Almost July 1st!

I wish I was in Canada, only for tomorrow though. Roughrider season starts, NHL free agent frenzy starts (I think its the day for free agents in the NBA as well, with Lebron, Bosh, Wade and others it should be fun) and obviously its Canada Day. I definatly have to come to the internet tomorrow to catch up on everything, but with a 6 hour time change, yeah, their might not be to much to catch up on yet.

At the childrens home we have 2 new girls. The one showed up on Thursday and is less than 2 weeks old. And I went into the room today to see her, and she's multiplied, there is a new little one that I think looks younger than the first one. Their both really small and super cute though.

This week is the first one by myself at the childrens home, as Kate left for England on Monday morning. I wasn't really looking forward to it by myself. But its pretty good so far. The girls were all sitting on their potties when I got their this morning, and when they seen me, they all started giggling. It was awesome and makes it all worth it. Their is one girl who is about a year and a half old, but is really tiny and can't walk or sit up by herself. I actually had her laughing yesterday and today, I've only been able to do that one before. It was great.

I think the plan is to go to Cape Coast this weekend. Since the last time I went, yeah, I slept pretty much all day Saturday. Hopefully this one turns out better.

Not much else, I'll try to figure out if I can put up some videos on here at some point. I'll at least try for some pictures anyway.

Wow, its so pretty

Hey, check out the new design. I figured I'd change things around.

Nothing much here, I'm stickin around here for the weekend. It will be good after all the travelling I've been doing. I'll get to sleep in, ok, maybe till only 8:30.

Its was funny, the other night I was telling Beatrice, my host mom, about the weather in Canada, and how it gets to -30 and -40. She was suprised that we still go outside when its that cold. Then again, she was suprised when I told her the other day that we go outside when its 0 degrees outside.

I'm hoping the weather isn't that cold when I get back home. I think I might freeze if its 20 *C.

No pictures again, sorry, but I should be back here this weekend hopefully and will hopefully have some pictures.

Only 1 1/2 months left, wow, it will be weird to go back home. It feels like before I came here, I couldn't believe being in Ghana, Africa. I couldn't imagine it at all. Now I can't believe I'm half done, time really flies and I know I will miss this place lots.

Thats about it for now.

Hey

Just a couple of things I've seen while I've been here:

-Pittsburgh Penguins Jersey
-Anaheim Mighty Ducks Jersey (yeah, it was an older one)
-Steve Yzerman Detroit Red Wings Jersey
-Chris Chelio Chicago Blackhawks Jersey
-Hockey Hall of Fame Hat (I think)
-Several NBA jerseys (Jordan, Iverson, I'm not sure who else)

Don't hate me too much, as that's all I have for you right now, maybe more later this week.

Weekend on the Beach

So this weekend we went to Axim Beach, 2 hours away from Cape Coast. It was a relaxing weekend of not doing to much. We sat on the beach for lots of the weekend and watched some soccer. Yeah, that's right, I watched soccer. It was not to bad, but I don't think I can take to much of it. Ghana played Australia and tied 1-1, and they now sit at the top of their group.

I just realize I've been here for almost 1 1/2 months already. Wow, it has definatly flown by. Its weird, I miss home, but at the same time I don't want to leave. But I think I've figured out I couldn't live anywhere else but Saskatchewan. I definatly want to travel more, and even for a couple months like right now. But I don't think I could move anywhere else perminetly, I miss home to much.

At the same time as I miss home, its funny how quickly Kumasi has become like a second home. When I'm travelling for the weekend or even just out for the day, Kumasi and the house where I live is called home. When we came back from 4 day weekend last week to Mole, after the long day of travel, we arrived in Kumasi, and I could tell without looking at the signs that we were back in Kumasi. It just feels comfortable, and I can tell I'm definatly going to miss it.

Not much else right now, my camera battery died while uploading pictures/videos. I'll eventually get some up of the elephants in Mole and the other stuff, I promise.

Mole National Park

Rider Pride in front of some baboonsOne of the Elephants we seen

One of the Monkeys that stole some food

The view from sitting in the Restaurant

In front of the oldest Mosque in Ghana, and one of the oldest in West Africa.


So from the pictures you can tell we went to Mole National Park this weekend and seen alot of wildlife. It was a great trip. We had monkeys, baboons, and warthogs around our hotel. We went on a canoe safari, and a jeep safari and on the jeep safari we seen about 10 elephants, it was awesome, because you hear stories about people who go up to Mole for a week and don't see any elephants.

