After a long first night, our (German Shepherd) babies are finally asleep (at 6 am). As I’m sitting here outside on an uncomfortable birdhouse thats is waiting to be hung on a tree -but I don’t want to move and wake the puppies- with the golden sun making it’s way higher into the sky, watching the little ones sleeping peacefully I felt like this is the time to finally update the blog.
We have been so busy and so many things had to be done first that I haven’t had much time or many thoughts for a new blog entry. We were in Europe for two months over the summer, visiting friends, family, taking road trips with friends we hadn’t seen in years, photographing a wedding, eating heaps of cakes and salmon, drinking lots of wine and ciders, enjoying the european summer, and gathering inspiration.
After we came back to Ghana in September, Jack’s family came to visit for two weeks, so we packed everything in our dear, old, green landrover and took another roadtrip North. We drove across the whole country, through back roads, dirt roads, and barely roads, stopping at different places and finally reached the very North of Ghana, Mole National Park.
That’s where we spent three days; hiking, looking for wild elephants, feeding a cheeky monkey with french fries by the pool, being greeted by Pumba (herds of warthogs) in the mornings and watching antilopes in the evenings. After three beautiful but elephant-less days we convinced a ranger to hike with us to find them. So off we went again, this time driving for a few kilometers with our own car, saw the usual many monkeys, birds and game and then got out to walk. We walked through bushes and grass land, getting bitten by clans of mosquitos and other insects until we found elephant tracks! It was such an amazing experience to track them through the wild forest and to really find three of the majestic creatures in the shade of big trees, shaking their big ears and chewing on some twigs and leaves.
We watched them for ages, despite the growing heat (even though it was 7 am) and the insects eating us. I find them so fascinating and even though I had seen wild ones in India I had never actually followed their tracks and found them and we got to go very close to these ones.
On our way back South we passed a lovely cocoa plantation somewhere on a dirt road that we weren’t sure was even meant for driving since we didn’t meet another car for hours and we stopped at a butterfly sanctuary that had incredibly huge, old trees and many varieties of tropical plants.
Once during our trip we were just driving with all windows down, getting shaken around in the car because of yet another funny road we had decided to take, we were all a bit tired of driving and had been arguying a bit and I had been feeling quite sad. But then I breathed in the scent of citrus coming from all the orange trees around us and the smell of musty soil, citrus leaves and the warm earth. It smelled like happiness. And everything around me no longer mattered. I was filled with the nature around us that was completely alive and it reminded me of the things that are truly important in life. Sometimes it just takes a moment; a moment to breath and let the negativity escape your body. There might be a million things to do and I may feel judged and critized for who I am, standing up for what I believe in, being bold and having opinions sometimes, but in that short moment everything was perfect.
Since J’s sweet family has left again we have been planting 30 banana trees, been fixing the dam which took a lot of energy and time (but the birds, trees and turtles are happy again), been making new friends around the village, been planting vegetables, been spending lots of time in Accra as well and done lots of things that are part of our daily life here but are too long to list.
I am off on a trip for a project most of next week and J will be on the land, building furniture, teaching the boys about permaculture and taking care of the pups.
I hope you all had a lovely summer (or winter in some parts of the world) and are looking forward to hot coco, cookies and fire places…
Love from the tropics
the sun´s harvest 