Living Rugged, Creepy Critters, and My Plan for the Week

I had the worst dream last night. I dreamed that it was my fifth birthday but everyone had forgotten about it, so I threw a tantrum. Margo led me outside to where she and David were sitting. Suddenly I was all grown up in the dream, and Margo explained that we were moving to Ghana to live in Asuansi because my dad has cancer and he wants to die there. I woke up when she said that. Isn't that an awful dream?

I really want to talk to my family but the power has been off for the last four days so every electronic is dead. I'm posting this from an internet cafe in Cape Coast. It's been a struggle to deal without my phone, laptop, iPod, camera, or Kindle but also makes me realize how much we depend on electronics. All of us kids had Sunday off to relax but there was lightening and rain outside, and being indoors without electronics, we didn't really even know what to do. We read books and played card games and took a nap. I made pudding for everyone with some instant milk we found in the pantry. It may have been the first time I've been bored in two years, and I actually kind of enjoyed being bored. What a novel feeling haha.

Today I had an appointment with the Minister of Girls' Education at 9am, so I woke up early for it, but when I got there, it turns out she wasn't in. I went up to the Statistics Office and got lots of great statistics on education, so that was helpful. Their statistics are kind of funky though -- like they don't even really know how many people live in the district. I guess with so many people living in mud huts, in the jungle, eating what they grow and not going into town often, it may be hard to get an accurate population count. That and the crazy numbers of babies born every year. Seriously, like families are enormous here. There are babies running around everywhere you look. Sooo cute. So anyway, after I talked to the Statistics office, I stayed around waiting for the Minister of Girls' Education and waited for Lorenzo to finish with his meeting. The Minister never showed up so we left. Now I'm in Cape Coast to print out my surveys, photocopy them, and exchange money (and update my blog :).

We had the best food for dinner last night -- spicy beans and plantains. Then this morning we ate mango, pineapple, oatmeal, and fried plantains. I'm getting used to the food here and really actually enjoying it. Especially the fresh fruit. Nothing compares to the mangos and pineapples. We are all starting to crave home food though too. My small supply of peanut butter M&Ms from home are in hot demand -- Lorenzo offered to trade his snickers he bought today for 3 peanut butter M& Ms. We also all want coffee (especially me...Starbucks sounds so nice) and some of the boys want steak. For Liz's birthday Saturday, the girls all brought out their secret stash of chocolate from home and we had a chocolate party trying each others' different types of chocolate. The winner (according to me) was a salted toffee milk chocolate bar. Mm. They sell milk chocolate here but it's different, it's powdery and dry, with much less milk, so that it won't melt in the heat. Not the best.

I saw the biggest spider of my life yesterday. It was a solid three inches long and thick too, not a spindly Daddy-Long-Leg. It only had six legs which was weird. The boys wanted to leave it on the wall to catch mosquitos, but I said there was no way I'm sharing a house with that monster. We currently have a smaller spider living with us, only about two inches long, that rests of the handrail so it's pretty startling when you realize all of the sudden it's right next to your hand (eekk!). Also on the critter trail --- we've had a large lizard living in one of our toilets for a few days now. We were hoping that it would go away on it's own, so we didn't have to kill it, but it didn't. Isabel, who grew up in the Amazon in Colombia, was horrorified that we wanted to pour water on it to push it down the pipes, so she grabbed a plastic bag and scooped it into it, then released it outside. What a bad-ass. Other than that the critters are okay. Everyone's bed bug bites are healing and we've left our clothes outside in the sun to kill any eggs that may be in them. Wow this is a disgusting post, sorry. Let's talk about something else.

This week will be super busy. Tomorrow I am visiting two schools to do surveys, hopefully. I go to the schools with two British people, Matt and Cyndel, but I guess Cyndel got malaria over the weekend so I'm not sure if we will make it to the school tomorrow. Hopefully we can. I compiled all my data so far and am excited to do more. I wish I had brought my statistics book though because I'm not sure what statistics tests to run, and since I don't have SPSS or any stats programming on my laptop, I'll have to do everything by hand. Whew! It will be fun. Wednesday I am working on my essay in the morning, and visiting the primary school in the afternoon. After doing a bit of research, I plan to just play with the babies with Comfort, a nice woman I met in the Tro Tro. She runs the nursery at the school and said that I can come help out for a couple of hours Wednesday, which would be really fun. Thursday I am either going to more schools with Matt and Cyndel, or traveling to the Volta region. I really want to visit the FAWE compound, which is one of the premiere NGOs working on female education. Since it's on the way to the Volta region, I'm hoping that I can make a stop there, even if I have to go on my own for a day or so. It would be really cool. Then this weekend we are going to visit the waterfalls near Hohoe, which are supposed to be legendary. It's an all-day hike through the jungle, but at the end you can swim in the clean pools and splashing near the waterfalls. I can't wait.

That's it for now. I'm off to lunch at my favorite vegetarian place (Baboa House) in Cape Coast for a veggie pizza..mm :) More later