Day 1 - Monday (Written on Mon 5 Jan 2009 1:37:00 AM EST)
I guess this is day 1. I spent the first half hour of today in the train station in South Bend, Indiana. As I write this, I'm on the train heading toward Cleveland. Once there (6 AM, an ungodly hour for anyone to be awake), my girlfriend's sister (Jasmine) will be coming to pick me up, then we drive to New York. I say New York, but really, I have very little idea where we're going. It'll be somewhere outside New York, where we'll be staying in a hotel tonight. Our flight's tomorrow, so you'll hear about that then. My biggest concern right now is the few things I know I never did at home, like writing last-minute emails. Oh well.

(Written on Mon 5 Jan 2009 8:57:00 AM EST)
I guess that was day 1. The train ride was boring, and I couldn't even sleep very much. I arrived in Cleveland right on schedule. The only problem is that the Cleveland train station is rather hard to get to, so my ride didn't arrive until almost 9 AM, and when they did show up, they were not happy. Regardless, we got on the road and started heading East. I slept most of the way, since I was so exhausted from not sleeping on the train.
We got to Allentown in Pennsylvania around 5:00 PM. It shouldn't have taken nearly that long, but the two drivers got us lost. This is partly why we're planning several extra hours of spare time at the airport tomorrow. Once we check into the hotel, I finished up my email and such, then we went out to a billiards hall across the street, then shopping for some last-minute items, then dinner at Boston Market.

Days 2 and 3 - Tuesday and Wednesday (Written on 01/10/2009, 12:00 PM EST, 5:00 PM GMT)
New York City sucks. Traffic sucks. Busy airports suck. The TSA sucks. Fortunately, British Airways does not suck. We got to the airport reasonably early, I got checked in pretty easily, and the woman checking me in actually went out of her way to accommodate me. I was suitably impressed. Security reminds me why I hate bureaucracies. When I have to plan around security for a week before I actually reach security, it's a good sign something's wrong. There was a sign at the airport explaining the rule regarding carrying only 2 oz. or less of liquids on carry-ons. It said that they realize that 2 oz. of liquids is still dangerous, but future x-ray technology will be able to distinguish between safe and unsafe liquids. This is great, but why are we limited NOW, if they already know it's useless? There is a good reason why I refer to the TSA as the Theatrical Security Administration. Having written this, I'm likely to be strip-searched on my return flight. Fortunately, that's over four months away.

On the flight to London (on a 747-400), I sat next to Valerie Clark, a Welsh woman who was heading back from the US where she visits her children (in Connecticut) every Christmas. We had some lovely discussions, and again I was impressed with British Airways. Valerie had a knee replaced, and because the flight was delayed leaving New York (thanks to slow security checks), she had only an hour to catch a bus to get home. She mentioned it to the cabin crew, and shortly before landing, she was moved to the front of the plane so she would exit first. During the flight, I watched Eagle Eye (a mindless escapist movie with several glaring problems. Seriously, who the heck would attach an airport scanner to a network of any kind? And using a robotic eye that has to move around several thousand screens to gather information? Wow. That kind of idiocy is something only Hollywood can muster), City of Ember (Nowhere near as good as the book. Bill Murray's character was so ridiculous that it made the other characters look dumb for not seeing his incompetence, they ruined the "fear of the unknown" that made the book so good by adding poorly-made monsters, and every character had the intelligence of a 6-year-old), and Clone Wars (What do you get when you combine Star Wars, Toy Story, and a list of the 30 dumbest jokes of all time? Clone Wars), which took almost the entire flight.

We got to London alright, though through my brilliant ability to screw things up, I misplaced my passport in my carry-ons. It took me a few minutes of frantic searching at the checkpoint before I found it, and passed on without further trouble. In the London airport, I made two important discoveries. First, if you're going to be stuck in an airport for six hours, you need to plan something to do. Second, Heathrow only posts gate announcements for flights 90 minutes prior to departure. This makes it rather hard to get to your gate if you're running late at all. Fortunately, I saw the announcement right after it was posted, so we were at our gate (a short train ride away) with plenty of time to spare. The Heathrow terminal we were landing at also didn't quite exist yet. Our plane parked next to a framework, where the terminal was being built. We disembarked via a ladder, then took a bus to the main terminal. I actually like that, because I can now claim I've set foot in England.

We boarded our plane to Accra (a 767, I think), and took off pretty close to our scheduled time. I sat next to Ian and Claire Gray, a charming elder couple from northern Ireland. They were heading to the northern areas of Ghana to work on local translations of the Bible. Ghana has 67 distinct languages, several pairs of which can't understand each other at all. My personal religious opinions aside, I think local translations of anything are a good thing. Since I didn't sleep on the first flight, I slept for about 3 hours on this one, then I woke up just in time for my meal (all the BA meals I had were very good. I was expecting typical airline food, and was pleasantly surprised with the sort of meal I would eat by choice elsewhere). I then watched Bangkok Dangerous, which, quite frankly, is the worst movie I've seen Nicholas Cage in. He tries hard, and plays his role well, but it doesn't make up for the poor plot. Once it was over, we had an hour to prepare for our arrival in Accra. They handed out immigration cards, and Jasmine was overly worried about every detail on them. "What if they want a physical address for the school?" "Do they want the city my passport was issued in? Mine doesn't have that," and such. Not bad for the first time, but still. I remember the first one of those forms I had to fill out. I was really careful, then the guy at immigration read the whole thing for about three seconds before stamping my passport and sending me through.

When we landed in Accra, the first thing I noticed was the heat. It's hot here, all the time. We landed in darkness, and it felt like a summer midday in Florida. It was hot, and very humid. In the short walk from the plane's ladder to the terminal, I was already craving air conditioning. We ended up being last in line for immigration, and when we got to the officer, he actually read our papers. No questions, but he read it. Finally we got to our bags, which fortunately were all there. We loaded them on a cart, and went through customs. We passed straight through without trouble, then went through several empty hallways to reach the exit, where we met Melinda, my girlfriend.
My first encounter with native Ghanaians was harrowing. We met a taxi driver who wanted 40 cedi (about 35 USD) to take us to our hotel. Melinda started negotiating, and quite frankly, it was scary. She's normally rather quiet and tame, but once she started in with the driver, she was loud, assertive, and absolutely certain of what she wanted. She got down to 25 GHC, which is a fair price. We went to the hotel (Big Milly's Backyard), "checked in" (which consisted of meeting a guy with a paper that had our names, and he gave us a room key), and we went to our room for the night. The room was a round shack, 15 feet in diameter. It had a lamp, a fan, and a mosquito net. Not bad for 10 USD.

Day 4 - Thursday (Written on 1-13-09, 4:33 PM GMT)
Today, we went traveling. We took a taxi from Kokrobite (where Big Milly's is) to a main intersection in Accra, where we met Kate Erickson, who started the volunteer project we're working with. We took a tro-tro from Accra out to a village in the middle of nowhere, to see a possible new Kids Worldwide project. There's construction everywhere. Most of the buildings here fall into two categories. Either they are shacks built from plywood and sticks, or they are strong buildings built almost entirely of reinforced concrete. Everything seems to be either in the middle of construction, or on the verge of collapse. Most of the shops have religious names. There's "In God We Trust", which sells building supplies, "Matthew 7:7", which sells fruits, and "Jesus Is King", which sells miscellaneous electrical devices.

The tro-tro is the community bus system here. It might be more accurately described as a massively shared taxi. The tro-tros seat about 25 people, plus cargo, in a van that would hold 7 in the US. The roads are often unpaved, uneven, and very dusty. The plants near the road have a permanent coating of brown dust, covering everything except the very newest growth. According to Melinda, that coating doesn't even wash off in the wet season.

It took us a few hours in the tro-tro to get there. We got off the tro-tro, and waited in a football (soccer) field for about a half-hour, until we saw Ekua, the woman we were there to meet. She walked us back to her land, and we spent a nice afternoon there, the details of which aren't relevant here. Out there, the water system consists of using large tanks to collect rain during the wet season, then conserving it during the dry season. Purified drinking water is also delivered, packaged in small plastic bags. There is no sewage processing that I've seen. In the larger towns, there are drainage trenches along the road, but they don't seem to lead anywhere.

After our visit with Ekua, we happened upon a taxi that took us back to Accra, for a decent price. We then went to a foreign exchange, so Jasmine could exchange her American money for Ghanaian cedi. After that, we went to the Lotus Children's Center (another Kids Worldwide project) for dinner, then to the "circle" (the main transportation center) to get a ride to the airport, so we could pick up Sheehan. While on the way, we got a call from his family, saying that his flight was delayed until 3:30 AM. Jasmine went back to Big Milly's, and we sat at the airport for 5 hours until the plane landed. We passed the time by talking, taking many walks around the airport area, and taking turns napping. After the plane finally landed, we sat for another two hours, while Sheehan filled out paperwork for his lost baggage. Due to a strike by the Alitalia airline workers in Rome, all of his bags were lost. We took a taxi back to Big Milly's, where the driver cheated us out of a few cedis (they aren't a very honest group), but at about 5:00 AM, we finally got to sleep.

Day 5 - Friday
Today, we mostly just slept. We woke up around 1 PM, ate lunch at a local restaurant (pizza), then we started shuffling rooms around to prepare for Fiona's arrival. Melinda and I moved into the double room used by Sheehan and Jasmine the night before, and they moved into a triple room. These rooms were part of larger buildings, and I hear that the triple even had its own shower and flushing toilet. We took another nap, then saw a "cultural show", which, like most such shows, was very obviously modified to appeal to tourists. Not a very busy day, but that's okay.

Day 6 - Saturday
I'm getting sick of this place. It's so busy, and so crowded. The people are pushy, and I feel that I'm being cheated at every turn. Fortunately, we leave tomorrow. We got up fairly late, met Fiona, and ate breakfast. Fiona had stayed with a friend (a pilot for British Airways) overnight. We went out for pizza again, then spent the day resting again. I also wrote a bit in this journal. I'm starting to feel terrible. I've lost my appetite, so I have no energy to move, so I sleep. When I force myself to eat, I feel like I can't hold down the food. To finish the day, I got mugged while I was walking on the beach. I had no money, so they stole my brand-new sandals instead. I'm starting to hate this place.

Day 7 - Sunday
Finally, we leave for Ejura. Apparently, after a friend of ours (Roxy, a native Ghanaian whose parents live in Toronto) reported the mugging, the police arrived 2 hours later, carrying their standard-issue assault rifles. I'm rather surprised they came at all. It changes nothing. I'm still sick of the Accra area, and all the problems that come with it. It's no worse than parts of Chicago, but I try to avoid those parts with good reason. We gathered our luggage, called a taxi, and went to the STC station in Accra.

The STC is the high-class transportation between major cities. They use buses (German-built, I think), and provide a fairly efficient way to change locations. It's also pretty entertaining. Our bus (which Melinda says is one of the nicest she's seen) had air conditioning, seats in good condition, and it showed two Nigerian movies while en route. Nigerian movies seem to be mostly drama, and they like to interrupt the plot by ending the movie. A movie and its sequel will be produced and released at the same time. I'm sure there's some reason for this, but I have no idea what it is.

We spent 5 hours on the bus, punctuated by a break at a rest stop. Again, I have no appetite, so I spent a good portion of the break on the bus, just enjoying the air conditioning while I could. We eventually arrived in Kumasi, where Melinda again haggled over the price for a taxi to the tro-tro station. She's good at it; far better than I would be. We went to the tro-tro station, and she haggled over the price of transporting our luggage to Ejura. The tro-tros have space on top for cargo (for a price), and you can carry whatever will fit. Eventually, Melinda got a good price for transporting everything, and we headed out.

The tro-tro ride was two hours of hot, dusty, bumpy roads, with some of our bags sitting on top of us. It wasn't comfortable, but at least we only have to do it once. We passed several bush fires along the way. Melinda says they're controlled burns. We arrived in Ejura after dark, and took another short taxi ride to the Namaskar house, where we'll be staying for the next several months. The house has flushing toilets, good showers, nice clean rooms, and to be perfectly honest, I prefer it to Big Milly's. Somewhere between the tro-tro and the house, Melinda lost her cell phone, so we bought one for me. I may have gotten ripped off a bit by Ghanaian standards, but since all phones here are unlocked, I might end up reselling it later in the US and breaking even, if not profiting. I might also keep it for any future travels. I'm not sure yet.

Day 8 - Monday
Melinda and I went into Kumasi again, to do some shopping and pick up her passport at the immigration office there. Every 60 days, we all need to get our visas renewed. It'll be a hassle. We also spent some time at an Internet café, and I got to check up on my computers back home. I've managed to replace myself with a set of programs. As far as the world is concerned, once each week I check in on everything from home. I never say or do anything, but I'm present. Once we were finished, we went back to Ejura. I'm starting to like it. The people are more relaxed, the streets aren't so crowded, and there is hardly any crime to speak of. The only problem I have here (beyond not speaking the native language) is that the fan in our room doesn't work very well. When it's turned on, it doesn't move at all. The motor overheats, then it moves slowly. Finally, once it overheats enough, it moves at a decent speed. It's bad. The cord gets hot while it's running. I already don't trust the electrical wiring here, and this is not helping my opinion any.

Day 9 - Tuesday (Written at 01/13/2009, 19:30 GMT)
Today was the first day of school (on a Tuesday, no less). We got up early, and walked over to the International Neo-Humanist School. We met the headmaster, then came home to kill time, since almost nobody showed up for school. Apparently, that's pretty common here. Melinda and I went into "downtown" Ejura, and bought a clothesline, some screwdrivers, and a power strip. Now I can connect all my electrical needs at once, no matter what kind of plug they use. A similar strip in the US (if it were available) would be about $10-$15. Here, it's 6 GHC. Sheehan and I then tore apart the dying fan, cleaned out all the dust, lubricated the motor with some petroleum jelly I had bought in Kumasi, then reassembled it. It's still almost dead, but it runs a little better, and the cord doesn't get hot. I wrote in this journal a bit, then we ate dinner, and now Melinda's organizing her stuff in the room.

Day 10 - Wednesday (Written at Sat 17 Jan 2009 01:25:16 PM EST )
No school yet, so we had another day of napping. The fan died again. It's rather depressing, really. After rebuilding it again, it still has hardly enough energy to move. Purchasing a new one is the best option at this point. We (all the volunteers, and Mahadev (one of the boys at the house)) went to Mampong to try the Internet café there. They didn't have enough computers for us all to use, and their system (CafePro) is too limiting for me to do what I need, so I didn't use it. Instead, Melinda and I went wandering around Mampong, then I offered to repair one of the non-functioning computers at the café. Its biggest problem (beside a poorly-seated IDE cable) was a minor virus infestation. Over 1300 copies of a single virus. About 4 hours later, Melinda and I returned to Ejura. I admit fully that I have an obsession with fixing computers. It's healthy, I think.

Day 11 - Thursday
Still no school. It's likely there won't be enough students to hold classes until Monday of next week. Instead, we went to the local Internet café here in Ejura. It was painfully slow. In my opinion, it was slower than I remember dial-up being. The rest of the day was filled with reading and general killing of time. The water stopped running today, so the Namaskar boys carried buckets of water from the nearby river to supply the house. I should say that I'm rather impressed overall by the utilities here. Yes, electricity and water go out often, but when they're on, the power's stable and the water has a decent pressure. It's actually rather comfortable.

Day 12 - Friday
Today, Melinda and I headed back to Kumasi. We took Kwaku (another Namaskar boy) to a doctor's appointment there. He has epilepsy, which wouldn't normally be a big deal, but this is Africa. Here, epilepsy is often thought to be the result of a curse, and discussing it openly is taboo. Partly as a result of that, the care Kwaku has received in Ejura has been lacking, and he's stopped responding to the medication he was on. Thus, we took him to a new doctor, who prescribed something different for him. After the doctor's appointment, Melinda and Kwaku went shopping, while I visited the Internet café there. The Kumasi café (the same one I was at before) is decently fast (I was downloading a file at 30Kbps), doesn't restrict use, and amazingly enough, the staff actually seems to know what they're doing. All this for less than 1 USD per hour. We took Kwaku out to eat, then returned to Ejura. The water came back on just before our arrival. After dinner, the volunteers and a few of the school's teachers went to a local bar, for a sort of farewell party for Marlene and Nacho, who are leaving tomorrow. Melinda and I had two drinks each, danced a bit, then came home early to sleep.

Day 13 - Saturday
I feel terrible. The best I can describe it is my stomach thinks it would be fun to live in my sinuses. When I'm upright, I want to lay down. When I'm lying down, I want to sit upright. Fortunately, we aren't doing much of anything today. All the other volunteers went to Kumasi, while I stayed at the house to rest. Marlene and Nacho left today (I assume), so it's just us for the next few months: Melinda, Jasmine, Sheehan, Fiona, and myself. I spent most of the day sleeping, punctuated by occasional attempts to read. Since arriving in Ejura, I've made it through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Now I'm working on the other two books, but they're slower going. During one of the rare-but-welcome times of having calm internal organs, Mahadev showed me how to do laundry here. It consists of putting the clothes in a bucket of water and detergent, then rubbing the clothes against themselves until clean. The process is repeated again (minus the detergent) as a rinse, then the clothes are hung up to dry. It is a tedious process, and I greatly appreciate the invention of the washing machine. As evening fell, I wrote in this journal, and started writing a game in Perl. It's nice to be able to code again. The water was out all day again, so it gives a rather strange feeling. I can use a computer, but I can't (easily) shower.

(Written Sat 17 Jan 2009 05:37:41 PM EST)
I should probably mention our game of rummy now, too. The five volunteers have started a 5-month-long game of rummy. I'm losing, badly. Tonight, I decided to have a bit of fun with the game, and invited Seto (yet another Namaskar boy) to play with/for me. He did pretty well, especially for a first-timer.

Day 14 - Sunday (Mon 19 Jan 2009 09:01:26 AM EST)
Today we all rested. Kate Erickson came to visit for a few days, as part of her tour of the Kids Worldwide projects. I spent most of the day relaxing in the room. Toward the evening, several of us went off toward the local farm, to see Dada's big school project site. The area we walked through reminds me a lot of home: a single road, power lines, and fields all around me. We finished the night playing Mao which, with two new players, turned out to be a rather decent game.

Day 15 - Monday (Mon 19 Jan 2009 01:15:49 PM EST)
Today was the first day of actual school. I asked to be put with KG2, which basically consisted of playing games all day. I'm fortunate to be assisting a decent teacher, who actually has an interest in her class. I'm told that tomorrow, we'll start actual lessons. I'm reminded of all those games I ignored when I was a kid. Now I'm supposed to pass them on to the next generation. There's a scary thought. Even scarier is the thought that I doubt I can harm their education much. After school, Fiona and Sheehan went to Kumasi, where Sheehan picked up his bags, which finally arrived from Rome. Melinda, Jasmine and I went to the Ejura market to buy a few things, then we sat at the house playing cards. Kate joined us for a few rounds of Mao, which was wonderfully awful (those who've played Mao know how this is a good thing). Eventually the water came back on. Its many on and off cycles have not been mentioned here, and likely won't be mentioned much again. It is off about 50% of the time these days. When the wet season comes, it might be better.

Day 16 - Tuesday (Written Thu 22 Jan 2009 03:37:12 PM GMT )
The second day at school wasn't any better than the first. I sat in P4, where the teacher (according to Jasmine's account) only teaches if there is a volunteer present. Thus, I was present the whole day. I stood in the corner, said nothing, and just watched. The teacher did actually teach though. About halfway through the day, the headmaster (Martins) took me aside and showed my the syllabus for the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) course, as required by the Ghanaian government. It's very evident that the syllabus was written by people who have only a basic knowledge of computers, and less knowledge of how to teach them. It is worth mentioning that the computers the students will use are donated, as the government has not provided either computers or money, despite requiring them in schools.
After school, we had a staff meeting. It consisted of Dada and Martins telling us how wonderful it is to have volunteers, how much the school has progressed, and other steaming filth. Mostly, it was for Kate's benefit. Still, it killed two hours of time.
Tonight (noon in the USA) was the inauguration of Barack Obama. There's a TV at the house, so we tried to watch it, but the antenna cable is in a terrible condition, so I spent the time repairing the cable again. It's a strange coincidence that I watched City Of Ember on the plane coming here, because it illustrates the state of technology here well. For those who don't already know, the city of Ember is an underground city built to survive a global war. It was designed to last 200 years, and is going on 250. Thus, everything is repaired many times over and generally still broken in some way. That's how Ghana is. Everything seems like it was pulled from some other purpose, and anything broken is kept for later reuse. As much as I like the lack of waste, the result is that nothing works reliably.

