Remove the Training Wheels

Hello from Ghana! Meg and I are sitting here thinking about what would be interesting to all of you. We came up with a couple of good stories. So buckle your seat belts... this is going to be a crazaayyyyy ride. Hereeee weee gooo: 1. We are teaching Comfort how to ride a bike. It could possibly be the funniest thing to watch- Seinfeld and Conon O'Brien have nothing on us. Because there are no paved roads or flat surfaces... it is quite the adventure. I don't think words can capture what occurs during each lesson... so once my computer gets fixed... we will upload some videos for your enjoyment. 2. Kwame, our good friend/tour guide, took us into Accra. He told us to wear walking shoes and bring h20, however, I don't own pillows for my feet which would have been the ONLY thing to keep me from getting blisters after the amount of walking we did (roughly 15 miles). Nor do I own a portable well to intake all of the water that was needed to keep me hydrated. Overall, it was still a very enjoyable day with all the sites that we saw and things we learned about the country we are living in. The monuments, museums, and statues were similar to Washington DC - minus the fact Ghana has only had 5 presidents and the fact that their military wears animal hides and carries spears to protect them from enemies. Okay, that is a slight exaggeration but possibly in some parts of the country this is true. Let's see... Kwame also took us to this Culture Center, which was a bunch of huts/shacks that sold really cool wood carvings, drums, art, fabrics, etc. Every vendor wanted us to come into their shop so we felt pretty darn popular... much to their surprise though we are 2 white people who have no money. Too bad. However, we made 2 new friends. Abu, who sold us wooden elephants and giraffes, named after the monkey in the Disney movie Aladdin and the Boss, a 90 year old man who taught us how to play these balls that have seeds in them called Kush-Kas. Also on our tour of Accra we went to a part of the city called Osu (thanks Mimi). Here I was able to find an external cd/dvd drive to fix my computer (or for Kwame to fix it because we know I can't fix anything), andddd ICE CREAMMM. Well, gelato to be more exact. But let me tell ya... BRING IT ON ITALY. This was THE BEST thing I have eaten in the past 17 days (yes it has already been that long). It was like heaven. I think the women who were working in the little shop thought we were crazy but we wanted to try every single flavor, and then we were making sounds that most human beings don't make while eating ice cream. After all of our walking, the hot weather, and the intense blisters on my foot- it was like I had died and gone to heaven. When it was time to leave, we did not want to go. We could have stayed there all day but it was exciting to trick the taxi driver. I convinced Kwame we should take a taxi to the next destination, and so he went outside to fetch a taxi, got the price, and then called us out. The taxi driver was so surprised and not very pleased because if he had known we were WHITE AS GHOSTS he could have charged us triple the price... MUAH-HA-HA-HA.

The next morning, I walked into the bathroom and SCREAMED. What was so scary you ask? A spider the size of Japan was on the wall. I ran, jumped on the bed, and hid under the covers while Megan grabbed her sandal and walked into the bathroom ready for battle. She insisted she would not miss... but much to her surprise that little arachnid was fast as lightning. However, if it was baseball she would not have struck out. It only took 2 tries to kill that little sucker (refer to picture to see the late Hair E. Spider).

We tried fufu for the first time... wayyyy too much work for the taste it has. You have to pound and pound plantains and cassava for hours with a giant wooden pistol into the mortar bowl thinger mabob. Also, if any of you were so fortunate to get one of the green shirts Megan and I sold for a fundraiser, we met the girl that is on the front of them, Jamillah. She mooned us during our first introduction... needless to say we are now best friends. Not only that, she bit Megan's butt... and plays an intense game of hide and seek. We are really looking forward to an entire year with this 3 year old.