Republic Day- July 1st/ Weekend of July 2nd

Thursday was very well near my 4th religious experience of the week (but Andrea, being the law student she is would not let me call it one). Andrea invited me, shara and Daan to hang out with a guy she met here (Prince Nana) and his "keep fit club". We piled into a van with way too many people and sang religious songs, played drums, made crazy highpitched noises etc for about 3 hours to visit bodi falls. I gotta say the ride down was actually more fun than the place itself. Perhaps because we were celebrating Republic Day, which is like indepence day part II for Ghana (when the British occupiers actually left) but the place looked like 6 flags great adventure. Along the route in the forest were several Fan Ice Vendors (idk if i ever talked about this, but imagine a Wendy's frostie stuffed into a little plastic pouch...for 25 cents...so good), food vendors, vendors of anything people were willing to carry on their head. And there were just way to many people. Being from right outside the NYC you'd think i'd be ok with that...but Terri can tell you that I really am not. I don't like midtown NYC at all, and I almost choked a b***h during the Cherry Blossom festival in DC. Anyway we had a pretty challenging hike to see this palmtree with 3 branches...the hike was cool but the tree was unimpressive. I actually really enjoy hiking these days and I told Brittany that we should round up some people at the Law Center to take a weekend trip to West Virginia
if anyone is down for that when I get back to D.C.. Ghanaian do not enjoy hiking though, for all their superior fitness over Americans they are not built for climbing. Everyone asked me every two minutes if I was tired and they were surprised when I told them know with a laugh. Me and this dude Maxwell broke a way from the pack on the way back and went on ahead to the bodi waterfall...pretty nice but not as impressive as the Wili water falls I saw a couple weeks ago... at lunch I met a young kid named Issac Newton (with a Ghanian Last Name I can't recall). He loves science and wants to be a pilot when he grows up. Issac asked me to stay with him while Shara and Andrea went to dance with some of the women we came with. Apparently some jerks were bothering them the one time I wasn't around to defend them but luckily one of the guys we came with was there to defuse the situation. After that the entire keepfit club broke away from the pack and we had an African Dance/Drum session before a 5 hour trotro trip home (the drive was doing like 40km an hour for no apparent reason :-/)

We didn't plan on going anywhere this weekend as Shara was off to climb mount Kili and me, pedro and Andrea wanted to stay in town to the blackstars match (which they lost in a heartbreaking fashion I care not to rehash). One of Andrea/Pedro's collauges really wanted to meet komeyete after Andrea blabbed on about him so we paid him another visit. This time we didn't have to stay in a hostel as he arranged for us to stay in a fishing village/island he calls "Africa" (if anyone knows Ghana the village shares an Island with Bojo Beach). Komeyete was much more talkative this week, perhaps because he was more aquinted with me and andrea, or maybe he was just excited to have so many new friends. Me, Andrea, Pedro, Terry and Daan walked around Komeyte's village looking at the trees he just planted for his reforstation project. We set of for Africa after not too long. Everytime I take a boat to or from Africa I get this feeling of being plucked from earth and placed in a picture of the most beautiful landscape you ever imagined. The number of times me and Terry exchanged the phrases "this isn't real" or "wow...this is amazing" could not be counted on our fingers and toes. After a swim, me, Terry and Pedro played football with some local kids. All the kids were really nice and friendly and of course master footballers. The sunset was incredible, easily the most beautiful I've ever seen. All the while Komoyete was building a tent out of reeds that we brought from the forest and some tarp. His friend also built a bonfire. After we changed up, we sat around the bonfire and hung out with the kids and whoever else in the village was interested. After a bit komeyete removed some hotstones from the bonfire and brought them into the tarp/reed tent. About 5 minutes later he advised us to put some swimming clothes on and to bring it some bags of drinking water. We through some lemon grass on the stones and periodicly poured water on the stones for a sauna experience you could not buy in the US. Terri's mother once told me that lemongrass tea can cure cancer and I definitely felt toxins exiting my body. I'm def. going to try to recreate this one weekend in the US.

The next morning I played football with the kids again and actually got a little sunburn (not a burn, burn, but my skin was peeling a bit)...whoops. They nicknamed Terry Obruni fish (white fish) and later nicknamed me redfish, I'm assuming because of my new color I'm rocking here. When I tan I tend to look Native American. We took a short trip down to bojo beach and on the way back helped bring in a very large fishing catch. We only helped for the last half hour and got all of the glory of seeing the catch bring brought in, but these guys were having a tug of war with the sea for hours. I really don't know how they do it. We actually bought some of the fish for very cheap and komeyete's friends friend it up for everyone except the stupid vegetarian (me :P) . Aside for the inexplicable meloncholy mood that has washed over me for two consecutive Sundays , it was a terrific weekend.

This weekend were going to visit the Nzeluzo Village on stilts (you can only get there by boat) and the Green Turtle Lodge -- the nicest beach in Ghana/turtle conservationist resort.