Day 17 - Wednesday
I expected to spend today standing in P4 again, but after the first half-hour of the day, Madam Sala came and got me, telling me that the KG2 teacher (Madam Mary) had not come to school, so they needed me to teach it. I went, and was nicely overwhelmed for about a full minute. Fortunately, Madam Sala had gotten Melinda for the class as well, and we spent the day reviewing letters, shapes, numbers, and basic arithmetic.
Educational discipline deserves a note as well. The standard practice here is to cane disobedient children. Surprisingly enough, I actually approve of this. First, the canes used (mostly) don't hurt. They are very flexible, so most of the energy from the swing is spent flexing the cane in the first place. Yes, it is possible to severely hurt the kids with the cane, but it has to be intentional. Second, the cane is a public spectacle. Here, there is a lot of emphasis on what others think of you. Tap (because the verb "beat" doesn't apply to something so light) a few children with a cane, and the rest know not to copy the misbehaving ones. Again, I'll mention that the cane should NOT be used to cause actual pain. Rather, it is more an annoyance that cannot be ignored.

Day 18 - Thursday
Madam Mary was gone again today, so the school secretary taught KG2. Sheehan helped there, and Melinda and I taught P1 (whose teacher is gone to a funeral for two weeks). The P1 students are rowdier than the KG2 students, but can handle more, too. First, we went over some basic arithmetic (adding multiples of 10). One of the students didn't understand it at all, so I took him to a separate room to do remedial work until the morning break. The remedial work was mostly me trying to explain the concept of a group, and how adding groups works, and number lines, and anything else I could pull out of my head to try to explain why 10 + 40 is not actually 31. After break, we tried to use some "first words" flash cards to review reading English, but hit a rather large brick wall. All the students copy everyone else. When the first student shouts something (and they all shout, because they're all certain they're right, since they copied someone else), everyone else shouts the same answer. Thus "king" is read as "goat". Until lunchtime, we had them fill in missing letters in words, but no student scored higher than 7 correct out of 10. After lunch, we did a craft project with the kids (weaving paper), then played a lovely game of poke-the-kids-with-a-stick until the bell rang.
Poke-the-kids-with-a-stick is an interesting game indeed. The teacher tries to poke the kids with a stick, while the kids try to hide themselves well enough to appear to be hiding, but not so well as to avoid being poked. If indeed they do avoid being poked, they will venture out far enough to get the teacher's attention, then dart back into their hiding spot (usually somewhere cunning, like standing against a wall).
After school let out, we came back to house, and I finally set my computer's time zone to GMT (as noted above). I then wrote in this journal. What I do next will be determined shortly.

(Written on Fri 23 Jan 2009 10:47:56 PM GMT)
What I did next was walk into town and get eggs. There are street vendors who sell hard-boiled eggs with a pepper sauce. They are rather tasty. After that, we played a bit of rummy, and went to bed early.

Day 19 - Friday
Apparently, we didn't get to bed early enough. We got to school just barely on time. We spent the day in P1 again, Mary was still out, but today Sheehan stayed at the house. We tried to do arithmetic using numbers bigger than 10 again, but that didn't work well at all. We ended up spending the first session just drilling the concept of "groups of 10". For the second session, we reviewed reading the "sh" sound, and got a lovely demonstration of what not to do with a cane. Across the courtyard, Madam Ruby was beating her entire KG1 class. There were pieces of the cane breaking off. That's purely excessive. I feel bad for using a cane to make surprising noises in front of kids who aren't paying attention.
After lunch break, we returned to the school for only an hour (Fridays are shorter school days). We took the kids to the soccer (football) field, and let them run amok. For about the last 20 minutes, I played a game of lob-the-ball-at-the-kids. It's played by lobbing a ball in the general direction of the kids, who then scramble around trying to bring it back for the next round. The other kids played soccer (which will henceforth be referred to only as football, since American football is unheard of here), and a group of girls braided Melinda's hair. Kwasi (one of the Namaskar boys) said she looked "beautiful, like goat". In my personal opinion, it wasn't half bad for being done by the P1 students.
The evening was spent mostly sleeping. I took a shower while the water was on, having missed the few opportunities in the past few days. Melinda has an electric pitcher, that will boil up to 1.5 liters of water. It mixes well with a bucket of tap water to provide a much-needed cup of warmth now and then during an otherwise-cold shower. I forgot to heat water today, so I had an especially cold (and especially short) shower. Still, any shower is nice.
I'm starting to think about the school computers now. The room that will be the lab is getting electrical work done today, so it will be ready soon. Now, I just need to figure out how to meet the requirements of the government syllabus (which, of course, expects a high-speed Internet connection and modern computers) using as little extra equipment as possible. I'm also having trouble burning CDs again. I'll figure that out later.

Day 20 - Saturday (Written on Sun 25 Jan 2009 02:16:39 PM GMT)
Kumasi again. We woke up early (later than normal, though), and went to Kumasi. Our main goals were to visit the foreign exchange so Jasmine could get money, the ATM so I could get money, and the Internet café so I could check my email. We also found some new sandals for me (size 11, so my feet no longer fall off of them) and bought some juice & milk at the supermarket. Yes, supermarkets exist here, though their selections are rather limited. Overall, it was a productive day, though not much to write about. I did figure out how I would be building a miniature network for the school's computers, so the parts of the syllabus that require Internet access can still be covered.

Day 21 - Sunday
Another lazy day. I think my entries here will become shorter as the daily routine gets to be, for lack of a better word, routine. Today, we slept in rather late, then did laundry for most of the morning.
(Written Sun 25 Jan 2009 08:56:40 PM GMT)
Most of the afternoon was spent cleaning our (referring to Melinda and myself) room, since we never actually had since arriving. I now have a nice space on the desk for a computer, so I can set it up as a server. I also finished the last of the four parts in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, which was very good, and I highly recommend them to anyone who wants to have their entire concept of physical reality mocked for several hours. My next reading project will be Brave New World, of which I saw a movie version once. Perhaps it's a good thing that I remember very little of it.
I cut off part of my thumb today. That's actually not all that surprising, as most people cut off parts of their thumb now and then and think nothing of it. After all, the thumbnail is dead and feels nothing. What makes today's removal worth comment is that I cut off a fairly large portion of my thumbnail. A few days ago (Tuesday, as I recall) I smashed my hand into a wall (making noise with the cane). I split my thumbnail, and today it had separated enough to be removed without further shedding of blood. Now I don't have to wear tape on my thumb to hold the nail down.
After cleaning, Melinda and I sat outside on the porch, and discovered a tick on the back of one of the house cats (who perhaps can be more accurately described as "the cats which have discovered that free food and attention comes to them if they remain around the house"). We spent a good portion of an hour attempting to remove it, with none of us having any firsthand experience in the matter. We coated the tick in petroleum jelly, and when that did nothing for 15 minutes, we tried burning the tick with a blown-out match. When that didn't work, we tried scraping it off, then finally just coated the tick in still more jelly, then let the cat run around for a while while we ate dinner. After dinner, the tick was gone.
On a side note, my Perl program is coming along nicely. Part of my plan for the school computers now involves a fairly large Perl program, so it's good to be in practice for that. For those reading this that don't know what Perl is, it is safe to simply ignore most instances of the word "Perl" and read the sentences that way. Nothing of importance will be lost.
Today, I also found time to read President Obama's inaugural address, which I had gotten a transcript of at the Internet café in Kumasi yesterday. As far as speeches go, it was pretty good.
While on the topic of long speeches, perhaps the shorter journal entries will start tomorrow. On the other hand, I might just ramble on about daily life.

Day 22 - Monday (Written Mon 26 Jan 2009 10:28:30 AM GMT)
My stomach has decided that my sinuses were too small a goal, and it has elected to conquer my entire body. First, it's been waging war on my intestines and esophagus all morning, which has kept me up all night, so my brain is suffering, too. It is a cunning plan that seems to have taken my internal organs entirely by surprise.

(Written Tue 27 Jan 2009 12:16:04 PM GMT)
For the first half of the day, I stayed in bed. For lunch, I managed to work through a swallow of orange juice and three bites of a banana. By mid-afternoon, I felt better, and felt almost fine by evening. I read a lot, and I installed Ubuntu on one of the computers here. I chose the slowest and smallest computer as the test subject, and while it is indeed slow and small, it still runs Ubuntu just fine. Not bad for a computer dated April 14th, 2000. Just before bed, Melinda used that computer to make a graph of our rummy scores. Not particularly useful in itself, but it was a good indicator of the usability of the computer.

Day 23 - Tuesday
I feel much better today, but not good enough to teach. From 9 to 10 AM, I had almost no pain, so around 10:30 AM, I went to the school to visit during their break. By the time I got there, my stomach had begun its offense again, and I came back to the house to lie down. I read a bit, then wrote in this journal.

(Written Thu 29 Jan 2009 12:20:29 AM GMT)
After lunch, I went to the school for a bit again. This time, the kids enjoyed a nice game of rub-dust-in-Fluffy's-hair. It is played by rubbing dust into my hair. There is no winner, and the only loser seems to be me. About a half-hour before school ended, I started feeling queasy again, so I came home, took a wonderfully cold shower, and rested again. Most of the afternoon was spent in bed as well, where I finished Brave New World between attempts at sleep. It was a decent book, though there are a few points where the original publication date (1932) becomes very apparent.

Day 24 - Wednesday
When one awakes in the middle of the night for no obvious reason, it is always a comfort to discover that reason, no matter how terrible it is. In my case, I awoke at about 2 AM. There were no loud noises, I did not need a toilet, I wasn't thirsty, and I was a perfectly comfortable temperature. My stomach was still upset, but I'm used to that by now. Finally, after a half hour of wandering around, I felt the sudden urge to vomit, and was greatly relieved to know why I had awoken. Once finished, I returned to bed quite happy.
Again, I didn't go to school today. I'm beginning to feel useless, and it's annoying me that I seem to have come 5700 miles (that's the great circle distance) to lie in bed. I started my next book, Lord of the Flies. The copy at the house was printed in Nigeria, for educational use, and the quality is rather lacking. At times, it's genuinely painful to read. Still, I'm decently interested in it. I also worked more on my Perl program. At this point, it's probably about 70% done. Any programmers reading this know that the last 10% of a program takes (at least) 90% of the development time, so I'll likely be working on it for a while.
Toward evening, the typical evening activities took place. We played rummy, drank coffee and tea, then retired. I mean no offense to any Muslims reading this, but to someone with no idea of what's happening, and through the low-quality and over-amplified loudspeakers, the evening prayer from the mosque (which is a fair distance away, as well) sounded like a horrible beast dying from wounds inflicted by some other horrible beast.
After my fun time in the middle of last night, I started taking antibiotics today. They seem to be working, so far. As I write this, my stomach is settled for the first time in three days. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Day 25 - Thursday (Written Thu 29 Jan 2009 05:11:04 PM GMT)
Today was the worst day yet at school. I managed to keep my nausea under control through the first half of the day, and barely managed to repeat the performance for the second half. I was with KG2 all day. I started in there with Jasmine and the school secretary (Madam Mary is still out, though we now know it's due to an ulcer), but the secretary left after about a half hour of doing nothing. Jasmine and I attempted to get the kids to write a series of letters, but we met little success. It bears note that Jasmine is a pacifist, so she detests the use of the canes, no matter how light. The writing exercise took most of the first period. After break, we took pages from a coloring book and distributed them to the students, followed by two crayons each. At first Jasmine tried to let them trade crayons with her, but the line to trade turned into a contest of who could push the hardest and remain standing. After that, they could only trade amongst themselves. Not surprisingly, there were still kids who ended up with 7 crayons and others without any. Everyone was able to color sufficiently, though, so it may be regarded as a reasonable success. I did use a rolled-up cover of an empty coloring book as a replacement for the cane, but it wasn't nearly as effective, though I was harsher with it than the actual cane. As lunchtime approached, we gathered the crayons, and tried to get the kids to line up to leave. They started the same pushing as before, which then turned into pushing my stomach. When the bell rang, I was quite glad to let them leave.
During lunch, we discussed the forthcoming after-school staff meeting, that we'd learned about (though I'm not sure who was directly told) that morning. It seems some of the teachers are upset about Dada supposedly treating them like children. Yet, they apparently planned this meeting by sitting in the headmaster's office, leaving their classes unattended.
For the second half of the day, Jasmine and Melinda switched classes, so Jasmine went off with the P1 students to play football, and Melinda and I were in KG2. We were also informed (directly, this time) that the staff meeting was canceled, since someone realized that the library was scheduled to be open after school. The secretary joined us long enough to draw two pictures on the board (an umbrella and an okra), which took her a half-hour because the shading on the okra had to be JUST right and the curve of the umbrella had to be JUST right. After that, she was called to the office to speak with Dada, and returned only to get her purse over an hour later. Due in no small part to the children's behavior during the morning, most of the afternoon was spent with the kids "sleeping", and Melinda and I playing a deformed version of whack-a-mole. It's basically an enforced nap time. Of interest to me was that several of the kids actually did go to sleep, including a few whose energy I had thought was endless.
When school ended, we returned to the house where I sat in front of the fan (which, to me, spun a bit less than the rest of the room) and Melinda ran the library for the kids.
I also finished Lord of the Flies. It was decent, and I'm glad to have read it, but not really my first choice for something to read again. I am fully aware that humans are horrible by nature, civilization is futile, or whatever other morals may be pulled out of it. I don't need to be reminded of these facts. Regardless, it's still an good story.

(Written Thu 29 Jan 2009 10:26:26 PM GMT)
After dinner, Jasmine, Fiona, Sheehan and I all were sitting around the table outside, and decided that since we all had nothing good to do, we should go drinking. It seemed like a reasonable idea at the time, like all such ideas. Jasmine and Sheehan both like gin with lime, which, having not tried gin before (that I can think of), I decided to try as well (Fiona had beer). It wasn't too bad, but not too good, either. I drank half of mine, and Jasmine split the rest with Sheehan. Apparently, Jasmine doesn't take alcohol too well (or she takes it very well, depending on your perspective), so after a reasonably small amount of alcohol, we had a lovely visit from Drunk Jasmine.
Drunk Jasmine was amusing. She alternated between picking half-hearted arguments and hugging small children. The children didn't notice or mind that she was drunk. We still managed to play a few hands of rummy before retiring for the night.

Day 26 - Friday (Written Sun 01 Feb 2009 05:31:27 PM GMT)
We had a long day today. We went to school, where I spent the day with P1. Melinda and I had them do more exercises splitting numbers into groups of 10. After break, I took them out to the field to play football, while Melinda took the KG1 kids to a different area nearby. Apparently, the KG1 teacher (Madam Ruby) never does anything outside the classroom with her class. When class let out for lunch, all five of the volunteers left for Kumasi.
We ate at a local restaurant (Vic Baboo's) which caters almost exclusively to tourists. It's overpriced (by Ghanaian standards), but the food is good, and they have options that simply don't exist elsewhere, like burgers and pizza. After lunch we went to the Internet café, where I set up a website where I'll be putting pictures of my trip. Unfortunately, the first round of pictures didn't upload fully, so the website's pretty sparse right now. I'll fix it soon. I also downloaded a copy of my resume' from home, and a copy of a Perl program I wrote a few months ago. It was a little program to define words in a half-dozen different ways, but most importantly, it had an example of a DNS server in it.
For those who might be reading this without any idea what DNS is, the Domain Name Service (DNS) is the system used on the Internet to connect names to addresses. The computer can't understand a name (such as www.google.com) like we can. It can only use numeric addresses (such as 127.15.200.45). When you tell your computer to contact somewhere else by name, your computer first sends a request to a known address (the DNS server), asking that server to change the name into a meaningful number. That is DNS in a nutshell.
We left the café to do some shopping. We bought cheese, juice, and other assorted luxury groceries. As we headed back towards the tro-tro station, we bought a shirt for Seto (whose birthday is tomorrow), and a new shaving mirror for the shower.

Day 27 - Saturday
Today is Seto's birthday. I spent most of the day sleeping, recovering from the terribly long day in Kumasi. I also read most of Eragon. Having seen the movie version for it, too, I am much more impressed with the book. Quite happily, a lot of the clichés from the movie don't exist in the book. As darkness fell, we had a bit of a party for Seto, involving lots of thrown water balloons, dumped buckets of water, and a bit of cake (a very tasty banana cake) and ice cream.

Day 28 - Sunday
Another restful day. I slept in, finished Eragon, then worked on a new Perl program. For the school computers, I will rebuild a number of the systems that would normally exist if the computers were connected to the Internet. That way, the students can learn how computers interact with each other, how to use websites, and the other requirements of the syllabus. This is why I needed my DNS program. Now all I have to do is make it work, and get it running on the school systems.
It rained today. It actually rained. This is the first precipitation I've seen since leaving the United States. It did turn the weather much cooler, but also more humid. We'll see later which I prefer.

(Written Tue 03 Feb 2009 12:32:06 PM GMT)
It rained. Then it started raining while it was already raining, which confused the clouds, so they panicked, and did the thing they do best, and started raining. While I won't say it's the heaviest rain I've ever seen, it was certainly close.

Day 29 - Monday
Yet another school day. I was in KG2 during the morning, which thoroughly wore me out. I then moved to P3 for the afternoon at Jasmine's recommendation. P3 was different. Madam Gifti (the P3 teacher) taught fractions. She knew what she was doing, the students listened, and she was strict but not cruel. I mostly just sat and watched. I finally did have to actually do something, when it came time to grade assignments. Surprisingly, the amount of cheating was no different than any other class (which is to say it was rampant), or else the class all misunderstood exactly the same concepts. Melinda and Jasmine came and got me, and we left school about ten minutes early.
Jasmine's day was far worse than mine. She's getting discouraged at how bad the current system is, and how even the most basic concepts are being taught incorrectly. In KG2, Madam Mary was teaching the kids that lower-case letters are written at the same height as upper-case letters. This explains a good part of the trouble they had on Thursday, as well as explaining why they don't seem to understand when words are written correctly. There is very little chance to correct this kind of thing, and it's very evident that even if it were corrected, the changes wouldn't last.
Fortunately, today is market day in Ejura, so there's no after-lunch session. We were able to stay at home, and Jasmine recovered a bit. It rained more today, after school. It wasn't nearly as hard as yesterday, but it was still welcome. Also, during rain, the electricity is much more likely to go out, and for longer. It should make the wet season interesting. Melinda finished Eldest, the sequel to Eragon, so I started reading it as well.

