It's a calabash, duh.

Greetings,
I had my African Popular Music class today. First music class I have taken in a very long time so it is a good change of pace, not saying I follow too much but I find bits to enjoy about it. Then spent my afternoon doing some reading in the sun outside. This evening celebrated a friend's birthday with some coconut cake and a movie.

I thought I would pass along this op ed piece entitled News Good Enough to Bury from the NY Times that was written this past August.
If you don't have time to read it I thought there was a pretty revealing quotation I will share with you.

While I was in Ghana, I read a paper called The Daily Graphic. One day,
it had two ads on successive pages, the first about broadband Internet becoming
available in the central city of Sunyani from a company called Care 4U, the
second about the “high incidence of open defecation in Ghana.”
“Most
affordable! Feel the speed!” said the first ad. The second, from a Ghana
sanitation monitoring agency, estimated that “more than four million people in
Ghana defecate in the bush, open drains, water bodies, or fields” and suggested
means to stop the practice.
Two images of an African nation — modernizing or
primitive: I know which comforts the continent’s stubborn stereotypes. Africa
Ascendant is not yet a slogan that sells. It will be.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/opinion/21Cohen.html?_r=1&oref=slogin


It is a very common for people to defecate in open areas but also to relieve their bladder quite publicly. At the same time, as the article mentions, there is a strong trend of modernization occurring. I believe that Africa will undoubtedly be the region to watch in the coming years in the international scene.


Anyways have to get to bed semi early. I am headed off to a Liberian Refugee camp tomorrow. It is about a two hour tro tro ride away. If I have not yet explained a tro tro I apologize. I must take a picture soon. It is a means of ramshackle public transportation in sketchy vans with about 30 people smooched in. Plus side? They go about everywhere and a 1 hr trip on average cost 85 cents. Nice.

Bedtime.

-Ellie