school's out!

holiday
school vacated last week so we've been traveling every other day. liz and i have a month to explore ghana with my sister! last week we went to boti falls. took a nice hike for an hour or two through jungle-y scenes, anonymous caves (im not sure what that means), climbed an umbrella rock, and a three-trunked palm (once again, dad would have been jealous). next day went with two of our teacher friends to the akusumbo dam (a good 2 hours away). it's helpful to travel with ghanaians. they know the language and get better deals. we obrunis get jipped by taxis and ticket offices all the time. anyway, the dam was built back in the 60's and is basically the reason why volta river is the largest man-made lake in the world. kind of a let down. they made us pay an exorbitant fee to walk around looking at a couple huge pipes on the side of the river but wouldn't let us take any pictures of it (maybe they were scared we'd blow it up with liquid bombs? i hate terrorists. impressed that i actually heard about the latest world news? things make there way to akropong.. slowly)

we finally did our first overnight trip to a town 4/5 hours away called Ho (yes there was a YMCA Ho Branch). and then stayed the night at a monkey sanctuary and fed them bananas in the morning during a nice forest tour. this morning we stopped by another town called Ho-Hoe (you say the second hoe like hoi). we attempted to find another volunteer that my sister made friends with on the plane. he's a californian college kid named aryan. sounded like a fun obruni to chill with. it didn't work though. cause.. we didn't know anything besides the fact that he was working on a medicaly-sort-of facility near ho-ho. oh well! if you ever read this aryan! we tried!

tomorrow we are leaving for the north! it's supposed to be hot and dry, and maybe more poor because it's further away from the bustling south and capital? not sure. will see soon enough! we got tickets for an 11 hour bus ride to the northern city of tamale. (african travel consists mainly of sitting in the back of stuffy, bumpy, dirty vehicles, moving either too fast or too slow.) btw. two memorable phrases we read on the back of taxis recently were "black chinese" and "chicken georgia". hmm no clue. oh yeah, and restaurants are called chop bars. two to note are "Don't Mind Your Wife Chop Bar" and "Sweet Mother Chop Bar" as well as "All Class Chop Bar" which is a dilapidated shack. i read that tamale has an abundance of bicycle riders (as many as china?) and the street kids sleep overnight at the bus station:( then we'll take a four hour tro ride to mole national park. elephants, crocodiles, "water monitors" (these 1 meter long lizard things). wooohoo! i'm excited! i like wildlife. i think. we tried booking a room at the Mole Motel too but their email isn't working so we're just going to wing it. if it doesn't work a nice guest house run by twin europeans is also suggested and you can sleep on the roof!

FOOTBALLS!
big time loving and thanks to ct and k for sending the soccer balls! (and stickers and jump rope and wonderful notes). i had to travel to the larger town of koforidua 45 minutes away because akropong post office couldn't handle such happening packages! wow! it was so hilarious to open them in front of the customs/post office lady and show em off! even though school is out, the other guy teachers and us will try to set up a friendly match in a week or so with the students. i know the boys will FLIP OUT! on a side note, just wanted to put this out there to anyone who is feeling especially philanthropic. what the kids really need next are jerseys. they borrow the primary school kids' jerseys. they are dirty and smaller and not enough. and when they sub they have to strip off and run onto the field half changed. if anyone is interested in funding a new set of jerseys let me know! i'm assuming we'd need 11 tops and bottoms (at least). they could be all the same size. boys medium? i don't know details right now. but it would be so crazy cool for them! their season starts in the fall and they play 30 other schools in the surrounding area.

!@#$%%
notice the increase in updates lately? the training college in akropong opened up a computer lab for the entire community to use as an internet cafe! wow! this really changes things! it's interesting living in this village/town as it slowly but steadily modernizes. but it is slightly bittersweet. having internet only a 20 minute walk away could be deadly. i'm going to try not to come back here TOO often. it's nice breathing real air and looking at real things instead of the computer screen.

books
life in africa involves a lot of time for hobbies i don't usually set aside enough time for for like drawing and reading. Freakonomics was great (props to sahil for the bday gift:) i was especially surprised to learn that someone actually named their child shithead. okay there were other freaky economic theories mentioned like how abortion is the reason for decrease in crime, but the names section really struck me. also i 100% recommend How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer. interesting random tid-bity book. i'm not even a soccer or history buff but i REALLY enjoyed it. honorable mention goes to Things Fall Apart (sahil i should always shop in B&N with you). i never read it for school. and thank goodness because i don't think i could have appreciated it At All back in the day. but it is perfect reading material for anyone who is experiencing africa. they talk about pounding fu-fu and village life and not whistling after dark because of evil spirits (which is a real superstition here) AND yams! it's all about yams! okay not all about but a lot about. my favorite line is "yam is king of crops, a man's crop." it sums up a major portion of my time here...eating!! it's like my second growth spurt. i can't not go for second helpings. not that i really grew taller the first time.