Day 30 - Tuesday (Written Wed 04 Feb 2009 08:59:30 PM GMT)
My day started at 4:10 AM. I awoke to the sound of my cell phone, telling me I had a message. It was my little sister, informing me that my computers back home weren't working properly. I spent the next fifteen minutes on the phone with my mother, walking her through the process of restarting one of my computers. I then returned to sleep.
Melinda was sick today, so she stayed in bed. I started my school day in KG2. After about 10 minutes of sitting in class doing nothing, Madam Mary told me to teach the kids to read. There was no suggestion as to how I was supposed to do it, and no assistance while I tried. Regardless, I wrote simple words on the blackboard, and tried to get the kids to say the correct sounds. Several of them still don't have the letters right, and it doesn't help when Madam Mary keeps distracting the kids in the middle of a word. Worst of all is their incessant copying. In the class of twenty students, about three know how to think for themselves. The rest don't even realize it's a problem. I am not a natural teacher, so I have no idea what I should do to change that. Of course, the standard practice for learning here is to simply repeat what the teacher says, until they memorize enough facts to pass the end-of-term exam. It it an absolutely abysmal way to learn, though it does provide a bit of amusement along the way.
	Me (Pointing to the letter "c"): What sound does this letter make?
	Kids: Kah!
	Me (Pointing to the letter "a"): What sound does this letter make?
	Kids: Ah!
	Me (Pointing to the letter "t"): What sound does this letter make?
	Kids: Tuh!
	Me: Now say it together.
	Kids: Toe-ged-der.
I endured this exercise in futility for almost two hours before finally giving up and telling Mary I was done teaching. Madam Mary made a half-hearted attempt to have the students recite multiplication facts until the morning break (though I doubt very much that the kids really understood why they were saying a series of numbers, or their meaning). During break, Jasmine and I went to visit Melinda, half out of concern and half out of a need to vent our frustrations away from the kids. Melinda suggested that we could do remedial work on our own, in the spare (unfurnished except a single table) classroom. We liked the idea, and tried it. We pulled three kids from KG2 (the ones who had shown particular problems earlier) and worked with them, using a set of flash cards Jasmine had brought.
By coincidence, the spare classroom was right next to the KG2 room, so we could hear everything being taught to KG2 as well. We could hear everything, but we didn't. Madam Mary apparently decided that without me there to teach for her, there simply shouldn't be a lesson. Having heard the tales of the other teachers, this doesn't surprise me. Apparently, Mary's one of the better teachers. She'll at least stay in her room when she's not teaching.
I'm not a teacher. Whenever I tried to work with the kids, they couldn't seem to understand. I tried having the kids copy the sounds I made. I tried quizzing them. I tried every technique I could think of for associating a sound with a symbol. Nothing I did seemed to make any progress, and the kids lost interest quickly. 
After a short while, I got frustrated, and Jasmine took over. While she worked with the kids, I stood there useless and awestruck. After ten minutes, the kids progressed more than they had in the entire time I had struggled with them. By the time they left, they were able to associate most letters with the correct sounds. I have no idea how Jasmine managed to teach them, but it worked wonderfully.
After lunch, we returned to school to do more remedial work with some of the P1 students. Again, Jasmine did most of the work, while I stood uselessly between failures. Eventually, I left the remedial work to help Fiona, who was trying to impart an idea of the solar system to her P2 class. Being the nerd that I am, that's basic knowledge to me, so I helped. We had one kid stand still, as the sun, and had other students run around her as planets. One boy also had to run around the earth, acting out the role of the moon. Given the limitations of space, time, and understanding, we only attempted to work with the four inner planets, but that's enough to give some impression that Earth isn't the only thing in space. After that activity, which turned out to be rather disruptive to the other classes (not that many classes were actually being taught, anyway), the P2 class received a short speech in their classroom about how very large space actually is. I doubt they understood it fully, but even if they grasp just a bit of the concept, I'm satisfied.
I helped with remedial a bit more, resigning myself to sorting Jasmine's rejected flash cards until the day's end. We returned home to sleep through the afternoon, then Jasmine and I went out at around 10 PM to buy pure water and hard-boiled eggs. I read Eldest until around midnight, when I finally went to bed.

Day 31 - Wednesday
Not surprisingly, I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning. I did finally manage to drag myself out, though, ate breakfast, and headed off to school. Jasmine and I abandoned any pretense of working with the other teachers today, and started right in with remedial work. Melinda gave us five KG1 students, who all needed help with their letters. I did my best to imitate Jasmine's techniques from yesterday, and I met slightly more success. One of the students knew more than the other four, so Jasmine worked with her specifically while I tried my best with the others. I worked for over an hour with them, and they barely got four letters figured out. While we were working, Melinda stopped by on her way home, since she was feeling sick again. Eventually, we returned the four struggling KG1 students to their class, and worked exclusively with the more successful one, who was actually still interested in working.
During break we visited Melinda, then went back to school to work with a group of P3 students who needed to work on writing. While Jasmine helped them start writing, I went outside the school and gathered up kids who hadn't yet returned from break.
While I was standing at the school's gate, a few JSS (the equivalent to American middle school) students tried to leave, claiming their teacher had sent them. I glanced at the nearest JSS teacher (Mister Moses), who told me to send them back. I did, and repeated this great game two more times before finally making one of the students kneel (which is the method of discipline prescribed by school policy, rather than caning) in front of his class. This was of great amusement to the other JSS class (the one that's actually Moses's), and they let their enjoyment echo through the school. At this point, I'm greatly appreciative of the shock a bit of quick footwork can cause. Simply turning around, when done with precision and the proper facial expression, can stun an entire class quite effectively. In the most terrible voice I could muster, I informed the class that the nursery was better behaved than they were, and that there was nothing funny about what had happened. I then stared directly at Mister Moses, and told him, in exactly the same voice, that he should control his class. I'm assuming that I've now made at least one enemy here, but I don't really care. The JSS students wander freely, disrupting other classes, and nobody does anything. They basically have free reign over the school, on account of their teachers being so apathetic. I'm going to do everything I can to put an end to that.
Thankfully, the rest of the day passed without any JSS students bothering me or my students. I also noticed less disruption of the other classes as well. I doubt it will last, but I'm still hopeful. On a side note, I should mention that Mister Moses is also the teacher who, when I first met him, asked if he could marry "one of the women I came with", and has made a habit of watching the female volunteers whenever he can. I am rather happy that he knows I do not approve of him. It might make him less obnoxious to the others. Again, I doubt it, but I'm hopeful.
Jasmine and I taught the P3 students until about 11, then worked with a P1 student until noon, when the other P1 students went off to play football as their physical education. My stomach had started feeling uneasy again, so I returned home to rest for the remainder of the day. I read for most of the day, then we played rummy. I finished Eldest, then wrote in this journal before finally heading to bed. After a full month of my journey, I find that it is exactly what I was expecting, which is to say that it is entirely unlike anything I could have expected.

Day 32 - Thursday (Written Fri 06 Feb 2009 10:51:07 PM GMT)
More school. Jasmine and I worked with more remedial students, and we're making a set of custom flash cards. Unlike the ones we brought, our custom set will include words the children actually know. I doubt very much there is a single KG student who knows what an igloo is.
Jasmine broke a cane that Madam Ruby was using to beat kids for incorrect answers. I don't mind the cane used as a tool for appropriate discipline, but to punish the kids for the teacher's failures is wrong. During lunch, I learned that Dada's computer wasn't letting him log in properly. Due to my stomach's stubborn attempt to conquer my body (now joined by a throbbing headache), I slept through most of the day (including the last part of school) and didn't actually fix anything. By night, my ailments had subsided, and we (the volunteers) all went out to a bar, and we shared some fried egg sandwiches as well. I started reading Brisingr (the third book of the series), and didn't get too far before giving up intellectual pursuits in favor of more sleep.

Day 33 - Friday
Still more school. Jasmine and I spent most of the day making flash cards, until Fiona sent us some P2 students who needed help reading. One of them didn't know over half her letters, so I worked with her while Jasmine handled reading. We worked until break, then Jasmine went off to do PE with the P1 students. I stayed behind, and worked on more cards, then tried to teach spelling to a pair of P3 kids. I don't remember any of the spelling rules anymore, let alone how to teach them. I ended up just giving the kids a few words to spell, then having them write them on the board.
Jasmine and I also started keeping track of remedial progress today. We've come up with a simple system to monitor which students need to work on which concepts, so we can hopefully be more effective and can continue progress with the ones who need help the most.
I didn't go back to school after lunch break. Instead, I rested a bit to settle my stomach (yet again), then Melinda and I did laundry, and I managed to leave my cell phone in my pants. It was only in the water for a minute, but that was enough to short out a few circuits. I disassembled the phone as much as I could, and left it in my room to dry.
After laundry and a short trip to town for eggs, I settled down to read a bit more. A short while later, Dada came and asked about his computer, so I set to work fixing it. It's very badly infected by a virus, to the point where it's going to be a very large task, if it's even possible to fix. Instead, Dada's willing to try switching to Linux, so I'll be working on that instead. In the long run, it will be better, since he'll never have to worry about viruses again. Given how little he uses his computer, I also doubt it will be very difficult for him to adjust. Still, it's a fairly large undertaking, and I'm not sure Dada realizes this.

(Written Sat 07 Feb 2009 09:51:35 PM GMT)
Later in the evening, while playing rummy, a new visitor arrived. Richard is a recent graduate from the University of Ghana, fulfilling community service requirements (Ghana offers scholarships in exchange for community service) by volunteering as an accountant.

Day 34 - Saturday 
We woke up today at our normal time, but rather than go to school (which would have been wonderful, since there would be no students), we went to town and got a taxi to go to Fiema, a small village a bit northwest of Ejura. I should note that the taxi driver we ended up with had no idea where Fiema was, and didn't know the condition of the road (dirt with many large holes), but he didn't argue or complain about the agreed price (3 GHC per person). It is very good to know there's at least one fair taxi driver here, and for that he has my gratitude.
We didn't stop in Fiema itself, but rather went to the nearby monkey sanctuary. According to legend (or at least, as I understand it), a thirsty hunter wandering in the forest found a group of monkeys around a brass pan filled with water. He took the pan to his village, and the monkeys followed. The monkeys are believed to be human spirits in monkeys' bodies, and in addition to being protected from harm, are given a full funeral upon their death. 
There are two main species of monkeys in the sanctuary, called mona and colubus. The colubus monkeys are shy, and spend most of their time in the trees, eating leaves and insects. The mona monkeys have a more varied appetite, and will come down to the ground and into the nearby village of Boabeng, where they can find different foods, including fruit and bread from tourists like us. I took several pictures in the sanctuary, which I will soon add to my website.
After the end of our tour, we went to the city of Nkoranza, where we had lunch (fried rice with chicken, very delicious and filling), and visited an Internet café (though I didn't do much there), then headed back to Ejura.
I took a nap until dinnertime, then we all went out to a bar. It was half for our own entertainment, and half to welcome Richard to the house. It was entirely enjoyable. Afterward, I wrote in this journal, worked on my Perl programs, then went to sleep for the night. 

Day 35 - Sunday (Written Wed 11 Feb 2009 06:54:48 AM GMT)
We did basically nothing today. After yesterday's long day, Melinda and I spent most of the day sleeping. I also finished Brisingr, and started reading The Princess Bride. Since I really don't have much more to say about actual events, I will occupy this space with a discourse on one of the more mundane aspects of life in Ghana: water.
Throughout much of Ghana, running water is rare, and where it does exist, its purity is inconsistent. In Ejura, fortunately, there is (usually) running water of very good quality. The tap water is drinkable, but for those of us without accustomed immune systems, it may or may not cause problems (there's so much here that can cause disease, it's hard to tell if it's actually the water). As a result, I tend to drink very little of the tap water, though I'm not paranoid about avoiding it like I would be in some places. When we heat water for coffee, we let the water boil for only about 5 minutes, rather than the recommended 30 minutes (as I recall) to kill all bacteria.
The water source I rely on more is purified water sachets, sold at a price of 1 GHC for thirty 500mL bags. To access the water inside, you bite off the corner of the plastic bag, and suck out the water. It's very convenient, but does result in a lot of garbage. The other disadvantage is that the water has a chlorine taste to it, so drinking any large quantity quickly becomes unpleasant.

Day 36 - Monday
Another day at school. Jasmine and I did remedial again, starting off with a P3 student that didn't know her alphabet. This kind of thing really illustrates the failing of the education system here. By P3, students are supposed to be reading. They're supposed to be tested on their abilities each term, and must pass before moving on to the next grade. Yet somehow, this student went through three exams without knowing the difference between "G" and "B".
Break came and went, and Jasmine and I worked with a pair of P1 students. They picked up their alphabet pretty quickly, so we sent them back before lunch. Jasmine and I then made a set of cards for helping to teach basic arithmetic. They have tabs along the bottom of the cards. The tab is proportional in length to the number on the card. By placing the cards next to each other, we can show that four plus three is seven.
Given the day's heat, we did nothing again after school. Sheehan went to town, and bought a bench and a stool for the remedial room. I slept. 

Day 37 - Tuesday (Written Wed 11 Feb 2009 08:49:53 AM GMT)
Once again, I started my day by vomiting at 4 AM. For the next three hours, I alternated attempts to sleep and mad dashes to the toilet. Nothing I ate or drank would stay down. At one point, I started shivering. These symptoms are all the first signs of malaria. Finally, at about 9 AM, Melinda forced me to go with her to the hospital. She was going anyway, since Kwaku has had pain in his left knee for almost a week. While she went to town to get a taxi, I called my family, and had my mom look up the side effects of my anti-malarial medication (mefloquine). Among many others, my symptoms were all listed. Since a visit with the doctor is around 10 GHC, I figured I should go to the hospital anyway, just in case it was something serious. On the ride there, my symptoms almost entirely disappeared. My stomach settled, and I was almost able to sleep in the car.
While the doctor saw Kwaku, I sat in the waiting area, and tried to sleep. Much to my dismay, the heat brought back my upset stomach, and I got little rest. The doctor determined that Kwaku needed an x-ray, but the nearest x-ray machine was in Mampong (which is on the other side of Ejura from the hospital). We all headed back to Ejura, then Melinda and Kwaku went on to Mampong, while I walked back to the house. This was about 11:00 AM, so everything was nice and unbearably hot, which made my stomach feel that much worse. By the time I got back to the house, all I could do was collapse on the bed. I drank about 300mL of water, which promptly came back up, as expected. Even so, it felt good to have the water, even if it was only for a minute. I should note, disgusting as it may be, that by this time I have been vomiting so much, it's about as uncomfortable as a rather large yawn.
Once I had emptied my stomach yet again, and had called my family to tell them I wasn't seriously ill, I found that I was exceedingly tired and thirsty again. First, I drank water. Not so much as before (I actually wanted to keep it down this time), but just enough to convince my body that water was available. I tried to sleep, but I couldn't find a comfortable position for my stomach. I finally left my bedroom, and went to the kitchen, seeking orange juice to remove the chlorine taste from my mouth. In the kitchen, I became dizzy (another side effect of mefloquine), so I allowed myself to collapse onto the concrete floor. Surprisingly, it was comfortably cool. I stayed there until Jasmine came back from school, and she found orange juice for me. I drank about a swallow, then returned to bed.
By now, my stomach was settling, but I was a little disoriented, and had lost all sense of time. Between my venture to the kitchen and Melinda coming in, I just stared at the ceiling. Whether I was there for a minute or an hour, I couldn't tell (although the clock did reveal it to be two hours after I had stumbled home). Melinda gave me a hug, and she felt surprisingly cool as well. To her, I felt very warm. I had a fever.
To make the most of the fever, Melinda got some apple juice from the freezer, and put it on my chest to thaw. I tried to sleep again, and actually succeeded this time. I slept for what seemed like an hour, but according to Melinda, it was only five minutes. Melinda went to town to buy Sprite to settle by stomach, and I called my family yet again. Fever is yet another side effect of mefloquine.
When Melinda returned, I drank the Sprite (a 300ml bottle, which I drank in an agonizingly long time (again, maybe five minutes or maybe an hour). It tasted good, but I had to limit myself to avoid vomiting again. More for amusement than anything else, I had Melinda read me part of the first chapter of The Princess Bride. I managed to sleep more, and I slept for the better part of the afternoon, or at least I thought I did. I don't know whether I was actually awake or not, or perhaps conscious but unable to take notice of what happened around me, or if maybe I was really removed to an alien spacecraft and replaced with an almost-functional replica while they performed cruel experiments on my flesh before returning me, perfectly intact, to my bed. Regardless of what actually happened, I have no memories of that late afternoon, so I may as well say I was sleeping.
I awoke to Melinda returning from town with another bottle of Sprite, unrequested (at least, not consciously requested) but greatly appreciated. We got ready for bed, and went to sleep for the night shortly thereafter. The only symptom I had left was my fever, which was greatly reduced since that afternoon.

Day 38 - Wednesday (written Wed 11 Feb 2009 11:34:04 PM GMT)
I woke up bright and early at 6:30 AM, finally cured of my fatigue. I wrote in my journal, then enjoyed a nice breakfast once the day had progressed to a slightly more sane hour. My stomach was still a little unsettled, but it was manageable, and I felt confident that anything I ate would remain with me. My confidence was well-placed. During breakfast, Jasmine came out of her room, and looked miserable. She got hit with nausea from her mefloquine, and spent the rest of the day in bed.	Melinda took Kwaku to Kumasi to visit the hospital there, while the other volunteers went to school and I returned to bed to finish my recovery.
I spent most of my morning working on my Perl programs. I wrote a small program to run my new website (the one for my pictures), but I realized I had no way to test it. I then had to write my own miniature web server just for testing purposes. It will also be useful for the school computers, since part of the government-mandated syllabus involves learning how websites work, despite the fact that I doubt there's many schools with computers, and hardly any with Internet access.
(Those readers who don't understand more than fifty percent of the preceding paragraph may prefer this rewording: I worked on my magical mystical computer projects, which by fortuitous circumstance benefit both myself and the school. Also, the government sucks.)
I took a nap around 12:30 PM, and managed to entirely miss lunch. I can't say I was too upset about it, since I had done nothing to consume my breakfast, and didn't expect to need energy for later in the day, either. Again, I was correct in my inflection. Most of the rest of my day was spent reading or napping. I got a call from Melinda, saying that Kwaku had a chipped femur, and they would be keeping him overnight at the hospital. Just before dinner, the power went out (though I didn't notice, as I was unconscious yet again), and I woke up to the sound of my phone alerting me to another message from Melinda. She would be staying in Kumasi overnight, and wanted someone to come tomorrow. I spent the rest of the night working on my computer with Sheehan, preparing pictures for uploading while I'm in Kumasi. Finally, I retired just before midnight.

Day 39 - Thursday (written Fri 13 Feb 2009 04:17:08 PM GMT)
Jasmine and I left a little after 8 for Kumasi. We loaded up Jasmine's backpack with clothes for the four of us (including Melinda and Kwaku), blankets (since Kwaku was staying in an outside hallway of the hospital, on a porch for all practical purposes), toilet paper, toiletries, and all the other comforts of home. In my laptop bag, we packed my computer, several books, and an extension cord (necessary for using my computer in the Internet café). I also carried a pillow. We bought tro-tro tickets, and left shortly thereafter.
The trip to Kumasi was uneventful, filled with lovely scenery, until we were about fifteen minutes away from Kumasi. At that point, Melinda sent me a message saying that the doctors had decided to put a cast on Kwaku's leg, and send him home. All our packing was unnecessary. Having come this far, we figured we would still meet Melinda, get lunch, and use the Internet before going home. That plan lasted for about ten minutes, until we were maybe one kilometer from our destination. Then our tro-tro got a flat tire.
As soon as the tro-tro stopped, one person got out, grabbed his cargo as fast as he could, and nearly ran out into the road to get a taxi. Jasmine and I waited a bit longer, then left and got a taxi to where we met Melinda. Our meeting place was a fancy hotel (that seems to cater mainly to tourists), with a decent restaurant inside. The restaurant was similar in price and menu to Vic Baboo's, but a fancier establishment overall.
After lunch, we went to the Internet café, where I added more pictures to my website. The majority of my time was spent uploading, while I did my other tasks as well. I still only got about a third of the pictures uploaded before we left. Since the majority of Kwaku's entire leg is in the cast, he can't walk very well, and uses crutches. We got a taxi to take us to the tro-tro station, then left for Ejura. Once we got home, Melinda and I stayed in our room reading for most of the evening.
Unfortunately, I am a nerd, and as were were in bed ready to sleep for the night, I got started on a tangent thinking about the concept of relativity. More specifically, I pondered the question of "if it were possible to travel faster than light (though the current theory is that it is indeed not possible), what would it look like?" Melinda was an innocent victim of my spoken thoughts, and we didn't sleep until the wee hours of the morning.

