I'll take that meal Togo

Thus far the only things to have happened AFAWI (the NGO I’m interning with, for the latecomers) have been getting online and finding out about the Beavers and Ducks stomping the Angelinos over the weekend. Also, Liz works right near me, but her school wasn’t meeting today, so she came by my internship and sat around. Now everyone is convinced she is my girlfriend. There are worse things.

Until my boss thinks of something for me to do, it’s Togo-writing time. I really enjoyed it there. I had wondered if the poverty would be noticeable, since by all measures they’re much less developed than Ghana, but it really looked exactly the same. The only sign of a difference was the border crossing itself. Aflao is on the Ghanaian side, and Lomé is on the Togolese side. It’s apparently one of the only national capitals which is also a border town, or so says my guidebook. At the actual border, the Ghanaian immigration agents have a building, while there are a series of broken down wooden shacks on the Togolese side. Except for that, Togo was quite nice, and had a good bit of colonial architecture – certainly more than Accra.

Taryn and I (the only two people on the trip) walked from the hectic border into Lome. It took me a while to get my French in order, but after a few random conversations with people I was doing alright. The road from Aflao goes right alongside the ocean and beaches, which were beautiful and strangely devoid of people. We wandered through the city, only knowing that eventually we needed to make it to the Station de Kpalime on the north side of town, in order to catch a car to Kpalime, about 3 hours away in the mountains.

The highlight of Lome was stopping in at a bar for a coke. As we sat there, various people came by to try to sell us things, and we declined. A man walked up with movies, we shook our heads, but he came over to show me one anyway. I looked down, and he’s holding out hardcore pornography for me, unsuccessfully trying to shield it from Taryn’s view. I busted out laughing immediately and apparently turned bright red as well, declining his offer.

We really did wander randomly for a while, and then eventually I stopped and asked a taxi driver where the Station de Kpalime was. I kept saying “gare,” French for “train station” rather than “station,” French for “bus stop,” so I confused him for a while, but we eventually figured out that it was about a block away and we’d wandered right to it. We got to Kpalime right around nightfall, so we couldn’t see much, and then got a shared taxi from there to Klouto, the village further up in the hills that we were staying in. There was a nice view of the lights from Kpalime on the ride, especially because the driver liked to go up windy mountain roads with his lights off, and at high speeds. Taryn was scared, but I thought it was fun.

We got dropped off outside a bar in Klouto, which turned out to be the bar in Klouto, and asked where the auberge we were staying in was. Two guys offered to take us, and figuring we’d either get mugged or actually get there, we followed. They did not mug us, and we ended up getting the cheapest room available (1 bed, 1 fan, 1 side table, cement floor, no toilet or shower or sink.) After a dinner of delicious spaghetti bolognaise, and staring at stars and fireflies, we went to sleep.

The next day was all hiking around Klouto, the main attraction. Our guide, a local 30ish guy named Apollonaire, took us all around to show us the cocoa and coffee farms, as well as a nearby small waterfall and to the top of a mountain for a nice view. It took about 6 hours and was a lot of fun, especially because in the mountains it’s actually cool. There were lots of butterflies and exciting plants, including two dye plants that Apo showed us, bright red and bright yellow. He also told us different medicinal plants. I don’t remember many details, but it was interesting at the time.

In the afternoon I discovered that Togo has delicious beer. They actually have some ambers and porters, something Ghana really lacks. Additionally, they have coffee in Togo, and good French-influenced food, so I wish I was studying there. Also, while drinking beer, when I went to grab another round, apparently Apo started telling Taryn that he wanted to marry her and they should meet and talk about their future together. This sucked for her, since he was one of the few African men who hadn’t done this to her. We decided to go to bed pretty early that night too.

