Another Update

Hello again,
It's been a while since I gave an update, so I figure I owe another one.

Here goes it.....the last couple weeks in pictures.... (I realize I take less and less pictures now that I am getting used to life here :) sorry, I'll try do better)

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I had a slight mishap..my laptop fell off my bed and the charger got jammed in and broke the piece, so it wouldn't charge anymore. So, Philip and I took it apart and tried our best to fix it. Much to our dismay, didn't work. So we took it to a place down the street, payed a little money, and had it back in a few hours working perfectly!! This is our fixing station, haha, kitchen table..

Philip looking perplexed. :)

So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, World Cup Frenzy is on. This is the colors of Ghana flag on this mans hat. They will sell anything that has a flag on it or the colors to make money. This was one of the bus drivers.

This is my patriotic part...

Philip bought me a Ghana Flag Bandana :)

Just in case you need to see what the flag looks like... here's my wrinkled bandana flag haha

This is Marium's little brothers. I don't remember if I told you before, but her family couldnt' look after her so she lives with Philip's family. Her mom and brothers came for a visit last week, and there definitely is a resemblence ;) little cuties.

The little one, named Mohammed (a Muslim family) hurt his finger and was upset, so Marium was tying him on her back. He was slightly too big for her :)

This next picture might surprise you at first glance, and I'm sorry it kinda looks funny...However, this is what it looks like.

This is FuFu. It is another food they eat. It is made out of Cassava and plantane pounded together into a paste pretty much and then made into these balls of dough. You then eat them with a sauce. This time, we had it with a peanut sauce, Yum! I dont' mind this food, it's good.

Here it is with some fish, and a piece of crab on top of it, in the peanut sauce.

Ok, this is quite a contrast from the last picture, but we went to "Frankie's" and it's a restaurant that has really good western food. We had been before, and they have highspeed wireless internet so we went to do some internet time and watched one of the World Cup matches there also. It was USA playing against England I think, and there was a table of probably 20 American Black's from Southern USA and they were very loud and proud :)

This is how you graze your cows, just bring them to to steets in town, there's nice green grass there :) haha. It's funny, and you often never see anyone there looking after them.

Coconut Milk anyone!?? Also in this picture, a very comfy place to have a nap - the hard wooden bench under the tree!!!

And, here's how you graze your goats...the same way as the cows! haha. Also in this picture is many many Ghana Flags for sale.

This is a little shop, right inside the tree. They are very ingenious here, save themselves putting up a shop when you can make use of what's there :)

Again, very patriotic Ghanaians! Flags everywhere, even on the hood of the car.

Anyone want to buy an emergency triangle to use when you're broken down. I have seen these for sale in lots of place and seen a lot of broken down vehicles and they are never seen together!! haha. Not sure who buys them or who uses them.

Flags for sale...Spot the Canadian Flag : ) : )

This is one of the swamp/rivers that flows through the center of town.

This is the Presidential Palace here. Quite a huge building.

Esther and Ami and I went to get a visa for me to go to Benin. We stopped in for "fried chicken n fries" at the mall. These girls enjoy the treat.

so do I :) Yummy Burger and fries

This is us waiting at the embassy for my visa to get processed. Ami enjoying her Sprite :)

Esther and I, the other chairs were full.

One "hot" day on the bus, I HAD to take a picture of this....I'm not sure you can notice, but the "mate" of the bus (the one who collects money and call's the people to join the bus as we pass by) was wearing there cute "rubber ducky" socks!! Can you imagine wearing SOCKS in a country that is 30 degrees or higher at all times!! haha.

Traffic in town. This is a very busy roundabout

We stopped in to visit Philip's cousin one day, and these little kids saw the "Aubruni" or "white person" and wanted to be my friend, so I snapped a few pictures :)

(notice the "football" game on in the background haha)

So, as I mentioned before, I got my visa to go visit Benin. I was going on Sunday after meeting, meeting up with the Sister workers at the Togo border, spending the night with them and then going on early Monday morning with them to Benin. Well, it was a extremely rainy night, and continued all day long, but we thought I could go anyways. Well, we got an hour out of the city (of a 4 1/2 hour trip) and we ran into a flood.

Both sides of traffic were covered in water at soem points. We started throught he water, that was probably 1.5-2 feet deep and the bus died...

Where we stopped, there was quite a "river" flowing over the road and a steep dropoff to the side. The driver got out and asked the men in the bus to get out and push us out of the water, because it was a dangerous place to be stopped. There was an area that wasn't flooded just ahead a bit.

pushing in the deep water

he is walking on what's supposed to be the median

terrential rains (not sure how to spell that one)

So the Moral of the story is that my bus stayed broken down, we were sitting there an hour, and nothing so I called Philip and he sent his cousin from Tema (the town we were near) to come in his truck and pick me up. He took me back through the deep water in his truck and then I caught a taxi from that town back into Accra, where I live. Eventfuly few hours then back in time for Gospel Meeting. Auntie Florence, the Sister, was also stuck in the flood on her way back from visiting some friends, and didn't make it back for the meeting either. You'd think with the amount of rain they get here in rainy season that the waterway's would be used to it or built up properly, but no.

So....I postponed my trip to Togo and Benin for a couple weeks. Hope the rains subside and the way is clear for me to go next month.

That's all for now. Not sure what else to share. I realize that there's not really an order to the pictures, but mixed up or not, they can probably tell what I've been up to better than words can..lol.

Thanks again to you all for your comments. Keep em coming :)

All for now,
Leah