Ghana - Day 5 (Last day in Ghana!)

Day 5 - I couldn't believe it was the last day in Ghana already and I had done soo many things, I was already exhausted! 5 days in port, jampacked with activities, long bus rides, and people talking to you anywhere you walk. I was glad to go on an FDP, relax a little, and not have to worry about where we're taking a taxi or what we're doing afterwards. I went on an FDP to Global Mamas with Professor Heather Paxson who is my Anthropology of Food professor, but I was using it as an FDP for her husband's class, Professor Stefan Helmreich's Cultural Anthropology class. We drove a little over an hour to Accra where they dropped us off at the same little store I went to the day before. We got to look around a bit more and I ended up buying a few more things =/ (It's for a good cause!) No really it is. As I said before Global Mamas is an NGO and fair trade market organization that helps support women and their families. The reason why they support women and not men is because most of the time when a women earns money, the money goes towards her family or the community and when you support Ghanaian men, the family often times doesn't see the money at all. They empower women to rise out of poverty by buying printed fabrics (their signature and you can distinguish their products from all the rest in Accra and maybe even in Ghana) giving it to the women and telling them how many orders they have to fill by a certain date. Some women only do dresses or only do bags. It just depends from women to women and each woman usually has her own fabric print that is her own signature. When the order is done, the products are quality checked which means your product is of the highest standard goods and you know you're getting a good deal. They then export it to their US stores or sell it in their store in Osu. They don't waste a lot of fabric either. They try and use every single scrap. Whatever is left over from the dresses, they would make into a bag or something smaller. Whatever is left over from that, they would use it to say a tie and even then the strips that they have, they weave it to make woven pot holders. They use every bit of fabric they can because that's more money that can go to the women. 95% of the money made goes back to the women and the rest is used to buy more fabric and help run the organization. They also have bead jewelry makers and they buy the jewelry from people who make the beads out of 100% recycled glass. It's a really cool organization and you can check em out at their website. Just google "Global Mamas Ghana." Afterwards we headed to Makola market which is near the Natural Culture Center and this is where people said they really grab you and pull you into their shops, but since we were in a big group, we had to stay in the non-congested areas so we could come back easily. Makola market is more for the locals and had fabrics and household goods. We left the market at about 1 and headed back to the ship. When we got back I still had about 34 Cedis left so I went to the shops that had been set up right by our ship especially for SAS and bought 3 more paintings for 34 Cedis. The rest of the night just consisted of getting some laundry done and cruising on the ship till we left Ghana! We watched as the ship moved farther and farther away from the city. Off to South Africa!!

Miho =]