The next morning was one of the highlights of my entire time over here so far. We were going to hike up the tallest mountain in the area (not what we Oregonians would call a mountain, more of a hill), and to get there we had to go down from Klouto into Kpalime and then up to the other village. Togo’s form of transportation for things like this is motorcycles that you just hop on the back of and go. I’d never ridden a motorcycle before in my life, and here I was riding helmetless down windy mountain roads, swerving to avoid potholes and the occasional herd of goats that ran out in front of us. They even cut the motors on the downhills to save gas, but then it got even more exciting once we got to the flat and they sped up. The view was fantastic, and I wasn’t even scared at all, which I probably should have been.

We bought bananas, avocados, and bread for lunch, and then began to hike. It was market day, so we passed a long stream of women going the other direction down from villages located on the hill, all carrying large amounts of produce on their heads while we were huffing and puffing and barely staying upright. The trail was literally a 3 km long stretch of 45-degree rock steps, or occasionally just a rock face at the same angle. And it was about 9:30 in the morning, and about 100 degrees outside. We made it to the first village, which was most of the way up, and I had sweated out all my water and felt like I might vomit, pass out, or both. Taryn was about to kill me as well, as I’d been much more excited about this mountain than her, so we decided to turn back there. The village was pretty scenic, made out of rock and sitting at a steep angle on the mountain, but we didn’t really appreciate it at the time.

We caught a van from the village to Lome, and it had all the seats filled plus 5 extra people packed in. We were also dripping with sweat and exhausted, so it was not pleasant. In Lome, we caught motorcycles to a hotel on the beach we’d read about, Chez Alize. It was pretty fancy, so we again chose the cheapest room, a bungalow outside with no facilities, 1 bed, cement floor, etc. The rest of the day involved swimming in the ocean and laying on the beach, which was fantastic.

Various Togolese people came by and talked, and it was great how friendly they were. The Ghanaians are famed for their friendliness, but it mostly involves random strangers telling you that they want to be your best friend and then spending a long time trying to figure out how they’ll see you again. The Togolese are normal friendly, and will just have a conversation with you and then say “bye!” and walk off. It was really relaxing to not have everyone trying to stalk me, and I think Taryn only got the 1 proposal, as opposed to about 3/day in Ghana.

The only people at the hotel restaurant/bar in the evening were Taryn and I, and a number of older male expats and the Togolese women they’d clearly paid to be there with them. It wasn’t as creepy as it sounds, as we just didn’t interact with all them. We did meet the owner of the hotel, who was a crazy looking 50ish Frenchman with lank blond hair and an eyepatch. He would have looked equally crazy if he’d had a crew cut and no eyepatch, so everything else was just icing on the crazy cake. He was very friendly and read the entire menu and explained it to us, and I ended up with a salad and fish soup, which was much more delicious than the same thing I’d had in France.

The next day we were supposed to spend more time in Lome, but instead we’d run out of money, so we caught a barely-running taxi to the border and then reentered Ghana. They almost didn’t let Taryn back in, because she got a guard who I’m pretty sure couldn’t read, type, or think, but we got it figured out. We then took a trotro back to Accra, which took 7 hours instead of 3 and was full of Togolese women who screamed at the driver in French/Ewe the entire time. We were relieved to get home and fall asleep.

Now I’m all caught up on my trips, so the 2 of you other than my parents who read every word of these get gold stars!

Apologies

The last post was what I swore I'd never write - the kind of super long one that makes everyone not want to read it. So to make up for it, here's a sign that I saw on a trotro today:

Allah is the most greatest

Oh, Ghana.

Why is everything in the Northern region named after Mexican food

First things first – I got my midterm back from my sociology of development class, the good one taught by Dr. Williams, the program director originally from Washington DC.
I got 100%, and I’m pretty sure that I wrote less on the 5 essays than everyone else in the class. Win.

This weekend, we made a trip to Tamale, Larabanga, and Mole National Park this weekend. All are in the Northern Region of Ghana, which is not actually then northernmost region (Upper West and Upper East), much as the Eastern Region is not the easternmost region (Volta Region). Still, it was a 12-hour bus ride, so we left at 6:00 AM on Thursday. This trip wasn’t just Aya Centre folks, and included about 8 other kids studying at Legon along with one German student, Lisa, volunteering at a school in Accra who just happened to hear about the trip.

