Excuses

Well... I've been lousy at posting anything substantial on this blog. I won't be writing a descent post today either. I'm sorry but its just been really hard finding time to sit down and write something. I thought communication might actually be easy after about a week in country when we went on our "Vision Quest" which despite its name is not a hallucinogen inspired bout under a warm blanket, but rather a four day visit to another volunteer's site (I was only a little disspaointed). The volunteer we visited (I traveled with another trainee) was down in the southeastern tip of the country, in the Volta region. He had a tree planting project well underway that was no doubt the result of his good relationship with his counterpart and the rest of the community. Myself and the other trainee, we'll call him Leroy because I'm not sure if he's ok with me using his name, shared a mat on the floor for the four nights we were there (for those of you wondering, Ghana's warm enough that we weren't ever tempted to spoon). Our host volunteer, who for the record was a really cool guy, lead us around the area on bikes during the day either to his farm or into a neighboring town which had a market. More stuff happened that was fun.... any way the point is he had internet and great cell service at his site -so I thought, maybe I won't have to worry about talking to people back home that much.... but then we started traveling.
After Site visit Leroy and I caught a "tro-tro" to Accra and then another to Koforidua and then finally Kukurantumi (be sure to tune into to next week's episode: Travelin by Tro or 'how in the world did you get that bruise?'). At Kukurantumi we spent several nights at a hotel and hung out with all the other trainees and attended sessions. It was good... but there weren't many opportunities to talk with you all and I didn't know what to say....
Then we went to our host communities, mine is in a town called Ado Nkwanta that is about an hour by taxi away from Kukurantumi. Its here that we spend our mornings learning language in a church and play football in the evenings with children (yesterday I finally whipped out the boomerang -there was much excitement). I'm staying with a family in a compound right in the middle of town. my room is tucked in the corner, facing our courtyard. Its mostly women in the house -a great-grandmother and four daughters and their children. The women in my house are especially beautiful by any standards which makes refusing marriage proposals all the more difficult. By the way if you ever feel want to feel famous, please don't pursue a career as a rock-musician, just buy a ticket to West Africa. I've made some really great friends at homestay and I'm on the verge of adopting four-to-five of the children (Mom, please make room in the basement for when I come back). ... but that's besides the point- at Ado Nkwanta I'm lucky if I can get cell service and there are no cafes around so any communication has been difficult.
And as you know a week ago I was traveling all over Ghana for environment training. More details on that later... but seriously I'm running out of time so...

One of my colleagues today brought up a good point: it's really difficult to know what people back home think is funny/interesting. Events and mannerisms that I used to think were absurd are perfectly normal now... even after only two months. Its the little things that still make me laugh the hardest, like waking up to a group of kids staring over me making snoring noises or the fact that vultures have a strange affinity for bank buildings or the sound a young goat makes just before he's castrated (ok the goat thing was horrifying--- but still pretty funny). And the most interesting/funny stuff is only really that interesting if you're here... so I guess you should all come and visit (author's note: this is not an invitation to 'internet stalkers').
Missing you all plenty, and there's plenty you're missing.

Jon