Last weekend was beach party time! We all jumped in the tro tro for Big Milly’s Backyard at Kokrobite Beach. Its funny, the beach resort we stayed at is very clean and well organized and frequented by well to do looking tourists, but getting there from Accra means jumping sewer-overflow and wading through stinking markets full of incredibly pungent meat and sitting in a crowded car for an hour. However, I know that one day the rest of Ghana will be as clean and expensive as Big Milly’s. Kokrobite is really a very beautiful place. Blacks and whites play football together on the sand, and all stand and watch when the fishing boats come in, nets full of flopping little silver fishies. The waves break far off from shore and then come splashing in lines of white foam. I took a wooden board and swam out with four little black boys, and then we sat on our boards and waited for a suitable wave. The sun came down straight on my head, and I dove down and grabbed some sand to drip over my hair like the boys did. Then came a wave a wave arching up, and we paddled frantically so it would lift us up on its shoulders. And then the world fell out beneath me and I came swooping down on its curling tip, only to be caught by the splashing white foam and carried all the way in, all the way to the sand on the beach. I took a nap and then got up at night when the Reggae covers band came on. Many people danced, black girls with black girls and white girls with white girls and black guys with white girls, and even a few of the more adventurous white guys. At the front, I found my girlfriend and her friend and two identical Rastafarian twins, who wore their hair in dreadlocks of exactly the same size and wore the same blue overalls and danced in exactly the same bouncing way. I shook my butt for a little bit, and then we ran in to the ocean and swallowed salt water in the gloom. Sunday was the same. Monday we were back in Accra, skipping work because it was the Muslim holiday of Lassa, the last day of Ramadan. We went to the Arts Centre and bought these cool little instruments, two gourds filled with beans on a string that you knock together in your hand. I’ll bring a whole lot back to America and blow your mind with my gourd knocking skills. Then we went to the Muslim parade. It was absolute madness. Before we even got there, we saw a horse galloping free down the street, and then, way later, a man in colourful robes hustling after it. The parade was men on horses and scooters rushing around yelling, and truckfuls of people cheering wildly and throwing out candy. We picked a spot on the corner where two big speakers were blasting the hits and everybody was dancing. It was impossible not to get caught up in the party atmosphere, being in the middle of such wildness was intoxicating. I shot a gun in to the air, jumped on a truck full of little boys, jived and hooted in a circle dance with some muslim men, and got in to a dance/fight with some ecstatic sales women who were using the parade to sell Sobo Fruit Drink (Their motto: Sip and Slurp It All!) Then we took the car home, and yelled at girls, ‘ehun yefe’, ‘you are pretty’, out the window the whole time. Today, business as usual. I wrote an article on a university swim meet, and now I’m going to the internet café. Bye bye.
(Today is not actually today, but a few days ago)

I am way behind in my blog entries, and if anybody is frustrated by my slowness, I am sorry. What’s worst, though, is that everyday here brings something new and interesting, and that every time I don’t write whatever it is down, it is lost in to the recesses of my memory, probably never to be recovered.
Anyway: Two weeks ago, this journal found me running down and scaring my friends on the trail above the Upper Wli Falls. The falls themselves were incredible. They are tucked in to a niche on the mountain side, and are at least one hundred and fifty feet tall, the tallest falls in western Africa. The water comes shooting over the lip at the top and sends little white rockets shooting down that burst in to spray before ever reaching the base.
To approach it, you wade in to the wide pool at the base. The spray from the falls reaches you at the edge of the pool, and as you get closer it is so intense that you must walk backwards. It is hard to breath, and I imagine my self on the beach as Hurricane Katrina lashes the ocean and sends it flying. It is impossible to reach the very point where the fall breaks with the water. We do find a little cave in the rock right near the bottom though, and I must yell to the American girls we meet and I bring there for them to hear me. We don’t have much to say, however, but mostly giggle hysterically to be in such a wonderful place. I am tempted to ask one of them, Isis, to kiss me, and I am sure she would not have refused. (A week later, some other American girls we meet at a bar bring back to me bittersweet memories of high school: ‘Did you, like, hook up with her? Cause we kinda have a thing with her, she’s just, like, totally gross)
We left the upper falls and went back to the village of Vli for lunch. Then Katie, a weird Australian we met, and I headed to the monkey sanctuary at Tafi Atome. They fed us rice and woke us up early in the morning and gave us bananas to feed to the sacred simians. The monkeys were very disappointing; I figured we would be walking in the forest to go find them, but they were ready and waiting for us at the edge of the village. There was a house bordering the forest, as we approached I saw the tree above it shaking, then one, two, three monkeys dropped out of it on to the roof of the house and clambered down to greet us. Soon the area at the edge of the forest was positively crawling with scrambling, leaping monkeys eager to relieve us of our bananas. The biggest monkey, the troupe leader, did not take any bananas himself, but when one of the other monkeys came back for seconds, he would pull him away and push another monkey who hadn’t had any bananas yet towards us. If you held the banana firmly in your hand, they would greedily dig at the tender meat inside and leave a limp yellow peel in your hand with in seconds.
As soon as the fruit was exhausted, they left as quickly as they came, and soon all the trees were still again. I wanted to chase after them, but we went off to eat porridge instead. Later that day, we went to see the Kente weavers at the traditional weaving village of Tafi Abuipe. Kente weaving is to hard to explain, but basically, a number of threads are stretched out by a rock fifteen feet away. At one end sits the weaver and his apparatus, and he pushes horizontal threads through the vertically stretched ones with incredible rapidity. Kente is a very durable material, and I am the proud owner of one scarf, given to me on my birthday, and was promised another one by Francis, our guide in the village. After seeing the village we headed back to Accra, five hours on a tro tro that left my ass red and raw.

