Comparisons...

Geisha Soap: For the whole family: New Geisha Lasts Longer! That's
a billboard painted on top of many buildings.

I guess I've felt like writing less here because there's less to
write about. Conditions for the kids are bad, there are mosquitos,
it's dusty and bucket showers suck, but the kids have a better
education than in Ghana, there are far fewer bugs, there's no sewage
in the streets, and I can go to the pool for a real shower. So in
comparison it seems like people are well off here and life is
luxurious. Of course it's all in comparison.

I've been going to school, reading, doing art, doing geography, and
with P6 and P5 I've done a mini Uganda history lesson to explain why
there is an election tomorrow. The election will decide if Uganda
will have more than one party. It's pretty important as there's a
lot of international pressure on the president to open things up.

It's amazing how much faster the internet is in the afternoon
versus evening. Yay.

This weekend will be relaxing with Thursday off. Like last Sat.,
we'll hit up a club in Kampala as Thurs. is the last night for some
of the volunteers. It's amazing how western/international the
clubs are. And there's this incredible Indian restaraunt that grinds
the spices fresh. So it's a high life here...

The Debate

Swatmail is again inaccessable, it can't find the server. lovely.

School is going well, everything is very enjoyable. Today I witnessed a
very interesting debate among the P6 and P7 classes. Another school had
challenged them to a debate for tomorrow and they were practicing. There
were 4 students on the Proposers side and 4 on the Opposers side, a
Chairwoman and Timekeeper and a Secretary who was one of the teachers and
the judge, though all she did was tally the unique points each side made to
come up with the winner - there was no clash or counterargument, just each
kid standing to deliver 2-3 "reasons" in 2 minutes. They did have. The
resolution was "Science has done more harm than good." But before the
debate began they had to pick 8 kids to argue, and nobody would
volunteer. So I witnessed an entire double class of 65 or 75 kids
beaten. Every single one of them was whacked, and with such a volume
the teacher didn't bother to aim, so some got hit on the back or
shoulder but some on the bare neck or arm. It was disturbing, and
had the kids been younger I don't think I could have stood to watch.

Then as the teams were prepping the teacher had the kids in the room
brainstorm points for each side. One of the pro points was that
scientists have created diseases like AIDS. At which point I stood
up and gave a 10 minute lecture on AIDS and also decided to do a
lesson in a few weeks for both the teachers and P6-7 on AIDS, condoms,
etc.

The actual debate was interesting, again no clash, but kids brought
up interesting points. Proposers said there were nuclear weapons,
disease, fertilizers that spoil soil, Africa being forced to change
traditional ways, people not believing in God, etc. Opposers said
that new medicine saves lives, living conditions have improved,
machines make labor more efficient (then there was a POI - can't
we get cows to do it, no cows can't dig holes, well we can teach
them, much laughter), communication and transportation are better.
One kid proposing kept saying he'd heard weapons kill people or car
accidents kill on the radio. Though opp didn't pick up that he
was advocating the radio, a piece of tecnology, a kid did stand
to ask him why he'd heard everything on the radio and the
questioner hadn't, which brought lots of laughter. All around quite
interesting.

More contrasts with Ghana. The food isn't at all spicy - but also
not so overly salty. It's pineapple and peanut butter and jelly for
breakfast, perhaps an egg, and lunch and dinner always include beans
and either rice, spagetti, mashed potatos, or some combination
thereof, with avocado and maybe cooked cabbage or mixed beans and
carrots. For lunch Esther sometimes does fresh orange passion fruit
juice which is the freshest thing I've ever tasted.

The language. Everyone speaks Lugandan which seems to be preferable
to English. School is conducted in English and the road signs and
such are in English, but the younger children are still learning.
The accent is much clearer than the Ghanaian accent, they
annunciate their words much more even than I do sometimes.

The weather. It's really nice, though of course the proximity of
swimming pools helps. It's usually cool in the mornings and
evenings, some days I've even put long sleeves on. It heats up
in the mid morning to mid afternoon which makes laying out by the
pool or going for a dip a nice activity. The walk to and from
school is really really enjoyable and not a bad workout with the huge
downhill then uphill hike.

