The End

It is winter!  For the last week, I woke up feeling quite chilly (although I later found out at the hospital that it was only 75 degrees…) and there has been a fog-like haze.  Every year, the Harmattan (northern winds from the Sahara) sweeps up the dust of the desert and carries it over West Africa.  But the severe reduction of visibility is more than compensated by the relatively cool weather.  I am a little upset that this weather began just as I will be going back – it would have saved a lot of sweat.

Tomorrow, I go to America!!!  The nurses at the ward, as well as my host family, gave me a kente (traditional Ghanaian) shirt.   Initially, I did not think that I would have very many occasions to wear the African man-dresses in America unless I convert to Islam, but the outfits that were given to me were western modified, complete with a collar, buttons, and separate trousers. 

The hospital work became monotonous after the first month or two, but I will miss the people who I worked with.  I particularly enjoyed sociological discussions with the head nurse, a sixty-year old man (although he seems a lot younger) who was second child of the second wife of a man who fathered eighteen children with five wives. 

It is truly amazing how much one can become used to in four months.  As I looked out of my plane window to the disorderly and dimly lit Accra four months ago, I already began wishing that I had simply gone to college.  It is hard to explain why I felt like this, since I already had a good idea of what Ghana would be like through extensive research.  But after living in the organized and predictable first world, from Seoul to Oahu to Miami to Johnson City to Augusta to Pensacola, simply seeing the dim lights of disorderly low-rise dilapidated houses from the air first hand was enough to make me wish I had never undertaken this trip. 

But after the initial shock of the first week, the life in Ghana became perfectly normal.  I have ridden on tops of vehicles, eaten food that I would have previously considered inedible such as rats, insects, fish bones, animal bones, intestines, etc, climbed a thirty-foot coconut tree for a snack, stepped on human feces on a beach, took multiple showers in the rain, and many other experiences that I would have certainly considered unusual, if not impossible, in America.

From what I could see, there is little positive correlation, if there is one at all, between a society’s material wealth and the society’s general happiness.  Ghanaians, on the whole, seem very content and happy with their lives.  One Ghanaian friend asked me why there is such a high suicide rate in America --- he could not fathom why a society with as much material wealth as America would have unhappy citizenry.  Perhaps Ghanaians’ religious devoutness gives them a sense of certainty of the world.  Or perhaps one does not miss what one never had.

After four months in a developing country, I am not most thankful of the material good that I have in America, but of my parents.  Once, my mom could not contact me for two days and thought that something horrible had happened to me, so she called my volunteer office repeatedly in the middle of the night until she finally could talk to me.  While on one hand, this was exasperating (you'd better not do this when I go to college..), it truly moved me how much she cares.  I could especially put this into perspective, as the kids at the orphanage would probably have given a dozen years of their lives for such parental care.

Before Ghana, I flatly was not ready to excel in a hyper competitive research university.  In high school, I was plainly lazy and unmotivated - how many people get the highest SAT score in the surrounding dozen counties but don't even place in the top quartile of his class??!! - but ironically, the free time that I have had in Ghana made me more focused and a better planner.  Most days, I set a strict schedule for studying, exercising, and reading - all of which I kept - and I discovered that I am fascinated in the physical sciences.

As much as I appreciated my stay in Ghana, I am very much looking forward to coming home to enjoy the fruits of my parents’ hard work.  It is weird thinking that 'tomorrow will be my last tro tro ride,' 'I will probably never see anyone I have met in Ghana again,' but I think it is the right time to return home, refuel, and prepare for my next leg of my year in China. 

