so behind...

well i know that i am terribly behind in posting on the blog...but c'est la vie...
anyways,  i am officially out of africa. After being in West Africa for the better part of a year, i am now slowly 
but surely making myway home with a few stops to see some friends in 
norway and ireland.

So i'm in norway right now, enjoying not being hot, constant electricity, 
hot showers and soup...
la vie c'est belle.  Norway is a beautiful country, so rugged, pines, 
fijords, mountains...what more can a girl want? it is also pretty much the
 opposite of the beaches and palm trees which were my neighbours the 
past year.  

My farwell to ghana went on in a classic ghanian style.  I decided to have 
all my friends from my dance class come over for a final good bye.  I also 
decided that I would make banku for them since it is a meal they quite enjoy
 (banku is a sticky, sticky ball of dough make through mixingcassava dough 
and ground corn).   So saturday morning my sister and i went to the market to
get all the ingredients, so that on sunday we could start preparing the food at 
12 since people were coming at 4.  Sunday morning rolls around, I am ready
to go, I call everyone to make sure they are coming, many people don't answer 
their phones, some reassure me they will be at my place soon.
 Now I know there is ghanaian time, believe me, I've been in ghana for a year. 
I expceted people to come around 1 as opposed to 12...but after waiting three
 hours without a phone call explaining their tardiness... I've become throughly
 panicked by the thought of 20 people showing up at my house
  for dinner with no food prepared. 
I also am cursing myself for not just making spagetti a meal that at least i can
 get ready on my own.  When  some of the 'prep' people started to roll in
 around 3 i was almost in hysterics.  Which of course they didn't understand...
And in the end i didn't have to worry...because although most of the invited
 guests came early,whilst those who were supposed to come early to help prep
 came late, what ended up happening was one big party of getting food prepared. 
 About 10 of us set to work decapitating fish and mixing banku 
whislt the others drummed away and in very little time the food was ready to enjoy.
 
In the end i had nothing to worry about, my favorite part of the whole party
was everyone working together to get the food ready.
I was reminded again of why I love ghana...things just always seem to work out. 
Eventually the party worked its way to the beach where more drumming and
 dancing happened.  A perfect farwell.  

Africana Dance Company...my family here

if any of you hear much about my time in ghana, I'm sure you have heard all about my dancing. I started dancing here my first day in Ghana and it has been the highlight of my time here. I have danced with them at performances and funerals and practise with them, and they really are my family here... and now they have a website.... www.africanadancecompany.com they have some fun pics and stuff about the group. worth checking out.

You know you are in Ghana when

...you think a mysterious man named charley know's why everything happens
... you ask people to dash you small
... you know that if you can't open the tro-tro from the handle inside open the outside one.
... you prefer food from a bag. mmm fanice
...you have gone into mortal combat with a sewer and lost
...you are thinking of changing your name to "Obruni" legally because it seems to be the only thing people call you

pictures....

Ganvie in Benin...a whole village built on stilts... welcome to the Venice of Africa.
need I say more...

The Green Turtle Lodge...a piece of paradise in Ghana (I apologize for the corny headings), this place is fantastically peaceful, and whats more, eco friendly, with composting toilets and solar power...good in so many ways


So this is in Elmina, one of the castles a long the coast of Ghana...one of the slave castles - the last piece of West Africa many of the slaves knew. Now around it, there is a fishing port...and these colourful boats

Where I went Part 1 - Togo, Niger, Benin

A lot of people have been asking me what Adam and I got up to in our travels, and well, I thought I would post a little something something here to avoid redundant emailing...
So basically when Adam got to Ghana, we hung out in Accra for a week, then travelled to Cape Coast and Elmina and visited the old colonial towns and castles. We also went to Kakum National Park and Green Tutrtle Logde, both spectuacular bits of nature.
From Ghana we headed on to Togo, we didn't spend much time there, but in that short visit we managed to stay in the best value and worst value hotels of our trip. We visited Lome and Togoville. It was on the ride to Togoville that I decided to never get a pet goat, since the goats in the tro-tro with us sqwaked the whole way to Togoville, and also proceeded to kick me the whole way there...yes...let the white person sit with the goats, they love that.
After Togo we headed to Benin, which I think must be one of the most underrated countries in the world, the people are great, and its just such a wonderful place. We hit up the capital, and a place called Ouyidah, which was a big slaveing outpost. The town which is quite a voodo place has a python temple, which lets the snakes lose a night. If you are a resident of this town and one ends up in your house, you are ocnsidered blessed... We also visited a whole village on stilts, 25,000 people living on houses on stilts in the water, complete with floating market. Our highlight of Benin was visiting Natingou, where we took a motorbike trip to check out the tata sombas, which are fortress like houses that were used to protect people from the slave raiding abomeys. The fortress houses also kept other cultures at bay, so the ethnic group has remained fairly untouched by outsiders...but obviously not to much since we were there.
We headed onto Niger after that, and it was a good time. So freaking hot, between the hourse of 11 and 3 people just sleep everywhere in the street, because its to hot to do anything else. its like everyday in the afternoon an amageddon hits the town and everyone is out cold on the ground. I repeatedly thought people needed medical attention, but really they were just sleeping in weird contortions. Adam and I beat the heat by faking class and sitting in the lobby of the fancy smancy hotel in town...we also took advantage of their clean toilets... It was in Niger that I think I had the highlight of my trip....which was going out into the desert by camel for a few days, we had a fantastic guide. And the scenery was outerworldly. It was a lot of fun every morning getting wrapped up in my 5 meter long Tuereg turban and sleeping under the stars at night. We would stop at different villages which all had little garden oasis' in the middle of the desert...very cool. After the camel trip we headed bac from Agadez and checked out the only giraffes in West Africa which roam near the main highway (go figure)...before we headed off to Burkina, but I will save that country for another post.

more fantastic than fantastic

(Photos Courtesy of miss Jessica)

people who have been to ghana know the glory that is fan ice...of course many people have not gotten to experience the wonderful treat of eating icream from a plastic bag so let me explain. In West Africa and perhaps further a field is a wonderful thing called fan milk, they make frozen delicacies in single servings sized plastic sachets, my favorite are the fan chocolate (frozen chocloate milk like a fudgeicle), fan yogo which is frozen yogurt and fan ice by far my favroite, which is frozen softr served icream...i eat it several times everyday....(how else would i get my dairy?). To get one of these delcious products you could go to the store, or you could buy it from the window of a moving vehicle from a hawker on the side of the road, or just listen for the horn. Fan ice is sold from bicycles that ply the streets here, as theey honk their horns just like the ice cream truck that played happy music and brought you ice cream as a child.
Now what could be more delcious than getting ice cream in the sweltering heat from the window of your car, or even the door of your house when the fan ice man comes ... it is hard to think of something. But alas, being a woman I (and my housemates) have found ways to improve, for example, on tuesday, my friend Jessica had her birthday and we made fan ice cookie sandwhiches, and also fan ice capuchinos. We are even working on hainvg a fan ice cook off with some other friends and eventually make a fan ice cook book...its pathetic in some ways but the most glorious of ideas in another way.
so yes...in conclusion everyone should come to ghana and enjoy frozen treats that come from plastic bags.

and what is a blog

So apprently, i am now a blogger. Yes the girl who does not know how to turn on a cellular phone is now having some sort of homepage...all i wanted to do was respond to my friend erin's posting on her blog and in the process i ended up with my own.

I don't know how well this will work (again, i am technologically impaired), but since i'm still travelling hopefully this will prove to be a decent way to keep people posted. More to come I'm sure ... time to go make up my cyber identity