And the clothing. An even greater percentage here dress in
western clothing, but it's less of the T-shirts you know they don't
get (Boston Garden, XYZ school field day) and more of nicer,
dressier/business casual clothing. The local clothing for this part
of Uganda is pretty ugly, with these upwards pointing shoulders on
the dresses that look like something out of Star Trek.

And not nearly as many funny signs; they are few and far between.
So far it's
- B.O. Cleaners
- Value Supermarket "Pocket Friendly Center" (complete with a logo
for PFC)
- Something Secondary School "No Way Through"

Uganda! for real this time

Well, with my health better and my email finally working I can take
some time for a post.

The rest of the trip was pretty miserable, the Addis Abada airport
was dreadfully cold (as it was outside) and then I was in the back
row of the plane, feeling sick and with a fever, where there's
bathroom and kitchen noises and smells and the seat doesn't recline.
But I got to Uganda, and I had all my luggage.

I'm in Mukono Children's Home, which is for the most part an
orphanage (sponsored by a Danish organization) that also has needy
children with one or both parents and a few who live nearby and pay
to go to school there. The grounds are modest but there are
dormatories with triple bunks (the bed wetters sleep on bottom),
gardens tended by the older students as their agriculture lessons,
the building with classrooms, a kitchen, and a few other buildings.
I'm teaching from 8:30 until 1, when they serve lunch and I go
home for mine. I'll be seeing a bit of every class, from Nursery
and Kindergarden to P-7. I decided this, because I was sick of
doing math day in and day out. Today was great fun, I did stories
and geography and then hangman with countries for P-5 and then went
and sang songs with Nursery and Kindergarden and had Nursery draw
pictures. The kids are absolutely adorable and very, very well
disciplined compared to CBW - but they do beat them here. Mostly
I'll be doing age appropriate activities, a variety of outdoor games,
indoor educational games, stories, art, etc - fun stuff.

School is half an hour's walk away, through village roads and up and
down a great big hill. Or I can take a bota-bota, passenger
motorcycles that along with minibus taxis (trotros!) comprise the
public transit here. The afternoons are free. This cafe is pretty
slow but 10 minutes from the flat, and just past here is a hotel
with a pool (and western toilet and shower that you can use as well).
There's even time for a trip into Kampala - which I did yesterday
and...

VICTORY IS MINE...on the 18th, and it could have been the 16th, in
Uganda, I purhcased a copy of Harry Potter. And finished it in 8ish
hours. And was quite disapointed in the storytelling, though not
the plot. It's my least favorite of the 6. Oh well. Still for sure
worth having bought and read so soon, and I had to force myself into
another book today so I wouldn't immediately read it again - I'm
going to take a break and then do it again in a few weeks and see
if I like it better. A sub-par Harry Potter is still a compelling
and fun read.

The volunteers here, in the more laid back situation, are more laid-
back. The flat that I'm staying in has 4 people and the house girl
who cooks 3 meals, does laundry, etc. Then there are 5ish other
volunteers in nearby villages that often stay in the empty beds on
weekends. There's plenty to do, I don't know what I've mentioned,
but gorillas are way too expensive so I'll compensate with a 3 day
safari on which people usually get to see 2-4 of the 5 big game
animals, and rafting the Nile (class 5 rapids, a waterfall) probably
my last weekend here. I expect time will fly by and it's also
just so much more relaxing and less stressful than camp. I enjoyed
and learned a lot from my time there but this is a nice way to wind
down and avoid severe culture shock when I get hime.