Thank you

Thanks to the generosity of August Prep students in an effort led by Nolan Brandon, the kids at the orphanage have new clothes! Before, the children only had about two pairs of ill-fitting clothes that were ragged and patched.  When we received the money, the host mother was able to spend a happy day shopping in Accra.  She returned with new outfits that fit - at least two articles of clothing for each of the ___ kids.  My mom's whimsically functioning camera refused to take more pictures, but this picture is a good way to go out for the venerable and well-traveled camera. The total money received, although it may not go very far in when of our malls in the US, exceeded the monthly salary of a teacher and doubles the monthly salary of a manual laborer in Ghana.  The kids are very happy, and the host mother is most appreciative.  Thank you for helping.  For those who participated, and even though you will likely never meet the sixteen young orphans in Akwatia, Ghana, you can know that you made a positive difference in their lives.

Korea and Ghana

It has been over a month since my last post, and my time in Ghana is winding down. I will leave Ghana on the 15th of December, which coincidentally falls on the ninth anniversary of my arrival to the United States from Korea.

Speaking of Korea, Korean is the second most common language on bags, t-shirts, and cars after English in Ghana (currently, I am typing from a second hand Korean keyboard). Seeing second-hand Korean materials on Ghanaians fills me with pride in my birth country and hope for the development of Ghana. It was not that long ago that the average Korean was tilling his misty rice paddies while being brutalized by the Japanese, a proxy-war, and various military governments. The fact that it is now in a position to donate things to the developing world marks remarkable economic development.

At times, confronted with the level of ignorance and incompetence that many uneducated Ghanaians show, I have concluded that it would never, or maybe in a century, achieve a level of education and living standard comparable to the West. But I remind myself that many American soldiers, upon seeing the stinking paddies and the utter destitution of the Japanese ravaged and war destructed Dae-Han-Min-Guk thought the same thing.

But clearly, there are many differences between Ghana and developing Korea. Life in developing Korea was hard.  Koreans suffered malarial summers and Siberian winters, and were almost entirely dependent on the climate to keep them from starving while tottering under massive debt.  Ghanaians benefit from great abundance of natural resources – in the villages that I passed by while beach-hiking, the only work that the Ghanaians (the men, at least – the women have a lot more work to do: drying the fish, cooking meals, bearing children) do is setting the village net in the morning and then bringing it in chock full of fish – the total work time can’t be more than 45 minutes daily. Obviously, it would be idiotic to make a sweeping generalization that the lives of all Ghanaians are easy, but in general, life in Ghana is easier than it was in developing Korea, and consequently, the incentives for education and betterment differ.   

One of the essential themes of human civilization is competition.  Whether it is the hunt for souls in the form of the crusades and jihad, whether it is the competition during the Cold War for world supremacy between the USA and the USSR, or whether it is that chase for that elusive place in an elite university, competition is the inherent precursor to success, macro or micro, big or small.  Those that don’t, or can’t compete and don’t have anyone else competing for them invariably become unfortunates from Korea that refused to compete in the “Hermit Kingdom” era, to an orphan who can’t compete in an African village.

I dislike saying that there is necessarily a “moral obligation” to help people, but I think everyone deserves a chance to compete, or better themselves, and this is what the orphanage provides for the kids.  Without the orphanage, the kids currently living there would never have had a chance to rise above their circumstances.

Some behaviors of the kids at the orphanage provide a window to their dark, dark past. When food spills on the ground (the same ground where the livestock urinate and defecate), the kids gather around the soiled food like animals and begin eating it with their hands.  Also, the reasonless brutality of the older kids toward the younger ones is terrible.  I do not think that caning or spanking is necessarily bad if it is structured and predictable – I fail to see the essential difference between physical disciplining and material disciplining – but physical disciplining is far more likely to be abused than other forms of discipline.  One time, I found an older orphan caning and yelling at all the young kids like a madwoman without discrimination and without any regard to where the lashes landed.  The offense?  The children did not nap.  The brutality of it was so severe to the point where I couldn’t even look at the abuser of age and size for two days.