The ride up included the usual mix of smooth roads, smooth roads with speed bumps every 2 km, and terrible dirt roads that slowed us down a lot. We arrived in Tamale around 7 PM in the middle of a rain and lightning storm, which was exciting and gave us something to stare at for the last couple hours of the trip. After a dinner of spaghetti (ordered from the “Chinese” section of the menu at the hotel restaurant) we all crashed early.

Friday morning we took a tour of Tamale guided by a member of the hotel staff, Mo(hammed, but he went by Mo.) We visited the regional chief’s village, a Dagomba chief. We brought him a gift of kola nuts and a few cedi, and we all removed our shoes and knelt down until he said we were welcome. The chief, very old, didn’t actually speak, but his spokesperson did, which is standard practice for royalty. The throne room, or whatever it was, wasn’t fancy, just large enough to hold 25ish people comfortably, along with a horse that was against one wall and decided to take a long, loud piss during our time there. The chief shared part of our kola nut gift with us, but I think I might have been the only student to try the extremely bitter nut. Mo spoke for us, and we asked questions through him about what region the chief ruled over, how the chief is selected, etc. Apparently relatives of the previous chief, both through matrilineal and patrilineal, put an ancient magic calabash on their head like a hat and then shake their heads, and the first person that it doesn’t fall off of has been chosen by the ancestor spirit to be the new chief.

Finally, we received Dagomba names from the chief, or his spokesman really, and mine was “Sonyuni,” meaning “one beautiful heart.” All the names were somewhat bland, except for one girl who got “chief’s wife.” All of us were hoping for “wrestles with goats” or something similar though. We then got to see the shea butter processing that takes place in the village as well as some of the compound in general, which was not too exciting, and a hollow tree that we could walk inside. Whenever we visit villages like this I feel somewhat ashamed, because a bus of white people just shows up unannounced and disrupts the regular goings-on. I always see the adults eyeing us ruefully, but the children love us, but then from what I hear those that ask for money or are too attached end up getting beat once we leave. It’s nice to see these places, and the money we bring certainly helps them, but I guess I just like to be aware of the effect it has on the place. In a lot of ways, it’s not too different from tourists taking over a resort town in the United States or anywhere else, and I don’t take that kind of locals’ complaints too seriously, so maybe I shouldn’t worry as much.

After this we dropped by a sacred baobab tree, though I forget for what reason it’s sacred. I believe they may have cut it down and then it reappeared whole the next day, which is a typical reason for things to be sacred or mystical around here. More importantly, we could climb the tree, so about half of us did and it was fun. I miss climbing things, since so far on this trip I’ve only climbed my house, while drunk, and now this tree. Next on our tour was a craft market, where I bought a couple things but I’m not telling what since they’ll be your gifts in 6 months. We had lunch, and I tried tuo zaafi, the northern specialty, which is corn mash with a spinach soup thing. It tasted just like fufu, banku, kenkey, omo tuo, and every other Ghanaian dish that is a ball of mushy carbs and a soup. Which isn’t to say I don’t enjoy them, they’re just pretty similar.

We stocked up on liquor at a store in Tamale, dropped Mo off at the hotel, and made for Mole, about 3 hours away. This was mostly on the smoothest dirt road I’ve seen, and we got to pass a number of communities with traditionally-built houses. I hesitate to say traditional villages, since everyone rides motorcycles and has cell phones and electricity, but they still live in traditional round clay/cob/somethinglikethat houses with conical grass thatched roofs. At 8 we arrived at Mole, and I managed to get us 2 rooms for 10 people, rather than the 6 that we told the hotel were in there, thus saving much money. It was dark and we were exhausted, so we skirted the warthogs hung out right outside the rooms and basically didn’t leave for the rest of the night.

