Beach day

Day Fourteen

Sunday, May 31, 2015

The day began pretty late, as we took our time getting up on this lazy Sunday.  We rode about an hour west of the city after picking up a young man named Mubarak, an old friend of Ben and Rosy.  We had a good beachside breakfast before jumping into the ocean, bodysurfing, and otherwise enjoying the day off.

The relaxed attitude did not come without any trouble, however.  Ken got pulled out by the strong rip tide and panicked, forcing Mubarak, Kate, and Peter to help bring him to shore.  Some locals ran from the beach into the water, after the situation was taken under control, and ‘saved’ him from drowning.  After it was clear that Ken was OK, they demanded money for their actions, and argued with us for   while before we eventually gave in and handed them a small sum of money.  We left the beach a bit early because of this weird series of events, and went to a market.

At the market, we were greeted by some of the most relentless, shameless, yet efficient salespeople I have ever met.  Upon seeing a group of visiting obrunis, flocks of shop owners ran up to us, asking us questions and telling us to look at their shops.  Eventually, some of us actually did buy things – fabrics, drums, bracelets, clothes – but for the most part we were just browsing.

We returned to iDE and cooked dinner, after which some of us did some work and planned for the next few days, while others watched videos of Annie, Ken and Ndungu (a former ADE Ghana team member) perform dances in their most recent BDE show.  Others planned out things to do on their upcoming vacations, caught up with friends and family, and otherwise made good use of the bit of down time before going to sleep, alive and well.