Newsflash: No bloodtest yet, but five bucks says I have typhus--in german. In English it's typhoid and is just as fun. Valentine's Day was spent with a MONSTER of a headache. Late in the evening I resorted to narcotics and ice just to keep the pains at bay. Lu and I celebrated the holiday with a romantic feast of rice served in plastic bags and consumed with broken plastic spoons in our dingy YMCA room. The rice with "small small" sauce cost 22 cents and had a slight aroma of nasty fish. It was washed down with water reminiscent of a swimming pool. For all of you out there lamenting their day for being loveless and without cheer, buck up because you probably didn't have it half as bad.
Yesterday was a tylenol day and so far today I'm a-okay. Lu warns me however that once you finally start feeling great then ALL of your energy goes away and you become a worthless piece of...you get very tired.
I got a package in Accra the other day but b/c it was addressed to my name I have to pick it up in 21 days or it will be returned to sender! I won't be in Accra for more than a month so that could pose a bit of an impediment. God be denegrated. Too much God here. He this. Him that. God save us. God protect this television. It's disconcerting to have the nurses pray with everyone before they go on shift. Maybe it's a "just-in-case." A fun little quirk of the Ghanaian experience is that the Almight Lord Above is intrinsically linked with material fortune. Therefore, a common expulgation (is that even a word? I don't care let's just roll with it) is "I love God. I love money." No breath in between. I'm pretty sure you can go to hell for that. Many of those tacky wallhanging that you might find in antiquated middle america homes that praise the Lord's beneficence feature a) bloddy jesus man, b) a ballin' new car, c) a ballin' new house, d) all of the above. I'm thinking it's like worshipping the golden calf. I suppose I can understand the roots behind such prayers but it feels so damn dirty nonetheless. I think Jesus, the almighty unifier (...) friend of whores and gamblers alike would have trouble with poor and wealthy alike eliciting his name in prayers for bountiful and extravagent material wealth so as to buy flashy cars, liquor, air conditioning and other things that allow the monied elite to look down upon the rest--no, the majority--of Africa.
Don't I sound like an ordained minister? (I am by the way.) At least I capitalized Jesus.
As you can see, time in bed allows the mind wander. Perhaps we should just head for the hills and damn the consequences! Maybe not. I think for today we'll hit the pool and see what happens there.
Ho is my insurmountable blockage in the arterial passageways of Ghana. It shows absolute obstinance, irregardless of our own of resolve, to hold us within its waterless, faunaless grasp. I want to escape to a land of arid savannahs and hippos and crocodiles and yet here we remain to interminably dash at the keyboards of our incarceration.
With any luck we will be out of here soon.
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