tro-tro this tro-tro that...

Hey
soooo im writing this post from accra and am hoping to eventually set you up with some of the photos ive been taking! its just been hard trying to find a computer that has fast enough internet yet alone a usb connection!
life has been rolling along and ive started getting out and exploring the country a bit! they have these crazy taxi/buses you take called "trotros"...you pretty much flag down one thats yelling the direction you want, pay them the money and it can take an hour drive anywhere from 45min to 4 hours depending on how crazy and old your driver/bus is! awesome times
anyway the library is getting up we've officially got a roof up and we're hoping to start plasternig this week... although by the end of last week we were getting really frustrated in how the people in abor kept telling us how much they wanted it built but would never come through and offer any help... soooo long story short our friends malick and micheal took us on a road trip up north abuot 4 hours to a place called hohoe to see a monkey sanctuary and some waterfalls! very fun times :) very beautiful!! unfortunatly not enough water to kayak over but it was pretty high and potentially possible once the rainy season peaks up a bit more come august...! somehow what we were expecting to be an "overnight" trip turned into a three day adventure and teh "guest house" we were going to stay in turned out to be micheal's inlaw's older brother (a priest) house... oh and we got to eat this traditional dinner full of fish (heads,body and tails), hot peppers and tons of oil plus "fufu" (pounded plantain i think...looks kinda like mashed potatoes but reaks) that you use your right hand to dip in the sauce and eat with your hands (for all of you that know me i dont like fish so im not sure how i survived!) THEN to top that off we somehow were enrolled in the family's mourning of the mother in law the next day filled with us wearing traditional robes (that were HUGE and weighed a ton- julia looked a bit like mother earth- wait for the photos i LOVe this new blackmail material haha) and the BEST 3 hour church service in a hot ewe spoken church service... thoguht i was going to die! arggg ahhhhh BUT julia and alex helped me as we decided all the people on stage talking looked like they were out of a costume competition as all the dresses were very different (where the wild julgle lady and the pre colonial military man were my favourite!) somehow all this was made up though once micheal let me drive his car around town to drop off some fanta bottles and then a HUGE storm came that we drove home in (the water went up above the bottom of our dorrs at times and over the roof with splashs) then also getting a trunk load of fresh bananas from a lady who just picked them that were 1,000 cedis for 3 (about 10 cents) !!
then yesterday i was finally back in abor and called a friend of my mom's friend alex who lives in accra and is the head of CIDA. Turned out that that was the only day our schedules clashed to meet and have lunch so julia and i adentured the 2 (well thi time 3 1/2) hour ride into the capital city! ended up spending the night after we went and wandered a few markets and had some chinese food (theres lots here...crazy) then todaywe wandered out to the slums and saw these crazy coffins they build in teh shapes of everythign from a plane, to a fire truck to a holy bible to a coco bean. took a bunch of trotros, exchanged some money and are about to head back to abor after this!
hoping to plaster teh walls, get teh kids to empety teh plants and rocks out of teh building and get the existing library group/commity expanded to include some people otuside of the church elders (and hopefully interested and under 60 years old) !
i think we're probally headed around teh country on more trotros in about 10days to see the old slave castles in accra on the gold coast, then up to another moneky sanctuary and to see some elephants in teh north and to return on a ferry down the volta river....!
Hope you are all doing well!! email me updates id love to hear from you guys!!!
lots of love, talk soon
-ash xox