Yawda Yawda Yawda.

Yawda=Thursday in Twi. how fun.


A week as gone by. Hi mom, Hi dad! Hi friends, family! (Brother are you reading this? here is your test)

Last Friday had an interesting day at the Liberian Refugee camp. It was about a 2 & 1/2 hr tro tro trip away with a transfer at Kaneshi Market halfway. Kaneshi is a crazyfest of a marketplace. I think I will try and bring my camera tomorrow to pass on some images for you all. Kaneshi is a very large yellow three story building. All along the sides of the building and nearby streets are mostly females selling a wide range of goods. Everyone is tightly packed together, yam sellers next to yam sellers, fish sellers packed next to fish sellers etc. Top pick of interesting foodstuffs I saw last time were raw pigs feet in a basket. I wonder how much they were going for. In the actual building of Kaneshi the first floor is food products, second floor is a big mix from Tupperware to weaves to bras, and the third floor is fabric and seamstress heaven. No real way to understand how to get around the place, no hallways, just twists and turns through the sellers.

Spent a few hours at the refugee camp meeting people. The actual camp is a pretty established village, pretty big, and most of the people I talked to had been there since the 90's. There are both children and adult educational and vocational schools. It truly is a living community. I head back there tomorrow to listen and document stories from former child soldiers.

Moving along, last Friday night our group headed out to Chez Afrique, a wonderful restaurant, bar, and great place for live music. It was a bit more upscale than the other places we have been to so I was finally able to dance alone to my heart's content without being constantly bombarded by too many potential dance partner/creepers.

Last Saturday night. Eight of us went out for another birthday celebration to a great Thai place. We were welcomed very warmly and they had great live music--- the birthday girl had a wonderful serenading of the Ghanaian version of the happy birthday song along with a bottle of wine on the house. After I enjoyed some prawn pad Thai and my dessert of fried pineapple and chocolate ice cream we proceeded to a popular Obruni(foreigner) night spot called Champs. It is nice big sports bar with an open kitchen, bar, and pool tables.... Cover charge of 10 dollars and the bar is open to your disposal after that. So of course there has to be-- a karaoke stage, phenomenal. I played(attempted to learn) some pool with two middle aged South Africans who are here on business. Then I documented my friends tearing up the karaoke stage. Lovely time.

Today! I secured my reservations for my fall break in mid October which will include living on the beach doing turtle conservation and teaching at a local school. This will all take place five hours west of Accra in Akwidaa at Green Turtle Lodge. I hope to take some canoe trips through mangrove swamps and hike a bit- do the nature touristy thing etc.

African Popular Music class today was revealing to my extreme lack of musical talent. Half of our class time was spent doing a practical drumming lesson. I was given what was suppose to be the easy instrument. I was told that it was the dancing beat, so you should be able to do it if you could dance well. Hmmm well I found out that it is one thing to find the beat with your hips but something completely different to make the beat with your hand.... consistently. Who would have thought "tap tap tap tap tap tap" could be so hard. Kudos goes out to those musically inclined folk.

This upcoming Saturday Habitat for Humanity build in a village about 2 hours away.
Looking forward to it.

(Brother you still reading?)

xxoo
All the very best,
Ellie