Leaving Accra for Bolgatanga!

I can barely believe the last 48 hours! So crazy!
It all started yesterday when we were scheduled to leave for Bolgatanga (where the rural libraries are which is where I am doing my research project). It was early in the morning and I still had a lot of prep work to do so I sent Nicolas (coworker/friend) to get our bus tickets. He was supposed to take an hour or hour and a half tops so when he wasn’t back for 2 going on 2.5 I started to get worried. In true Nicolas style, he had forgotten his cell phone and taken all my money so there was no way for me to contact him. Long story short, I find out later that the bus station was too crazy so Nico recruited his nice cab driver to help him navigate the mess. Then after they were successful at getting tickets, nico rewarded their job well done by inviting our friendly neighborhood cab driver to have a beer with him before they started back! Meanwhile, back at the hotel, we are an hour past checkout and I was literally throwing his stuff across the room to get it all out before we got charged for another day…doing this while I try to think of what I am going to tell nico’s mom after we find out he got run over by a Ghanaian bus
Bus station
In his defense, the bus station was the craziest thing I have seen. You couldn’t find anything unless you knew exactly where it was. It was a station attached to a huge market place. So some fun things that happened while waiting for the bus:
1. Nico tried to do a “wife swap” with a Ghanaian man he made friends with at the station. Not cool. I knew something was up before the situation was explained to me cuz the Ghanaian kept winking at me and saying “I will meet you on the bus.” I then preceded to look at Nico with my best “I am NOT amused face,” and he just shrugged gave the guy a thumbs up and said “good trade”…great
2. I met Stephanie, a Ghanaian girl that sells water sacks at the market. She helped me navigate the labyrinth of the market. I was trying to locate some “luxury” items to buy as gifts for Lucas and john (other library workers already in bolga) and she was on the phone 24-7 with her friends at stalls trying to get everything. Nico was watching the stuff at the time so I came back to the station with Stephanie to put down all the stuff. Nico than made Stephanie the “add in” to the wife swap.
3. we are just about to board our bus and nico looks at me and says “we should get a futbol for the kids.” Then he looks at his watch, sees that it is 2 minutes till boarding and says “you should go get one…NOW!” and before I have time to think, he shooooose me away and I am on the phone with Stephanie telling her to come back and see me cuz we gotta make one last purchase
4. The next 10 minutes were a crazy panic as we dashed from stall to stall looking for our prize. She held my hand and dragged me through the market asking everyone in the local dialect (twi) where we could get a soccer ball. Not able to offer much help I just allow myself to be dragged around and like a deer in headlights, saying things like “futbol! futbol!” and “thank you, thank you” in the local language. We finally get to a stand that has it and I start bargaining with the woman selling it. It is then that I get the sweetest call from Nicolas. He calls, I answer hello and he says “We are LEAVING. BYE!” and hangs up. I then grab the lady’s hand, pay her her last price, grab the ball, grab Stephanie’s hand and RUN! It was the most exhilarating 3 minutes of my life. Buses, stalls, railroad tracks, people moving things, setting up stuff-jam packed and we just ran right through it all. I twisted and turned through every nook and cranny. At the end I went into a dead out sprint and hurtle jumped over a banana and a coconut wagon. I looked back and noticed that I not only lost Stephanie but I had drawn a crowd. All 30 taxi drivers were yelling and cheering for my marathon run. They were shouting out me saying “ya, ya, u go white gurl you run, ya ya!” I gave them a thumbs up, caught my breathe, and found Stephanie. End of the story is, I jog back to the station and see no one on the bus. My eyes find nico, waiting for an explanation which is just (of course) met with him complaining how sweaty I am and how he has to sit next to gross me for the next 14 hours. In true Africa style, we just then began to board but we did not leave till 2 hours later.