Kayleen Travels

"My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing." Marcel Proust

One of the cats at Bronyibima recently had kittens and THEY ARE SO ADORABLE, OH MY GOODNESS!!!!

Thursday, March 6 (Independence Day): Tega and I took a trip to Busua Beach, which is located about four hours west of Cape Coast. Halfway there it started to storm, and it continued to storm after we reached our destination. Tega and I searched in the cold, wind, and rain for a place to stay. Every room of every guesthouse was booked.  It did not look good.  Eventually the owner of a small bar/guesthouse on the beach found a place for us. She charged us $4.00 USD per person per night. We had no electricity or bathroom (there was a bucket in the corner of the room in case we had to pee in the middle of the night). But we made do (sneaking into hotels to use their facilities!) This picture of Tega and I was taken right after we raced through the rain with our luggage to the next taxi- Friday, March 7 - Saturday, March 8: Our days at Busua were spent on the beach.  Tega and I befriended a woman from Kentucky, who is in West Africa doing research fo...

Having spent almost six months in Ghana, I picked up some Ghanaian English slang. Here are a few examples of things you may catch me saying- "I'm coming" is shorthand for I am going but I will come back or be right back. Sometimes they'll say things like "Let me go and come." I have developed a habit of saying, "I'm coming," but I can't be saying this in the U.S., lest I get some odd looks... "Flash" is a term meaning calling someone on their cell phone but hanging up before they answer. This is so either they can have your number or to tell them to call you so the call is on their phone credit and not yours. So don't be alarmed of a Ghanaian friend asks you to flash them.  "Dash"  essentially means  give.  For instance, if I was shopping for fruit and I bought three apples, the woman selling might give me a fourth apple and say, "I dash you one." This happens sometimes when you have a good relationship wi...

Ghana gained independence from the British on March 6, 1957 . Ghana is now 57 years old. Before heading to Busua Beach for the weekend, I went into the heart of Cape Coast to see how they honored this special day. This is what I saw:

I heard this phrase a lot in West Africa, especially from a Senegalese man named Karumba, whom Mel and I met at the Senegalese Embassy in The Gambia. Karumba was very kind to us, going out of his way to help Mel and I get our tourist visas for Senegal. After every nice thing he did, he would exclaim, "It is nice to be nice!" What Karumba meant by this was that his kindness towards us had no other motive, except that it was good. He wasn't being nice for us to do something for him in return, or for us to pay him, or for us to shower him with praises. He wasn't trying to get our phone numbers or take us out. He was simply being "nice to be nice." This concept has become very precious to me. Traveling in a foreign land, I rely a lot on the kindness of both strangers and friends. It is not something I take for granted. I cherish it. I honor it. I discussed this back in October also: http://kay-travel-africa.blogspot.com/2013/10/i-am-constantly-floored-by-kindnes...