Kumasi

Our Calvin group spent a couple days in Kumasi just prior to our free travel time. Our hotel turned out to be really shabby and we didn't have running water for the couple days we were there. I had my own room that was barely bigger than my bed and had walls that were probably half an inch thick. Really, they would bend if you touched them. Although it wasn't the nicest place, I really ended up enjoying it. The workers were really nice and were fun to hang out with. Two of them taught me a game one night and we played a game of pool with them. There were also some cool people staying there and we played quite a lot of cards at night. Kumasi has the largest market in West Africa and I spent several hours walking through it on two seperate days. It was a pretty cool experience and there was lots of stuff. We also went to the Coca Cola Bottling Plant of Ghana one of the days and saw how they produced the drinks and bottled them. It was fun and we all got to wear lab coats, hair nets and goggles during the tour. We also got free Orange Fantas, their product for the day. We visited a museum in what used to be an Ashanti palace. It had a lot of things that belonged to the past Ashanti chiefs. There were also peacocks wandering around the lawn. While we were in Kumasi, we also were able to see how kente cloth and adinkra cloth are made. Kente cloth, especially, is something that the Ashantis are very well known for. Overall, I think we all had a really good time in Kumasi.