I do not have malaria

Just to clarify, since I've been getting a lot of e-mails lately about this, I do not have malaria. The doctors checked my blood when I first had a fever, muscle aches, weakness, and exhaustion and there were no malaria parasites. They declared I had malaria anyway ("it just hasn't shown up yet") and treated me as if I had malaria. A few days later I was back to my old self. I went and had my blood checked again a week after I had it checked the first time - still no malaria parasites. I do not have malaria. Maybe I never did. Who knows. But the doctor told me that I will be able to give blood later in life (I think that there's an automatic wait period of a few months for anyone who has just returned from Africa) and that when I go to America I will not have malaria hanging over my head, waiting to pop up and manifest itself at any ol' time it feels like it. At least as long as I manage to not get malaria in the next two months...

We are back in Kumasi for a day before we head to Cape Coast.

This past week we went to Mole (pron: molay, for the non-linguist and exactly mole for the linguist) National Park. We got there Sunday, went swimming in a real pool (that involved some "chicken fighting"), ate dinner, and then went to bed to get up early the next morning for our trek through the park. Our guide was quiet and carried a tranquilizer gun. I wish that he had been more informative about the things we saw - but he basically just walked in front of us and told us that if we talked too much we would scare the elephants. We finally saw a water buck, an elephant, a bunch of monkeys, baboons, warthogs, birds, and bugs. There were way more rocks, including a lot of volcanic rock, in the north than in the other places we'd been. Our guide was not very interpretive (unlike Dr/Grandpa/Ranger Bob, as my Death Valley 2009 crew remembers), but I had fun!

Yesterday we went to Paga, which is in the north on the border with Burkina Faso. We saw Burkina Faso from our bus! It wasn't that exciting. We also got to pet live crocodiles at the crocodile pond. That was bizarre. One of them was supposedly over 80 years old. We were on the road driving for probably about 7 hours and only spent about an hour or so in Paga, but I think it was worth it. We saw some traditional painted mud houses, too, and I got to climb on top of a couple (they take naps up there to keep cool and get fresh air) and go inside of them, too. Other than the spider-friendly ceilings, I wouldn't mind living in one, I think. Although I'm starting to realize how wonderful running water really is.

Speaking of running water, we stopped at Kintampo Falls today on our way to Kumasi. I got to stand underneath the waterfall and look up at it pouring down over the rocks in all of its muddy glory. It was a little bit frightening seeing that much water threatening to land on my head and wash me away, but I survived.

We get a little food stipend when we go on trips away from our hotel (where we get fed normally). We can either spend it at a restaurant, which will cost anywhere from 3-10 cedis, or we can just go to a street vendor and get some delicious beans with hot pepper, onions, cassava flour, and yam chips (kind of like fried slabs/wedges of potatoes) for about 50 pesewas (0.50 cedis). You can also splurge and buy a soda or a Malta (non-alcoholic malt beverage with vitamins) for a cedi or less. It can be hard to find stews and sauces with no meat, but as long as there are those street vendors with rice, plantains, yams, beans, etc. it's really not at all difficult to be a vegetarian in Ghana. Most of our group is, actually. And there are stands of fresh fruit all over! You can get papayas, pineapples, oranges (which are green), bananas (some of which are some completely bizarre species), coconuts (hard ones like what we're used to or soft ones with more juice), watermelon (so sweet! they're a different color on the outside, though), and apples (which we are told not to eat since they don't have a thick protective outer coating) for really cheap. They're all fresh and ripe and delicious, and the vendor will chop it up for you right there. Megan (Colorado) bought a bunch of seven bananas for 20 pesewas today out of the side of the bus.

Oh, yeah - anything you could ever possibly want (except fast internet and fast computers, which exist NOWHERE) is available at your window when you ride in a bus or a tro-tro, usually. People carry unbelievable loads on their heads and conveniently arrive at your window, calling out in a nasal-y voice (that would be interesting to study) their wares: ice watah! plantains! oranges! pens! etc.

I bought two smocks. They're the kind that girls can wear, too, so I wore one to Paga yesterday. There was a guy named Achala with a woven, slightly conical hat who had one on, too (he showed us the mud-building village and taught me how to say thank you in Kasem, one of the languages spoken in that area). He got really excited when he saw me wearing it. Megan (New Orleans) got a really colorful one that she's wearing today. They're woven and thick, but baggy/breezy and really comfy.

Oi, it just started raining outside. At least the rain is warm here! Everything is warm. The cold bucket showers really aren't bad at all. Washing clothes by hand is. My knuckles still haven't adjusted and are red and raw again. Some day I will be a true Ghanaian and have hands of rock! Or I'll just return home to washing machines in all their (lazy) glory.