Hi family and friends! Hope you all enjoyed the holiday season and got your fill of everything that is Christmas and New Years in America. I came back from 3 weeks away from Zè to constant questions of “What did you bring me?” and “What are you going to give me for the holidays?” When I throw that question back at them they usually get all upset and say they’re coming to my house to take a gift that they believe is rightfully theirs. I actually had two girls about my age push their way into my house and start grabbing things on my shelf. As if they could possibly appreciate grated Parmesan cheese and Ghirardelli chocolates like moi. Psh.
Before I jump into a recap of my holiday adventures I want to update people who care on the status of my latrine project. It is unbelievably on track time-wise, even after losing some diggers to injuries, one incurred during work for this very project and one as a result of an excess of moonshine and the operation of a moto on New Years. All of the holes have been dug with the exception of four that are still in process. The masons are in the process of putting the cement platforms over the holes now; about 10 of the 21 holes that are completed have platforms already installed. At that point, families can start building the mud “houses” around their latrines. Only one family has already completed this, but they are a brown noser crew that the other families don’t much care for. We have been telling the families that they must finish the mud structures before mid-March, which will mark the end of the project. On January 25 a Peace Corps film crew is coming to film this project as part of a 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps commemoration. If I can get ahold of any of this footage or if it magically ends up on YouTube, I’ll let you all know.
Christmas! I stayed at this adorable “bungalow” right on the beach in a town called Grand Popo (and no, no one knows what or who Popo is) for five days with my boyfriend and about 30 other volunteers.
It was mostly lazy days on the beach and dinners all together followed by lots of dancing and belting out of Christmas carols. I had grilled barracuda and local moonshine with fresh pineapple juice almost every night. One day a local organization that collects sea turtle shells and sends them out to sea when they are hatched had us help with the sending out. They were so adorable!
After Christmas Doug and I went to Ghana to take the GRE and meet my dad! In the two weeks that I was there I ate pizza, salads, sushi, Chinese, prawns, more French fries than I’m proud of, wheat bread almost every morning, and only twice was subject to Ghanaian food. Pretty sure I gained at least 5 pounds. Accra, the capital city of Ghana, is worlds away from Benin’s largest city, Cotonou. It is much more developed, has more variety of food, has a mall and a movie theater, and has actual taxis, not the moto taxis that we take in Benin. I didn’t have to lug my helmet around with me the whole time. The mall was actually sensory overload and I could go on about the food for days, but on the whole there aren’t many tourist attractions. Accra looks a lot like Cotonou. As my dad said, “same dump, different name.” Here are the highlights:
-There’s a town just outside Accra known for its amazing hand made coffins. Yep, these photos below are of coffins! They say you can put in an order for almost anything and they’ll try to make it happen, but that you should not go for something better than what you achieved in your life. The example they gave was that a taxi driver should never order an airplane coffin. Just not kosher.The video camera coffin, we were told, was ordered by a BBC reporter!
-Every store, no matter how small or large, has a name, usually something religious. Even rent-for-the-day wheelbarrels. “Covered in the Blood of Jesus Hair Salon” and the one below were some of my faves.
-We picked up dad from the airport at 2pm on New Years Eve and immediately commenced tasting the local, ahem, delicacies. I passed out at about 9pm, like last year, though last year I was alone in my village. So this year still won. My dad made it til 11:45pm (him out lasting me was the case throughout the trip) but sadly none among us were up for the ball drop (not that there is any ball dropping in Accra).-Dad and I traveled to some towns along the Western coast of Ghana known for its castles/slave forts, where slaves captured inland were held in below ground dungeons until they were loaded onto ships for South America and the Caribbean. The coast also had colorful fleets of shipping and beautiful colonial-style homes painted vibrant colors.
-We did a "canopy walk" in a rainforest not far off the coat. It was a series of narrow wooden planks suspended 30 meters off the rainforest floor, level with the tops of the forest's highest trees. It was the scariest thing I've done in a long time! We didn't see any cool animals as both of us were focusing on the space in front of us and praying to get off the ride as soon as possible.
-After the coast, Dad and I went to a town called Kumasi where we visited the largest market in West Africa. The guidebook described it as an alien mothership from an aerial view. Dad and I walked along the perimeter awhile before diving in. There aren’t really entrances per say, and its somehow several feet below the level of the street. Honestly. It was the kind of market where you really can’t control where you go; you just get sucked into the inertia of the crowd. We did succeed in making three purchases and I think I got a local price. Success!
In general Dad wanted to do lots of walking and experiencing Ghana, and I wanted to do lots of sitting, namely in the air-conditioned hotel rooms with satellite TV. We usually settled on having a beer and people watching. The conspicuous lack of photos of my dad and I together is because I was always scared someone I asked to take our picture would run away with my camera à la Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s. It’s easy to forget how much of people you miss when you don’t see them. I forgot how much I missed my dad’s (slightly inappropriate at times) sense of humor. And hugs.
