Nina and I first went by ourselves up to Wa, which, from Accra, took a total of 19.5 hours. We arrived in Wa at 1:30am in the pouring rain, only to ride around in a taxi until 3am because there were no hotels with open rooms or whose reception people would wake up. We ended up “sleeping” on the bus we had taken there to lasting Bob Marley music until 5:30am when they kicked everyone off the bus.
Nina thought it was hilarious to snap a picture of me "sleeping" on the bus
Nina sponsors a girl named Eng-Tiyieng, who lives outside of Wa in the Upper West region. I got to go with Nina to meet Eng, who is 10 years old, and her whole family at her house. It was really special seeing Nina meet Eng and talk to her. We had translators from World Vision and got to see all of the development projects that are occurring there.
Nina & me with Eng-Tiyieng's family - Eng is in the pink dress :)
Later that night, we met up with our other friends Jon, Courtney, and Emily, only to find tha they had taken the overnight bus to Wa during which Jon had to make the driver stop many times to vomit – he had food poisoning. I think we should have known at this point that our trip wasn't exactly going to go as planned :) The following morning, we crossed into Burkina Faso at the obscure Hamale border point, which was a HUGE mistake. After arriving there, we found out that we had missed the ONLY bus that went through there daily. We spent several hours at the border, trying to figure out how to get out of there – the town, we were told, only had one hotel and did not have any electricity or water. After a very long argument and yelling match with Burkinabes in French, we finally managed to get to Gawa, our destination. 
We found a great restuarant in Gawa...I think we were slightly loopy by that point from all the bus rides!
The next day, we went to the market in Gawa and then tried to get to Banfora, our next destination. Unfortunately, there was another argument in French as the bus drivers tried to charge us more for our bus fare than everyone else…we definitely created a commotion as all these Burkinabe’s just keep coming to watch the white people…On the 5-hour drive, our bus got a flat tire, and so we stopped in a random village so they could fix it. The 5 of us walked out, and all of the village children screamed and ran toward us – but they were too afraid to get close to us! It was adorable. If you look closely in the picture out of the back of the bus, you can see all the children waving bye to us.
The next day, we got on another bus to Bobo- Dioulasso, where we first went to a really cool museum. We got to see life-size replicas of traditional Burkinabe housing (which varies by ethnic group throughout the country). We later got a tour through the oldest part of Bobo, and the got to go inside a mosque constructed in the 16th century!
We then traveled to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, later that night. The following morning, Nina, Emily and I woke up extra early to go to a French patisserie (pastry shop). It was an amazing break from traditional African food – and delicious!
Please note the two giant pastries in front of me :)
Later that day, we crossed back over into Ghana, and RAN to hop on the busses that went straight to Accra. The five of us got split up, and I ended up traveling the 14 hours by myself. I sat next to a Burkinabe who was traveling to Accra to buy things to sell back in his market…He only spoke French, and after we traded our respective currencies (I love having money from other countries), I translated many of the Ghanaian movies into French for him. I decided that no Ghanaian movie is complete without either having an exorcism or an affair somewhere in the plotline. My ride wasn’t as exciting as Nina’s, Emily’s, and Courtney’s – they had the privilege of sitting right next to two ladies who kept throwing up everywhere and peeing in bottles in the aisle of the bus. The most exciting part of my ride was when we stopped in Tamale, which is the largest city in northern Ghana. I got in line to pee in these shacks, which I then realized were directly overtop of the deep gutters that line all of the roads in Ghana….the same gutters that overflow every time it rains. I mean, I guess exciting isn’t the word for it, but it was certainly a reality check about the need for a better sanitation system in Ghana!
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