Kids Rule

These guys were hungry for photos. I took a few and showed them, but once each had a close-up it was time to walk down the beach a ways until they lost interest.

Not as in “kids are awesome”, but as in “children are the rulers here”.  Maybe that’s an exaggeration but the Volta Region is exceptionally chill and about the only thing you need to worry about is getting mobbed by a bunch of kids who will either want to know your name, hold your hand, or ask you for money.  Not that they’re begging– more as if they think it’s a really funny joke to ask for money in English.  Maybe it is!  I tried to get a picture of the beach but was briefly waylaid by a group of little dudes playing with old tires.  Luckily for them they were photogenic so I didn’t have to regulate.

Here's a glimpse of the transit situation on the way to Dzita. This was a fortunate encounter in that there was actually a spot to pull off of the sandy road.

My walk on the beach was immediately following another trip to Dzita, this time with just Bridget and myself.  We caught a tro-tro in Anloga with much greater ease than last week.  It was good luck for sure, but I was immediately skeptical of our ride.  Judging by what remained of the interior, the van had been in a very serious accident at some point.  It looked like someone took a tin can, smashed it, then uncrumpled it as best they could and welded it together where there were cracks.  From what I could tell most of the frame was actually missing.  I think my suspicions were confirmed when some of the passengers loaded goods onto the roof and it sank substantially.  How would this vehicle fare on the “road” to Dzita?  Would the several dozen eggs on board survive the journey?

There are lots of marshes and lagoons on the way to Dzita, many of which have little mangrove forests.

I can only substantially answer the first one.  In what was probably the sketchiest vehicular situation of my life we made it to Dzita, but as the van rocked back and forth the entire frame slanted and wobbled like a tower of Jello.  At the top of the van I’d say it was shifting back and forth 5-6 inches.  Unfortunately I didn’t get any good pictures or video of that.

Built by hand and without safety harnesses. Those two guys up top just use a rope to haul up the parts they need.

In other news they are putting up a cell-phone tower across the street from our house.  This will be pretty baller if they get it going sometime soon, as it may provide us with super fast Internet! Probably not, but here’s hoping.  Considering the rate at which most buildings are constructed here, they’re making some mind-blowing progress on it.  Especially since they do it all by hand.  Oh and I’ll spare you the photos, but about 35% of the buildings here are unfinished.  There are just concrete shells of buildings all over the place, many of which become decrepit before being put to any use.

So yeah, we’re surviving.  The house is shaping up a bit, especially with the eviction of three mice that were living in my room.  That experience taught me that if I ever cross Bridget she will likely smash my head in with a large piece of cinder block.  I should probably say that we evicted two mice, and made an example of one.

We met the Chief of Anloga last week and also happened to meet his wife, who sells beans and rice downtown.  I decided that we needed to get the beans that kinda-sorta looked like pinto beans and make refried beans.  If they were related to pinto beans it wasn’t apparent, but they tasted ok refried anyway.  Booyah for yet another incarnation of beans and rice!

More to come, we have a busy week coming up but might end it with a day of cultural tomfoolery in the Capital.  We have to be there for a meeting this Friday and might as well make an event of it.

Random seed-leaf-thing I found on the ground in Dzita. Special thanks to my hand-model Bridget.

Here's a shot of the beach after I was free of the kids. It is lined with fishing boats and fishermen repairing their nets.