Comparisons...well, it's cleaner. The people are as friendly, the
men like to stare but more quietly, I find the children cute instead
of annoying when they say "Muzungo," there's plenty of tempting
cheap jewelry to spend money on as in Ghana, the capital city is
more modern and cleaner (no open sewers in the city that I've seen)
with more ice cream joints but slower internet - no broadband - and
the cars are all newer and don't look like they are about to fall
apart (did I ever mention seeing a tire fall off a taxi in Ho?).
However pedestrians have zero rights here, it makes New York City
look like a small town in the midwest and my jaywalking skills
acquired as a lifelong Bostonian are pretty useless. It's scary to
just cross the driveway of a gas station let alone a street.

I'm about out of time but I am definately enjoying myself. When I
arrived sick I was a bit pissed to be here and not home, to have to
start over, but there's no culture shock and now that I'm better and
into the swing of things it's really nice.

swatmail SUCKS

I am very, very unhappy. Not only have I just been to a clinic to discover I've got an unknown stomach bacterial infection, but Swatmail has locked me out. I've typed the password about 10 times. It worked last night. AAAAAAAARG.

I made it to Uganda, and I was going to do a nice initial comparisons post (it's cleaner, the accomodation is nicer except the latrine, the

So, a few public notes:
-Happy birthday to my sister
-Mom, can you call my school IT desk at 610-328-8513 and request that my email be unlocked. My student ID if they ask for it is 901320493.

That's about it I guess. I'm pretty angry. They're supposed to send a "change your password now the deadline is in 10 days" email which I never received.

A WARNING.

If anyone so much as mentions to me a word of Harry Potter 6, who
dies or doesn't die, that the half blood prine is griffyndor or harry
is his heir or not, that dumbledore takes another leave of absense,
that ron and hermione are or are not shacking up...etc. ANYTHING...
if anything down to the cover art at the beginning of chapter 17 is
mentioned to me in any way shape or form by someone I know I will
enact the silent treatment against the culprit for all eternity.

Thank you.

Bole Int'l Airport

Here I am in Addis Abada, waiting until 2am local time to board a
flight to Nigeria and then on to Kampala, arriving at 7am. It's 21
hours total, not 27 as I've previously stated, but usually I'm good
with time zones. If the flight were 2 hours later or something, I
might fall asleep in the airport but I would get to hear part of the
Sox game here, I think. It's slow but a good machine.

Anyway. The departure ceremony went well, and faster than previous
ones thank god. They cut out the whole bit where departments you
never worked with give speaches as well. I was thanked, and wished
a safe journey (in Jesus' name) and the like. I gave a speech, the
jist of which was...

I wish I could have been here longer to see more things happen, but
I know the Int'l volunteers are an extremely capable smart etc. group
of people. CBW does such important work that no one else is doing
and we IVs can be homesick and look to 3 weeks, or 5 days, until we
go home, but you LVs are also away from your homes and yet you do
this incredible work. I'm Jewish and we have a traditional holiday
called Passover, at the end of the ceremony we say "Next year in the
promised land" to symbolize a desire to be together in peace and
unity. So Next year in Liberia.

(I changed Jerusalem to promised land....)

Then we went to look for goat soup and they were all "finished!"
I was heartbroken, having loved it the one time I had it - it's spicy
enough to burn your whole lower face but it's a delicious spice.
Wed. was packing and reading and napping - Tues. two houses down from
us was a booming party until 1:30 am - and then dinner with all the
IVs and the leadership of CBW, which was a first.

And then Thursday to Accra. Found Moses, went online, got ice cream,
was stuffed to the brim with food at his house. I mean I felt sicker
than thanksgiving. After meeting his neighbors at like 8pm he wanted
to give me eggs and bread and I flat out refused. My stomach has
been terrible the last few days anyway; wonderful timing to travel.

Woke up at 3:30am what is now yesterday, Friday, at Moses's
insistance. Got in the taxi at 4:45. ugh. At the airport I had
to wait a bit for the check in counters to open, and when they did I
was first in line for Aero, my Nigerian airline. I then proceeded
to have a calm heart attack as my name was not on the passenger list
and they told me to step aside. Luckily this was true for the next
two people in line, and they then got the right list. The departures
side of the Accra airport is much, much nicer than the sketchy
arrivals side. Moses followed me in his uniform right through
customs.

