January 8. The Ultimate Blog Challenge.

I am having a slothful Sunday. We attended a bookclub meeting last evening. I was late in getting to bed. I was a little over stimulated with socializing and intellectualizing, a rarity in these times. I had to wind down with a little reading. It didn’t help as it was a crime novel. I had a little trouble getting to and staying asleep. I was still revved up in the morning. I gave in to my obsession of binge reading. I had to find out what happened. Now that I have finished reading The Firm, I have to tend to a bit of housekeeping and writing. Needless to say, my mind and brain are shot with no exciting or poetic thoughts to share. I’m a bit ‘wrecked’ I’m again relying on my memories from Ghana.

Halfway – March 19, 2011

I’m halfway through my holidays here in Africa.  And it is a real holiday.  I cannot remember the cold or the snow of Saskatchewan, the dark mornings or evenings of our winters, nor the trials and tribulations of work.  I am surprise to realize this morning that I feel no aches or pains at all.  From time to time I feel some minor irritations to my sinuses but that was mainly when we were in town when someone was burning garbage.  I am relieved to find that I can wear my contact lenses here.  It was a bit of a challenge at first.  But I learned to clean them with bottled water and to take them out in flash light without losing them, though I did drop one once.  And now, we have solar electricity.  I am enjoying the cheer of sunshine and learning to see by moonlight.  The ocean has its pluses and minuses.  Sometimes the surf is music to the ears, lulling one to sleep.  On hard to sleep nights, it sometimes a storm raging endlessly.  The humidity is wonderful for the skin and I don’t have to wonder about my hair having no body.  But…when you lick your lips, you taste the salt of the ocean.  Your mirrors and glasses are always fogging, needing wiping constantly.   The salt gets onto everything.

And as for food, it all depends….on what is available.  Living by the ocean, you would think that there would be an abundance of fish and other seafood.  But not so, because of overfishing from foreign sources.  When I first arrived and driving to Cape3Points, we bought some fresh coconuts from people on the roadside.  They do not look like the ones that I know in their brown husks.  These were green.  The boys selling them chopped the top off and we drank the milk.  Then we handed them back to them and they cut them open for us to scoop and eat the meat with the spoon made from the top of the coconut.  It was rather disconcerting for me to drink with faces hanging about me all the while.  I felt like I was taking too long and making them wait.  I am used to waiting on people and not the other way around!  I have not yet tried any of the local dishes.  Since my stomach is not great when I’m travelling, I am not very adventuresome.  For breakfast, it’ s usually eggs and toast.  We do quite a bit of pasta here at the lodge.  The beef is quite tough here but in kabobs, it’s good and a bit easier to chew.  I told Rod the next time we go to Takoradi, I will chop fufu with him.  It is a soup dish made of kasava and some other stuff…and goat meat.  They eat it with their fingers.  But I will ask for a spoon!:-)

Yesterday, we went to Takoradi to pick up Rod’s glasses.  I sort of had doubts about how well they would work.  The technician’s behavior and body language did not instil too much confidence in me.  And as I had advised about the frame…And to everyone’s relief, including the people at the optical shop, they worked wonderful.  They tested the glasses by whipping out a newspaper for him to read.  They included a nice case and 2 cloths and a bottle of cleaning solution.  So it teaches me not to judge a book by its country.