Saturday was the big day at Mole, and we woke up early for the 7:00 safari. The hotel is built on a ridge overlooking the southern end of the park. The views were beautiful, as the savanna just stretches away as far as the eye can see, and it’s all part of the park. There’s also one other ridge a long way away, which is apparently a 2-day trip by motorcycle and only accessible in the dry season, but it contains a great waterfall. Right now it’s the wet season though, which means the animals are much harder to find since they’re spread out over the whole park rather than at a few watering holes that never dry up. It did, however, mean that the entire place was verdant and far more scenic.

Fighting off hangovers, we descended from the ridge down to the park, where we hiked around for 3 hours, guided by James, a park ranger who has been working there for over 30 years, and his rifle in case of emergencies. Between the morning safari and another that I went on at 3:30, we saw antelope, bush bucks (like deer with a few white stripes and spots), baboons, some sort of smaller monkey, warthogs, and 4 elephants. The elephants were happily eating some sort of leaves and fruit, and the pictures definitely don’t show nearly as much as we were able to see. The monkeys and baboons were my favorite to watch though, since they’re just so human in their mannerisms. They liked to stop by the hotel restaurant and steal food, and were quite successful at it. At one point a man shoed away a monkey from his stuff, and then the monkey came back and slapped him on the leg as hard as possible before scampering off, leaving a huge red welt.

Between the two safaris, we swam in the pool and then took the bus to Larabanga, the nearest town to the park. Larabanga contains the oldest mosque in Ghana, and one of the oldest in West Africa. It’s a traditional stick-and-mud building, which is still used for prayers. According to local tradition, the sticks were placed in it solely to mark where construction had reached, and each morning the walls were higher than they’d been left at night due to divine influence of some sort. We also saw the imam, who was quite old and sitting under a tree copying the Koran by hand. Also in Larabanga is the Mystic Stone, which is a large flat stone that was moved to build a road, but every night returned exactly to where it had come from, similar to the baobab in Tamale. They finally gave up and built a shrine instead.

In the evening we ate dinner at the staff canteen, which was where all the in-the-know visitors ate since it was cheaper and better than the hotel restaurant. I met a number of international travelers, including two Canadians who, unlike most white people in Ghana, are simply traveling and not volunteering or something. I liked the way that one of them, Josh, explained it, saying that he views that as more helpful than volunteering, since the more people viewing Africa as just another place you can visit instead of a place in dire need of outside help, the better. I ended up spending the night talking and drinking beer with the Canadians and two girls who came with us from the university, Naomi and Rachel. Naomi is in the university development program, which goes through the Aya center as well, so I see her plenty already, and she teaches with my roommate Liz at the same school, but it was nice to get to know her and a bunch of the other American girls who came with us. I say girls not because I was only macking on the ladies, but because every study abroad program here is 90% or more female. My house is 3 men, 6 women, but the CIEE students at the university number 48 girls and 7 guys.

I also found out some very good information. Josh, the Canadian, has traveled around North Africa and down across the Sahara through Mauritania already, and gave me a bunch of tips regarding my possible winter break plans, but he’ll also be attending the Festival au Desert in Mali in January, so now I know someone who will be there. In spite of how great the festival should be, I was starting to have second thoughts regarding the difficulties of getting there and the costs, but he answered a few questions for me, including telling me that the recommended travel packages on the festival website are a huge rip-off and I can sleep in a Bedouin tent for next to nothing. I took his email as well, so that was great luck and now going to the festival seems much less scary and more likely to happen.