Day 40 - Friday (Written Sat 14 Feb 2009 08:39:24 PM GMT)
I started this week with school, and ended it there as well. Jasmine and I took on some P2 students, as selected by Fiona. Actually, four of them were selected by Fiona, and one was selected by Madam Belinda, the regular P2 teacher. Her selection didn't need any help with letters, and could read just fine. He was sent back rather quickly. Three of the other students knew most of their letters, so Jasmine helped them with reading while I worked with the fourth student.
Abdul is a reminder of the harsh reality of life here. He very obviously (to me) has ADHD. There's the all-too-familiar finger motions, the strange-but-comfortable sitting positions, and the constantly-moving eyes. I know those signs, and even worse, I know how hard it is to ignore the urge to move. For those who may not know, I was on medication for ADHD for many years, until I trained myself to focus when needed. Abdul is going to have to train himself without the use of medication. I took him outside and talked to him about it. From what he told me, it's very obvious the teachers don't understand ADHD at all. He's been beaten for not sitting still, not doing his work, and getting distracted.
I worked with Abdul for most of the morning, then Jasmine and I worked with two P1 students after break, reviewing basic addition. This was our first chance to use our addition flash cards, and it worked pretty well. We eventually made worksheets for the kids to fill out, then helped them with the process of adding the numbers (counting spots on the cards) until lunchtime.
After lunch, Melinda, Jasmine, and I all lost our motivation. There's only an hour of school anyway, so we skipped out on it in favor of napping and reading. We killed time until dinner, then played rummy until bed.

Day 41 - Saturday (Written Mon 16 Feb 2009 11:55:20 AM GMT)
Today was Valentine's Day. Melinda and I celebrated by partaking in our favorite activity: absolutely nothing. We woke up at around 10 AM. After a short trip to town to buy vitamin C tablets (Melinda has sores in her mouth that she suspects is scurvy), we decided it was too hot to be conscious for and went back to sleep. Sheehan and Fiona went to Kumasi, and left a stack of Valentine's Day cards for us to sign (for the boys, Richard, and Simon (the house cook)). We neglected the cards until about 5 PM, when Sheehan and Fiona returned, and we were just leaving our room for the day. We had a fancy dinner of spaghetti and chicken. Meat isn't actually allowed at the house, but Dada wasn't there, and we cooked it at a neighbors' house. After dinner, Melinda and Jasmine went to town, and bought soft drinks for everyone. Not really the best Valentine's Day ever, but not bad either.

Day 42 - Sunday
Another wonderfully lazy day. I spent most of my day sleeping, and working on my Perl programs. I have three programs I'm working on now. One of them is actually useful for the school, so it's fortunate that that's the one I've put the most effort into. Not much else of note happened, though Melinda and I did go to a local restaurant for lunch, rather than eating here at the house (jollof rice being preferred to rice with beans).
The last event of the day is the one that bears the most note: the spider. I am arachnophobic. Since some members of my family managed to go for many years without realizing that, I'll say it again, differently: I have a paralyzing, irrational, absolute fear of spiders. As it happens, there is a lovely spider here in Ghana that grows to be about 5 inches in diameter (at least, that's the biggest I've seen so far). It moves faster than I can run, is flat enough to fit through small cracks, and is downright ugly. As I was working on my computer (shortly before midnight), a nice four-inch-in-diameter specimen came running along the wall, less than three feet from me. I'm rather impressed with myself: I managed NOT to scream like a little girl (as has happened before). Rather, I only screamed a little, then had Melinda attempt to kill it.
By the time Melinda got to it, it had gone behind the headboard of the bed. I went to Jasmine's room, and got one of the many cans of bug spray left by previous volunteers (more on that later). I handed it to Melinda, who used it to ensure the spider had a very bad (if not fatal) night. The last we saw the spider, it made a mad dash across the bed toward the wall, and we lost track of it. That is almost the worst thing that can possibly happen for me. I can handle looking at most spiders. When they're minding their own business at a distance, they're remarkable creatures. As long as I know where the spider is, and I have given myself enough distance to react should the spider decide it wants to come towards me, I am perfectly comfortable sharing space with a spider. There are a few that reside in the corners of my bedroom, but I don't mind them, knowing it would take immense dedication for them to actually come to me. I admire that kind of dedication, enough to not destroy their home in the corner.
Not knowing where a spider is, and especially one of that size and speed, is an entirely different matter. At that point, it becomes less an issue of where the spider is, and I care more about where the spider isn't. Before leaving the bed, I check as much of the floor as I can, to ensure my feet are safe. On the bed, I constantly check around myself. Sleeping is, of course, nearly impossible. At around 3 AM, I felt something brush over my leg, that didn't seem quite like the sheet being blown by the fan (which it likely was, and rational thought would reach that conclusion, but bear in mind this is an irrational fear). I sat straight up in bed, threw the sheet away, and couldn't move until Melinda had turned on the light, shaken out the sheet, and revealed the presence of nothing. After that, I had trouble relaxing, and even as I write this (10 hours later), I'm still disturbed by not knowing where exactly the spider or its corpse is.
Apart from this incident, I've happily encountered very few spiders here. I still have to check the restroom and shower before using them, and I occasionally have to change seats outside, but overall, it's not too bad.

Day 43 - Monday (Written Tue 17 Feb 2009 08:01:12 AM GMT)
Jasmine and I did remedial with KG1 again. It made for a nice reminder of why we don't work with the young kids too much. They would rather pay attention to the ant on the floor than the letter on the table. Just before 10 AM, the kids were all called out to march. For March 6th (the anniversary of Ghana's independence), all the schools are doing a marching demonstration, or such is my understanding, at least. I'm not really sure what it is, but it's something. Regardless, they took the kids out of class to march, and they didn't return until lunchtime. Being Monday, there is no after-lunch school.
Jasmine wanted jollof rice, so she, Melinda, and I all went back to that restaurant again for a before-lunch snack. For the rest of the day, Melinda and I stayed in our room. Melinda read Lord Of The Rings and I worked on my Perl programs. My programs are coming along much better than expected. The one for the school is just about ready for use.

Day 44 - Tuesday (Written Wed 18 Feb 2009 01:40:05 PM GMT)
Kwaku had a review appointment today in Kumasi, so Melinda took him, as well as Jasmine and I. We left nice and early in the morning, spent two hours on a tro-tro, then spent an hour waiting in the hospital. The hospital (the best in West Africa) is so overcrowded, there are cots in the hallways. This is routine. I've heard stories of people dying while waiting to be seen at the hospitals here, and having seen the best, I believe them. It took about fifteen minutes to find out we were at the wrong desk, another fifteen minutes to find Kwaku's paperwork, another fifteen minutes to be told we were at the wrong desk again, and a final fifteen minutes until they told us that we really should come back Friday.
We left the hospital and went to the private clinic that's treating Kwaku's epilepsy. It took about ten minutes total for Kwaku to be checked in, seen, and have his prescription refilled. We ate lunch at the hotel again, then went to the Internet café. Melinda was going to do some paperwork there, but instead, it seems some of the house boys mentioned Kwaku's hospital trips to previous volunteers (they're in contact by phone now and then), so Jenna (the coordinator for all the West Africa projects) thought his epilepsy wasn't under control. Melinda spent her entire time at the café explaining the situation, and didn't get any of her own work done. We left the café, and headed home.
As soon as I got home, I took my mefloquine again, having heard from my doctor that it shouldn't cause fever. If I'm dead tomorrow, then that's why. Science is fun!
After committing myself to scientific discovery, I worked on my Perl projects, and went to bed. It was a rather uneventful evening.

Day 45 - Wednesday (Written Wed 25 Feb 2009 07:59:52 PM GMT)
Today, Jasmine woke up to find she was terribly ill, and couldn't go to school. I wasn't feeling very good myself (but decent enough that I'm certain I've had no ill effects from the mefloquine), and wasn't really looking forward to dealing with the school kids (and the heat, and the noise, and the teachers) all day. Thus, I went with Melinda to Kumasi. The tro-tro ride wasn't really good for making me feel better, but the three hours in the Internet café did so quite nicely. I got a lot of work done on my computers back home, and almost everything is in proper order. It should have been in proper order before I left home, but it's good to have it all fixed, even if it is late.
After using the Internet, Melinda and I went off to be useful. A large part of my "job" here is to set up the computers for several projects here. Unfortunately, that requires more than just computers, so we went to a computer store to check on availability and pricing for what I need. Fortunately, they have everything I'll require, and at decent prices, too. We went to Sanbra Hotel (the fancy hotel mentioned previously) for lunch, then went to Vic Baboo's to get ice cream for dessert. We left just in time to get caught in a torrential downpour. We actually left Vic Baboo's just before the storm, but on the way to the tro-tro station, I noticed a shop with lots of large appliances, and stopped to ask about pricing on voltage regulators.
A brief summary of electricity: Electricity can be thought of like water moving through a pipe. The volume of water (in gallons (or liters) per minute) is analogous to the amperage of electricity. Bigger pipes can let more water go through, and bigger wires can transport more electricity. The water pressure is analogous to the voltage. Pipes and other equipment can only handle a certain maximum pressure before they get damaged. Electrical equipment is the same way, in that too much voltage can damage the equipment. Voltage regulators prevent dangerous voltage from reaching sensitive parts (such as computers, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc.).
A brief summary of electricity in Africa: Electricity in Africa sucks. Throughout most of Africa, the electricity is likely to stop working whenever there's any minor problem, governmental instability, an annoyed citizen, or just about any other conceivable reason. There are far fewer controls and monitors here than in the United States. This also includes controls on the power system itself, so voltage spikes (short periods of very high voltage) are common. Thus, voltage regulators are necessary for protecting any major electrical investment, like the school computers.
We now return to your regularly scheduled journal.
Once the rain started (and caught us in the middle of the street, just a short way past the Internet café), we stepped under an overhang to wait until it let up. It showed no sign of stopping quickly, so we went back to the café so I could talk with the Internet Guy (I don't actually know his name, and I don't think he owns the café, but he's almost always working there) about voltage regulators. He said that Ghana's electrical system is far better than most of Africa, they actually don't use regulators at the café, and they've never had a problem with the electrical supply. This is good news. It means the cost for the project will be about 2000 USD less than I had thought. We waited in the café until the rain had almost stopped, then left to head home.
That would be the end of this journal entry, if it weren't for the fact that almost all vehicles in this country seem to be held together only by the sheer willpower of their drivers. On the way back to Ejura, in the middle of nowhere, our tro-tro made a lovely grinding noise, and started slowing down. We stopped on the side of the road, and stood there for about a half-hour (or more... I've never been good estimating time) while the driver opened the hood, fiddled with something in the engine, flagged down another tro-tro, then fiddled with the engine more (with the aid of the other driver). Finally, we all got back in the tro-tro, and made our way on to Ejura, albeit more slowly and more cautious with the transmission.

Day 46 - Thursday 
Jasmine's still not feeling well, so I went to school myself today. I'm still not very good with teaching, and not very confident in what I can do. Being forced to teach without my partner, I only tried to deal with a maximum of two kids at once today, and I only worked on letters with them. I still made some progress, though, and I got to work with Abdul again. There's really not much more to say about today, except that the marching practice is starting to annoy me.
To fill this space, I will discuss another trivial topic: food. The food here is good, but very heavy. These days, I'm eating a VERY small portion (a cube maybe 2 inches on a side), and I'm still full after it.
For breakfast, there is a tray at the house with tea, Nescafé instant coffee, at least one jar of fruity spread (at present we have plum jam and orange marmalade), chocolate powder, groundnut paste (unsweetened peanut butter), and most importantly, a loaf of bread. I usually have a slice of bread with spread, and a cup of coffee. This is my largest meal of the day.

(Written Wed 25 Feb 2009 10:29:21 PM GMT)
Lunch usually consists of rice, yam, or banku (corn mash), served with a stew/soup of some kind. All meals at the house are vegetarian, and include no onion, garlic, or mushrooms. Therefore, most of the stews have rather long leafy greens in them. I've also identified carrots, and tomatoes. Apparently, we've been served a soup made primarily from groundnuts (peanuts), but I'm not sure whether I liked it or not (I was told by a friend that it's the one thing I had to be sure to try). In fact, I'm not sure I could really tell whether I like any of the soups, since they all look mostly the same to me.
Dinner is usually the same sort of fare as lunch, which is getting to be a little tiring. Often, Melinda and I will go into town to get eggs, sold hard-boiled during the day, and also fried on-the-spot after dark. We've also gone to chop bars (basically a just small stall that sells food, plus meat on the side (hence the name, or so I think)) to get a meal that includes meat. I've taken a liking to fried rice, which is served with a lettuce, mayonnaise, and ketchup salad. It's apparently customary to mix the salad in with the rice, because that's what they perceive as the Western way to eat a salad.

Day 47 - Friday
Melinda left today at 5 AM with Kwaku and Mahadev for another visit to the hospital. Apparently, most of her day was spent waiting (no surprise there) until the doctors took blood samples (with no explanation why) and sent Kwaku home. The other volunteers (myself included) went to school until lunch. At lunch, we packed what we would need, and left for a weekend-long trip to Kumasi. This trip was originally scheduled for Valentine's Day, but it was postponed until now. We took the tro-tro into Kumasi, then met Melinda at the station. She got us a taxi to take us to our hotel at Lake Bosumtwi. The hotel (of which I have many pictures) is a nice little place run by an Austrian woman and her Ghanaian husband. It's meticulously clean, beautifully landscaped (with a lawn made of real grass!), and grotesquely expensive (by Ghanaian standards). By my standards, it was a nice way to spend a weekend. Once we arrived and looked around, we ate dinner (pasta with breaded chicken... very good) then sat around talking for a while. We played rummy, then retired for the night. Since I'm writing this after other events have taken place, I can now say that through the whole evening, I was carrying a ring in my pocket.

Day 48 - Saturday (Written Fri 27 Feb 2009 09:44:17 PM GMT)
She said yes. Having ruined the surprise ending to today's entry, I'll start at the beginning. We got up late (more or less... I've actually been waking up on my own at 6 AM, without fail, for a few weeks now... when I actually leave the bed is a different matter entirely), then had a lovely breakfast (eggs, toast, and coffee) before heading down to the beach.
Lake Bosumtwi is actually a meteoric crater, that has filled with water since its formation. Because of its geography, the lake is sacred to the locals, and no boats are allowed to sail on it. The locals use instead use paduas, which are small flat boards, paddled by hand.
Being a tourist's resort, the beach is all but exempt from the local customs. There is a paddleboat there (available for rent for 8 GHC for two hours), which is apparently tolerated by the locals. The beach itself is nicely groomed sand, maintained by the hotel. There are several trees providing ample shade for the many chairs (including reclined wood chairs that should have a name, but I don't know what it might be), and a single hammock.
We spent the majority of our morning just sitting at the beach, with occasional excursions into the water. We ate lunch at the hotel, then took a walk to the nearest village (about 20 minutes, on a road following the lake). We passed through the village, then walked farther down the road, enjoying the scenery, until we eventually turned around and headed back. In short, we did practically nothing.
After our walk, we went back to the beach for a while, and slowly the other volunteers went up the hill toward the hotel, until only Melinda and I were left. Melinda and I sat around the water for a while, then I went back up the hill to change my clothes and get my camera to take more pictures. When I came back, I took several pictures of the beach area, then Melinda and I sat talking for a little bit.
At 5 PM, Melinda wanted to head up for dinner, but I convinced her to sit with me in the hammock for a bit. I asked if she was having a good time, and when she said that she was, I brought out the ring and asked "O ba ware me?", which (if I pronounced it correctly) means "you do marry me?". She said yes. Shortly after five o'clock in the evening (Greenwich Mean Time) on the twenty-first of February, two thousand and nine, I was engaged to be married.
It's not the actual traditional diamond engagement ring. Rather, it's a decent surrogate until we get back to the States and can get a "normal" ring. Shortly after we met (over three years ago), Melinda told me that she liked the look of Claddaugh rings. They're traditional Irish rings, with two hands holding a heart, and a crown over the heart. She doesn't have any Irish family (that I know of), but she just likes the ring. She's also obsessed with purple. Therefore, it's absolutely perfect that I got her a Claddaugh ring with a deep purple amethyst as the heart.
We stayed in the hammock a bit longer, making several pointless little comments, and mostly just wallowing in happiness. I'm not entirely certain what Melinda was thinking, but I was trying to accommodate the fact that I'm now engaged. Me. I'm a nerd, so I'm not (stereotypically) supposed to have friends, let alone a girlfriend. Now I'm engaged.
When we finally left the beach, we went to the bar, where the others were enjoying drinks. Melinda told them the good news, then we started making the obligatory contact with family members.
Once all the initial activities wore down, the rest of the night was pretty simple. We had dinner (fish filet with rice), then played rummy a bit before heading to bed.

Day 49 - Sunday
Our weekend retreat is at an end. We spent a bit more time at the beach, then packed our belongings, ate lunch at the hotel, then went back to Kumasi. Being Sunday, Kumasi was empty. The normally-packed streets were completely devoid of all cars, and there were only a few pedestrians. Almost all the shops were closed. We did find the Internet café open, and we stopped in for an hour to make more contact with more friends and family. It is fortunate that we didn't need to accomplish much while in town, because there was basically nothing else we could have done.
On our way to the tro-tro station in Kumasi, we met some other volunteers who weren't so fortunate. Three volunteers from a school in a different village (entirely unaffiliated with our project) were stranded in Kumasi. They had come because one of their group had gotten malaria, and they had spent all of their Ghanaian cash at the hospital. Normally, this isn't a problem, since the volunteers had American money with them. However, this being Sunday, there weren't any exchanges open. We helped them (of course), exchanging 80 USD for 90 GHC. That's about a 1:1.1 exchange, which is about what the rate is at a real exchange (for small denominations). After parting company, we boarded the tro-tro to Ejura, and went home.

Day 50 - Monday (Written Sat 28 Feb 2009 08:16:09 AM GMT)
Back to school again. Jasmine stayed home, feeling sick again. It's good to be back, but at the same time, I'm getting tired of the school. The kids are noisy, the teachers have no dedication whatsoever, and worst of all, nobody can be trusted. Melinda has started using detention as punishment for some of her students, so Jasmine and I have started spending break in KG1 with her. This means that all our remedial materials need to be packed up and carried with us, then unpacked again afterward.
After school, Melinda and I went to town for lunch (fried rice and chicken). We then went to the market, and bought a small box. We also bought a latch to replace the broken one on the remedial room door. We'll finally be able to lock the door when we're not there, and have a secure place to store our materials.

Day 51 - Tuesday
Yet another day at school. These days, we've fallen into a routine where Jasmine and I sit through the first half-hour, while the other teachers find which kids need remedial help. Today during that time, I borrowed a hammer from Martins (the headmaster), and was intending to put the latch on the door during break (so I wouldn't interrupt the other classes), but Martins insisted on doing it right then. Also, when Martins saw the latch we had bought (about one inch wide, and fairly thin - not nearly strong enough to stop any determined thief), he produced a much stronger latch that had apparently been just sitting in the school office. Regardless, we now have a latch on our door.

(Written Sun 01 Mar 2009 10:29:45 PM GMT)
Starting about ten minutes after we arrived at school, Jasmine's face started to turn a lovely shade of bright red. 
By the time the latch was installed, she looked rather reminiscent of a lobster. At first, we thought it was an allergic reaction to mangoes, since both Melinda and their father have allergies to mangoes. Jasmine hasn't touched a mango in over a week, though, so it's unlikely. Regardless of what actually caused it, we figured it wasn't too bad, so there was no cause for alarm.
Melinda took Kwaku to Kumasi again, for yet another checkup. She spent three hours waiting in the hospital before there was some emergency, and she was told the doctors would all be occupied for the rest of the day, so she should go home.
My own day wasn't nearly as exciting as theirs. My biggest excitement in the day was being able to use our new box. Now that the door locks, and it's not likely that the box will disappear, we can finally store materials in the remedial room, in some sort of order as well. I took great pleasure in this fact, and made use of every excuse to get materials from the new box.