Ghana has a reputation as West Africa's most friendly country.  This title should be revised as West Africa's most friendly country toward white people. The way that some Ghanaians treat the more unfortunates in their society is shocking.  Today, while walking to the Internet Cafe, I saw kids throwing rocks at a garbage pick-up man in front of their indifferent parents. I lost my temper at the kids because that type of behavior is just unacceptable, particularly on the part of the parents - it's just not how a person treats another person in any society. The kids, seeing an angry and fit Asian man, probably thought that I was going to assume a Jet Li Kung Fu stance and avenge the garbage man, and promptly ran away as fast as they could.

I might have saved a kid's life by taking him to the hospital - the kid had an abscess about the size of a golf ball near the mastoid process (I’ve been reading an anatomy book) as well as various other spots of infection from a two week old wound. Although it took eight hours of waiting at the hospital, a doctor finally saw him and agreed that it needs to be removed promptly.  I participated in the surgery, which was a fairly simple incision and drain. His mom didn't quite understand the seriousness of the boy's condition and made a comment in Twi (she didn't think that I understand Twi, but I caught a little of it) after seeing her boy delirious and vomiting from anesthesia, that the boy was fine before the surgery but now, he is sick.  But eventually, she understood that the abscess had to be removed.

The material discomforts of Ghana do not bother me very much anymore. Yes, in some areas, the conveniences lag behind the West by more than a century, but after an adjustment period, these are manageable.   The thing that I cannot live with anymore is being called “ching chong” or “shon fu young” or whatever Chinese sounding gibberish anywhere between five to fifty times a day.  More than once, it has taken all my emotional restraint to keep from lashing out.  It is stupid that I should be offended by these remarks.  After all, throughout seventh and eighth grade, I heard them daily from my classmates in the Deep South and I know that there is no rational reason why I should be angry about them, but it still fills me with barely controllable rage from head to toe.  Maybe it is because my classmates in Middle School who called me those things did not regard me as acutely human but instead, as an exotic alien who talks funny.  I see the same thought process in Ghanaians, albeit with less condescension.

Wow!  This blog is gravely depressing and I probably made more than one idiotic sweeping generalization thus far, but, this is what is currently on my mind.

Ginger Black People and Ghana Cars

"Ghana Car"

Me looking goofy as heck on Mt. Adaklu

At the Amedzofe Falls

 Wli Falls

View from Mount Afadjato

Shout out to my dad, Samuel Schubert, for being promoted to Colonel. He definitely deserved it – from what I could see, he has more professionalism, dedication, and general excellence than anyone I have seen.

To celebrate the halfway point of my stay in Ghana, I decided to take a 17 day trip around the country. I began my trip in the Volta Region, the mountainous terrain east of Lake Volta. The eight hour trip to Ho, the capital of the Volta Region, was uncharacteristically smooth- good paved roads all the way, and I even saw two families of monkeys playing on the side of the road.

The Volta Region, because of its attractive landscape comprising of jagged mountains, impressive waterfalls, and dramatic caves, is the subject of many eco-tourism projects, mostly initiated by the American peace corps. Unfortunately, a lot of these projects, now run by locals, go a month or more without seeing any visitors, but this lack of tourism is not an accurate reflection of the quality of these hiking/spelunking experiences.

The first day, after I finished climbing to the top of the Mount Adaklu, the site of an eco-tourism project about fifteen miles south of Ho, it started raining. It was a tough hike going up, especially with a 40-60 pound bag (I unwittingly took almost all my clothes and other unnecessary paraphernalia while forgetting what would prove to be the most important item, mah drugs), but the climb down was effectively a rappelling job. If there weren’t ropes down the steep rocks, I would’ve had to spend the night up on the top of the mountain because the volume of rain was such that mini-waterfalls appeared on the rocks, carrying with it rocks, branches, and even a few fish as I approached the base of the mountain. All my clothing was drenched and soon began to reek a horrific smell, but luckily, I had enough sense to bring a waterproof bag for my electronics. After hitching a ride back to town on a concrete truck, I spent two hours walking around Ho trying to find the cheapest lodging (this proved to be a typical experience, as I have become extremely frugal as now I have to budget instead of relying on parental aid), and after washing my clothes and myself, I crashed.

