A day in the life

Get up to the rooster, around 4:30 and well before the sunrise to put in earplugs

Sleep till 6:30

Get up, put on pot of water to heat for shower (if the power is on)

I sort-of have my kitchen set up

Get water for bucket shower, which is totally fine unless I need to wash my hair. It takes 3 times more water to wash my hair of shampoo than to was all the rest of me. I am really tempted to get some terrible white-lady braids or just cut it all off. It is so hot here, I am never going to wear my hair down.

Shower, dress, eat breakfast. I am totally hooked on the loaf of semi-sweet bread, peanut butter and banana. I made some great french toast this morning.

They are amazing, bag-tie artists to make almost like Seran wrap

Take malaia pills, drink lots of water, pack up my school bag (hopefully not filled with ants: lesson learned, never keep a clif bar wrapper in your purse, you will have an ant colony in there the next day)

Walk to school and do whatever I am supposed to do, which at this lots of random administrative tasks getting ready for school and being a liaison between the US NGO an the school. Next week I will have classes Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Girls Club Wednesday and Friday.

This is where I am right now, the fastest internet cafe in the area. There is a rumor we will get a cafe in my little town.

Finish school – try to get cell phone reception on the roof of one of the campus buildings, maybe not. Get taxi to Kpandu, grab a beer at my new favorite chop stop, buy some bread and eggs, buy some credits for my phone, try to find whatever random thing I need, like light bulbs, colander or sponges.

My first dinner at my house, pasta, eggplant, tomato, onion and garlic.

Back home to try to cook something that resembles a dinner, if there is electricity. Electricity is definitely spotty and seems most common to go out right around dinner time. I think I will cook dinner as early as possible if power is on, and reheat when I am hungry rather than wait till dinner time and risk eating nuts and bread for dinner. Without a refrigerator right now long-term leftovers are not really an option. Due to a miscommunication with the market woman, I bought about 6 pounds instead of 6 individual eggplants, and although they all just cost about 50cents, if anyone has some simple recipes or ideas I am all ears!

If the power is not on, hang out on my patio, watch the chickens and the senior rooster put the little rooster in their place, read a book, write some random things for the blog like this, sew some curtains, whatever can be done.

Now just some pics.  This is my town!

The bar in Kpandu I have been to a few times. More of a counter with seats outside. The bars are more like little rooms, usually dark and mostly men although on the weekend for funeral you see more women outside having a beer.

Some kids posing when they saw I had a camera.

Vogue!

There are two main roads in Torkor, this is the dirt one. And this is the first female I have seen on a bike here.

There are lots of hair dressing shops, three on this street alone. All the ones for men sport signs with clip art of American rappers and their hair/beard styles.

View of fishing boats over Lake Volta, on which my town sits. The whole market area is by the coast and tons of people setting dried fish.

Football after school. When I asked, the Chelsea team was winning.