Sunday morning came far too early, and we left the hotel at 8 AM. The bus ride back was uneventful, except at one point we stopped the bus to look at a chameleon on the side of the road, who refused to change color for us no matter how many times I implored him to. I finished The Confidence Man by Herman Melville, which I recommend to no one but now I can say that I’ve read it. I’ve been interested in it since junior year in high school when I did a report on Melville, and it’s basically an account of a number of conversations between men aboard a ship on the Mississippi in 1849, some of whom may be unsuccessful con men, some of whom may be the same man in different disguises. No character is in the book from beginning to end, or anywhere close to that, and there’s absolutely no plot. It’s described as “the first modern novel,” since nothing happens and they just talk about philosophy, but it’s a lot more like ancient writings in that respect than anything modern.
I did appreciate the philosophy espoused by the confidence men (or man, depending on your interpretation), which is eternal optimism in the human race, and that everyone should have complete confidence in everyone else. They’re clearly hypocritical, since they want people to trust them so their cons will work, but at the same time they’re gregarious, generous, and friendly to the point that their confidence schemes all fail. My general philosophy is to be completely trusting in and honest to absolutely everyone, so I liked reading about others who felt that way.

I still haven’t written about Togo, but I figured I’d get this trip recorded while it was still fresh in my mind, since Togo’s already stale. Sometime this week I’ll write about it. Next weekend is our trip to the Volta region, including a sacred monkey sanctuary, so I’d better catch up before then. And maybe start my huge term papers that are due in 6 weeks.

Post 1 for today

It’s travel time in Africa, which is why I haven’t posted much recently. All my roommates took off for Egypt last Saturday, and the Ghanaian power grid went to hell at about the same time. The power was off all Sunday, which would have been kind of fun maybe with everyone there, but with just me, Z, and Taryn it was pretty miserable. We did get to make candle holders out of spare wine bottles and a tequila bottle, and eat every piece of refrigerated food in the house. As Z predicted, the moment we finished off the last sausage, the power came back on. It did go off again in about 45 minutes though, so it’s probably for the best that we ate everything. Also, it gets really hot here with the power off since the fans don’t go.

In other news, I’ve become well known in my neighborhood. On the day of the soccer game I mentioned in my last post, I wore a Ghanaian jersey with “Essien” on the back, who is a star player on the team. Now everyone in the neighborhood calls me Essien, or Michael, since that’s his first name or they’ve actually learned my name. But basically now I can’t walk down the street for anything without getting hailed by freaking everyone.

Also, one of my classes has finished already, since the teacher is about as interested in teaching us as we are in going to his class (not very.) We have 3 weeks off now, and then have to show up and give our oral presentations on our paper topics. The paper also needs to be 15 pages, so I should probably get started on that. But it’s pretty nice to not have to go to that crappy class anymore, and there’s no final!

Tomorrow morning I head off for Mole National Park in the north of Ghana, but I’ll write up something about my awesome trip to Togo before that. Maybe.

Are you ready for some football?

As a red-blooded (possibly more like vermilion) American, I'm ashamed to say this, but I saw one of the most exciting sporting events of my life last night, and it was soccer. The FIFA Under-20 World Cup has been taking place in Egypt, so we've been following that as soccer is on TV all the time here, and Ghana is in the tournament. Last night was the final of the tournament, Ghana vs. Brazil, who was naturally the favorite since they're Brazil.

Early on Brazil was dominating the possession as well as looking far more prepared than Ghana. Late in the first half, a Ghanaian player got an undeserved red card (so says my roommates who watch much more soccer than I do), and was kicked out of the game. You also can't sub in another player when someone gets a red card, meaning that Ghana had to play with 10 men against Brazil's 11. The result was that Ghana had a much more defensive strategy and wasn't able to capitalize offensively because they had an extra man back defending. The second half had more opportunities, but ended with a 0-0 tie.

This meant the game went to extra time, and after the 30 minutes it was still tied. Ghana had to play about 80 minutes of the game down a man and still kept it tied. The goalie for Ghana was pretty good as well, making save after save. After extra time came penalty kicks, and out of 5, Brazil got up quickly. On the last set of them, Brazil had to miss, and they did, and then the Ghanaian player had to make his shot, which he did. This left the game still tied at 3-3, meaning that then it would be sets of 1 penalty kick, and as soon as someone made one and someone else didn't, the game would end. The Brazilians went first and missed, and then the Ghanaians made their kick, winning the tournament.