The next day, I went to Amedzofe, the highest village in Ghana. I climbed a mountain with beautiful views and hiked to the impressive waterfall and after chatting with a few locals in a mixture of languages about farming methods, I hiked four km down to the main road, from where I could more easily catch a ride to my next destination. Unfortunately, this hike down was not as rewarding or fun as the hikes to the waterfall and the mountain. The “trail” was steep, slippery, ant-infested, and for the last km, the trail disappeared necessitating my using my backpack to knock down the seven foot tall bush in my way. By the time that I finally descended to the road, the inside of my legs were completely red from the ant bites, but after initial extreme discomfort, the irritation ameliorated within in a day.

From the main road, I hitched a ride to Golokwati, from which I alternatively took rides on various motorcycles and walked to the town of Liati Wote, the place of a government resthouse and a staging area for a climb up the highest mountain in Ghana. On this climb, I mercifully left my colossal bag behind at the resthouse, which facilitated the steep hike considerably and made it positively a cake walk compared to the climbing Adaklu with the bag.

Afterwards, I found out that there were no tro tros going to Wli, my next destination, so I thought what the heck, and began walking the 15 miles in the baking West African sun. Maybe I should have gone to West Point after all, because I imagine that the walk is what the legendary “hell on the Hudson” march feels like, albeit my march had some great views and great experiences stopping by documentary-esque villages.

There are two paces of Ghanaian walking. Very slow or very fast. I have adapted the very fast pace, because without the handy use of motor transport readily available, I have had to walk everywhere and as I want to get to places faster, I logically began walking faster. I was able to cover the 15 miles in three and a half hours excluding stops at two villages.

After enjoying the giant, picturesque waterfall, I caught the last vehicle from Wli to the town of Hohoe. Perhaps because it was the last vehicle, it was especially crowded – I was sitting on a person’s lap while another person was sitting on my lap – but this crammed journey proved to be positively vanilla to the twelve hour odyssey the next day to Tamale.

The trip to Tamale had to be done in four legs. The first leg, between Hohoe to Nkwanta, was reasonable as far as tro tros go – crowded, sweaty, but manageable. Sometime during this four hour ride, the jungles of West Africa turned into the sahel, the flat savanna that separates the Sahara desert from the lush rain forests of the south. Initially I was planning to stay overnight in Nkwanta and spend the rest of the day exploring the surrounding area, but upon seeing the chaotic dusty town, I quickly decided against it.

The second leg from Nkwanta to Damanko was horrible. The drive supersaturated the car with passengers to the point where I started thinking ‘there is no way that this is legal.’ And sure enough, it wasn’t. About an hour in to the ride on a rocky, bumpy, dusty, dirt “road” (really, the only thing separating the road from the surrounding savanna is its relative dearth of vegetation), I started panicking. The initial comedy of the packed tro tro wore off about ten minutes into the journey as the temperature in the car easily exceeded 100 degrees by the way of body heat with about 100 % humidity with sweat from the passengers and I started feeling claustrophobic. I had hard time breathing, I couldn’t sit still to the dismay of my fellow inmates, and I started having nausea. So when we stopped at a police barrier about an hour later, I immediately relived myself of my lunch and experienced immense relief. But that relief soon turned to frustration, which consequently turned to comedy.

It turned out that the car (with seven seats) was only legally authorized to carry nine people, but the drive packed 18 people in (the police usually look the other way for this violation) but the fact that the driver was uninsured moved the police to refusing passage. Then, we had a three hour delay on a dusty roadside during which the passengers took turns in begging the police to look the other way and yelling at the driver to sign the bail – basically doing anything to try to get back on the road to the destination – until the driver, perhaps feeling the threat of a lynching, surrendered to the horde of angry Ghanaians and finally signed the bail and the order to appear at court.

The rest of the trip went smoothly. Well, not counting the time when the driver drove into a river necessitating the passengers disembarking from the car and pushing the embattled, rickety car to dry ground.

