Back on the Continent

Well, surprisingly four weeks flew by, and here I am back in Ghana... oddly enough it kind of feels like I didn't really ever leave, but the massive stash of food I've accummulated in the kitchen says otherwise.

The flight itself was rather uneventful. Although I must say it was the noisiest plane ride I have ever experienced, and no one, I mean NO ONE listened to the flight attendants! People were up in the aisles practically before we landed, and trying to take out their luggage from the overhead compartments. Classic. On a better note, among the multitude of languages, the announcements were also done in Twi which was received extremely enthusiatically by virtually everyone on the plane.

While in flight, it occurred to us that it might be our night for no power (which in our case also means no water). That would be a really awesome "Welcome Back to Ghana" now wouldn't it? So, fingers crossed, we picked up some food, tried to ignore our rather aggressive taxi driver (who turned out to be not that bad in the end) and headed home.

Luckily we found our lights on, and aside from a distinctly musty smell which characterizes the place... things were looking good.

Of course then we realized the water was not working. To understand the extent of this obstacle, you have to remember that we had both just been flying for hours, so showering was sort of an imperative. You also have to remember that no water = no toliet. Right, now that you fully get the implications of no water, you can understand we were a bit put off. But I think we handled it well, accepting that it was in fact Ghana, and therefore to be expected... plus after watching Grey's (on my laptop) and polishing off some yummy Indian food, we were pretty darn content.

In other news, my trip to immigration to renew my visa went rather smoothly. This was a pleasant surpise as the last time Shanika got threatened by the officer who called her "small face" and said she was going to "beat her small face." Needless to say, if it had been with anyone other than Shanika it might have been offputting, but we found it hilarious and still can't stop laughing about the whole thing.

True to Ghanaian form, our morning taxi driver told me he loved me and wanted to marry me. It was so hilarious and typical that I just kept telling him no thanks, I needed to go back to my family... to which he replied he would come too... right... anyway after a few minutes and Lindsay's help, we established that I was in fact married, so him moving to Canada was probably pointless. I realized it'd been awhile, as the whole marriage lie felt SO odd!

Last thing of note happened yesterday when we were sitting in Sunshine Cafe, eating sandwiches. A few of us are planning to go to East Africa at the end of March so Lindsay brought the Lonely Planet guide with her so we could start doing a bit of research. Anyway, the long and the short of the story is that we asked for a big, sharp knife to chop/carve the book up into sections so we could both look at it. It really doesn't need any further explanations, but it was absolutely hilarious, and the staff must have thought we were absolutely insane. One person's insane is another's efficient I guess.