While at work on Monday – I will admit it, and I am not ashamed – I was looking forward to going home. It’s not because of anything that went wrong at work. It is because I am so happy to have a place that feels like home, I was just excited about being able to go to my room and relax, do some writing, and fall asleep.
During the day, I also received some news that was very exciting to hear. I got a call from Pierette (a friend from Toronto / York / Kanisa) who has been in Kenya for the last couple of months. Being aware that I am in Ghana, she called me to tell me that she will be visiting this week. We are going to meet on Friday and chill out in Cape Coast on the weekend. I am not sure of the details just yet, but I will update you all as plans get set.
For me, it feels great to know that I will be able to chill with a friend from Toronto. If any of you have the desire to visit Ghana (there is Accra, the bustling city of Kumasi, beautiful coastline, the moving testament to human brutality and fortitude in the slave castles, nature reserves, a cultural experience that you can not understand until you experience it), know that you have someone here that you can visit.
At work yesterday, I watched quite a powerful storm hit the city. It’s funny because people are calling this weather cold. It’s not sweating-out-of-every-pore hot, but it is really not cold...it’s all about relativity!
The sky threatens to pour heavily in the early afternoon. The winds were stirring up dust and sent people to look for shelter.
It had just started raining as they started to run for cover.
Here, it was raining and this guy was just riding down the street.
At this point it was pouring! The lady in hte blue t-shirt is just walking at a regular pace, using a meatal plate to cover her head...not a good idea, as lighting had been flashing.
There was also a group of children that came to the station and were singing on air. They were quite sweet, though I am not sure how they took me telling them not to play on the very steep stairway. I don’t know if they understood at first, but they stopped. They seemed as excited to see me at the station as they were in being on-air.
Here they are in their uniforms...imagine all of them moving through our station...it was quite the vibe in here.
On my way home, Mr. Fresh called me to let me know that we had two more people staying at the house: “you live with us, so now you are a relative. So I just wanted to let you know we have guests”. They are two women from Holland who had been working as teachers and are now traveling up to Burkino Faso. They will be staying for a week and they are quite nice.
The children love having them around, as they have stayed in the area before. They are starting to get used to me, and they don’t run from me anymore. They were very shy, but now they are starting to break out. Oh, they weren’t shy when they were eating my mangoes and bananas (just wanted to share that point).
In the evening, I wanted to do some drawing with the pastels that I brought, but I ended up watching a movie with Mr. Fresh. It was a movie with Charles Bronson called “The Commandeer” or something. My choices were between Steven Segal, Jean-Claude Van Damme or that. I enjoyed it, but have found the movies I am watching to have some irony. There was that movie which was about a man being placed out of his world and into another, where he grappled with different philosophies of life, ultimately reconciling them through adopting some things that improved who he was as a person, and finding certain universal principles that remained. I also watched “Cast Away”, last week which is extremely different, but is also about adjusting to a different way of life and then returning to a world that has changed.
Oh, I also finally put up my mosquito net. I recall seeing them in mvies when I was a child, so it was kind of cool at first. They can get hot though. I wasn't hot last night, but I do see how they can get hot...we'll cross that bridge when we get to it!
Tomorrow, I will be interviewed by a guy named Tom who is doing an evaluation of the effectiveness of JHR. Later on, I will meet with Ramadan so that we can plan our first story. Right now, I need to go to the bank as well as get some fruit and water in my system. Again, the weather is overcast and cool (for Tamale that is).
Like my squad right here, I'm out for now!
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