Abbey is Leaving!

Abbey and Esther

Has it been six months already?  NO!  But Abbey is leaving anyway.  She is being flown back to the US courtesy of one of those fancy Gateses.  She’s going to be studying Public Service Law at UW and submitted an application for a scholarship some time ago.  She worked on the essays for quite some time over here.  I had the pleasure of editing them and eventually she sent them in like letters to Santa.  And just like with letters to Santa, she got a prompt response saying she’d made the first round of interviews!  So I think one of the Gateses will be sending a stretch limo helicopter to pick her up from our backyard.  Go Abbey!

We’ve been ramping up for her departure for some time now.  First of all, she finally broke into her bag of chocolate chips, chips that taunted me for months from the “off limits” drawer in the fridge.  Instead of going directly into my belly, they went into two batches of banana bread and one of pumpkin bread.  Works for me!  We had some last night with Ghanaian ice cream.  It’s called Fan Ice and if you imagine a Go-Gurt package filled with canned Betty-Crocker frosting, you’ve almost got a sense for it.  The main difference is that I think Fan Ice has more trans fat than Betty-Crocker frosting, a commendable feat.

Then we had movie time, epic as usual.  All of Bridget’s friends seem to be crashing with her because anyone who hasn’t completed payment of their school fees has been “sacked”.  So everyone is waiting for their parents or family members to send money, and in the meantime the boarders have nowhere to sleep.  Right now Bridget is sleeping four in what I would consider a room for one.  Last night all four were drunk on Fan Ice and banana bread, watching Transformers 2.  I politely declined on the latter.

The good times continued this morning with a dance party/laundry session.  Bridget and her friends refused to let Abbey do her own laundry.  Sam, our new volunteer, has simply vowed not to do laundry for his entire two month stay.  We’ll see how that works out but he’s held strong for his first three weeks.

We’ll be taking a walk later today, checking out how the new road to Dzita is coming, trying to see what remains of Aploatorkor, the town that the sea is destroying.

Also I shaved my head!  Don’t ask why, I just felt like it.  It’s working out pretty well so far, except I got a sunburn which was inevitable.  My Dad left a really epic Mickey Mouse hat when he came though, so I’ve got some protection.

As always, you can see more random photos on my flickr page.