The entire city erupted at that point, and we ran out side and joined in an impromptu parade. Everyone was hugging everyone else and jumping for joy, or beating on pots and screaming. This was also Africa's first championship in any World Cup, so people were very proud of that. We followed the parade down a busy street, with all the cars honking their horns and flashing their lights. We ended up at a gas station, which is where Ghanaians like to party, and I bought liquor for some 10 year olds, which I view as my good deed for the day. Everyone danced and jumped around, but we ended up having to head off once the girls in our group started getting a little too much attention from elated Ghanaians. A few of us headed into Osu (the nightlife section of Accra) and danced and drank until the early morning. This was definitely an experience I couldn't have anywhere else, and everyone's still elated and talking about the game today. Now we'll see if Ghana can win the regular world cup too.

I got to Kumasi on a Friday, by Saturday I'd learned a thing or two

Our second trip of the semester occurred this weekend, with an excursion up to Kumasi, the traditional capitol of the Asante people in Ghana. It was about a 5-hour trip by bus, which wasn't too bad except for the usual poor roads and bad traffic. We got to enter the forested belt of Ghana for the first time, and it was very relaxing after the dust and dryness of Accra. Apparently Accra gets the least rain of any area in Ghana, so we also got rained on a few times during the trip. And there was plenty of lightning, comparable only to the kind of lightning storms I saw in Pinar del Rio, in Cuba.

Kumasi was razed by the British during one of the Asante-British wars, in 1874, and it shows when you arrive there. Unlike the disorganized sprawl of Accra, Kumasi's streets mostly are named, and they even have traffic lights. Kumasi is certainly more structured than Accra, and everyone seemed a little more laid back. I don't think I even saw any drivers screaming at each other. There also seemed to be many more large stone buildings, as opposed to the metal and wood shacks that dominate much of Accra and the rest of Ghana.

Kumasi bustle

After dropping our luggage off at the Treasure Land Hotel (which we were hoping would be shaped like a pirate ship with a name like that, but wasn't) we went to the former palace of the Asantehene (top chief of the Asante), now a museum. It is right next to the luxurious digs of the current Asantehene, which we got to see but not enter or photograph. Let's just say there were sculpted bushes and peacocks. Also, interestingly enough, the Asantehene-to-be is required to be educated now, and the current one has multiple doctorates from universities in England in engineering (I think) and does a lot of work planning development in Ghana.

The old palace was given to Asantehene Prempeh I in the 1920s as an apology for having imprisoned him on the Seychelles Islands during a rebellion. It was basically a nice older house with lots of wood furnishing, mirrors, and crystal. There were still a number of interesting Asante items dating from the 1700s on, including replicas of the Golden Stool (sacred throne of the Asantehene that is said to have come down from heaven), ceremonial muskets from the 1800s, golden pipes for the Asantehene's personal use, war drums, palanquins, etc. Sadly no pictures were allowed, but I think one of my room mates hung back and got some anyway, so if I get ahold of those I'll post some.

Afterwards we visited another Asante museum with a lot of similar stuff, including fantastically decorated golden jewelery made for various Asantehenes. They had pictures of an Asantehene on parade wearing so many gold rings it was a wonder he could wave at the crowd. No wonder they carry them on palanquins - I don't think they could manage to walk with all the gold.

Then it was time for dinner and relaxing at the hotel. We watched a Ghana vs Uruguay soccer match on TV (2-2, which was good for Ghana) and then took off to hear live music since it was a Friday night. We arrive at this place called the Sports Hotel, which had mainly an older crowd but fantastic live highlife music. No one was dancing, so Bethany and I got it started and eventually got most of the crowd up and dancing. They probably figured that if two oborunis were dancing they probably could too. Afterward we went swimming drunk in the middle of the night at the hotel pool, which is becoming a tradition on our trips, and then crashed.

