Twi sucks. Okay, I take that back. Twi is awesome but damn is it hard to remember. This trip has taught me that my auditory learning skills are quite low and my language acquisition is similar to that of a parrot: I can mimic the sounds, but rarely can I remember the words five minutes later (unless of course you beat it into me!) I think I am in desperate need of a Twi book, so if anyone finds one PLEASE PLEASE buy it and send it to me! I have searched here to no avail (well, I found Twi to German).
Okay, now for my life: I'm a farmer! Woohoo! Actually, my farming has been limited mostly to picking things off the ground and carrying heavy stuff on my head. So I got that goin for me. Maase is a quiet little town with nicer homes than I had expected to see. We have electricity (which means my phone works, hint hint), and just yesterday Amoha bought a TV! He forgot to buy an antenna though. That's okay though, I hope he doesn't find one until I leave.
Here in Maase I share a room with a friendly German guy by the name of Luzander Pipeline-Fighter (translated from German). I met him briefly at Ken's house and he's definately a character. His English is a bit rusty and his accent a bit thick, so we have fun trying to interpret what exactly he is trying to say. In our plentiful downtime we have decided to embark upon a trip together in a few weeks, when we leave Maase. The tentative plan is to roughly follow the entire border of Ghana counter-clockwise, starting in Accra, going North through the Volta region, through Tamale, up to Bolgatanga, head West to Wa, down to Mole National Park (hippos, elephants and monkeys oh my!), stop in Kumasi and then down to the far west coast, and back towards Accra. There's about a dozen stops that we've planned along the way--more elaborate details later--including some WWOOF farms in Hohoe and Kumasi. We will be in transit for approximately 2 to 3 months. Now I don't know about y'all, but I'm excited! We expect to spend somewhere around $2-3 per day for food (it can be done on $1.20, but we like to live large) and maybe $4 a day for accommodations when we are not on the farms. After this time I will drop Lu at a school near Winneba and I will continue east to Dodowa to teach English and coach football--soccer--for a month or so.
While life may sound rather hectic, we are actually enjoying quite a leisurely pace to our lives. In the morning we have begun an exercise routine consisting of a jog through the bush and some pushups/situp, afterwards we eat a hearty breakfast. From there we do some work--farm-related or otherwise--and in the evening we play football, eat dinner and drink palm wine (tastes like juice, but if you drink too much the headache you acquire is proof of the high alcohol content).
The shower is a concrete block with a panoramic view of plantain and palm fields with a hefty smattering of chickens and goats. I rather enjoy the scenic bucket showers, even though they are probably the coldest thing in Ghana. The toilet, which I endearingly refer to as "target practice," is a 4 inch x 4 inch hole in the ground surround on three sides by tin "walls." If you wait a minute or so the flies usually disperse and if you bang the tin enough the mice will scatter as well. Probably the best part of Ghana is "target practice" (note that I have never been known to be sarcastic in the slightest).
Currently, southern Ghana is in the midst of a season that is known as Hamertin (or somehting like that), but I just call it HAMMERTIME! This is when dusts from the north climb high into the atmosphere and shroud the sky in a perpetual haze. This also inhibits the satellite reception and makes the internet VERYYY slowwww.
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