By: Michael Walsh

 

This past weekend my group and I woke up to leave north toward the Volta Region at 7 AM with our friend and tour guide Sonny. We hopped of the bus to hike to Wli Falls and stood underneath water falling into a freshwater rock pool surrounded by rainforest. We returned to the bus to drive to the trailhead of the Afadjato mountain, which is the tallest peak in Ghana and borders the neighboring country of Togo. I climbed the mountain in a pool of sweat without shoes because I had been mistaken in thinking that slides were a decent decision that morning. It felt like overcoming–especially after the signs along the way saying don’t give up slapped me in the face the whole time. After descending, we went and took selfies with monkeys.

 

 

These monkeys didn’t pull my hair like the last ones, but they did eat bananas out of my hand.

 

The next day we woke up at Afrikiko, a resort on the Akosombo river which we had arrived at the night prior and coincidently is just slightly further up the river from where I had previously been this past Friday. Notably, it shared a name with another place our group had been going to salsa dance on Wednesday nights which was easy to remember but caused some difficulty in conversation. Around noon we boarded a boat called Bentley and set out onto the river riding alongside fisherman inside of hand-crafted wood canoes.

 

 

We then went home to our apartment and immediately left to see the new Thor movie.

 

 

If you like jump cuts and marvel plots, go see it.

 

My week started with a work meeting, then recording my voice for a voice acting demo, appearing in an internship program interview for the company, and chopping (eating; usually from the same plate with multiple people) banku with okro stew alongside my good friends from work. We then chilled at the beach in Tema and met a guy called Smyla and his horses–which the agency had rented for an ad in Shai Hills sometime prior.

 

 

We ended the night at a photoshoot happening that my fashion designer friend was working at as a makeup artist–calling it a night afterward.

 

I arrived the next morning to finish editing a behind the scenes video and then had a longer conversation with my internship connection Bismark, who was the senior account executive for my agency, because I wanted to better understand what he did on a daily basis. I learned about how he specifically communicates with clients and how he structures his team of account executives to fulfil client needs when a brand has multiple accounts underneath it; considering things like internal and external communications. I then ran out of things to do and went home picking up a hitchhiking mother along my way to the tro tro (a small shuttle van retrofitted to hold more passengers) driving with my coworker. My coworker Carl dropped her and I off at the stop and when I mentioned I wanted to call a cab instead of catching a tro tro, she asked if we could walk a little bit further to pick up her son from school. We picked up her son and took a taxi to my stop, getting her close enough to her destination to be able to afford the ride the rest of the way (I offered to pay for their taxi, but they insisted against it).

 

 

I spent the next morning with the designers at the office. None of my producer pals pulled up so I chilled making designs and discussing art, helping when I could usually by being a sounding board and occasionally offering suggestions.

 

After a late night of dancing at Afrikikos, there was nothing to do for the producers so my coworker Carl, who came in today, went to chop kenkey with me (a ball of starch served with pepper sauce and typically fish [which I learned how to order in Twi this same way]).

 

We left a cat with the head of the fish we finished eating and went to hang out with our friend Daddy-O in Teshie. He wanted to show me the real Teshie so him, me and my coworker, Carl, hop into his car and started driving. We were heading to the beach, and along the way we entered the slum adjacent. We stopped midway along the trip to step out into a compound of homes and Daddy-O greets me by saying welcome to my family’s home. I thanked him, and we entered; to then climb up a flight of stairs to step out onto an uncovered rooftop. We looked out from the tallest point in the middle of the slum and could see the entire range sloping up and down the coast reaching outward from the oceanfront. Daddy-O then explains to me how he is potentially the next in line to be the ruler of the Ga people of the southeast coast of Ghana and that this would be the area he would rule over.

 

 

We then took some selfies and completed our route to the beach. We walked out past a noticeably more developed Chinese compound building, onto the harbor stretching out into the water and talked about life in Teshie and what was going on in the area as the sun began to set.

 

 

We watched the sun set and left to get kelewele (fried plantain with spices that we ordered with peanuts).

 

 

The kelewele was fire and it was a great end to a great day spent with friends.

 

The next day I went to work and chilled with the designers in the office again because I was scheduled to help produce the office’s monthly durbar staff meeting later on. Over time, I had made friends with them and liked chilling with them and watching their process.

 

Behind a camera I focused on the reactions of the room as 1 of 3 camera inputs being fed into a live broadcast on a computer controlled by an iPad. We finished the durbar and I stepped out to see the office at night for the first time since completing the same camera job for their durbar 1 month ago (my first day).

 

 

I ended the night, and my week, chilling with my group friends eating chicken wings at a bar called alley bar.