Bethany stamps on adinkra cloth

Saturday involved visits to three different craft villages around Kumasi. We visited a kente cloth weaving center, a bead factory, and an adinkra cloth dying center. They were all interesting and had lots of pretty things for sale, but the adinkra cloth was the most interesting by far. Adinkra means literally "farewell message" because the cloth was originally worn for funerals. The word now refers to the dye, made from a certain kind of palm bark boiled for hours; the symbols that are dipped in the dye and stamped onto relatively plain cloth; and the finished cloth itself. We got to see all parts of the process and even all pick out a symbol or two and stamp them onto a cloth that we could take back with us. I picked out the symbols for forgiveness and humility and put them down, along with buying a book of the symbols, their names, and interpretations. I also was shown how to make kente cloth and got to sit down at a loom and weave for a very short time. Liz and Z also bought slingshots, which they had for sale for some reason. We've yet to hurt ourselves with them, but I'm sure it's coming. We keep saying we need to catch ourselves a turkey for Thanksgiving, so now we're armed for that.
Boiling dye

I learn to weave kente. Note the toes.

Saturday evening I had the option of going clubbing, but wimped out at the last minute, which is good because apparently they were out until 4:30 and I was about to fall asleep at 10:30, when they left. I hung out and watched Big Brother: South Africa with Liz and Taryn, which was the most terrifying thing ever, and then fell asleep. I also got to eat fufu that night, which I haven't liked much in the past but it's the traditional specialty of Kumasi so I thought I'd give it a try. It was served with groundnut (peanut) soup and goat meat, and was much better than before, so I'm glad I went for it. Not sure I'll have it again thought unless I find myself back in Kumasi.

On Sunday we drove to a lake near Kumasi. It's apparently the only large lake in the whole area other than the gargantuan, man made Lake Volta. About 18 fishing villages surround it, but on a Sunday morning it was very calm . We got to go out in canoes and paddle over to the next village just to take a glance at it. There was nothing very exciting about it, but the lake was relaxing and I got to show off my canoe-paddling abilities. Then it was a box lunch on the bus and the long drive back to Accra.
Taryn, Liz, and Z are on a boat. They're going fast. They've got nautically themed pashmina Afghans

I spent the trip planning my midterm break, which is only 2 weeks away. 5 of my roommates are going nuts and traveling to Cairo to try and pack in all the Egyptian sights they can see. I'd go, but I hope to make it over there during my long break in December/January. Zarif is going to Niger to visit two close friends currently over there with the Peace Corps, so that leaves Taryn and I needing to make plans. Right now we're thinking going over to Benin and Togo. Benin has the apparently ancient and fantastic palace of the Abomey people, while Togo has really good hiking in the center of the country, in beautiful forests filled with butterflies, says my guidebook.

Right now I'm at my internship working hard as always. I'm on to hour three without anyone having given me a single thing to do. In about another hour I'm going to see if I can make for the door without anyone noticing.

I have a mustache!

First, I shaved off my beard and now I have a gunslinger mustache. Pictures will come, I promise. Tom also has a creepy Mexi-stache. They won't last long, I hope.

Secondly, since Bonnie asked, I went to church a few weeks ago and apparently forgot to mention it here. It was an Assembly of God church, which I thought sounded normal, but the service was pretty intense. We started off with hymns, which were mostly praise-and-worship style songs, but it turned into cacophony very quickly. There was a praise band, but they were the world's most avant-garde praise band. They just hit things out of time and a trumpeter went wild, with the preacher shouting. People were rolling around on the floor and flailing wildly or laying prostrate. Then everyone stopped singing and simply shouted out prayers, all different. It was as loud as a rock concert and my ears rang afterwards. After that, there was a sermon focusing on working hard and making money, I believe. There were 4 collections, and at the end they had all the new people stand up in front and say our names and why we were there. It was a good experience overall, but strange because of the music and the fact that there was no gospel reading and just one short reading at all.

Yet again, I'd write more but my computer is out of batteries.