Have you ever seen a ginger black person not named Dennis Rodman? Damanko was full of them – not because of their eccentricities but because of the tremendous, epic amount of dust. Even though the rainy season has just ended up north, dust was everywhere – the whole town – the people, the huts, the clothes – had an orange complexion.

It turned out that even the second leg could not compare to the epic third leg between Damanko and Bimbilla. The car going from Damanko to Bimbilla was at least a thirty, probably closer to forty, years old cattle car. Like, literally, a cattle car. Fifteen people fit in the cattle space (twelve people sitting in the two rows to the sides and three very very unfortunate people (including me) stuck, half standing, half crouching, between the two rows with knees and elbows of the slightly more fortunate row people stabbing at every bump), seven people hanging on for life on the top of the car sitting on the luggage, and three very very fortunate people in the front. Almost as soon as we boarded the vehicle (it took fifteen minutes to stuff everyone in with everyone jostling for the row seats, while I was not aware of the horrific nature of being caught in the middle), the driver decided that the non-road was too bumpy for the vehicle to carry so many people. So, we walked for five minutes to where the non-road was relatively better and we all crammed in again.

About an hour in to this luxury ride, the tire went flat. So, we all got out again and the driver changed tires. But after we got rolling again, the spare tire punctured. Then, the driver kicked everyone out on the dusty roadside in the middle of nowhere and clattered off to the nearest place, wherever that may be, where he can change tires. We walked for about an hour until the ancient car, long past its retirement age, rattled back. This time, I decided to join the people up top (I’ve had enough of the inside of rural tro tros - with the stank of unwashed humanity and the heat radiating from them, to last a lifetime). It was considerably better – I watched the beautiful sunset over the savanna – and would have been ideal except for the fact that I kept hitting bugs and the dust was worse up on the top. What’s the point of slanted eyes if it doesn’t keep the dust out?? Also, every time we hit a crater on the non-road, which was quite often, I had weightless moments during which the only thing keeping me from falling off the car was my grip on the rope tying the luggage. It was already dark by the time I arrived in Bimbilla, so I found a lodging for less than $ 2 a night (no running water but with sporadic electricity). I ended up staying an extra day in Bimbilla as I thought that another day of tro-tro riding would just about finish me.

Subsistence Fishing Villages and 70 Mile Hike

Adowso

Impromptu class

Bushy trail

Houses on the Volta Lake

Village where I spent the night

Boat ferry (check out the goat)

Evans

Anonymous waterfall

Volta Lake

Waterfall near Begoro

Last weekend, I went for a walk through the Kwahu plateau - an isolated part of Ghana on the Western arm of Lake Volta. 

It turned out to be one of the best trips that I have taken.

 

The first day, I arrived in the subsistence fishing village of Adowso at 9 A.M. having left Akwatia at 3 A.M.  The people in Adowso, as well as the people in every village that I passed during my trek, were either subsistence farmers or fishers.  They largely dealt in a barter economy- fish for grain, grain for fish.  It was very interesting to see people living in such a different way.

But this different way of life means social immobility.  On one of the villages that I passed, children asked me to teach them because their teacher was "traveling" (I've heard that in Ghana, "traveling" is a euphemism for dead).  So, I ended up giving an impromptu two hour lesson about negative numbers and fractions in an outdoor classroom.  A couple of the smart students picked up the concepts; the rest didn't.  But even smart students cannot become contenders.  In Ghana, the first eight grades of schooling are free, but from high school, the family must pay.  And as the parents of the students undoubtedly had no money (none of the kids had a bag for books, a ball for play, a change of clothes), the kids consequently had no future. 

I continued my trek with many other interesting interactions with the locals until I came across a pair of teachers.  One of the teachers, Evans, said that I can stay with him for the night and as the day was ending with no guesthouse in sight, I accepted.  We ate some Banku (fermented corn with cassava in a fish pepper soup), which was way better than anything that I eat at home in Akwatia and Evans even gave me his bed to sleep. 