The plane was like a 40 seater, and I was in row 5 or so with a
propellor attatched to the wing right outside my window. The hour-
plus flight was straight vibrations from the little engines. On
the ground I was accompanied by an Imigration officer as a transit
passenger without a visa. He took my passport and tickets and
disappeared while I waited for my bag, which was quite frightening.
But he saw me to the Ethiopian Air counter, cut the line with me,
got my baggage checked even though it was over the weight limit,
then asked me for my card. arg. The airport was larger than Accra
and the wait flew by with a Clancy novel. I went through the metal
detector immediately - in Accra it's not until you're about to board -
but when it was time to board they took every passenger through a
line to hand check the luggage. In both cities you had to also go
to the curb and identify your luggage to be put on the plane, though
it had already been tagged. They also announced in Lagos that the
seat numbers on our boarding passes were to be disregarded - open
seating. Thus ensued pushing, chaos, and crowding waaay too close
together, especially for someone who at 5'2 is about armpit height
of many of the men who could have used some deoderant...

The flight was fine though, I got a window seat in the 6th row and
first class was nearly empty so I almost just went up there. Wish
I had, my back feels brutal from the heavy backpack alternating with
sleeping on the plane. The food was comparatively good, it was
about 5 hours, and then I was here. Addis Abada is yet a bigger
airport with plenty of duty free shops. It being past midnight,
July 16, I checked every store in the terminal for Harry Potter (I'd
finished my book and stretching my legs was in order) but most
didn't even carry books nor understand what I meant by the word.

And here I am killing time until 2am at the ridiculous rate of $5
an hour. It was sad to leave Accra/Ghana, to pass the Kollege
High School on the way to Knieshie forthe last time, etc, but I'd
already sort of found closure with leaving Buduburam and CBW.
I'm psyched for Uganda, so here goes...

Full Circle

I'm almost out of time so I'll have to cover the departure ceremony
etc when I get to Uganda, but I'm brousing in Tower Internet in Osu
where I first went online in Ghana. Full circle.

A few last funny Ghanaian signs:
-Stomach has no holiday (a store)
-Wisdom Spraying Co.
-Facts Writing Services
-Rich Pee!!! (on a taxi) and Grory be to God (on a taxi)

That's all for now, folks. Hopefully I'll get to Uganda with all
my luggage...

The rest of Kumasi was OK, relaxing. Saturday we went to Lake Bosumtwi
which actually was a bit of a let down. It's a meteor crater and it
was quite pretty but there wasn't much to do or see. And no beach,
we lay around on the cement "lawn" of a hotel. I did wade in but
despite the guidebook's declaration that there is no bilharzia I was
too afraid to swim. The guidebook was right about an old shabbily
dressed man who pretended to be the chief and asked for money.
We spent a few hours there and returned to Kumasi where we had ice
cream from a Western style grocery store. Missy did some craft
shopping and though I thought I was done I fell in love with one more
item. Tried to listen to the sox game and, surprise, failed. Couldn't
even get \gameday up. And Sunday we went out to a shrine that was
supposed to have a fetish priest but the priest had died and his
replacement had been found to be a fraud and "sacked" by the chief.
A bit of a bust, but we got back to Accra earlier than I'd dare hope
and I had some delicious street food for dinner, just tried a random
stall and got three different kinds of meet kabobs for 5000 cedis. I
have to find fried plantains before I leave, they were supposed to be
cooked for us weekly or biweekly and we got them once but I loooove
them.

So, my departure ceremony is tonight. I've done a bit of pre-packing,
planning how to maximize my carry on space as I am pretty sure over
the course of 5 airports, 2 airlines, 3 flights and 1 stopover in 27
hours my bag is going to be lost. I'll spend a little time this
afternoon thinking about what to say, and I've also got a project with
the librarian to help organize the place a little better. I'd also
like to finish my book - with it I'll have read 9 while here.