Day 52 - Wednesday
Jasmine has gone from looking like a lobster to looking like a chipmunk. Her face is so swollen she can barely open her eyes. She and Melinda went to the hospital here in Ejura, while I taught remedial by myself. It was another boring day, with most of the morning being taken up by the kids practicing marching.
After school, Jasmine and Melinda returned. Jasmine has seven pills to take now, covering a wide range of potential causes. Most of my afternoon was spent lying in bed again, as is usual these days.
In the evening, we got yet another new visitor to the house. Suzanne is from Canada, and runs an organization that sponsors Ghanaian kids to go to school. One of the things the Ghanaian government requires is that all schoolchildren wear uniforms (including for public schools), but again, there is no money provided for such things. This means that the kids who can't buy uniforms simply don't go to school. In addition to the uniforms, there are several other fees associated with going to school, and Suzanne's organization covers that cost.
Suzanne has been here two times before now. The first time (three years ago), she was a volunteer with Kids Worldwide. She visited again last year, as a representative of her organization, and now she's returned again to interview more kids for potential sponsorships. If you aren't impressed with her enough already, I'd like you to consider the fact that she's in her sixties.
As soon as Suzanne arrived, we started talking about the current state of affairs at the house and school. Apparently, there have been a lot of very good things in the past here, that have all come to an end. For example, there was a house mother for about six months last year, who kept the boys under control while Dada was gone. The boys apparently had a ping-pong table before as well. It's all gone now. This is the normal progression of things here. Nothing is cherished.
The last notable thing that happened today is that I finally finished The Princess Bride. It was definitely a good book, and I really should have finished it earlier. I just stopped reading for a while, and focused more on programming. I've started yet another Perl project, entirely for my own benefit this time. The details are unimportant, but it's unlike most of what I've done before, and involves a lot of techniques I've never had an opportunity to use outside my university classes before.

Day 53 - Thursday
Not much of interest happened today. I went to school with Jasmine (whose swelling went down a lot, only to be replaced by an upset stomach), worked with some P1 students (or maybe P2... I don't remember by the time of this writing, and they're starting to blend together), started my next book (A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius, which so far has been a very boring book written in an anything-but-boring style), and did more programming.
I would go into a large rant here on some topic of trivial importance, but I'm really not in the mood for trivial writing right now (Sunday night).
As we were sitting around the table playing rummy, Melinda got a call from her friend, Selma. When Melinda was here as an exchange student, Selma was her best friend. Melinda was expecting Selma to be coming to visit Saturday, but she came tonight, instead. We dropped the rummy game and went to find Selma at the tro-tro station. We had the necessary introductions, then Selma talked with the other volunteers while I wandered off to play with my camera.
As we had walked to the tro-tro station, I noticed that it was a clear night. On the cloudless nights here (which are /fairly rare, unfortunately), the sky is so clear and dark that you can see lots of stars. There are places back home with clear and dark skies, but it's a beautiful sight, no matter where you are. I wanted to try to get pictures of it.
My digital camera can be adjusted to take exposures up to fifteen seconds long. This is long enough to make a picture taken without flash on a dark night look like it was taken in the middle of the afternoon (albeit with much different shadows). This still isn't long enough for stars, and all my attempts for pictures came out entirely black.
I changed subjects then, taking pictures of people with long exposures. I have a few nice pictures of Seto looking like a ghost. It's rather entertaining.

Day 54 - Friday
Today started with a nice bit of conflict. Kwaku had been walking without crutches for a while now, and yesterday walked to a park further away than the school. Thus, we told him he had to go to school, and eventually carried him out to the front of the house before he finally agreed to get dressed and go. It took about a half-hour before we got to school, but at least Kwaku's going back. He's been out since he broke his leg.
School itself was exceptionally boring. Since we got there so late, the other classes had already started on lessons, so pulling kids out for remedial wasn't really an option. Instead, Jasmine went to help with P3, and I stayed in the remedial room making more flash cards for reading practice.
Selma left today. She didn't stay very long, but it was still nice to finally meet her. She's very protective of Melinda, so it's good that I meet her before our wedding.
...and there's that strange feeling again...
...I'm a NERD. Gold is something I make electrical contacts from, not wedding rings...
...anyway..
Lunch was groundnut soup, and I actually realized it today. I like it. I spent most of the afternoon programming, and Sheehan, Fiona, and I worked out a plan for the computer room. We'll put long tables along three of the walls, with 18 computers set up on them, and an empty table in the center for demonstrations. The teacher will have a computer set up along the fourth wall, along with a large blackboard and a bookcase.

Day 55 - Saturday
Today was another lazy day. I did a lot of programming. I still don't have much desire to ramble on about trivial things, but I have less desire to leave another almost-empty space here. I'll talk about trucks.
For those of you who are familiar with Star Wars, I'll simply mention "banthas". For everyone else, I'll need to describe them further. The primary form of cargo transportation that I've seen is trucking. These are not like American trucks, though. They look like someone cut the back off of a Volkswagon van from the sixties and replaced it with a giant metal cage, then stuffed the cage to two or three times its capacity. I'm not exaggerating, either. The trucks themselves are only about eight or nine feet tall, but they are loaded with cargo to fifteen or twenty feet (depending on what kind of cargo it is). The cargo itself is often packed in large sacks, about a foot and a half in diameter and four feet long. There will be maybe fifty or more of these sacks packed on top of the truck. This doesn't include the number inside the confines of the truck itself. They are simply monstrous beasts.
As the sun set, a thunderstorm came. When the rain stopped, the lightning remained. Sheehan and I took pictures of the lightning, using long exposures to give ourselves a decent chance of capturing a bolt as it happened. Most of the pictures were varying shades of black, but a few turned out spectacularly.

Day 56 - Sunday
"Nothing of importance happened today." If I'm remembering correctly, that's the comment that's written in the diary for the king of England on July 4th, 1776. Ignorance is indeed bliss.
There were only four things that happened today worth noting, and they aren't very impressive.
First, a carpenter came today to see our plans for the computer room. He says he'll return tomorrow with an estimate. Second, Suzanne had brought some Rice Krispies Treats with her, and she shared them with us at dinner. A bit of good old North American junk food was absolutely wonderful. Third, I let the boys use my computer for a while this evening. Seto took to it very quickly, while some of the others are interested in it mainly as a very complicated CD player. Fourth, I wrote in this journal. I've fallen about a week behind, and now I'm finally caught up.

Day 57 - Monday (Written Thu 05 Mar 2009 06:55:15 AM GMT)
We spent this morning at school. Jasmine and I did remedial until break. We've started on a regular schedule now, to try to help only a few kids, but bring them all the way up to where they're supposed to be. We did this until break, at which time we came back to the house to find our important documents (passports and return-flight itineraries). At lunch, we went to Kumasi.
Our main reason for going was that Ghana's visas are only valid for 60 days. This means that about every two months, we have to leave our passports at the immigration office in Kumasi, pay 40 GHC, then return two weeks later. It's a hassle. That was our first stop.
After the immigration office, we went to a small snack stand nearby, and I ate a nice tasty meat kabob. Then I ate another.
We went on down the street, to the Internet café. I checked in on my computers at home, uploaded new pictures (but not the ones from Lake Bosumtwi), and generally took care of all my business. I ran out of important tasks, so I finished my time downloading games to my computer. I now have enough to entertain me for quite some time. I also was sure to get a few games that the boys might like (ones that don't require any knowledge of American games).
After the café, we went to dinner at the Sanbra Hotel. I had fried chicken, which was tasty, if a bit tough. After dinner, we headed towards home, and took the last tro-tro to Ejura. All in all, it was a long but productive day.

Day 58 - Tuesday (Written Thu 05 Mar 2009 12:56:31 PM GMT)
Today is Tuesday. Melinda went to the hospital again with Kwaku, while the rest of us went to school. It's been three weeks, which is how long the doctor had said Kwaku's cast would be on. Now he's decided it should be on longer, and he ordered some tests (blood and urine), so Melinda will have to go pick up those results later.
School was boring for the first period, while we worked on a few P1 students. I'm working with Isudenni, who knows about ten letters. By P1, the students are supposed to be reading simple books.
After break, I went over to P1 to be a second teacher in the room, since Madam Paulina never showed up, and the kids don't behave for Sheehan. I spent the rest of the day breaking up fights, yelling at kids to sit, and trying to stop the kids from tearing the room apart.
After school, I started feeling nauseous, so I spent the afternoon lying down. That was also the activity of choice for after dinner, and continued right up until bedtime.

Day 59 - Wednesday (Written Fri 06 Mar 2009 01:32:33 PM GMT)
Today is Wednesday. Sheehan's feeling sick today, so Jasmine and I taught the P1's how to write "hat". It took almost the entire time until break, and involved lots of complaints about dull pencils, boys that took erasers, and books without blank pages. Just before break, I left to go practice marching outside the school. Apparently, there's a contest or something on the 6th of March, so all the obruni (meaning "white man" in Twi, but although "ni" means "man", "obru" does not refer to a color) teachers will march with the school. I'm still not sure what it's all about, and any inquiries are met with pointless circular discussion:
	Me: "What is this marching for?"
	Teacher: "On the 6th of March, we march."
	Me: "How and where?"
	Teacher: "We march around, and march."
Regardless, the marching itself is insane. The boys I marched with were all out of step, yet they laughed at me for being out of step. The teacher in charge cannot keep time, either.
After break, Sheehan came back, and Jasmine and I worked with him doing math with the P1 students until lunch. After lunch, I wasn't feeling very good, and I wouldn't be doing much at the school anyway, so I took a nap.
During this whole time, Melinda was going back to Kumasi, to pick up Kwaku's blood test. Apparently, the doctors here don't keep test results around much past the scheduled pickup time, so if she doesn't pick up the results, they'll have to do the test again. It's asinine, but it's normal life. 

Day 60 - Thursday (Written Fri 06 Mar 2009 05:58:28 PM GMT)
Madam Paulina's back at school, so I'm back at remedial. Now all that's missing is the kids. Out of the four P1 kids we're working with, only one came to school today. This leaves only two options. Either we work with a new student, and make minimal progress, only to abandon them the next day, or we work with the one student and make lots of progress. We chose the latter solution. Jasmine worked with the student, while I diverted my attention to my wonderful side project (mostly... I did work with the student a bit using flashcards, while Jasmine prepared a worksheet).
My side project is to build a giant sundial at the school. It didn't start out being giant, but that's what seems to be the most practical. The current plan is to run a cable across the school courtyard (easy construction, and fairly simple to fix when it breaks), with a board attached in the center (to cast a nice big shadow), then we'll paint markings on the cement floor. Being very large, it will be easy to use for science demonstrations, and should be fairly easy for the students to actually use to tell time. It will at least be more accurate than relying purely on the headmaster's clock (the only wall clock in the school), since the headmaster rarely notices when the bell is supposed to ring.
After school, we came back to the house, and spent most of the afternoon sitting in the bedroom. We also did laundry, since I had run out of shirts, and I suspect Melinda was faring about the same. We finished in about an hour, and all our clothes were hanging on the clotheslines.
As the sun set, a nice strong wind blew through our bedroom, accompanied shortly thereafter by a torrential downpour. I've confirmed that this is the dry season, but it sure does rain a lot. Of particular note is that our clothes were still outside when it started to rain. The clotheslines are under the roof, but with such a strong wind, it doesn't matter. We ran around the house gathering our clothes, hung them up in our room, then finally went to bed.

Day 61 - Friday (Written Sun 08 Mar 2009 06:37:17 AM GMT)
We woke up early today, as per strict instructions from Madam Sala. We were told to be at the school right at 7:00, an hour earlier than normal. We got up, ate breakfast, and started getting our clothes ready. The other teachers have insisted that we all wear matching outfits for today. We also have to iron them, so we actually don't leave the house until about 7:45. We arrived at the school to find that no teachers were there yet. No, the others didn't leave without us. They simply hadn't shown up yet, at an hour past the scheduled time. There were several kids there, though, so for the next two hours (it turns out the day's events REALLY start at 10, but they told us 7:00 anyway), we sat around and played with the school kids, while the teachers wandered in at their leisure.
For the 6th of March, the students march. Several of the students (selected by the teachers by lottery, maybe?) represent the school by marching around a park before the local MP, tribal chief, and several other important people whose titles I don't know. There's at least one speech, music, and lots of people selling things. 
We got to the park right on time, at 10. We then stood around for a full hour, being told repeatedly to "stand well", though nobody else from our school or any other was standing as was apparently expected from us. At 11, our entire school moved to a different position, for no apparent reason. Finally at about noon, we marched out and around the field, and that was it.
I should note now that the marching is still unnatural to me. The arms must swing at a different rhythm than the feet step, which is at a different rhythm than the drums playing in the center of the field. I managed to stay in step while in front of the important people, but for most of the circuit, I wasn't. Compounding the unnatural movement, the heat, and the very large crowd, I was not very comfortable at all.
Just after we finished marching, Melinda left for Kumasi, to pick up Kwaku's other test results. I started feeling very sick, very quickly (I believe it was the heat, but I'm not sure). I left the park, and went home as fast as I could. Unfortunately, this means I have very few pictures of the 6th of March festivities. About halfway back, I had to stop and lean on a post for a minute, because my stomach hurt so much I couldn't move. When I finally made it back to the house, I turned on the fan, collapsed on the bed, and didn't move for the next half-hour or so.
I don't know whether I actually fell asleep or not. I don't remember a fairly large chunk of time, and I may or may not have been conscious for it. Regardless, when I was capable of paying attention to my surroundings again, I managed to sit up and start writing in my journal. I discovered that I managed to screw up the numbering of days. Apparently counting is much too hard a task for me. I went through and fixed the day numbers, then stayed in bed for most of the rest of the day.

Day 62 - Saturday (Written Tue 17 Mar 2009 12:10:32 PM GMT)
We prepared to leave today. Since all next week will be mostly wasted at school, we're taking some time off to go touring Ghana. It would suck to get home and have to say that I didn't see Africa while I was in Africa.
I woke up early again, since I'm now waking up on my own at five or six AM. basically slacked off for the first half of the day, napping and reading my book until lunch. A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius (henceforth referred to as AHWOSG) is a decent story (so far), but the writing style is annoying for me to try to read, so I'm making slow progress.
In the afternoon, I went outside, and saw that the cement is being put on the computer room walls. It will be nice when we get back, I hope. The construction here, as mentioned before, is almost entirely stone and concrete for large buildings. First, large bricks are cemented together to form the rough shape of the walls. Then channels are cut into the stone (not a very hard task, since the cement crumbles easily) for electrical conduits, pipes, and anything else that must run through the walls. Finally a layer of smooth cement covers everything, presenting a nice flat surface to the world. The ceiling consists of large pieces of plywood, reinforced by two-inch square beams every meter or so. The roof is a separate layer, of metal sheets nailed to a rough wooden frame.
After watching construction for a while, I went back inside to lie down and pack until dinner. I did a small load of laundry (t-shirts I planned to take), then Melinda and I went into town for eggs. I also remembered that I had managed to leave the sunscreen at the school yesterday, so I went over there at about 11:00 PM.
At the school, I was surprised to find people standing around outside. I had seen lights on, but since Dada's sleeping there (having given up his room for Suzanne), I had expected that. It turns out there's actually night classes being held at the school, for JSS students to prepare for their exams. I talked with Dada for a while, mostly about the future plans for the school and the problems it faces, then headed home to finish packing and go to bed.

Day 63 - Sunday (Written on Wed 18 Mar 2009 10:51:38 AM GMT)
We left today on our little sub-trip to Mole (pronounced Mole-ay) National Park. The first leg of the journey was a taxi ride from Ejura to Techiman (about 3 hours). This means it's time for another comment about taxi drivers.
While we haven't encountered any that were as stubborn about overcharging as on day 4, they are still pretty bad overall. Whenever we try to get one in the first place, all the drivers in the vicinity all join together to claim the price is about double what it actually is. Then when one driver finally agrees to take us for a fair price, they try to convince us to take their respective cars instead, saying they actually belong to the driver we've made a deal with. The standard practice is to go halfway down the road, then start complaining about how far it is, how bad the road is, or any other suitable excuse to try to renegotiate.
Today's driver was relatively decent, as far as the negotiations went. Actual driving was a different matter altogether, though still better than some drivers we've had. It's now time for a comment on the Ghanaian driving rules. For all practical purposes, they don't exist. Right-of-way is determined by size (and who gets into a given spot first). "Safe" following distance is generally about three inches in cities. Outside cities, vehicles drive on whichever side of the road has less potholes. Seat belts are worn only by drivers, and that's only while going through police checkpoints. Speed limits are present solely for the sake of the government saying they have speed limits. Our driver today (one of few with a working speedometer) was going 90 kmph in a 50 kmph zone. It felt slow compared to some that we've had.
When we arrived safely in Techiman, we purchased tickets for a tro-tro to Tamale, then went in search of a restroom. We found one, but it was locked, with no attendant (public restrooms here are generally 5 pesewas per use). Fortunately, a smith saw us hanging around the restroom and offered us the use of his own, at no charge. Perhaps it's a sad comment on the general attitude here, but I'm starting to appreciate random kindness more and more.
We left for Tamale, which was a nice five-hour ride in a cramped tro-tro. The terrain in the north is very different from that in the south. The area around Ejura has huge forests, filled with tall trees and low shrubs. If it weren't for the constant efforts of the local population, the entire area would quickly become impassible. The north is different. It's much drier, so there are only sparse trees (about 10 meters apart), and sparse shrubbery. This is either a cause or a result of the north having only one dry season per year, where the south has two.
As we neared Tamale, I started feeling a little sick to my stomach. By the time we were a half-hour away, I was in severe pain. By the time we arrived, I was absolutely certain that my diarrhea (which I've avoided discussing here, but it's been pretty much constant since arriving in Ejura) was far worse than it had been before. We walked (as fast as possible) to the Central Guest House. It's pretty minimal as far as guest houses go, and charges about double the normal rate, but it is right in the center of everything interesting in Tamale. We got our rooms (as fast as possible) and I visited the restroom (as fast as possible).
Once I felt better, we went to the Tamale market. It's more cramped than Ejura's, and seems to be much more tourist-oriented. There were less household goods available, and more of the "exotic African" items like beaded necklaces, carved masks, traditional shirts (which I should note are actually worn by locals, much like a Yankees cap would be worn by a New Yorker, as a token of local heritage) and animal goods (many of which are illegal to bring into the US).
After the market, we went to a restaurant in Tamale called "Swad" for dinner. I had a decent pizza, and Melinda and I shared some lamb cooked in a garlic sauce. I was hesitant to eat much, given my stomach, but it was still good. After dinner, we retired early.

