Some of my more ardent readers will note that I've taken an extended hiatus since my last post of any substance. That, among other things, can be attributed to general laziness, but more precisely because I've been staying in a village that's an hour plus drive from an internet cafe! But many things have happened since Kumasi so I felt compelled to summarize these happenings for posterity's sake.
Firstly, the itinerary has changed unexpectedly--again. No longer am I affiliated with WWOOF and no longer do I plan on working with GIMAT. Instead, I'm going independent. After Kumasi Lu and I headed out for a second jaunt at the Green Turtle. After a lovely beach volleyball game (by the way SWoo, I killed;)) I said, in jest, to an American who had volunteered in the Akwidaa clinic that I would love to live in a tent on the beach and farm in the village (the village, of course, being a tropical paradise with a beautiful natural sea harbor to the south and a mangrove estuary to the north). His response was short and simple: "It can be arranged."
And so my Ghana dream was set in to motion. I was introduced to a few farmers in the village, one of whom is a former PeaceCorps counterpart and the headmaster of the private school in the village (enrollment costs between $6 and $12 a year, depending on grade level). Lu and I went out farming once, we weeded a field, dug holes and planted cassava and had a ball--he actually let us work!!!
Shortly thereafter, however, Lu came down with a biting case of malaria. His fever soared to 104 over the course of one morning and...well let's just say there were other symptoms as well. Two days later I came down with the same bug, only in milder form. Lu ended up spending three nights in the Dixcove hospital getting his butt pumped full of Quinine and IV drips. I stayed away from that hellhole of a place (no running water, a hole-in-the-ground toilet 200m outside the main building), fumbling and incompetent staff, general Ghanaian bureauracy, etc and self-medicated. Seven days later I can confidently say that all symptoms have been kicked to the wayside and I feel a-okay. Lu is still a bit worse for wear, but I dropped him with a lovely Ghanaian-American couple who run a school for the disabled in Ankamu and cook delicious food.
So now, with my next two months planned out for me (general voluntary labor in a seaside fishing village while living in a lovely backpacker resort) I have come to Accra to sort some business out and get myself ready to hunker down in obscure parts of a teeny West African country. Yesterday I picked up my things from Ken's house in Teshie and received a package from home that had been waiting at the Accra post office. Today, as soon as I finish this, I am picking up two drums carved by an artisan I met in Kumasi. For the two, with nice protective bags for travel I am paying $50--a price that is less than some people pay for one drum alone! Good connections are great. Tomorrow I'll take the first STC I can get to Takoradi and then begin the tro-tro journey back to the Green Turtle. The whole trip should take about six hours and I'll have three bags to lug around which won't make it any more enjoyable than it already is.
In the meantime, I have been enjoying the pleasures that Accra has to offer. No, I haven't met any prostitutes (I know that's what you were thinking! You have such a dirty mind!) Namely, Frankie's hamburgers! Mmmmm, delicious. For the past two nights, in celebration of kicking malaria I've had a Frankie's double cheeseburger with fries. Granted it wasn't as good as the Diamond and granted it was the most expensive meal I've had in Ghana ($6.50 for a burger + drinks!) but damn wasn't it great! Plus they had a flat-screen playing Premiereship matches. Oh and the Daily Show. BusyInternet is actually respectably fast (it better be for $1.25/hour) so, in addition to writing to you all and catching up on email and facebook I've been watching my old friend Jon Stewart on YouTube. God bless YouTube! God bless political satire! (The whole "God bless" thing might sound funny coming from my...um...fingers, but then again, I did stay with a pastor for a few days and well it just sounds good!)
Another one of the pleasures I've been enjoying is literature (well, books--not quite "literature"). I picked up the paperback of Al Franken's decade-old "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot" for $1.10 and have been burning through it. I haven't read it in a few years and all the commentary is from the Clinton-era but it's still worth a good chortle and infinitely better than "Denver Gold" a sultry love story about a beautiful blonde bandit in the Wild West and her U.S. Marshall pursuer with whom she falls in love. Somebody left it at the Salvation Army guesthouse where I'm staying. It was...subpar. Tomorrow I return to the complete short stories of Ernest Hemmingway--a 640 page tome--and perhaps then my prose will improve slightly.
Happy Passover and Resurrection of the Big Man to everyone back home celebrating. For the former I celebrated with the burger, for the latter I plan on barbequed swordfish with mango/avocado salsa and steamed rice. Sounds great, right?
So, for the four of you that occasionally call me, don't expect me to pick up until...mid to late June but I will still regularly check my email so keep it coming. It's been great getting emails from so many people--I really appreciate you all remembering me even though I'm so far removed from your daily lives. And to that end, 20,000+ visitors! Thanks everybody!
As they say in Twi: "Byebye!"
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