The next morning, I woke up early and took a passenger boat (a semi-canoe and a semi-boat) with Evans to the next village where we parted, and I took a motorcycle to the village after that, and I resumed my hike.  On the way to the next village, I saw a huge waterfall.  It had to be one of the tallest, if not the tallest in Ghana, but because of its isolation, it does not even have a name.  I tried to reach the pool of the fall, but the unnavigable trail to the pool quickly turned into an impassable trail.

When I finally did reach the next village after a five hour walk in the sweltering African sun, I had a chat with the chief who lent me his son to show me the next town.  So I was joined by his son and six of his friends for a two hour walk during which they showed me the various edible plants and told me about the region.  At the next town, I was kindly offered an empty schoolroom with a wooden plank as a bed to spend another night so I began spraying the edges of the plank with mosquito repellent.  Luckily, a rare tro tro came to the remote village of Mpaam and I was able to take the two hour bumpy ride on a dirt road to Begoro, a big town with a guesthouse that had a bed.

After a twelve hour sleep, I went hiking again in the surrounding mountains – I came across a very pretty waterfall, then I went back to the routine in Akwatia.

Chemistry and Waterfalls

Beautiful walk to the "Big Tree"

The Big Tree

Snails at the market

The mountain bike trail got sketchy at times

This village was on the mountain bike trail

Aburi Botanical Gardens

Boti Falls

Views from the hike

Akan Falls

From the top of Akan Falls

It's been raining a lot in Akwatia

On Thursday, I went to Oda to pick up the package, which had my iPod (which I forgot to bring) and a shuffle, along with two textbooks (Chemistry and Physiology) and a book on the Korean War.  It was perfect- exactly what I asked for.  I spent nine hours each the last three days doing Chemistry: I had some trouble with quantum numbers, but it turned out to be straightforward once I stopped being stupid. 

But last weekend was a little more exciting than figuring out the azimuthal quantum numbers of differentiating electrons.  While I was in Oda with Philine, we went to see the largest tree in West Africa.  It was creatively named "Big Tree."  It was about a thirty minute drive from Oda, so we thought 'why not?'  The tree was certainly a big tree.  It was over 400 years old and the trip was well worth it, not just for the tree, but for the beautiful walk through the rain forest.

On Friday, I left Akwatia at 5 A.M. to arrive in Accra at 8 A.M. to try setting up an account for donations to the orphanage.  It turns out that I can't - well, I can, but there is a fee attached, so I figured that it is best to informally do it at least while I'm still in Ghana.  Afterwards, I walked around Accra for three hours taking in the market and some memorials, and took a tro tro to Aburi.  I had a plan to mountain bike the slopes of Aburi, but I started having second thoughts about it as sheet after sheet of rain poured down during the hour and a half tro tro ride.  But being a testosterone charged 18 year old, I decided to do it anyway. 

The mountain biking was crazy awesome, crazy scary, crazy painful, and crazy wet.  About ten minutes in to the ride, the guide told me that the paths haven't been used in two months.  The paths certainly showed their lack of use.  In some places the vegetation completely reclaimed the trail, necessitating biking over and through six feet tall grass (and unfortunately, sometimes thorns).  And because of the rain, some parts of the trail literally turned in to streams.  At one point, the stream became waist deep, so we had to wade through that particular stretch.  The guide, Ben, lost a shoe during this particular crossing, so I gave him a good tip (relatively for Ghana).  

Physically, the 1300 feet climb through the rocky ground and the dense vegetation was demanding, but the mental effort of not falling off and tumbling down the slopes was even more taxing.  But maybe because of the challenge of it, it was a fun and a rewarding experience.

I stayed overnight in Koforidua, a town an hour away from Aburi.  Having only eaten a coconut that day, I ventured out in to town looking for food, but it turned out that most chop stalls were closed.  But I found a place to buy some eggs and ended up chatting with the locals for a better part of an hour before I retreated back to my room.  The room had a toilet that flushed and running water!  It seems odd that such simple conveniences now feel like luxuries.