Day 64 - Monday (Written on Wed 18 Mar 2009 01:28:35 PM GMT)
The Bradt guide for Ghana (the de facto standard guidebook for travelers to Ghana) says that tickets for the bus to Larabanga should be purchased at 4:30 AM. They do not sell tickets ahead of time. Thus, Melinda went out today at 3:30 AM to go stand in line at the bus station. At 4:20 AM, the person in front of her bought the last tickets for the bus. She came back to sleep more.
We got up at around 8 or 9 AM, ate breakfast (fried eggs... extremely similar to what we get at night in Ejura), then got a taxi to drive us to Larabanga (60 GHC). This trip was certainly unique. The first half was fine. Lovely scenery, a decent driver (relatively speaking), and not too much dust. Then we left the paved road. 
We have bumpy roads in the States. Some of them get to be pretty bad. Until today, I have never seen a road this bad. I've seen washboard roads before, but not like this. The ridges were six inches apart and four inches deep. This lasted for 80 kilometers (about 50 miles). Any speed over 10 kmph caused the car to shake violently. We stopped twice to check to see how badly the tires were being damaged. Every chance we could, we drove on the shoulder, straddling a ditch (tracks indicate we're not the first to do such a thing). In addition, since it's the dry season, there was dust everywhere. Nice thick reddish-brown dust. Huge clouds of it every time another car went by, reducing visibility to a few feet (yes, the hood of the car was gone). Those of us in the back seat of the taxi (read: everyone else (we've determined that I have the largest hips, so I get the front seat, and the other four volunteers squeeze into the back)) got a constant stream of dust through the windows.
Those 80 kilometers took us almost three hours. By the time we got to Larabanga, the car was literally falling apart (not that it was in great shape to begin with). Apparently, had the road been decent, the taxi fare would have only been about 30 GHC, judging by distance. Regardless, we offered the driver 65 GHC, which is higher than a fair price, even for that road. The driver, being a taxi driver, started insisting on 80 GHC, and just generally hassling us about the price.
We interrupt this journal entry for a word about Ghanaian guest house management. Guest houses in Ghana (literally, it's a house for guests. Often they're basically hotels with less than a dozen rooms) don't get involved with their guests. Sure, they'll make you feel comfortable, and the staff will get you anything you ask for, but only once you're firmly planted as a paying customer. If they haven't seen your money yet, your problems are your own. If you have a problem with another Ghanaian (like, for example, a stubborn taxi driver), you need to deal with it first before expecting the guest house to acknowledge you.
We now return to your regularly scheduled journal.
While Melinda was arguing with the taxi driver (she's good at it; I just stand back and watch), one of the Salia brothers (owner/operators of the Salia Brothers Guest House, where we're staying) came out, made sure our bags were all brought from the taxi and cleaned of most of the dust, then convinced the driver to accept the 65 GHC and leave. This single act made the Salia brothers (they're twins, and I don't remember which was where, so I'll refer to them collectively) the best guest house managers we've encountered yet. As we were settling into our rooms, the brother came in and inquired as to our plans for the day (as it was still early afternoon). He made helpful advice (which actually went against his financial benefit), then left us to our revised planning, and a round of much-needed showers.
We went on a tour of the local mosque, which is one of the oldest in West Africa. It was built very shortly after Islam came to Africa, and was supposedly built partly by angels. The tour continued on to show the village, where there's a thriving (relatively speaking) shea butter industry. The shea nuts are shelled, fried, ground, then boiled to extract the fat. The fat is used for shea butter (as seen in skin care products) and soap (as seen in the local laundry buckets). The tour concluded with our guide's school. He runs a local school, built with aid from the US Peace Corps. Of note is that his library is more well-managed than our library at the house. A much smaller selection of books, but of more appropriate age levels and better organized.
We went back to the Salia brothers' guest house, and Melinda and Jasmine played with the brothers' kids. There was Junior, a rambunctious stereotypical young boy, his sister Samira (I think), who is a bit milder but still rambunctious, and Osi, an adopted orphan who can only be described as adorable. Melinda started playing with Osi, and soon all the volunteers were playing with the kids.
What's unique about Larabanga is that it's located fairly far south, but still has some of the northern-style architecture, including flat-roof mud buildings. It reminds me very much of the pueblos of the southwest United States. Mostly for novelty, partly for the view, and partly for comfort (surprisingly), we spent most of our evening on the roof, playing first with the kids, then later playing rummy. We generally only came down from the roof (by way of a terrifying ladder cut from a single 5-inch-in-diameter log) for the restroom, and a trip to a local restaurant for dinner. Notice that sleeping is not listed. One of the points about the Salia brothers' guest house that stands out, apart from their wonderful hospitality, is that guests can (and usually do) sleep on the roof. Mattresses are brought up and laid out, along with mosquito nets if the season needs it (which it doesn't really at present), and guests sleep under the open sky. Bear in mind, this is rural Africa. The tallest building in sight is the mosque, and it's higher than us by maybe five feet.

Day 65 - Tuesday (Written on Thu 19 Mar 2009 10:13:56 PM GMT)
I woke up before sunrise. Normally, this is a good time to go back to bed, but today I had the once-in-a-lifetime (unless you're a Larabanga local, or travel a lot, or any other circumstance where it would happen multiple times) chance to watch the sunrise from the rooftop of mud building in rural Africa. It was unimpressive. "Sunrise" wasn't visible due to the thick haze near the horizon. Rather, the sun just materialized, already full, a short way into the sky. Still unique, and provided some nice pictures, but not what I was expecting at all. After the sun was entirely present, I decided it was a good time to go back to bed.
I woke up a little while later, as we all slowly left our comfortable rooftop bed. We packed our bags and the other Salia brother drove us into Mole National Park. Yes, they also offer a private, no-hassle taxi service for their guests, and also run a local school attached to a second guest house further down the road.
Mole National Park is mostly unseen. Most visitors (ourselves included) only see a very tiny portion of it, due to the lack of good interior roads and interior attractions. There really isn't much point going further into the park, when most of the major sights (elephants) can be seen right at the edge. I actually think that's a better way to approach conservation than what many American national parks do. The United States seems to want to show off everything, so the parks have huge roads cut all the way across them. Sure, it's great for tourism, but I really wonder sometimes about the indirect impact such roads have. Here, animal contact with visitors is (mostly) limited to a small area, which is no worse than having a village bordering the park. Rather than allowing the humans to follow the animals, the humans are stuck in one place, and the animals go wherever they want.
This main visitor's area is the Mole Motel. It's apparently a private establishment, operating inside the park. Built in the 1960's, it fits into the environment about as well as we fit into the 6th of March festivities. That is, it sticks out like a sore thumb. There's lovely huge buildings (12-foot ceilings, 10 rooms per building... they're big), a swimming pool, viewing platform (it's on a cliff overlooking the savanna) and everything is bright white.
We checked into the motel. They wouldn't let us make reservations, and had several large groups there already, so we ended up needing to take a triple room, and Fiona and Jasmine would sleep in the dorm-style rooms (cheaper, but 20 people per room). We filled the last spaces available. We went to our rooms, figuring we'd shuffle around tomorrow once a few people had left.
The triple room was huge. It was the same size as the room used for the dorm-style room. Easily 30 feet long by 15 feet wide. Ridiculously big. Certainly we could all sleep in there, right? One of the three beds in the room was even a double, so Melinda and I could share a bed, and we'd only need one additional bed. That would even alleviate the motel's lack of space somewhat (only two beds in the female dorm, but still, that's 16 GHC more income).
Sheehan and Jasmine went up to the reception desk to try to change, and was told that first there were no extra beds available, then that there was a strict "no more than four people per room" policy. Any attempt to come to a nice simple solution (up to and including pushing chair cushions together on the floor) was met with rejection by the staff, with a bit of hostility thrown in for good measure. Finally, we gave up on us all being together, but Jasmine did move to our room. We were charged for an extra bed for her, though no additional bed was ever actually seen.
We unpacked our bags, more fully this time, since we're here for three days. Fiona went to the pool, Sheehan lied down to rest, and Melinda went out on the porch behind the room. I went out to join her, and we talked for a bit. During the course of the conversation, I commented that it would be great to just look out over the cliff, and see elephants (her favorite animal). Not more than 60 seconds later, I saw a large green blob on the savanna, with a few black spots on it. It took me a few seconds to realize that the blob was actually a watering hole, and the spots were indeed elephants.
We watched the elephants for a bit, then Melinda, Jasmine, and I went up to the pool. Sheehan stayed behind feeling sick. We swam for a bit, then tried to get lunch at the motel's restaurant. The Bradt guide describes the restaurant's service as "legendarily slow", and I really don't think that describes it adequately enough. When we sat down, none of the staff took notice, though there were several standing less than 20 feet away from our table. We finally got one's attention, and ordered. Then we waited.
We went swimming more (the restaurant overlooks the pool which overlooks the savanna), then we waited.
A mother and baby baboon came up to the pool, and ate lunch in a tree on the other side of the pool. We waited.
I went to go take a picture of the baboons, and as I was paying attention to my camera, another baboon came walking up past the restaurant, around the pool, and stopped about four feet from my side. I didn't notice until Melinda yelled at me to look. Unfortunately, it turned around and left, so I didn't get a good picture of it. I went back to the table, and waited more.
They brought our beverages from the bar. We drank them, then waited more.
Finally, an hour and ten minutes after ordering, our meal arrived. For two sandwiches and a fried egg, that seems a bit longer than reasonable. We ate, then swam more. We also ordered dinner now (about 2 PM), so it would be ready by 7 PM.
I spent a good portion of the afternoon going back and forth between the pool and the room. Sheehan's basically confined to his bed, so I visit him now and then. It's a pretty crappy way to spend our vacation week, but a much nicer place to be sick than Ejura.
During one of my trips to the room, I came across a group of warthogs just wandering around the motel buildings. I also encountered a group of baboons. Then more warthogs. They just wander around, taking as little notice of us as possible.
For dinner, I had grilled chicken. The food here is very much aimed at tourists, and it shows, even in the meal's preparation. The chicken is cut differently here than I've seen elsewhere in Ghana. I can't really describe it adequately, but the cut was more like what you'd find in America, rather than the seemingly-random chunks of meat and bone available everywhere else. After dinner, we sat at the table and talked for a while, before going to our rooms for bed.
Let me reiterate once more: the Salia brothers are the pinnacle of hotel management I've yet seen in Africa, and they're better than many in the States. If they were put in charge of a hotel in the States, I have no doubt it would be successful, and the guests would be treated with the highest level of service possible. The Mole Motel is the complete opposite. The sole reason they aren't out of business yet is their location. If the Salia brothers ran the Mole Motel, the hotel would draw people to Mole, rather than vice versa.

Day 66 - Wednesday (Fri 20 Mar 2009 04:18:40 PM GMT)
Today was the first actually relaxing day of our vacation. We got up slowly, went to the pool, and just generally killed time until 3 PM, when we went on our safari. The safari offered here is a two-hour walking trek around the savanna the hotel ovelooks. As far as textual description, all I can say is it was a lot of walking over rough terrain, and we didn't see any elephants today. I did take lots of pictures, though, so those will be put on my website soon.
Joining us on our safari was Ewen Groat, a Scotsman visiting Ghana. he and Fiona spent a good deal of the safari (and the rest of the day, too) talking about Scotland (though it occurs to me now that I've never actually said where Fiona's from. She's from Scotland).
When we returned from the safari, I went around the motel area a ways, and found the staff canteen. This is where the park staff go to eat, rather than go all the way out of the park to one of the neighboring villages. Interestingly, the sign outside the canteen said "all visitors are welcome to refresh at affordable prices". Perhaps this is a subtle stab at the rediculously expensive prices (and otherwise annoying management) of the Mole Motel? I bought water (5 pesewas for 500 ml, versus 50 pesewas at the motel), which I used to fill one of my previously-purchased water bottles.
We returned to the hotel, and killed two hours before dinner. I had grilled guinea fowl, which tasted a bit like salty chicken. We sat at the restaurant talking, this time including Ewen. It's strange how much I've missed hearing unbroken English speech, without even realizing it.

Day 67 - Thursday (Written on Fri 20 Mar 2009 05:57:57 PM GMT)
We set an early alarm today (6 AM), then promptly ignored it. We had planned to go on the morning (7 AM) safari, in hopes of seeing elephants, but nobody (in the triple room) really wanted to get out of bed to go. Fiona did go, as did Ewen, but they didn't see any elephants. We slept until 11, then finally meandered up to the restaurant for breakfast, which we were promptly served, by nice happy staff. Thursday is payday. We ate breakfast slowly, enjoyed the scenery, swam in the pool, and in general, just wasted the morning.
We took the afternoon safari, with the same guide as yesterday (P.K., or Pike, or Peekay, or something like that). We went walking in the same general direction as before, but took a different route. While walking across an open field, our guide saw an elephant through the trees about 150 meters away. To me, it seemed like we just changed course for no reason. It tuned out to be three elephants in close proximity, so I took lots of nice pictures, at an extremely close range. It was awesome.
The safari, we rested in the room until dinner. I had grilled fish with garlic butter sauce. I was expecting the nice boneless fish filet you'd find in an American restaurant. Even though it's a very Western restaurant, this is still Ghana. The fish looked like it was caught and immediately laid on a grill. I'm not used to my dinner having eyes. I know that most of my meals have been attached to a set of eyes at some point, but having them on my plate is a different matter entirely. It didn't change the flavor any, though, and the meal was still good. After dinner, we checked out of the hotel, which led to a great deal of confusion trying to decide who owed what to whom, so we could verify the hotel's total. As soon as that was finished, we went to bed early.

Day 68 - Friday (Written Sat 21 Mar 2009 08:07:07 AM GMT)
We woke up at 3:30 today, and packed our bags. We went outside and boarded our bus to Tamale. It pulled out at 4:22 AM. This bus (the Metro Mass) is the main way to get to and from Mole. Of note is that its huge tires make the bad road passable. At one point, though (6 AM), we did stop in a small village, and the driver got out. After a few minutes of everyone waiting on the bus (which had every seat packed, as well as the aisle), somebody shouted something in Twi, and the whole crowd panicked and pushed for the doors. Someone did finally translate for us that the tire was burning. We joined the crowd in exiting the bus.
Once outside, I could see that there was a little bit of smoke coming from the tire well. Not really what I'd expect to cause the kind of panic it did, but then again, this country has very little concept of safe emergency procedures.
After a few minutes of standing around, the bus driver went to his seat again, and signaled for others to follow. We boarded the bus, and got underway again. There was nothing else of interest that happened on the bus.
When we arrived in Tamale, our first order of business was to figure out how we were going to get to Ejura. All the buses heading that way had left already, so we were stuck taking a tro-tro. We wanted to spend a bit more time in Tamale first, though. Specifically, we went to a shop run by COLWOD, a charity organization that helps abandoned women by teaching them sewing (among other things), and selling the result.
We also ate breakfast in Tamale, and visited the bank. Finally we boarded the tro-tro to Techiman. The tro-tro ride was nice, and made me wish I still had power in my camera. The dirt we passed through was bright red, and there were some very nice rock formations. Also of note on the trip is that our exhaust pipe fell off about 30 km from Techiman, so we had to stop and repair it.
In Techiman, we walked through most of the town looking for a large taxi to take us to Ejura. Most of the cars we saw were made by "tico", and resemble something like a matchbox on wheels. They're tiny little things, and five people with luggage simply would not fit well in them.
Along the way, we stopped at a Shell station convenience store, which had some nice (albeit expensive) goods for sale, like American candy bars and a can of cream soda! We indulged our homesickness.
We finally gave up on getting a large car, and squeezed into a taxi to head home. My stomach started to feel upset again, and the driver's speed (especially once it started to rain) didn't help much. As we neared Nkoranza, the storm knocked out power, so we ended up driving through a fairly large city with no streetlights, in a car whose windows were fogging up badly (there's no air conditioning in the car, of course). I'm usually not scared by the car trips anymore, but this one was harrowing. By the time we got to Ejura, I was downright sick. As soon as the car stopped, I went (ran (stumbled)) to the nearest drainage ditch, prepared to vomit. I didn't, but I did realize how useful roadside drainage ditches really are.
We walked to the house, and I ate a spoonful of peanut butter as my dinner, then went to bed.

Day 69 - Saturday (Written on Wed 25 Mar 2009 11:07:12 PM GMT)
We're home. At breakfast, we got to hear how the week was spent here in Ejura. Apparently, Suzanne's had a terrible time, going around all the schools she has kids at. Of particular note is that the International Neo-humanist School is the most expensive school she deals with, both in base tuition and extra fees added on. There's apparently a night watchman fee (to pay the night watchman, who apparently only shows up about half the time), and a sports fee (for all students, not just those playing sports), in addition to the normal canteen (lunch) fee and part-time (which no other school seems to do).
Suzanne also tried to deal with some of the problems at the school, and was told by Martins that they're Dada's fault. Dada, when confronted, blames Martins. This is not surprising at all.
I spent the rest of the day being generally lazy, sleeping and doing a bit of programming. After dinner, I was programming in my room, when I heard someone outside shout "Fluffy! What do you do for an electrical fire?". As the implication set in, I thought back to a conversation held a few days ago, regarding how hazardous the house would be in the event of a fire. I went into the other room, and found one of my extension cords sitting on the floor, sparking with a little bit of flame. I turned off the switch at the outlet (all outlets here have switches right on them), then blow out the flame. Apparently Fiona and Sheehan were heating water in Melinda's electric kettle, which was plugged into my extension cord (one I had purchased in Kokrobite), which had a very small wire. Lots of power through a very small wire leads to lots of heat, which caused the nice little fire. Strangely enough, for all my many experiments (failures) with electricity, this was my first electrical fire. Sure, I've electrocuted myself many times, and many things have gotten rather warm as a result of my tinkering, but this was my first actual fire. It was fun.
Also of interest is that today (early this morning really: 1:42 AM according to my planned flight itinerary) marks the halfway point for my time here in Ghana. Looking back on what I've accomplished, I find that I've really done much less than expected. I had intended to get my sundial project done in a week. Faced with the problems of having no tools and no decent materials, I've barely begun. I said on day 20 that the computer room would be ready soon. Now, I wonder whether I'll even see it with computers in it. Everything moves so painfully slowly here. To celebrate my halfway point, here's a list of the odd things I miss from home:
* Privacy. I plan to lock myself in a nice quit room when I get home. It's not really so much that the people bother me, but that there's always someone nearby.
* Respect from students. I remember how the hallways emptied immediately when the bell rang in high school. There was no (well, very little) commerce conducted during classes. Perhaps what I miss more is how even the worst-behaved student at my high school is a saint compared to what these kids do on a good day. Back home, students beating each other with sticks is unthinkable. Here, it's normal.
* Frozen pizza. Yes, I can get decent pizza in Kumasi. It lacks the subtle flavor of freezer burn. It's missing the cardboard crust. Most importantly, it's missing the extra five inches of diameter.
* McDonald's cheeseburgers. Really, this is an odd one, but those little miniature meat patties that just ooze warm grease are somehow appetizing after a few months.
* Kentucky Fried Chicken. I have actually dreamed about a bucket of fried chicken. That is one of the most disturbing facts about my life.
Interestingly enough, I do not miss my high-speed Internet connection. Having been connected to the computerized world for about twelve years now, I now have abandoned my online endeavors, leaving them to a set of automated programs running from home. Periodic contact is sufficient to ensure everything is running smoothly. Other than that, I am cut off from the deluge of information I've fed from for so long, and I don't really care. 

Day 70 - Sunday (written on Thu 26 Mar 2009 07:17:09 PM GMT)
Laziness prevailed again today. Most of my day was spent with a combination of sleeping and programming. I've started reading a book on human conduct, written by P. R. Sarkar, the founder and guru of Ananda Marga. Given that I'm living in an Ananda Marga-run house, I should know their opinions. Other than that, nothing of interest happened until dinner.
For dinner, Kamal cooked a huge feast of rice, with meat-substitute kebabs, and Dada bought everyone ice cream for dessert. It was great fun, and did its job well of lightening the shadow of Suzanne leaving tomorrow.
After the party, another lovely rainstorm began, knocking out the electricity for the night. We had a flicker of light at around 11 PM, but it lasted less than a second, and stayed off for the remainder of the night.

Day 71 - Monday
I've realized two things from spending the night without a fan. First, I have become much more adjusted to this climate than I had expected. Second, I am still terribly dependent on external means of regulating my body temperature. Our room, being built of cement, requires explicit effort to cool it down. When storms bring cool air, I open the windows and turn the fan to exchange as much air as possible.
I felt sick to my stomach today, starting shortly after breakfast. Unlike my previous health problems, this time it's my muscles that are rebelling against me. I feel like I'm constantly trying to sit up, no matter what position I'm in. Every muscle in my abdomen is tight, and simply won't relax. Trying to stretch brings agonizing pain, so I spent my morning in bed.
The electricity returned at 8:35 AM. It was just as I was starting to feel a bit too warm that the fan turned on, as though commanded by my will. A few minutes later, I realized that the fan had been left on "high" last night, and it was really making me a bit too cold. As I reached for the sheet to cover myself, the electricity shut off again. At this point, I started laughing, and half-heartedly wondering if perhaps there is indeed a God, and that God wants me to be comfortable. What an asinine thing for a deity to be concerned with!
I stayed in bed until about 11:00 AM, then went to school for a bit. Jasmine and Melinda were in KG1, grading the students' attempts at writing. Some of the students that wrote very well before now struggle to even scribble on the page. It seems to be a game to see how poorly they can do. Once all the assignments were graded, we came back home for lunch.
We arrived home in time to see Suzanne leave for Kumasi, on her way back to Canada. Fiona went with her to take care of some business in Kumasi, like trying to pick up some of the passports we had left.
For most of the afternoon and evening, I stayed in bed, continuing my pattern of laziness. Melinda went to the market, and bought leaves to make bisap, a regional beverage. When the water is boiled with the leaves, it acquires a deep red color, a tendency to froth, and a very bitter/sour taste. This last quality is remedied by adding a large amount of sugar. The finished product, having been chilled, is a welcome replacement for the water sachets that have become my main source of liquid refreshment.