I have had times where I've longed to have my departure so
near and times when I've just enjoyed myself and the work and the
kids and the camp and all that. Now I am definately excited to go,
and Uganda will be very interesting both in and of itself and as a
comparison on many levels with here. The last week with exams has
been a good end as my departure coincides with the end of the school
year but also the work has kind of petered out and that isn't the
greatest feeling.

Time's about up. I'll try to get online Thurs. in Accra, and then
hopefully Uganda will be fairly well connected.

Trotro shopping and street food

I was just in the middle of typing a moderately long post and the
computer in this cafe closed all my windows.

Here I am in Kumasi. Missy and I took a bus this morning and just
finished exploring the largest outdoor market in Africa. It was
a sensory overload, with sections for clothes, shoes, fabric, food
including live chickens in cages or baskets on people's heads,
veggies, fish that stank...NOt that much hassle, a bit of Obruni
calling and occasionally a hand grabbing my arm. We're sticking
mostly to city center so it's cheap for taxis. OUr hotel is
absolute crap - last weekend I paid 51k for a nice bed, good sized
room and bathroom with water and a shower and all that, with a fan.
This weekend it's 60k for selfcontained small room with a fan and
the bathroom is basically built into a corner of the room, kind of
unsheltered.

I've been meaning for a while to describe the street food options
here in Ghana. In camp, you can walk up as it's getting dark and
see all sorts of grills out with corn that tastes like popped corn,
chicken or beef htat's really spicy, fried plantains or yam chips,
and sometimes rice or casava or egg bread sandwiches. Also there's
tables out with candy and cookies. And they sell the most delicious
coconut sugar cookies that I'm addicted to for 200 cedis (2 cents!)
as well as donuts and dough balls (the former also in the morning)
and some other less appetizing cookies. We've got our favorites on
camp. You can get fruit and vegetables but usually that's in the
morning and afternoon; I've got my favorite spots for tomatos or
mangos etc. And my two favorite kinds of cookies, one that's really
gingery and with Arabic writing, the other that has delicious nutty
chocolate paste inside.

As for the trotro shopping. Basically, vendors stand with things
on their heads or in their hands on the sides or in the middle of
crowded streets. You can get pastries or FanMilk (line of frozen
yogurt like treats that are fairly good, considering), candies,
cookies, fruit, and nonfood like hankerchiefs, shirts, bags, etc.
I've grown quite addicted to Mentos as they are always waving in my
face and it's the only Western candy they sell - the fruity Mentos,
with an Arabic wrapper.

A few more signs...

-Decent Haircut, also Decent Mobile Phones - really great advertising there,
guys!
-Amalgamation Bank - Amalbank

That's all for now. I might try to listen to a Sox game here
depending on time.

Tema, oops!

So I come into Accra, go get bus tickets for Friday to Kumasi, and then ask for Tema Station, which is right near the cultural center where I had planned to pick up a few last souveniers. Well, after paying a fare that seemed too high and then after being on the trotro nearly an hour, I knew something was wrong, even though I'd said Tema Station I'd been pointed to a trotro to Tema the city. So that was 2 hours of my day. Which I'm really happy about. I did meet a nice woman who helped me get back to Accra and a woman on the returning trotro who goes to school in Georgia so talked to me with an American southern accent. She tlaks in her local accent usually to avoid getting ripped off.

Let's see, this week has been mostly exams. I thought they would be easy and boring, just sitting there, but turns out the problem of illiteracy is so bad that 5-8 teachers are kept busy reading questions out to the kids over and over and over again because they can't read them themselves. It's really sad. My kids are failing math tests when they got all the (very similar or identical) practice questions right.

Last Sunday after I got back I met all the new volunteers, six total and three in our house. Two in our house are a honeymooning Dutch couple. Not my idea of a honeymoon, but they are really nice people. Before we all left for the weekend we scattered their beds with condoms. Then that night we got a note at the house saying that our Irish and English friends from Kosoa were both at the UN clinic. I went running up - Ailish had gotten Malaria two days before she was due to fly home, then Emily had fainted watching them put a needle into Ailish. Eventful night.

