We’ve all heard the old adage ‘when it rains it pours’, but you don’t know pours until you’ve experienced the rainy season in Ghana. With the exception of my first two days in Ghana, it has rained every day I have been here. So far, I have been fortunate enough to be caught in two downpours, the first being 3 days after my arrival in Mampong. Although technically I only have to work until noon, I have made a habit of staying at the hospital until the doctors finish with the pediatric clinic, which can be anywhere from 1-4 pm. On one such day, I was leaving the hospital while it was drizzling out. By the time I reach the dirt road to my place that drizzle turned into a downpour. And when I say downpour, I mean a dirt-road-becoming-muddy-river kind of downpour. Not wanting to spend the rest of my afternoon as a drenched rat, I quickly headed for my house, arriving at the gate in record time, just to find out that I couldn’t get in. By this time, my attempt at avoiding the drowned rat look had become an utter failure. Not knowing what to do, I headed back up the river road to take shelter under the overhang of another house… and there I waited… and waited. At first it was rather relaxing having nothing to do but watch the rain fall a foot in front of my face, but about 30 minutes into standing there, watching the rain fall got a little old, so I decided to give Janis a call to pass the time. When the rain let up a bit I headed back to my house to try the gate again, and then headed back up the road when I still couldn’t get in. Eventually, while it was still raining (but not pouring), I decided to head back to the hospital and hang out with the doctor for the afternoon. When I arrived, they had a good laugh over the misty look I had decided to sport for the afternoon. About an hour later I got a call from Emma saying that the gate was now okay and headed back home. Dry clothes have never felt so good!
My second rain drenched experience occurred almost a week later on an excursion to the wood market in Aburi. As I mentioned earlier, well I was at the wood market on my first weekend adventure, I had got one of the craftsmen to make me a custom hand-made African drum and I had told him that I would come and pick it up the following week. Knowing that I would be spending the following weekend in Cape Coast, and going to the bead market in Koforidua on the Thursday, Wednesday was really the only day I could go and pick it up. That Wednesday, after I was done for the day at the clinic, Mother Nature spent the early afternoon trying to decide whether she would downpour or not. During one of breaks in the rain, I headed out to Aburi, hoping that that was the last of the rain for the day. Guess what… I was wrong. It started spitting once I arrived in Aburi. While walking to the wood market, that afternoon drizzle quickly turned into another Ghanaian downpour. Knowing the rain could be in the forecast, I remembered to bring my rain coat, although when I rains that much, there’s still little hope of staying dry. When I arrived at the wood market, one of the craftspeople offered me shelter in her shop. When I got inside I fully expected to be pushed into buying something from her shop, but she wanted nothing but to offer me a dry place to sit. The first seat (a hand carved wooden seat of course) was under a drip from the tin roof, so she quickly offered me another place to sit on another one of her finely carved products. Even though of voices were barely audible over the rain pounding against the corrugated tin roof, we started chatting. I introduced myself and told her that I was a medical student from Canada living in Mampong and working at the hospital there in pediatrics, and I had been to the wood market once before, and was just there today to pick up a Drum I had ordered. The woman’s name was Sister Aduela (sister is a common way to refer to a friend), and she started telling me about the wood market, about how it can get quite busy there some days, and on a given day she can see anything from buses full of tourists stopping at the wood market, to lone travelers just passing through. She also explained to me that all the wood carvings that you can buy from the cultural center in Accra are bought from the wood market here and re-sold by dealers in Accra. She also told me how she is friends with a lot of the volunteers in the area and some come to buy from her, while others just stop by to say hi. All the while we were chatting the woman’s son was staining his latest creation, a piece about shoulder high of intertwine elephants, monkeys and lions. The people in the shop were so warm and welcoming, that I had wished that I had brought along extra money to buy something in the shop, but because I didn’t, I decided that the next tie I went to the wood market I would definitely buy something from her. When the rain lightened up, I headed out to the shop at the end of the wood market where I had ordered my drum. While waling back with my drum and bag it started raining again, but I decided to keep walking (instead of taking shelter again) as by that point I just wanted to head back home. It started pouring quite hard, so I took a drop taxi back to the tro station where I caught a line taxi back to Mampong. Although the afternoon hadn’t gone exactly as planned, that’s what I have come to expect in Ghana, and would have had it any other way.
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