Day 72 - Tuesday (Written on Mon 06 Apr 2009 10:10:08 AM GMT)
It's been almost two weeks since I wrote in my journal. I have notes on what we did each day, but I've been sick and unmotivated. As a result, the format is now going to subtly change for a while. I'll just copy my notes, with very little concern for them making sense. I also won't bother with my opinionated commentary. I have decided (I actually decided it a while ago) that I will be writing an annotated version of this journal when I get home. I'll put in commentary then, though it will be from the 20/20 perspective of hindsight.

I was sick all morning & afternoon, but finally better by dinner. During dinner, Christian and Kamal got into a fist fight over an insult (reinforcing Suzanne's comment that a house mother is needed), played rummy. Melinda went to Kumasi, Kwaku apparently needs surgery (but before it's scheduled, the doctors need to know his epilepsy medication's name). There's a cement floor in computer room. I finished the Ananda Marga (human conduct) book.

Day 73 - Wednesday
I'm sick again, so I was in bed all day. Sheehan and Fiona discovered that between their two classes (P1 and P2, respectively), the uncollected school fees total 1250 GHC. Melinda went back to Kumasi to get her passport, but they discovered her's visa had expired by 12 days when she brought it in for renewal. Apparently, they charge fees based on the first of the month, so since we brought in the passport on the 2nd of March, the fee is for two months past expiration. It's a load of crap, and very likely it's the immigration officer just trying to scam tourists out of an extra 40 GHC. In the early evening, it started raining lightly, but that didn't prevent Kamal from building a table for table tennis, from the reassembled skeleton of a previous table (it had apparently fallen apart last year, after being exposed to too much rain). When Melinda returned from Kumasi, she brought a package, that was mailed from the USA almost two months ago. I now have all the installation disks I'll need to set up the school computers. I also have a copy of the video of Barack Obama's inauguration. 

Day 74 - Thursday
I went to school, but Jasmine and I had no kids for remedial, so we made flashcards instead. I'm thinking about writing an accounting program to handle the school fees, to compensate for the rampant incompetence here. The only problem is I know it won't be used. Fiona and I went wire shopping, to build an extension cord, so she can play a stereo in her classroom at the school. We ate dinner, Melinda and I went out for eggs, then I wrote in my journal.

Day 75 - Friday
I did some remedial English with Jasmine. It's not working. The kids aren't learning much, and the entire school system is ridiculously incompetent. Jasmine's getting very depressed with it. We finished a set of flashcards (featuring lowercase letters). I had an uneasy stomach at lunch so I stayed home and napped for the afternoon. I wrote in my journal, and Melinda and I did laundry. While we were outside, we overheard Simon watching a Spanish soap opera dubbed into Nigerian English. From what I understood of the plot, a corpse had jumped up at a funeral and gone running naked down the street, having been reanimated by the spirit of a poisoned patriarch. It was strange. After dinner, I built an extension cord.

Day 76 - Saturday
We went to Kumasi, and visited Melinda's host family. When Melinda was an exchange student, this is the family that she lived with. It was a little awkward, but not too bad. We went to Vic Baboo's, and I had a rather tasty cheeseburger. I bought yet another adapter for my laptop (to convert between my American plug and the British outlets they use here). We went to the Internet café, and Melinda registered for summer classes at grad school. We got word (by email) that Melinda's grandmother is sick. There's talk of changing flights to go home earlier. Today is the one-month anniversary of our engagement.

Day 77 - Sunday
Today, I'm lazy, and lying in bed all day. I've taken a break from AHWOSG to read Dune, the science-fiction classic. It's good.

Day 78 - Monday (Written Mon 06 Apr 2009 12:55:06 PM GMT)
I did remedial math with two P1s who don't understand the concept that two tens and 5 ones is 25. I started feeling sick at 11:15AM, so I stayed in bed for the rest of the day. Melinda and Jasmine went to market. Some previous volunteers, Kat and Theresa, came to visit for the night.

Day 79 - Tuesday
Jasmine and I took some P1s for math again, then after break tried to work with Fusceina. She hates remedial now, for some unknown reason. I finally gave up trying to calm her, and went to take control of the P1 class. Sheehan had gone home sick at break, and Madam Paulina was nowhere to be found. She finally came back 50 minutes late, claiming she went to get something to eat. Bear in mind this is less than two hours before lunch time, and break itself is a half-hour long. For the rest of that period, I sat in the remedial room, working on flash cards and complaining about how terrible the management is here. I stayed home after lunch out of a combination of being sick & nihilistic, which was a good choice, as I got much more sick later. Water started going out while I was taking a shower, so I filled the bucket, just in case it went out fully. Melinda went to Kumasi with Kwaku today, and he finally has his cast off. Melinda was also able to contact the US embassy, but they couldn't help with her passport issues at all.
After dinner, while we were talking around the table, Jasmine mentioned that her "multicultural children's literature" professor said science fiction wasn't multicultural. This bears extra comment here, as this is the best outlet I have for my opinion. Science fiction is just about the most multi-cultural genre there is. Take Dune, for instance. At one point, a character in the story spits on a table, as a sign of respect. Nowhere on Earth is water so scarce that sacrificing a little is so sacred. Such a culture is only possible in sci-fi. It's the only genre where an author can (easily) alter every aspect of a culture, up to and including the laws of physics that culture lives with.

Day 80 - Wednesday
I was sick for the morning, but went to KG1 for an hour. I stayed home after lunch. I read Dune, got water from the river with Kwame and Christian, then, following a comment I had made, drew a sketch of an Egyptian water lift. I've started teaching Kamal some basic computer usage, though my lessons are badly crippled by lacking a decent classroom and lesson plan. I also discovered why another computer had mysteriously stopped working. A mouse had crawled inside and urinated on the circuit boards.

Day 81 - Thursday
I'm sick for the morning yet again. The mother of one of Sheehan's students died. Jasmine and I did remedial with some P2 students, and realized why there was such a problem with students reading backwards. Many children are taught to read Arabic at mosque, which is read from right to left.
I discovered that I'm unable to eat beans now. I can get maybe four bites into my stomach before I simply can't eat any more. I laid in bed most of the afternoon, and Jasmine brought me an egg from town. 
Later, after I was feeling better, Fiona, Sheehan, and I went to town to buy wood, to build tables for the computer room. On the way there, we got caught in the rain, so we paid for it and will pick it up later. While out, I bought fried rice for Melinda (though I did eat some, and the chicken that comes with it).
That afternoon, Akwasi called me, saying something about "his ankle". Apparently a neighborhood kid stepped on a nail, so Sheehan and Jasmine cleaned & bandaged him.
I didn't eat dinner tonight, but drank my reconstituted milk instead. I took a can of evaporated milk, and mixed it with an appropriate about of water. The result was not altogether unlike milk, though it tasted a bit too sweet and a bit too sour. I wrote in this journal, then went to bed.

Day 82 - Friday
I did remedial with Melinda while Jasmine was sick, then Jasmine came and I did remedial work with her. I left at break, feeling sick and nihilistic again, to come home and write my educator's guide. I've decided that with so many little quirks about teaching here that I had to pick up on my own, or be told by Melinda, it may be beneficial to write these things down for future volunteers. Even things like the pronunciation of letters (since they're taught by sound, rather than by name) needs to be consistent. I stayed home through the afternoon, and finished Dune.

Day 83 - Saturday
Stayed in bed, and did a lot of work on my programming projects. Melinda's reading Dune now. Sheehan and Fiona went to Nkoranza, and will be back tomorrow. I did very little today.

Day 84 - Sunday
	I was sick all day, not really in the mood to write in my journal.
	
Day 85 - Monday
	Still sick all day. Melinda went to Kumasi with Kwaku, and got his medicine's name. This may have actually occurred last week, and I failed at journaling.
	
Day 86 - Tuesday
	Sick in the morning, made it to school a little, left in the afternoon. I'm getting annoyed with how much time I'm spending in my room. Melinda went to Kumasi with Kwaku. He does not need surgery. Melinda brought me antibiotics when she came back.

Day 87 - Wednesday
	Jasmine and I moved the rest of our donated supplies to the school, then organized the storage room. I'm still feeling sick, and didn't return to school after lunch. Melinda spent the day in Kumasi with Dada, so he could try to explain to the immigration officers that she was volunteering, so should be allowed to stay for longer than six months.
	Today was April 1st. To celebrate this auspicious occasion, I called my mother and told her that I had a two-foot-long worm in my stomach, so I was getting emergency surgery tomorrow. Her reaction was great. It was made even better by the fact that she was around others at the time, so I was able to wreak even more havoc. After she saw a calendar, I called my dad to tell him the news as well. He took it much worse (or better, depending on your perspective), asking only if I was sure I really wanted to go for surgery in a third world country, rather than just go elsewhere for it.
A short summary of other reactions:
	* My older sister: She was concerned (I am, after all, her favorite brother), but quickly passed the phone off to my dad, so he could handle it rationally and, as is expected of my dad, with impeccable logic.
	* My younger sister: By the time I was able to call her, she had already heard all about my scam from the rest of the family, despite my specific instructions to everyone not to tell her anything.
	* My girlfriend... I mean fiancé (over a month now, and it's still weird): She thinks I'm a jerk. I agree.
For those reading this who don't know my family, I think this is a perfect illustration of how my family works. My mother is a stereotypical overprotective mother. My dad ran a business for thirty years, and approaches every problem with careful thought and consideration. My older sister is a manager, and grounded enough to pass problems on when appropriate. My little sister always knows who's doing what and when, no matter how secret it's supposed to be. Melinda provides an honest third-party perspective. I am a jerk.

Day 88 - Thursday
	I did remedial today, between stabbing stomach pains. Fiona's extension cord doesn't work with the stereo, which doesn't make sense. It should have been built well enough to handle running a stereo. I called my uncle, to see if he might be able to explain it (his response was "that's strange"), but my cell phone decided that would be a good time to quit working. The power/end button had stopped responding yesterday, and today the battery died, leaving me with a phone that doesn't turn on at all. In addition, it doesn't seem to charge.

Day 89 - Friday
	Sheehan bandaged a neighborhood kid at breakfast. It's strange, but I can handle seeing any amount of blood and gore, but once a wound is infected, I can't bear to look at it. I did some remedial with KG1, again avoiding the moments of stabbing pain. At break, school was let out early for a PTA meeting. It was completely useless. Everyone agrees that school fees are important, but nobody pays them. Dada claims the computer room will be done by the 15th, which is in twelve days. I doubt it very much. 

Day 90 - Saturday
	WE HAVE DOORS!
	I stayed in bed most of the day, then finally helped a bit with making tofu. When I get home and go to the store, and see all those boxes of soy milk, I will now know how much work is actually involved in extracting it. Lots of beans are smashed and run through cheesecloth to produce a relatively small amount of milk, which produces even less tofu once cooked. All day, the carpenter was here, installing solid wooden doors on the computer room. The emphasized statement at the top of today's entry should convey how excited I am about this. All we are waiting on now is the electrician, and I can begin my computer work. We don't need tables, just power. Speaking of which, the power went out late this evening, but kept flickering constantly. Finally it went out for the night.

Day 91 - Sunday
I stayed in bed all morning, then went outside to read AHWOSG, then went inside to read, then outside, then inside. I also did some programming.
	
Day 92 - Monday
I went to school, and reviewed letters with some KG1 students. It's so late in the term now that any "remedial" work is pointless. The P1 and P2 classes are reviewing for exams, so it's basically remedial for the whole class. After about an hour of remedial work, my stomach started cramping up again. I sent the kids back to class, and was about to leave when Jasmine arrived, having been sick earlier. With her help, we worked with the kids until lunch. After lunch, I did very little again, until Melinda and I went to town to get eggs and beef kabobs after dinner. I ate three kabobs. I'm starting to voraciously attack any meat I get.
	
Day 93 - Tuesday (written on Wed 08 Apr 2009 08:39:10 PM GMT)
Melinda and I went to Kumasi today, primarily to get her passport and get me to a doctor. I went to Kufuor Clinic, the private clinic where Kwaku goes for his epilepsy care. It cost 4 GHC to get an ID card, then we sat in a hallway waiting to see the doctor (which, for comparison with the hospital (see day 44), this hallway had five chairs, and had at most seven people waiting). The wait took less than an hour, then I went in to see the doctor. A few questions, a bit of stomach-poking (after which the doctor washed his hands, right there in the room, before anything else), and a blood pressure check, then I was done. He prescribed an antibiotic (a combination of ciprofloxacin and tinidazole), rehydration salts, and a de-worming medication. This is standard issue for stomach ailments.
After the clinic, we went to Sanbra Hotel for lunch (a cheeseburger for me, whose meat patty was devoured, and a tuna sandwich for Melinda, whose tuna mysteriously disappeared after she was finished eating), then to the Internet café. I uploaded my journal, and downloaded a few new tools to help me with my projects.
It's time for me to rant again. Those who are not interested in the arcane little details of data management should skip the following paragraph.
Linux is a thing of beauty. It really is. It's designed all around the ability to communicate with other systems, especially for distribution of software. Packages are great. The idea that if you don't have something it's readily available through the network, is elegant in its simplicity. No bloated installations, no duplication... everything is just happily there. Of course, when the network connection is severed, it does cripple that ability. Linux is designed around this as well. We Linux users have not forgotten (as far too many "computer people" have) the days when a 14.4kbps modem was REALLY FAST, when a megabyte was "huge", "and when transferring big files involved concern over whether the connection would be stable enough to get the whole file. Linux utilities include fail-safes and error conditions for almost any imaginable situation, and a way to recover from all of them. There's very few "you're doomed" moments. There's hardly ever a message saying an action failed without a good reason. It's simply beautiful.
After the café, we went to the immigration office to try to get Melinda's passport. The officer looked at her receipt, knocked on the locked door of another office, and told us to come back tomorrow. This is getting ridiculous. I'm starting to think about alternative means of returning to the States. Would the embassy help? The passport is U. S. government property, so if the embassy asked, it'd have to be given to them, right? This is annoying.
Now thoroughly frustrated with the immigration office, we stopped by an ATM (I'm not broke anymore!), then went to Vic Baboo's for milkshakes. On the street outside, we met briefly with Fiona and Sheehan. I verified that I had heard correctly at breakfast, and Fiona would pay for a network switch for the computer room. I'd had a few offers of donated hardware at home, but with the hassle of getting things shipped here (and the good chance they wouldn't arrive at all), I figured it'd be better to just buy a switch here. It's expensive, but much more reliable. With Fiona's verification, we went to the computer store and bought the parts I need to build a network. The total bill was 346.50 GHC. Most of that is the switch, but about 100 GHC is from my own pocket. I may or may not be reimbursed later. I'm not too concerned about it.
Being almost broke (this ATM trip didn't last long), we boarded a tro-tro for Ejura, and came home. I got to the house, and took a nice cold shower. I commented earlier on how I was using warm water to make the shower more comfortable. I abandoned that practice after about a week. I now take cold showers, though I do actually use the shower (as opposed to washing from a bucket). It's one bastion of my Western wastefulness that I'm adamantly clinging to. After the shower, I was tired. Very tired. I'm worn out and exhausted. I slept.
	On a completely unrelated note, I'm more or less caught up with my journaling, so I'll be more verbose (obviously) until I get behind again.
	
Day 94 - Wednesday (Written on Thu 09 Apr 2009 03:10:31 PM GMT)
Melinda went back to Kumasi today. I went to school today, and did remedial work with some P1s to prepare them for exams. Jasmine arrived, and we kept working with the kids until break. After break, Umar (the headmaster's son) had stubbed his toe, and almost taken off his toenail, so Jasmine and I started washing the wound at the drainage ditch in the school. This is the same drainage ditch used as a toilet for the rest of the day, but this is normal life here. Of course, anything we do becomes a huge spectacle, so we were immediately the center of a large crowd of students (even though the bell has already rung to end break) and teachers (who care about classes less than the students do). I noticed one of the KG1 students also had a stubbed toe, which looked like it had been entirely neglected. I had him sit down, and Jasmine and I cleaned and bandaged both wounds.
P1 and P2 were reviewing for exams again, so their kids weren't really available for remedial. Instead, Jasmine and I went back to the house and assembled network cables for the computer room. We measured, cut, built, and tested five cables before lunch. After lunch, we still didn't feel motivated to go to school at all, so we stayed around the house. I took a nice nap until Melinda came home. Apparently her passport won't be available until after Easter (another five days). I read AHWOSG until dinner, then I wrote yesterday's long entry in my journal.
I'm rather impressed with myself. This journal was a spur-of-the-moment idea. It was something to pass the time on the train. Now, I think it's one of (if not "the") longest-lasting projects I'm actively working on, and certainly one of the most appreciated. My little sister (who can perhaps best be described as "absolutely awesome", by the way) has been emailing updates to my family and friends, and they all seem to love it. They could just be encouraging me, though, then making fun of my horrible writing back home. It could be in the local paper by now, as a periodic bit of comedy. I'll never know.

Day 95 - Thursday
I went to school, and did remedial with KG1 for a while. I reached the point where the kids were fidgeting, had learned four new letters, and had met their limit for new material. I sent them back to class, then wandered the school unmotivated. Sheehan and Fiona had parties today, since they're leaving Ejura after exams this week. I eventually settled into Sheehan's P1 class, cutting construction paper into squares for crafts. After break P1 and KG1 went to P.E., and I played a lovely game of lob-the-everything-at-the-kids. Lob-the-everything-at-the-kids is similar to the earlier-described lob-the-ball-at-the-kids, except that it includes frisbees, plastic scraps, and sticks as well as balls. Pretty much anything that made its way to my hands was thrown onto the field for retrieval. We all came home for lunch, and were ready to return when the Namaskar house boys came back from school. For no explained reason, there is no school after lunch today.
I spent a good part of the afternoon in bed, interrupted by a JSS student stopping by with a computer needing repair. A poorly-made modification to the computer's case had broken. I undid the modification, and I suspect all is right now. He also asked if I had a "program cassette," which I guess means he's asking if I have a (pirated) copy of Windows to install. I don't, but I'll gladly convert him to using Linux if he'll return in a few days.
When the student left, I returned to bed for a nice nap until dinner. Dinner tonight is banku, soup, and pancakes, which we put chocolate spread on. We ended the night with a game of rummy, and set terms for our final hand.

Day 96 - Friday (Written on Wed 15 Apr 2009 11:39:19 PM GMT)
There's no school today, as it's Good Friday. I spent the day in bed, though I was rather surprised to hear the noises of work coming from the computer room. The electrician is there, installing wall sockets. We'll finally have electricity in the computer room!
Spurred on by the progress (there's only tables... and windows... and a fan... and a blackboard... and a cabinet... and networking... and installation... still needed!), we started painting the room, in a lovely shade of I-hope-this-is-white-when-it-dries. With a half-dozen painters, most of which didn't really worry about doing a good job, the painting didn't take long. I read AHWOSG until dinner, which was fufu. Fufu is a traditional staple of the Ghanaian diet, made of pounded (pulverized) cassava and plantain. It's a very sticky, rather tasty, altogether doughy, mess. It was good. Of particular note is that it is a nice departure from the standard fare of rice, beans, banku and yams.

Day 97 - Saturday
We applied the second coat of paint to the computer room. The paint was so watery, though, that it looked like we were taking paint off, rather than adding it to the wall. Melinda and I went into town for Fanta, to celebrate (and spite) the warmer-than-normal day. While at the bar of the local hotel (the only bar in town to have Fanta today, apparently), we saw an educational program on TV. There was a Ghanaian teacher, giving a lecture about corn to a group of kids. In the back row, fourth from the left, was a single solitary Token White Kid. I find this hilarious. Next to him is a Token Indian Kid, and a Token Obese Kid. I think that should I ever find myself in a position where I need to determine ethnicities and names for fictional characters, I will create a token character named "Thomas Oken," or something similar. It will amuse me greatly.
We went home, and I napped until dinner. Lest anyone should worry about my napping so much, I should mention that these naps as written here aren't really normal naps. It's more just lying down and ignoring my surroundings for a while, with the possibility of sleep thrown in, though I rarely actually slip into the comfort of unconsciousness.
After dinner, Melinda made some boxed macaroni and cheese, from the supplies I'd brought from home. I'll admit: when she first asked for me to bring boxes of macaroni and cheese, which she's not really a fan of at home, I didn't quite understand. Having been here for three months, I now understand all too well how good anything Western tastes after so long. 
We went to town for drinks again, then we came back to sleep. Perhaps because of the nap this afternoon (when I did actually fall asleep for a while), I can't sleep at all.

