Chapter 49...The weekend livin' it up in Lawra!

Lawra is the current home of a small town girl from Iowa who left Chicago four months ago to find herself a small town girl in Lawra, Upper West Ghana. Lawra has a population of 10,000, approximately one-fifth, one-sixth or one-seventh (depending on your source) of that of Bolga, making it a pretty small town in comparison! Lawra is infamous for it's musical instrument production, particularly the xylophone. Lawra town has a small market, bike repair 'shop,' seamstresses, spots, a Total garage, barbers, primary and secondary schools and on the edge of town is 'Lawsec' the secondary boarding school where this small town girl lives among 1,800 teenage boys and girls. Lawra is located on the very edge of Ghana bordering Burkina Faso. 

My long weekend livin' it up in Lawra started on Friday morning when Anthony and I piled his car high with our bags, a computer, Alomo Bitter, water and bread to start our road trip from Bolga to the Upper West. We filled the car with 50 Cedis of petrol and spent the next five hours trying to avoid the potholes of the newly improved Bolga to Wa road! 

After a short break in Tumu to stretch our legs we arrived in Eremon (15 minutes drive from Lawra) just in time for lunch - meat and kosay - fried beans. We/I decided that I should drive the last part of the journey to Abbie's house in Lawra after Anthony had (out of respect and courtesy) enjoyed a few calabashes of pito and alomo bitter whiskey! My first driving experience in Ghana faired well despite Anthony's cries for me to 'watch out' as I dipped the car into yet another pothole and to 'stay on the road' as I swerved to miss something! Personally I think his vision had been slightly blurred by all the alcohol and my driving was perfectly fine!

So my weekend livin' it up in Lawra consisted of...

• Food, food and more food - vegetable pasta, quiche, pizza, peanut butter and choc cookies (twice), mangoes and bread smothered with groundnut paste and jelly (jam for all those English readers out there)!

Tomato and alefu quiche - yummy even with burnt bits!

Tomato and alefu pizza - delicious!

• Bike rides into Lawra, visits to the market, bike repair shop, seamstress and spots.

The small market in Lawra, the main one is held elsewhere!

• A moto ride to the mushroom rocks, which turned out to be one mushroom rock surrounded by lots of other rather ordinary looking rocks!

THE mushroom rock! Not quite sure what pose I'm trying to pull off here!

And so as I enter my fifth month in Ghana I can say that it has truly been another brilliant weekend (topped off by a car ride home with 4 Ghanaians squashed in the back, a goat and two chickens) and I'm very much looking forward to the next one already...