop our driver made was to buy some grasscutter that some young boys were selling on the side of the road. For those of you who don't know, grasscutter is a fairly large rodent that many Ghanaians indulge in. Our driver inspected the freshly killed rodents that were swinging by their tails right outside my window. He shook his head and kept on driving. I was thankful that I didn't have to aid in the transaction.

It was a dark day and looked as if it could rain at any second, but the scenery as always was beautiful.

It didn't take long until we were at the outer limits of Techiman. I then told the driver that I needed to go to the Tamale Station. He looked at me in surprise and said, "Tamale station? Oh!" I realized that if I had not mentioned this to the driver that I might have found myself in quite the pickle. He quickly adjusted his route and dropped me off at a different station where I hired another taxi to take me to the Tamale station.

When I arrived there it was easy to procure a ticket to Tamale and I boarder a big old orange bus. Withing 30 minutes the bus was fulled and once again I was pushed up hard against the window with my backpack in my lap. There was a big argument before we left though. The men who were selling the tickets sold more tickets than there were seats so everyone had to show their tickets to prove that they had actually bought one and of course one man could not find his ticket. There was a lot of shouting, laughing, moving about, and then more shouting. It was a pretty funny sight to behold. When the man found his ticket he realized that he paid 50,ooo cedis which is 7,000 more than everyone else paid. After being told that he should get his change he shouted, "Forget it. Lets get out of here!" Everyone laughed and we pulled out of the station.

I was very excited to be heading to Tamale. Arguably the third largest city in Ghana I had always wanted to visit it. I was curious to see how different it was from the rest of the country. I knew that the majority of the people there were Muslims and that showed as we entered the Northern Region. In almost every large village there were a couple of mosques to be seen from the road.

It was a three hour drive to Tamale and I spent every moment observing my surroundings. I watched as the landscape changed around me. The land became completely flat and the trees became shorter. The vegetation was very thin with large meadows of the most brilliant yellow-green color I have ever scene.

However, disaster was about to strike. The young girl in front of me was looking very restless and she moved around in her seat constantly. All of a sudden, before I could react, saw that she was going to be sick and she leaned out here window and threw up. Of course, it all flew back in the window and onto my face and shirt and the person sitting behind me. I had tried to duck, but i still got hit pretty well. I just cringed for a moment telling myself not to freak out. Thankfully, the woman accompanying the sick girl handed me a towel almost immediately. It was quite disturbing, but I remained calm and did not lose my lunch. Moments later another girl threw up. This time into a plastic bag. Praise the Lord!

After these unfortunate events I turned my attention back out the window to notice how the architecture of the houses in the villages were changing. People were living in small A-frames with thatched roofs and also small round houses with thatched roofs. The walls were sculpted out of clay. Of course there were plenty of buildings made form concrete and wood, but in many of the small villages this is what I saw.

Time passed fairly quickly as our old orange bus blasting Bob Marley sped closer to the Tamale city limits. I took one last glance at my Bradt guide map of Tamale to make sure I had my bearings straight, but not long after we entered the city I lost my sense of direction immediately, quite unusual for me. Anyway, we drove through the very busy city and I could see that most of the people walking around town were wearing Muslim style clothing. There were more motor bikes speeding around than I have ever seen in any city in Ghana. After looking around the city we pulled into the chaotic bus station filled to the brim with all kinds of vehicles, travelers, and vendors. I could barely make my way through the crowd off of our bus. I turned around the help a woman carry her bag to a taxi, partially because I just needed a minute to figure out what I was going to do next.

Of course, that was only one minute to think. She thanked me and without any hesitation I walked out of the park and into the busy Tamale streets. I decided on the way there that I would stay at AlHassan's Hotel which was much closer to the station than the other hotels. I did my best to remember the map and made my way through a small market area filled with woman getting ready to pack up and go home for the day. I crossed the street and walked towards a large intersection, probably the largest in the city besides the one further North along the Bolgatanga road. I walked passed many blind men led by little children as they begged for money on the large median strip. I knew exactly where I was going and felt a rush of euphoria. With an extra something in my step I smiled to myself as I realized that I was doing really well on my own.

I was caught in the middle of traffic, stuck on the median with many other pedestrians. I looked one way and then the other. I saw the largest mosque I have ever seen in my life, Tamale Central Mosque. This structure looked right out of the middle east, and that's probably where the money came from to build it. Eventually, traffic slowed to a halt and I made my way quickly through the maze of vehicles and clouds of exhaust to the other side of the street which led to the hotel.

After checking in I went out to make a phone call and while doing so I met some very friendly young men, university students. We talked for a long while and I told them how I felt about Tamale so far and that I was excited to hear all of the prayer callers for sunset prayer, although as I was speaking the power went out and I would be hearing very few callers that night. One of the guys, Tiah, invited me to see his Mosque and to watch them pray. I figured he was a nice enough guy and I had some time to get back to the hotel before dark so I went with him through some back alleys near the hotel and eventually to a small clearing.

It was a small humble Mosque, nothing like the Central one. I followed him around to the door and he invited me in, of course after taking off my shoes. I couldn't believe it. He turned to me and said, "Just do what I do." I nearly laughed out loud when the word INFIDEL came into my head, but I went along for the ride. Everything went smoothly and I must say it will be an experience that I will not soon forget. Don't worry though, I am not planning on converting yet! JK!

I ate dinner at the Crest Restaurant on the roof and watched the sun set over the city that night before I made my way back to the hotel. I had to be at the station the next morning at 6am to buy my ticket to Mole National Park, the next destination of my journey. My phone was worthless and couldn't even tell the time anymore so I had to rely on mental alarm to wake up, which did so successfully about 8 times that night.