December Holiday to Ghana and "current" events

Drafted on 28 January, but updated 28 February while "watching" the USA Canada Gold Medal Hockey game on ESPN.com. It is overtime as I type... Great goal Zach!




Of the past six weeks, we've been without power for almost two weeks. My roommate went down and had the Liberians measure out the latest fuel shipment and did we find a bombshell - we were being shorted between 200-300 gallons of fuel ... every two weeks ... for over two years. Upwards of 24,000 USD of corruption! No wonder we've been running out of fuel at the end of every shipment period. People insisted the storage container here could hold 1000 gallons even though I could prove it could hold 650-700 gallons maximum with math. Goes to show you math geeks get no respect over here.

The power outage was so ironic as one of the teacher trainers on campus had finished an in-service on laptops, external hard drives, LCD projectors, mp3 players, cameras and video cameras - all donated by USAID. He (along with my help) will be "capacity building" with the remaining teacher trainers on campus so they can use technology to enhance and suppliment their lessons. Too bad there was no current to charge or run these things for TEN DAYS! Lots of reading and cards by candle, excellent stargazing in the wee hours of the morning when the moon has set and lots of silence.

Sad to see the Queens did so well this year and to fall on their faces in the NFC Championship game. No team has ever out-gained their opponent by that much yardage and lost - by well over 200 yards. At least they won't have a chance to go 0-5 in Super Bowls. Could not believe how many late hits Brett Favre took. But did get to see the first half of the Super Bowl when I was up in Voinjama until the power went out at the beginning of the second half. Did get the update. Either NO played well in the 4th quarter or the Colts stunk it up. Yet another year of dreaming of the Vikings as Super Bowl Champions.

The Ghana Trip Highlights:
Eating sausage on a stick, crepes, meat pies from street vendors. Ghanan taxi drivers trying to rip you off. Seeing actual petrol stations and not buying fuel in a glass container. Body surfing in ocean, touring Cape Coast slave castle, battling giardia the entire trip, traveling on roads where you are able to go faster than 20mph, sunbleaching my hair, meeting other PCVs, speaking French again & having a 10-15 minute conversation with a gal au francais - and she understood me to my total amazement, making sand castles, eating an entire pizza on our last day in Ghana and, of course, more meat on a stick.

Go Team USA! Beat those Canucks!