Unphotographable

I would like to introduce everyone to my new friend I made last night. Dinah and I were walking through the neighborhood to our house, when we came upon this guy walking down the street, and grazing. Keep in mind that this is a residential neighborhood (note the house in the background). Dinah laughed at my shock and told me that the real shock comes when you are walking around after dark and bump into one.

I was recently inspired by my friend Scott's site, as I often am. He has the most amazing links, and one of them is to a site called Unphotographable. It is a website devoted to verbal accounts of photographs missed. In the short time I have been here, I have missed many photos, and I am sure I will miss many more. You simply cannnot live your life through a camera lens. So, I find this idea nothing short of brilliant.

This is a picture I did not take of a boy, about eight years old, bathing only ten feet away from a busy street. He was covered in soap suds, stark naked, and standing in a small, metal tub. Part of me was pleased to see that no one has ever told this boy to be ashamed of his body. Another part was grieved to see that he had nowhere else to bathe.

Adoration

I have been offered a Guinness numerous times since arriving in Ghana. The most interesting was one day at the Parliament House when I almost passed out. I asked to sit down and for some water, the man asked if I wanted a "malta" - I kindly said no and asked again for water.

The second most interesting was today. I went to a baby adoration, which is where tons of people gather to see a newborn baby. The first thing that happened to me was a woman tried to thrust another Guinness into my hands. I asked her if I could have a coke instead. I figured it would be best not to have my first attempt at alcohol when trying to see a baby.

The music was so loud it hurt my ears. They fed us - my first Ghanaian meal at someone else's house. One of the girls I lived with traded me plates because she said what they gave her wasn't spicy at all. The "not spicy at all" plate had rice with a huge lump of pepper on the top. I ate around the pepper, and it was still so hot that my tongue burned the whole two hours we were there. All I can say is thank You Jesus that Seth doesn't like pepper.

The parents, who I had never met before, ever, asked me to come and take a picture with them and the baby. I am pretty sure they wanted my picture because I was the only "obroni" (white person) there. But, that meant that I got to hold him. He is beautiful. His name is Jeff Joseph Tete Asine. I am certain I butchered that spelling horribly. I wish I had brought my camera.

Where the air smells like chocolate...

Welcome to Ghana.

Last night I decided to head to my room for the night. I got there, went to open my luggage, and realized that you can't open luggage that is tied shut with plastic ties when your pocket knife is in your luggage. I roamed around the darkened house looking for assistance for about 10 minutes before resigning myself to defeat and going to bed in dirty clothes. I suppose I didn't even need the airline to lose my luggage for me...

In other news, my body is reinforcing the existence of jet lag.

Roasted plantains are absolutely wonderful.
Ghanaian chocolate is not.

The chocolate tastes like the air smells. For those of you who have not smelled the air in Accra, it is not too wretched, but certainly not fragrant. I think, though, that the situation sounds a little more lovely when I say that the air smells like chocolate.

Home?

Clovis.
I have torn nostalgia off of the walls . cleaned out the overabundance of my past . eaten at Taco Box numerous times . seen the few people I still know and enjoy there . realized how few people I still know there . walked down Wilshire . gone to Wal-Mart out of sheer boredom . seen how much things have changed . seen how much things are still the same . . .

And it will be a long time before I go "home" again.

Will Tulsa still feel like "home" when I get back from Ghana?