For the fourth I made rice pudding out of leftover rice and canned milk and cinnamon with bananas. I'd been wanting to do that for a while and it was both easy and good. The Americans sat around and played card games and missed fireworks after the 1.5 hour Monday information sharing meeting for CBW.

At the meeting they said my goodbye ceremony will be Tuesday. I can't believe I'm leaving in a week. It's so unreal. I finally got settled here, about last week, and now I'm getting ready to go. I'm excited for Uganda but so sad to leave. It will be an interesting comparison both with culture and conditions and schools, and also the organizations GVN chooses to work with. It'll be Kumasi Friday-Sunday, two more days of exams (they should have ended Monday but they weren't copied in time to start this Monday), a day of packing and taking pictures and helping the library with an organizing project, and then Thursday I'll go into Accra and Friday depart. Time goes faster as it gets closer.

Thanks to everyone who is donating to CBW. The organization really appreicates everything.

Back. Earlier than I'd planned because I got a ride most of the way back.

I had a delicious salad in Ho, awoke the next morning and failed
miserably in a search for a mango, and went straight on to the
monkey sanctuary. I walked the 5km in to the village of Tafi Atome
in a little over an hour and was there before 1. On the way for a
bit a few kids followed me for a while asking for water (I was
drinking from a bag) money and pens in high pitched voices. The
village was very nice and I got a room -pricier than I'dthought
it would be, which left me with far less money for Kente cloth.
Sat around by the office/reception area watching the monkeys play
in the dirt and reading and such. Just after I got there a group
of 6 arrived to stay the night, british volunteers at some drama
program. THen a truckload came from Chances hOtel, very expensive
place in Ho - Habitat volunteers from some NY church that it turns
out donate money to this methodist church in Buduburum. They left,
thankfully cause there were 20 of them, and meanwhile I tagged
along with the Brits to see the village kente weavers and then the
making of Palm Wine - alcohol from palm trees. they chop down 8
year old trees (which they do replace) and burn certain places to
bring up the sap, tap them, get 45 or so jerry cans of sap, which
ferments, then 4 of these at a time go into a barrel over a fire.
The barrel is sealed except a tube (bamboo I think) that comes out
and goes through another barrel of cold water - the alcohol in
vapor form is turned back into liquid and drips out the end through
a cotton filter into a jar. It takes 6 hours for 4 jerrycans (I
think bigger thn the tapped size) to turn into the hard liquor,
which is a whopping 78% alcohol said the guide. They had us try
both, the fermented stuff with bees in it. It was sweet and
fizzyish but had the worst aftertaste, undescribable - maybe the
bees? The hard liquor was perhaps like vodka but not quite,
peppery and STRONG. Then a night of storytelling, and dancing
and drumming performed, all after a delicious dinner. While the
drumming was going on some of the village girls started to play
with my "Obroni" hair. Then this morning up at 6 for the walk
in the forest, wherewe saw more monkeys and fed them bananas.
Breakfast, and I hitched a ride with the Brits in their
leather-upholstered spacious trotro all the way down near Tema,
from which I took 4 more trotros to get back to camp, earlier
than I'd have liked but it was a good weekend. Volta is gorgeous,
the whole region, the river and hills and everything.

Funny signs...
-Ashaiman Metal Fabricators
-Best Brains College (BBC) Remedial Classes
-billboard: Buy to insure your health. Help the poor to have health care.
-Fool to Pee Here
-in accra, do not really small and then PEE HERE huge

Anyway I'm hoping tomorrow, the 4th, will be fun with 7 americans
now among the volunteers.

I just met a girl who's volunteering here 3 months with this
new empowerment organization, found it through idealist.org, is on
a homestay and got here tuesday - she's so happy to have met a
white person and discovered there's a bunch of us.

Here I am in Ho...

Which is the regional capital of the Volta region. I had planned to
spend the night in Akosombo but I made such good time that I went on.

