Reminiscing

"Indulge in enjoyable recollection of past events."

Just over a week ago we left Ghana and landed in Washington D.C. People talk about reverse culture shock happening when you get back from another country, but there was no such thing for us. Everything is so familiar and so normal. It is easy to enjoy being in our own home, walking on clean floors (if I am a good housekeeper that day), and eating whatever we want, whenever we want. And while being home is great, there are so many stories and memories I want to capture before I forget details and peoples' faces are forgotten. Many are scribbled down in my journal-some barely legible from bumpy dirt roads-but they need to be shared. The people we met and experiences we had are too sacred to remain tucked away in a book I may not open again once it's finished. Each post this week will capture the people and events that touched us most in Ghana. Today, I will share about the Art Market.

It's technically called the Art Center, but we started calling it the Art Market so that's what I'll call it. We made two visits here near the end of our trip, and that was still not enough time to get through the whole market. Here we are inside one of the many shops that sells wood carvings:
This is where we did most of our shopping, though I spent my fair share of time inside trying to find the perfect dress (no luck). Ben loved going in each shop and bargaining for the best price. I was happy to let him have that job! After a while they all look the same to me, though each vendor claimed their items were uniquely handmade. If you would so much as look at an item, the vendor would do whatever he could to sell it to you, and if we walked out of there empty-handed, he would walk ahead of us and tell his friends what we were looking at so they could offer us similar items. It was quite exciting!

Here is a drum shop that actually did sell hand made drums by the store owner. We brought one back with us. It was priced right, at about $30 USD, when they sell for much more in the states.

One of the shops was called "God's Time Is Best Music Shop". There were many businesses that had very Christian names, which we found amusing.