The Past Week (other than Independence Day)...

So what else has been going on in life? Well, Saturday night there was a lunar eclipse. I'm pretty sure I've seen a lunar eclipse before, but I don't recall a particular time. A bunch of us laid out in the courtyard and watched the moon slowly (I mean slooooowly) turn from a crescent to a red spot in the sky. I wonder what people must have thought was happening before people knew that it was simply the earth's shadow on the moon.

The other day I went for a really long walk (about 5 hours actually) all around Accra. I realized that I've done so little exploring in Accra on foot. I started by just walking around Ring Road, and then going into a neighborhood which I think is called Asylum Down. I'm relieved to say that the sidewalk situation is not as bad as I made it seem before. There's a sidewalk on all of Ring Road, which is a large road that starts at two points on the ocean and makes a big curve. Within Ring Road is Accra. Labone, where I live, is just outside of Ring Road (it's only a 6 or 7 minute walk from there, though). Within Asylum Down, there are sidewalks in most places as well. This is also true of a few other neighborhoods and major roads that I encountered. As a side note, one thing you learn quickly living in a developing country is that some neighborhoods are really nice. With the exception of the open sewage, my neighborhood could very well be in a developed country. (I hate using the terms "developed" and "underdeveloped," but by using them people know what I mean).

After walking through pleasantness for quite a while (and seeing a few really awesome churches), I reached railroad tracks (though there are no trains), and I thought that maybe I wasn't so sure where I was anymore. It was getting late, and I didn't want to wander too far without knowing where I was going. I walked a little further, and then came to a bridge. Does the bridge go over a river? No. The bridge goes over a sewage and trash river! This was really big. It's big enough to be a river, or at least a very large stream, but no, it's sewage. And trash. I walked on the dirt path next to the sewage (which I'll never do again, but I wanted to explore). What's funny is that there were more people in this little area than there usually are. Crazy, no? There were lots of car repair shops and farm animals. It was pretty fascinating. The stench and the sight of that river of poop and industrial waste was a little hard to handle though. So finally I got away from there and ended up back on one of the roads I had been on over an hour ago. Amazing how fast one can go from sewage and farm animals to a modern main street of commerce.

The rest of my walk was still exploring, but exploring with the intent to get home. I walked for a long time, just walking, asking people, "What's the fastest way to get to Labone?" at several different points. Most people told me to just take a cab, but I had only brought 2,000 cedis with me on my trip and I ended up giving them to a Liberian refugee who needed money to get to the refugee camp a few hours away. Plus, I like walking. Cars are stupid. I finally reached an intersection where I saw a sign that pointed down the road and said, "Osu." Score. So I walked through Osu again, discovering that it's actually bigger than I thought. Or maybe I was just really tired. What's kind of ironic about the whole thing is that I ended up just going to an ATM in Osu and taking a cab home. I was pretty worn out. Five hours is a long walk (not as long as two months, but still...).

That walk was really awesome. I did some really good thinking and singing (I've had many Ghanains tell me as I'm going down the street, "You have such a beautiful voice," or my favorite, "Your voice has blessed Ghana"... not to brag or anything), and I have a much better orientation about the city now. It turns out that in bad traffic, I might actually be better off walking some places than taking a cab. I went for another walk on Sunday morning, only two hours this time. I stuck entirely to the Cantonments area (which includes Labone). The Cantonments are basically rich Accra. Lots of business people, ex-patriates, and obrunis. Because of this, the neighborhood really isn't Ghana. However, it is kind of beautiful and hardly anyone just walks around the streets. It's sort of like suburbia African style.

Other than that, I have only two things of interest to note. One, I've recently seen two of the best names for a business EVER:

Ice Cream Face Business Solutions
Sad Shoes

And I would also like to announce that Friday I'm going with Tania and Rachel to Togo and Benin for spring break. It'll be a good 7-9 days of travelling around both countries. They're both really small. Together they are still smaller than Ghana (which is about the size of Oregon). So I'll have a lot to write about after that trip. Hope you are as excited as I am!

Oh, I forgot one more thing. Wednesday I fasted for no reason other than curiosity. It was pretty cool.