Dichotomes and the beach

I'll be surprised if I spelled "dichotome" correctly without the
aide of dictionary.com, but here goes:

Walking around camp in the places where there's a view of the
landscape beyond is quite striking. There you are, head to the
ground to avoid stepping in a stream of sewage or some thrown-
out piece of food covered in flies, surrounded by people who
could do to wear a bit more deoderant and children with god
knows what on their hands coming up and touching you because
you are white and often because they are attention starved.
And suddenly you look up, past the dilapedated shops selling
everything from bags of water to food to clothes (some probably
donated, others new and more expensive than people here should
be buying with all of the needs around them). And you see above
camp the most gorgeous landscape of rolling hills and green and
interesting trees and all of that. It's especially ironic, or
something like that, near the "Gulf," which is at the bottom
of camp beyond my guest house. The Gulf is absolutely beautiful,
with mountains and trees and green and most days the clouds are
gorgeous, but the Gulf is where the kids are afraid to go
because they could get snatched up to be sex slaves, and where
the woman who does the wash for the other guest house was once
going to the bathroom when a man approached her with a machete.

Anyway. Strange how that is. I really noticed it on the way to
the top of camp Friday as we left for Kokrobite, the beach in
between here and Accra. Friday afternoon was so relaxing, we
checked into Big Milly's Backyard which is a resort of sorts,
except with no toilet paper in the shared, door-less toilets,
and with bucket showers. There was, however, electricity and
our room had a fan, so it was heaven, and at night even with the
fan off it was actually cold due to the sea breeze. The food
was incredible both at Big Milly's and this real italian restaraunt
that was just down the road. Big Milly's made this desert that
was fantastic, just chopped fresh fruit, incredibly flavorful,
and ice cream. And the omlette I had for breakfast...mmm. The
bananas here are so incredibly good, at home I eat a banana and
it's like, ok, got my potassium, but here they are to savor.
Friday night there was drumming and dancing on the beach but last
night it rained, so no live reggae. THe downsides were the
sunburn I got only on the back of my body as I lay on my stomach
on the beach reading, and the bug bites due to no mosquito net,
despite the fact that I was slathered in deet. But oh, the coast
line was beautiful, with carved wooden boats and palm trees, and
on the way back in trotros I noticed how gorgeous the whole coast
is with all these red and brown roofed houses. The Ghanaian
shops in that area were shacks like in the camp, just more spaced
out. The only downside was when one of the volunteers, who is
leaving Tuesday and was going to go right into Accra to stay, was
mugged last night. He went and talked to the village chief and
the head of Big Milly's and apparently there's some guy you can
pay to get your stuff back - sounds like they do this often.

My god the bugs in here just got awful, I wish I had deet in my
back pocket right about now. Really bad, all over me and the
computer and my neighbors, I want to just read sox articles but
eww.

Something funny I've noticed at these internet cafes is that all
the locals around me are always chatting up some girl on yahoo im
or on one of htose match sites - the marriage proposals and the
internet surfing fit togethe in this desperation to finda girl to
get them out of here, I think.

OK, the bugs are awful.