Our Trip to Ghana

Last Friday was a holiday, so we went to Ghana with some friends, who are working hard to protect US agricultural interests throughout the world. He has been there several times, so he put everything together for us, which was great.

We flew there Friday morning (on a delayed flight since the original plane broke down) and drove out to a resort where we stayed. The resort was right on the beach. Supposedly, Will Smith stayed there a few years ago as well, which puts us in pretty good company. There was also a UN Development Planning conference there, which gives you some idea what the UN does. We visited St. George Castle and Cape Coast Castle, which were used by the Dutch to hold slaves after they purchased them from the local tribes and before they sold them to the various shipping companies, primarily the East Indies Shipping Company. We also visited Kakum National Park, which doesn't really have any animals, but has a cool walkway about 150' above the forest floor. The safety regulations specifically say that there should be only one person on the bridge at a time and only five people at the platforms on the trees. We didn't read that until afterwards, and apparently the park rangers had never seen the safety rules either, since they kept about 20 people on the platforms at one time and about five on the bridges at one time. One of the bridges was broken, so we could only go halfway out and then come back, instead of making the full loop. (Luckily they noticed it was broken before it fell.)

We went to Sacrament meeting in the coolest rented building the church has. How can you not want to sing, "Jesus wants for a Sunbeam" when you see the building? Also, notice that there is no concertina wire on the church - a big upgrade from Nigeria.

We also took a few minutes to visit the temple and church HQ.

The high point of the trip was the picture below, where one of the restaurant servers managed to turn a small can of sterno into a small bonfire. (L, I swear that I made sure that the lady's dress wasn't on fire before I grabbed my camera.)