While we were at the hotel, there were monkeys that jump up on the tables and steal some of the food you have. After we seen a few monkeys, a baboon came. They are bigger than monkeys and alot scarier. And their not that scared of obrunies, so they'll come and steal anything just to see what it is.

The first night we were their we slept in tents, on a wooden platform. There were 2 to a tent, and after we went to bed, Fiona, who was in my tent, decided to go to the dorm, where one of the other volunteers was sleeping. So I was left to get back to sleep, in a tent, outside in the middle of knowhere in the African wilderness. I did get some sleep that night. I could here animals walking around, and eating right beside my tent all night.

We went on a canoe safari the first night we were their, and didn't see anything, but it was still pretty cool. In the morning we went on the jeep safari where we seen the elephants. It was 2 different times, the first time there was about 5, and 4 of them ran off, but one stayed around for a little bit. The second time they were in the watering hole we walked to.

We swam in the pool at the hotel for most of the afternoon. I only got a little bit burnt. During the afternoon, it was the Ghana vs. Serbia match at the World Cup and Ghana won 1-0, I didn't really watch it, but you could tell what was happening based on the huge crowd watching the match.

We left on the Monday at 4 o'clock in the morning and took a 4 hour bus ride to Tamale. Then waited a while and took a 8 hour bus ride back to Kumasi. It was a long day and we didn't get back until 8 o'clock that night.

One of the bus companies that we took to Tamale and back is called STC. Half way around the world, and I take an STC bus on the weekend. I found that hilarious.

I did have more stuff to write about, but my time is almost up on here. And I have a lot of videos, but it wouldn't let me post them for some reason. I may be here tomorrow, hopefully with the videos, I'm not 100% sure yet.

Just a Quick Update

Hey all, just a quick note, I'm headed out to Mole National Park tomorrow morning and not coming back until Monday. Hopefully we'll see some elephants or something good.

We went to one of the schools today, one of the volunteers teaches there and is leaving on Monday, so she had her kids put on a little play with singing and dancing. It was great, then after, we all got up and danced a bit, there were so many kids, it was crazy. I may post the video later.

Thats it for now. Hopefully have some good pictures next week when I come back from Mole.

At the Lake

This weekend we went to Lake Bosomtwe, a 45 minute tro-tro ride from Kumasi, Well we left Friday after work and came back Saturday afternoon. As you can tell from the pictures, it is really beautiful. We didn't go swimming, but walked into the water for a second and it was really warm.

Ya, that was the spider that was on the bed in the other room at the guest house. When we first got into the rooms, the other 2 volunteers were in a different house than Fiona and I. We had just got into our room and we heard a noise from the other house, so we ran over and seen a huge spider on the wall. After some discussion we got the guy who works at the guest house and he brought 2 other guys with him, they weren't really needed. He eventually just chased the spider out of the room. So Fiona and I just went back to our room, we weren't there for very long when we heard more noise, so we ran back over and they had another spider on their bed. We didn't know what to do with it, so we tried to kill it but missed and in ran away. We had to look for it because it ran under the bed, it took probably 5-10 minutes to find it again. The only way to reach it this time was with a coat hanger, so I tried to hit it again, and it ran away again, it took a long time to find it again. We had to move the bed out from against the wall, as we did, Fiona didn't know we were moving it and she screamed, then the rest of us screamed because we thought she seen the spider, but she didn't.

We eventually found it and decided to call in the other guys again, they came and actually killed it, after a small chase to the other side of the room.

So we went back to bed, and after a quick sweep of the room for spiders, we went to sleep. At about 5 o'clock in the morning Fiona and I woke up to a loud screeching sound coming from above us. It kept going on, so we jumped out of bed and turned on the light, but it had already left. I think it must have been a bat because the guy from the guest house said he's had to chase some out of the rooms before. And their's nothing else I know of the makes that kind of screeching sound. It sounded like it was trying to get up through the roof. Needless to say, we didn't go back to sleep that night, which made for a really long day.

Pictures

Here are some pictures of some of the kids I work with. (3 different kids)

Nothing much new here. It rained for a while last night, but the power never actually went out, which is lucky. I watched the Ghana Black Stars (soccer/football national team) play Holland in an international friendly game before the World Cup last night. Holland won 4-1. And I forgot how boring soccer really is to watch.

Thats really all I have right now, sorry about the short entry, but I added the pictures to make you all happy. I'm not sure when I'll get here again, it might not be til Sunday.