I met up with six Germans on Saturday morning for a trip to Boti Falls.  We chartered a taxi to go to the Falls.  The only problem was that it was a regular taxi designed for four passengers, but there were seven of us.  Two people sat in the front seat, and four people sat in the back with one person sitting on the people in the back. 

The Falls were very impressive.  We ended up taking a beautiful three hour hike with the guide to another waterfall, Akan Falls, which were equally impressive.  I can't really complain about my travel group, but in many ways, traveling alone is a lot more fun.  The spontaneity and the freedom that traveling solo allow are awesome.  You don't have to worry about the other person, and since I don't mind having a rock bottom budget, it is cheaper to travel alone. 

Meanwhile, in the village, it's been continuing to rain.  A lot.  The road leading to the house is now flooded in knee deep water.

Summation of Three Weeks

Wow!  I haven't had a post up in about three weeks! 

Well, in three weeks, I lost 15 pounds (this is not a good thing), got sick for the first time (it wasn't too bad, I just had to get rid of the thing that I ate.  Although admittedly, it is not fun when food at various stages of digestion goes out of both ends of your GI tract at a hundred miles per hour), watched the dismembering of a goat (tastes like chicken), saw the arrival of seven new volunteers (in the town, there are now six German girls, two Swedish girls, and one German guy (I haven't met him yet), and been continuing to learn more of the work at the hospital.

There should be epic poems composed about how much I have read in the last three weeks.  I have read "Things They Carried" (awesome book, couldn't recommend it more- I read it in one sitting), "Witch of Portobello", "Molokai", "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao", "Crime and Punishment" (I started reading this before I came back from the Kakum/beach), and "Atlas Shrugged".  At the hospital, after the initial flurry of activity in the first two hours (making beds, dressing wounds, removing stitches, etc), my job consists of monitoring vital signs every 15 minutes to an hour, so I take the three to four hours at the hospital during which I would otherwise be idle as well as the two or three additional hours at home after work to read.  Unfortunately, I have exhausted my library, but tomorrow I will take the one hour tro tro ride to go to the nearest big town to pick up science textbooks that I asked my parents to send me.

I have been exercising very rigorously.  Everyday, I do 300 push ups and 500 sit ups, and either run for 30 to 90 minutes (sometimes joined by Philine but usually by myself), or play soccer.  The running trails here are beautiful.  Once I run five minutes away from the house, I feel like that I am in an episode of Man vs. Wild, and I'm Bear Grylls venturing through the vast, green, interminable African jungle.  A couple of times, I have gotten lost (very scary), but other than that, the runs are awesome.  I never thought that I would enjoy running so much.

There is no other way to put it: I'm happy here.  I've been told that human beings are the happiest when they have a daily routine, and so far, I have found out that this is true.  In addition to waking up early and doing everything with a 100 % effort and fervent passion, achieving a comfort level with the Ghanaian culture has helped immensely.  Somehow, I am just as comfortable here in the village using bucket showers (sometimes rain showers) as I am swimming in the pool in my parent's dream house. 

It is rainy season.  Sometimes, it feels like that the man or woman upstairs forgot to turn off the faucet to the sky.  Perpetual puddles occupied by hundreds of tadpoles have formed in some of the paths.  When it is raining hard enough, I take my shampoo and body wash and take a shower in the rain.  It is actually very economic: saves the human effort of having to fetch water from the well. 

If I could change one thing, it would be the presence of a piano.  I have been inquiring constantly for the wooden instrument, but so far, I have not had any luck.  Sometimes, I feel like a part of my soul is missing.

It is so weird whenever I come to the Internet Cafe and go on facebook, I see everyone back home posting about how college/high school is.  It feels like high school was a lifetime ago.  It's just a blurred memory that comes back once in a while.