Day 98 - Sunday
It's Easter today! The power went out in the morning, so I left the bed and the room in search of a nice breeze outside. I FINALLY finished AHWOSG. It's really rather obnoxiously annoying at times, but I'm glad I read it in its entirety. There's enough good points scattered through it to make it an entertaining read. It also bothers me greatly to leave books unfinished. To this day, I know of only two books that I have started without finishing: War and Peace, and Lord Of The Rings. With War and Peace, I made it through two pages before realizing I understood nothing of what I had read. Lord Of The Rings was interrupted (just after meeting Tom Bombadil, for those who care), and never returned to. Conveniently, there's a copy of Lord Of The Rings here. I started from the beginning again, and progressed almost to where I left off by the end of the day.
There was a small storm in the late afternoon, but without enough rain to really do much except cool the air. I'm okay with that, though. Finally, the power came on, just before we left for dinner at the local restaurant with the house boys and Richard. It's a nice little end-of-the-term treat for them, and a farewell party for Sheehan and Fiona. After dinner, we bought FanIce for the boys. The Fan milk company is the most noticeable supplier of dairy products I've seen, mostly in the form of small packets of various dairy products. There's FanIce, which is a rather tasty ice cream, not unlike soft-serve, FanChoco, which is just frozen chocolate milk, and FanYogo, which is frozen strawberry-flavored yogurt.
Once back at home, I worked on my Perl projects more. I've gotten myself very deep into programming now, almost to the point I was at home. It's rather annoying, to myself and Melinda. At her request, though, I do leave the computer to attend to more important things, like reading a bedtime story. We're not sure where it came from, but we found a children's book on the table this morning. It's "Winnie the Pooh's Easter", and she wanted me to read it. I'm fairly certain a main reason was to laugh at me. For much the same reason, I did it.

Day 99 - Monday
It's a public holiday today. We had no power for a good part of the morning, and no water for a good part of the afternoon. Apparently, this is much better than in previous years, when the utilities would be reliably unavailable on public holidays. We went to market, and Jasmine and Melinda bought lots of shea butter. I spent most of the remainder of the afternoon in bed or outside, reading Lord Of The Rings. Slowly, as the afternoon wore on, a huge storm came in. It was some of the strongest rain we've had yet. I put it to good use, by dumping several buckets of water in the computer room to keep the dust down, then sweeping out the mud. It worked pretty well, actually.
I finished my antibiotics today. They worked perfectly, and I have no more stomach pain.

Day 100 - Tuesday
Of course, today is the day the carpenter came to build tables for the computer room. With all the rain yesterday (and a bit during the night), he tracked mud onto my nice almost-clean floor, not to mention all the sawdust and shavings.
Today is the first day of exams. I obviously can't do remedial, so I helped police Sheehan's P1 class while they took their exams. Madam Paulina was as worthless as ever, sleeping at a desk in the back of the classroom, despite the shortage of desk space for students. The exams were harrowing. A good number of the kids can't read, and a disturbingly large number erased correct answers to copy incorrect answers from their neighbors. For the cruel enjoyment of readers, here's a selection of answers, as given by the students (From the "personal hygiene" section of the "natural science" exam):
Q: Hair should be kept ____.
A: AUS
Q: Cover your food to keep the ____ away.
A: ears
Q: Wash your hands before you ____.
A: S
The questions are all mantras that the students are told repeatedly. The students are (sometimes, if the teacher feels like it) beaten for having long hair (because it is prone to hold lice) or long fingernails (likely harboring disease). They all know the answers to the questions, but whether they can read the question is a different matter entirely. Understanding of the reasons for the mantras is not even attempted.
Melinda went back to Kumasi again today, finally meeting with success. She has her passport, with a renewed visa. It's well about time. I should mention once again that the immigration office has been absolutely horrendous to deal with.

Day 101 - Wednesday (Written on Thu 16 Apr 2009 10:21:28 AM GMT)
I helped Sheehan with the P1 math exam. It was pretty uneventful, except for the rampant copying. No, kids, nine (which is supposed to be a five) minus three is not three, despite what your neighbor thinks. After break, we gave the art exam. It was also rather uneventful. 
We came back for lunch, and I spent the afternoon doing more programming, and reading Lord Of The Rings. At 8:00, we started playing rummy, for the last time. It was pretty fun, and Fiona finally won.

Day 102 - Thursday (Written on Fri 17 Apr 2009 07:56:57 AM GMT)
Sheehan and Fiona have left Ejura. Melinda went to school to finish her KG1 exams, and Jasmine and I went for a few minutes to speak to the headmaster for a bit. We got home just before an enormous storm came in. It was a heavy storm, and lasted over an hour and a half. Jasmine and I watched the storm for a while, then I came inside and read Lord Of The Rings. Jasmine has also started reading it, so we'll have to share the book. After Melinda came home, she and I went back to the school, to take pictures of her with her KG1 students. This was at 11:00 AM. Pictures took about 40 minutes. We came home (again), ate lunch, then rested for a bit. After a while, Simon came to the house with yam, and he and Melinda fried them. Fried yam is tasty. Then Melinda and I made bisap again. I now have tasty bisap.
I spent the rest of the day with a nice combination of napping, reading LotR, and programming.

Day 103 - Friday (Written on Sun 19 Apr 2009 03:05:02 PM GMT)
I stayed in bed until about 10:00 AM, then Jasmine and I went to Kumasi. We first went to the cultural center, which is a nice place with reasonably-priced curios for sale. We then got lost for a bit, following directions from a local who apparently didn't understand where we were going. We found our way back to the main street, and went to Vic Baboo's for lunch. We then went to the Internet café. Melinda's grandmother died yesterday. We left Kumasi and headed home.

Day 104 - Saturday (Written on Thu 23 Apr 2009 08:49:12 AM GMT)
After a leisurely morning at home, Melinda, Jasmine and I packed a few things, and went to Nkoranza. We went to the Internet café there, which offers much faster connections than Kumasi, because it's a satellite link rather than a connection through the Ghanaian telephone company. I was able to get several emails sent, and take care of some other business as well.
We went down the street to the same fried rice seller that we had gone to last time, and had a very tasty meal. We then went up the street (a very nice street, complete with a actual median!) and went toward the hospital, and finally to Hand In Hand.
A brief history of Nkoranza: Nkoranza was mainly a transport hub, being a convenient place halfway between several other destinations. For most of its life that's all it has been, until Hand In Hand came along. Hand In Hand is a Dutch-run shelter, home, and workplace for mentally-handicapped children (and a few adults). As the project (and especially their guest house) has become more well-known, Nkoranza has become a tourist destination in itself.
We got a room in the guest house, and spent the rest of the day just relaxing. In the room was some reading material, including the project's latest annual report and biographies of all the project's residents and caretakers. The room itself was rather luxurious, perfectly clean, and a decent (cool) temperature. I should note that this is one of the cleanest toilets I've used here in Ghana, and certainly the cleanest I've ever used under open sky. Yes, the bathroom was outside, and still perfectly clean.
Dinner was served in the restaurant in the project, and was a nice mixture of beef, vegetables, and French fries. After dinner I walked around the project a bit, took a few pictures, then retired to the room to read. In addition to the reading material mentioned above, there was a book in the room, written by one of the project's founders. It's called "To Be A Man Is Not Easy", and it contains several interviews with Ghanaians who have left Ghana at some point, and (mostly) returned. Several stories mentioned a trek across the Sahara to reach Libya. Most were caught and sent back to Ghana. A few noted the inaccurate perception of the outside world. One said something like "Ghanaians think that here (in Chicago) there is money everywhere. There isn't. There's just more work, and more stress, but little money." I found that particularly interesting, having been accosted several times by children half-seriously saying "Obruni, give me cash money!" There is the idea that because I am white, or because I'm a traveler, I must have an endless supply of money.

Day 105 - Sunday
We got up slowly (very slowly), paid our bill, and left Hand in Hand. We ate more fried rice (at a different place this time, "Peace and Love Fast Food"), then got a taxi to take us to Ejura. On the way home, I took a few more pictures of various bits of infrastructure. I continued my photography for a while after we arrived in Ejura, then went back to the house. All in all, it was a nice relaxing weekend. With school out, and having not received any information on the other computer labs I'm supposed to help with, I'm now beginning my vacation. Plenty of relaxation and reading looks to be in the next few days.

Day 106 - Monday (Written on Fri 24 Apr 2009 09:13:22 AM GMT)
Yep. Day 106 certainly was a Monday. I was right about the relaxation and reading, so there's not much to tell. Instead, I'll talk about a completely unrelated topic: noise.
There's a lot of noise in Ghana. There are loudspeakers (and just loud speakers) everywhere. On houses, on cars, in bars, in churches, everywhere. The churches play music at any time, mostly in the evening. I've heard music in the distance at 2 AM before. When the Ghanaians wake up (between 5 and 7 AM), there is no thought of being quiet so others might sleep. It's right away they'll start going about their business, whatever that may be. For the most part, that's okay. I'm used to sleeping with noise,and waking up to noise isn't that bad, either. What annoys me is the noise on the street.
On several occasions in Kumasi, I've been walking down the sidewalk, and cars have come down the street playing music. They're heard before they're seen. They have several large speakers mounted on top, blasting music as loud as they can. Sometimes, they're promoting a newly-released movie, and have posters glued to the car's side. Sometimes they're associated with a political party (more on that later). Once the car was was followed by a group of men playing trumpets (trombones? I wouldn't know) and carrying a banner saying they were a "fun club," whatever that means. Sometimes, the only abnormal thing about the car is the huge speakers.
Religion is often a noisy thing, no matter where you are. In America, congregations sing hymns, and given the right circumstances, they can be heard for a fair distance. Here, it seems the strength of one's religion is displayed by how loudly they can preach. From stories I've heard from others (as I've not had the courage to try myself), church services here consist of a preacher yelling into a microphone, which then is amplified and blasted out of speakers so loudly that it's painful to listen to. Apparently, leaving the service before it's finished is not allowed, and the preacher and congregation might just follow you outside, still yelling. I've had preachers stand in the door of a tro-tro, preaching to the passengers while we wait to depart. Thankfully, their amplitude has been unaided.
Special events, of course, deserve special noise. If there's a party downtown (as on the 6th of March, for example), the music can be heard almost to the house (on the edge of town). Funerals (which last for several days, at least) are equally loud. Slightly lower in volume are the stationary preachers who preach on the sidewalk, and the promotions by the competing cell phone carriers. Zain, who seems to be promoting itself as a "fun" network, often hires DJs and street performers in downtown Kumasi.
In summary, Ghana is a noisy place, for about 20 hours out of the day.

Day 107 - Tuesday (Written on Sat 25 Apr 2009 09:34:25 PM GMT)
Yet another day of doing very little. Kamal left to visit his home town. Of note is that there's a shortage of beverages in town. All the bars are out of Fanta, and I saw only a single bottle of Sprite (but it wasn't chilled). Coke is still available, but the supply is dwindling.
It's appropriate now to briefly discuss the beverage distribution here. What follows is my own inference, so its accuracy is even more questionable than most of what's written here.
Stores (and bars, and probably wealthy families) purchase a supply of beverages from the bottler. I don't know the exact cost, but I believe it's fairly expensive. After the initial purchase, bottles are refilled at much lower rates. Once a week, a truck from the bottler comes, selling filled bottles to replace the empty ones, which are taken back for refilling. Thus the cycle is complete, and the beverage is distributed to the masses cheaply and efficiently. 
A side effect of this system is that the stores are very protective of their bottles, and expect them returned promptly. Given that we don't go into town daily, this has caused a bit of trouble, but not much. The bottles used are also nice thick glass bottles, which are very strong, and when paired with their value to the stores, are seldom broken.

Day 108 - Wednesday
This probably comes as a great surprise to everyone reading this, but we did almost nothing today! Dada went to Kumasi to buy glass for the windows in the computer room. I read for most of the day, and I'm now halfway through Lord Of The Rings. After dinner, Melinda and Jasmine cooked a nice tasty rice dish, which became a second dinner of itself. Other than that, nothing of interest was done.
Continuing the almost-random discourse, today's topic is privacy, or the lack thereof. Everything here is based around the community. Children are raised by friends as infants, and by the age of three are wandering freely around the neighborhood. Everybody knows everybody.
What this means for us is that our house is not so much "our house" as it is "the place we're staying that happens to be dropped in the center of the neighborhood". Anytime, day or night, the Namaskar house is subject to use as a passage for locals. The neighborhood kids find us quite entertaining while we eat. Even when I'm in the kitchen with the door closed, I've turned around to find three neighborhood kids staring through a crack in the door. Anything that happens here is on display for the whole community here.
The entertainment is more than just visual. Our conversations are often listened to intently. The visual privacy of our rooms does nothing to hinder sound. For all practical purposes, we are a 24-hour-a-day circus.

Day 109 - Thursday
I read more of LotR. Again, no surprise there. The carpenter (actually, the carpenter and his crew of apprentices) came today, and is making a cabinet, a table, and some stools for the computer lab. They finished the giant U-shaped computer desk. In the afternoon, I discovered my cell phone was missing. After cleaning the room and still not finding it, I am considering it lost, though I will be happy to find it again. There are beverages in town again. I'm guessing the truck came late.

Day 110 - Friday
We got up at a decent hour today (about 10 AM), and met Eric. Eric is a SSS (Senior Secondary School, the equivalent of American high school) student who visits Ejura (his hometown) on breaks. He comes to the Namaskar house and plays his guitar and drums with the boys. He plays pretty well (as much as my musically-deaf ears can tell), and is friendly. He's been at the house for the past few days, and we had asked him to come with us today. We're going to a woodcarving village near Kumasi to purchase drums.
We took a tro-tro toward Kumasi, and left as we passed through the woodcarving village. Immediately upon leaving the tro-tro, we were beset by the village men, all telling us to come to their shop. Eric led us off the main road to a small shop. This turned out to be very useful, because I could stand in the doorway and block most of the other men from hassling Melinda, Jasmine and Eric, who were actually trying to conduct business inside. All the village sellers work together to sell as much as possible. While we were at the small shop, people brought goods from other shops, trying to get us to buy more than we'd intended. Things we'd never asked about, and indeed had mentioned only to say "no" to, were brought to us and shoved in front of our faces. The abuse was constant. Eric hardly noticed.
The sellers' asking price was anywhere from 1.5 to 3 times what was reasonable for everything. Everything was claimed to be "quality wood," despite large cracks and discoloration. Eric tested everything musical personally, checking the sound and construction of each instrument.
During the whole ordeal, the men were hassling us with obnoxious questions and comments. At one point, they (in Twi) asked Eric why he was accompanying us, and when he answered, they told him he should bring more volunteers to them. Eric made the minimal response etiquette would allow.
In the end, we bought several djemba drums, a couple talking drums, and a few small figurines. Eric ensured we paid good prices.
In case it weren't obvious by now, Eric is awesome.
We had planned to go to two other craft villages, but gave up on that idea to just eat lunch at the Sanbra (which was painfully slow, but I had "beef macaroni", which was tasty and full of meat).
 Jasmine and Eric went home, though their tro-tro broke down on the way home, and they were stuck on the side of the road for about a half hour, and had to transfer tro-tros in pouring rain. Melinda and I visited the Internet café, then headed home. Just before bed, the electricity went out, leading to a restless night of uncomfortable heat.

Day 111 - Saturday (Written on Mon 27 Apr 2009 11:57:28 AM GMT)
The electricity's still out, and now water's out as well. I'm not sure whether I awoke to the heat, or the noise of Martins and Mahadev installing screen and wire mesh on the computer room windows. I got bored, unable to do my normal morning programming, so at 10:30 Melinda and I went to town. I bought a soldering iron, some solder (called "lead" here, though whether it contains lead or not is unknown), a pair of pliers, and a fan regulator. I plan to build a nice board to demonstrate the basic concept of voltage, in preparation for more in-depth technology education. I won't be around to see it, but hopefully it will be useful.
While we were in town, the power came back on, so I was able to do a bit of computer work through the afternoon. We (Jasmine, Melinda, and I) went out to eat a mid-afternoon snack of fufu (with light soup, which tasted not unlike thin gravy). We came back to find the water on again. Using my shiny new soldering iron, I repaired the cord on the Jasmine's fan, the core on the boys' TV (which had a stub an inch and a half long), and started on my voltage-education project by salvaging a few parts from various broken electrical items. A neighbor saw me doing electrical work, and I was recruited to fix a light switch. All that was wrong is that a few spiders had long ago made a home inside the switch mechanism, so it wasn't moving cleanly. A few careful pokes with the tip of a screwdriver cleaned it out, and it worked happily again. After returning home, I showered and wrote in my journal, then went to bed.

Day 112 - Sunday (Written on Mon 27 Apr 2009 09:25:25 PM GMT)
I woke up to the sound of Martins chiseling in the computer room. Two of the windows (whose size had changed during construction when the plans for the room changed) are about an inch shorter than the third window. That third window was the one measured for the window panes, so Martins is removing wood from the window frame to make the windows fit.
Jasmine finished LotR in the afternoon. I'll be able to read it whenever I want now.
As evening fell, rain did, too. We gathered as much water as we could, and cleaned the computer room floor again. It's getting pretty clean now, but still has some dust.
Inspired by how close the lab is to being finished, we moved four computers into the room (along the wall with the third window (which was finished today)), and installed Linux on them. One doesn't work, for unknown reasons. I'll deal with it later. Still, I'm quite happy with our progress.

Day 113 - Monday
I wrote postcards! To be perfectly frank, I think postcards are obsolete. I don't need to write a note on the back of a picture to tell my friends and family where I am and what I'm doing. This is the 21st century. I can just tell them and show them. It's altogether likely that this journal will reach my family before the postcards do. Regardless, Melinda took my postcards when she left with Madam Paulina. Carson (a previous volunteer) is helping to pay for Paulina's brother's education, so Melinda and Paulina went to the bank to pick up the transferred money. On her way back from the bank, Melinda sent the postcards I had finished. While she was gone, I showed Richard some of the differences between Linux and Windows. He commented that they were mostly the same.
Today was market day in Ejura again, but Melinda didn't feel like going, so we moved a few more computers into the computer room, and she started installing Linux on them. Jasmine and I were getting ready to leave for the market, when we discovered that Melinda's general discomfort all day was paired with a fever, apparently reminiscent of malaria. Jasmine went to the market, while Melinda and I went to the Ejura hospital.
The Ejura hospital was very much like the one in Kumasi, with all the many counters and associated waiting areas. However, it is much less crowded, since Ejura is so much smaller. We were able to get in and out in about an hour, though I'm rather bad at estimating time. The doctor prescribed standard-issue malaria treatment (though there was no blood test preformed), and we went home.
In the afternoon, Melinda felt better, so we ended up moving all the computers into their final placement, and installed Linux on four more. There's now seven computers that are in almost-perfect working order. They're still missing my "extra" customization, but they're ready for basic use.
We'll return to this journal after this short commercial break.
GCompris is awesome. Perhaps even more awesome than my little sister. Maybe not, but they're pretty close. GCompris is a program (for Linux) intended to be an educational tool for children ages 2 to 10. Unlike so many other such programs I've seen, GCompris actually meets its target. GCompris is actually lots of little programs, all connected by an easy-to-use interface. The house boys here, who've never used a computer before, have done things that I would never expect. There have been mice held backwards, buttons smashed, and keys held down. Even my grandmother had more experience (via typewriters) when she got her computer, than these boys have now. GCompris provides a nice starting point, allowing the development of basic skills like moving the mouse accurately. It is the single most useful piece of software on these computers.
We now return to your regularly scheduled journal.
After installing (interrupted by dinner), Melinda felt sick (again... it comes in waves), so we went to bed, more or less. By the time I got to our room after cleaning the computer room, I found Melinda covered in four layers, and still feeling cold because of her fever. I took a shower, and came back to find her partly uncovered, because she felt too hot. I wrote in my journal, during which she felt almost fine. At 11:00 PM, I finally went to sleep.