Thursday, October 2, 2008

Photographs Aplenty (including partial nudity)

The Canopy walk at Kakum in Ghana... the only animal I saw was a stinkin butterfly. But the view over the forest was spectacular, and the guide told us a bunch of cool uses of all the different kinds of trees, like which ones elephants use to scratch their backs (I think it's the ebony tree with its rough thorny bark), and which roots to cut to magically kill your enemies...

My jewfro was making the most of the the salty air. This is next to the Cape Coast Castle, a slave export center almost as beautiful physically as it is sickening ethically.
Fourth of July welcoming posse awaiting the new trainees at the airport. We had a few drinks on the ambassador and provided a raucus reception for the travel-dazed newbies....and yes, I am wearing floral-embroidered pink linen--you got a problem with that?

This is an open-air buvette called Bon Pasteur, amusingly named after the church next door. They blast popular Ivoirian music and the DJ chatters incessantly about the clientelle, singing and carrying on. Once he saluted me as I arrived, saying Blache Niege est arrive...(Snow White is here). It was only the next day that I realized what he had called me...These kids did some insane acrobatics, and something tells me they figured their moves out on their own, no clown schools here...The blond head is attached to the rest of my friend Aaron, who often accompanies me in some of my more interesting adventures.


This one speaks for itself...Their are so many beautiful people here-little people and big people alike...
My school--the kids turn the grass with hoes every wednesday afternoon. The big trees are Mango trees.
The one paved road in my village which is actually kind of a highway that goes all the way north. The bush taxi loaded with an impressive cargo is par for the course. My friend likes to tell me I have turned a truckstop into a quaint village, his way of saying "your village kind of sucks but you're too dumb to notice." Well, I think my village is great, and if he has a problem with that, he can stay in his own little mud-road village...
It's lovely how the uniforms match the walls, isn't it?
I promise even more pictures soon, maybe even video if the connection is fast enough...Oh, sorry, I lied about the nudity.