July 1st is Republic Day, so I took off Thursday at about noon and
it took forever to get into Accra. Then I caught a trotro to Aburi
where I had to get a shared car to Mamfe to get a trotro to Kofuridua.
I think I could have gotten accra-kofuridua straight but I didn't
know at the time and the guidebook implied that my route was the only
way. The roads were twisty and hilly and it was foggy and at times
rainy, so a bit scary plus half the time the beautiful scenery was
blocked by the fog. In Mamfe the taxi driver tried to tell me it
was snowing. HA. Then from Kofuridua another shared taxi to Boti
Falls where I spent the night in a very dingy dark room with no
electricity and a fan and lightbulb and toilet and bathtub that I
think were just there for show or in hopes that the tecnology would
make it eventually - made me wish I'd spent the night in Kofuridua,
but it was worth it in the morning because the caretaker arranged the
hike for me so I got an early start. I saw the falls, which are
pretty but just down a ton of steps (on which I received a marriage
proposal and had to tell him I had a boyfriend, then he wanted to
marry my sister so I said I have only brothers...). Even at 7:30 am
the falls were crowded with food vendors and Ghanaian tourists - this
isn't usual; it was all for Republic Day. Luckily my hike started at
8 and ended at 10 and we only ran into the throngs on the way back.
The hike goes to a kind of interesting natural cave - just a rock
that justs out, not caverns or anything - and a spectacular "Umbrella
Rock" that is like two huge round rocks balanced on top of eachother
but it's actually one rock and the top is flat. Gorgeous views.
Also this three-trunked palm tree, but the umbrella rock was the cool
part. The hike was quite strenuous, scrambling up and down sometimes
very steep places, and we kept up a fast pace. Anyway, I bought a
bag of rice back at the falls and snacked on that all the way through
Kofuridua and then on the way to Kpong (K is silent) where I rode
in the front seat of the trotro which made for marvelous views. From
there I went to Akosombo, a short ride, got ripped off by a taxi driver
taking me to the dam tour, took a pretty cool tour of the dam, decided
the canoe ride was way too expensive, had a drink at the luxurious
Lake Volta Hotel (I paid 9000, but for the view and the AC and the
bathroom and soap and hot water it was so worth it) an then went back
to Kpong and on to Ho. My hotel here, Tartu, has a nice manager
who just walked me all the way to the internet cafe. So that's been
my busy two days...tomorrow I'll poke around the markets here and go
to the Tafi Atome monkey sanctuary and the nearby kente-weaving village.

Some signs along the way...

-Guinness ad both on a sign with an arrow to a primary school and
on a sign for the ghanaian army officers' mess in Accra
-Last Stop Prayer Camp on the way from camp to Accra - note that
there are churches every 20 feet.
-Maggi Shitto ads all over Knieshe (where trotros from camp to accra
stop) often with the frame cutting the o off - it's some sort of brown
canned food
-Benji's sexy hot spicy tilapia on the way from camp to accra - I think
i saw this right, I had had my eyes closed so my contacts were a bit off
-all over Accra and scattered all over Ghana are Latex Foam: Your
Partner for life ads
during the rest of my travels...
-Miracle Child Accademy
-Don't mind your wife chop bar
-variety of joint Hair salon and comm. center places
-My Life Depot
-Winners' Chappel (and the other churches are for losers?)
-Understanding Fast Food
-To Be a man of God poultry birds for sale
-blood of jesus comm. center
-god and sons mobile phone co.
-slow but sure tailor's

Then there was the sign that said something like "AIDS is real, women
and girls protect yourself, use a female condom" and had a six-part
graphic diagram of just how to do so. Also, all over Ghana there's
ABC campaign signs - that's Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condom Use, but
one said Condomise instead.

This place has such a nice fan. I'm not eager to leave because I'm
not that nhungry, on the trotro I had corn on the cob. Usually you
see what looks like it in camp but it has the taste and texture of
bad popcorn, but this was the real, slightly chewey, thing.

I'm so excited about the sox - Johnny beating Ichiro for a starting
spot, first place, all that. Definately I'm missing being at games.