More Pictures

People fetching water @ the Croc Pond

CROCS! in Gwollu

Kids dancing on my porch

Burkina Faso Trip

Me @ Burkina Faso Shea Butter Factory

'Smores!

Me, Abiba, and Kardiri (getting happy birthday sung to us)

Me & Maria @ Luckapolooza

Snoop

Long Overdue Update

Hey everyone. Haven't written for awhile I know, but everything is great in Ghana! The last month or so has been a busy and eventful one so here's the scoop:

• Burkina Trip: Last time I wrote I was up in Burkina Faso attending a shea butter trade show with 4 other Ghana volunteers and some from other West African countries. When the trade show ended we decided to stay an extra night to explore the city and have some fun before coming back and it was awesome! We went to a great concert in an outdoor amphitheatre at the French Cultural Centre at night (and to a nightclub after) and the next day we went to see a soccer match between the Burkina Faso national team and Guinea. On the way back to Ghana I also met my closest Peace Corps neighbor... in Burkina Faso! There is a guy volunteering in a community that is only about 14 km away from my village and we met up with him on our way back down. It will be great to have someone only a bike ride away.
• LUCKAPOLOOZA: The weekend after I got back to my site I threw a huge birthday party for myself and my counterpart in my courtyard. 17 other Peace Corps volunteers came up to my site for the weekend and it was a ton of fun. Some of the people even travelled about 18 hours to get there. We had music, food, drinks, and a live xylophone performance. One of my friends got graham crackers, hershey's bars, and marshmellows sent from home and brought them so we had a fire and made 'smores. The Chief of my village also presented my with a live sheep for my birthday! I had some guys across the street from my house kill and prepare it for us. We finished the whole fried sheep within like 20 minutes of putting it on the table.
• Ho Ho Ho Easter: This weekend I went down to the city of Ho, in the Volta region of Ghana, to spend Easter with 27 other volunteers. Our Easter dinner, prepared by some very talented volunteer cooks, consisted of marinated, bake chicken breasts, garlic mashed potatoes, salad, homemade macaroni and cheese, gravy, and brownies for dessert... it was amazing! It was the only time I have had food anything like that in the last 6 months!
• Accra: So now I am in Accra, Ghana's Capital city. I am at the Peace Corps office this morning and then from here I will go and meet with some people from the Ministry of Tourism and perhaps the Member of Parliament from my district to go over some things about my tourism work in Gwollu. I also need to go around and distribute some brochures and posters about Gwollu at some places in the city and meet with the Association of Tour Operators to try to get them to bring more tourists to the Upper West. I got into town last night and went to the Accra Mall... it seemed so American! It seems brand new, has really fancy shops, a food court, air conditioning, and a huge grocery store. Once again, these are all things that I never see any more so it was really weird. Best of all, we went to a movie theater! We paid about 10 bucks, which is like 2 days pay for me now, to see Slumdog Millionaire at the really nice theater in the mall and it was worth every penny!

I will start the 18-20 hour journey back to Gwollu tomorrow and although all this traveling has been a lot of fun (and a much needed break from my very remote site) it will be great to be back "home" again. Snoop is great and growing. I got him his rabies vaccination last week. He ate an entire fried rabbit head a couple weeks ago that I bought on the street for him. He loves eating and has now started growling at his food as he eats it sometimes. A bunch of my friends and coworkers at site are helping to take care of him this week and they have all called to say he is awesome. It's still really hot here, about 100 degrees or so most days (and still like 95 when I go to bed) but the rainy season is about to start so that should cool things down a bit.

I hope all is well at home for everyone. Shout outs to Zoooora for bugging me to make another post and to Mr. Hammond's class for always checking out the blog!