So much happened this weekend, I won't bother writing it all. I went to the Jay-Z rap concert on Friday, and that was a really interesting experience. I'm going to write an article on it, though, so when I'm finished with that I'll post it on the blog. Somethings that won't go in the article: My friend Fergal from Ireland took a picture of some policemen beating up a guy who tried to sneak in to the show. They arrested him and sent him down to the station, where it was no big deal. He deleted the pictures, and then he could go back to the show. But when he got there, he had to pay the commanding police officer there a bribe of 50,000 cedis! Well, thats really only about $5, but, still, my first experience of official corruption.
The next day Katie from Germany and I took the express bus to me our friends the Volta Region of Ghana. Well, the express bus broke down, and we had to take a Jeep in to town. When we got there, our friends had no cellphones on and we wandered around town trying to find a place to stay at 11 at night. Very stressful.
Well, the next morning, the shared car we had organized to take us to the Wli falls did not show up, so we had to take a taxi. Our friends names were on the register for that morning, so we rushed in after them to try to catch them. We made it all the way to the lower falls, but of course there was no sign of them. Deciding that they were probably at the upper falls, we began scrambling up a very steep narrow path through dense green foliage. It was very humid in the forest, and soon we were sweating like pigs. Continuous streams of sweat would run down my arms and down my face. But, of course, in our haste, we had neglected to bring any water. I took off my shirt and left my bag in some bushes, but it was no good. Soon we were desperate. Where were our friends? More importantly, where was there water?Had we even taken the right path?
Finally, the path stopped climbing and began descending steeply, and in no time I saw the white skin and fair hair of our obruni friends through the greenery. Those bastards, leaving us nearly with out hope. I snuck down as quickly and quietly as I could, till I was near behind them. It was just me in my short shorts and sneakers and nothing else, and them dutifully and slowly plodding down behind the guide they had hired at the bottom. With a wild, blood curdling (I hope) scream I took off flying down the steep muddy path and pounced on my unsuspecting prey. A proud moment.
Now the man here is telling me I must go, its closing time, so this will be continued.

I had a good Birthday!!

Here are my friends Mike and Orlando


Here I am dancing up a storm with the Kente
Scarf Orlando gave me and the Finnish girls,
mine is the Brunette, and were not finished,
we're just getting started


The Rasta Man loves his White Sister,
or maybe just her money

Tro Tro ride: 20 cents
Taxi Ride: 2 or 3 dollars
Soccer ball: 3 dollars
Orange: 4 cents
Sliced pineapple: 10 cents
Fried greasy doughball: 10 cents
Greasy Prostitute: 5 dollars (!!!)(note: was willing to negotiate with a friend who told her he had this amount, her services were not actually purchased)
Messenger Bag: 3 dollars
Nike Sneakers: 5 dollars
Jay-Z cd: 2 dollars
Jay-Z live in Ghana: 60 dollars
Carton of 200 hundred cigarettes: 6 dollars
Three Marijuana Joints: 50 cents (again, not actually purchased)
Plastic Bag of Water: 3 cents (purchased continually throughout the day)
My First Date with the Finnish Girl: 1 dollar 80 cents
Dates with girls in New York: Way More
Lunch of Red Red (tasty beans in oil) and Plantains: 40 cents
Large Star Beer: one dollar
Bottle of Coca-Cola: 25 cents
Internet: 50 cents an hour
Single Speed Bicycle with Basket: 35 dollars
Single Speed Bicycle with Basket and Flat Tire: 37 dollars
Single Speed Bicycle with Basket and Flat Tire and Broken Seat Post: 40 dollars
Fighting for an hour with the guy who sold me this crap: Priceless
There are somethings money can’t buy; For everything else, there’s money.

Going traveling this weekend, will have lots of nature pictures soon!