…and the rest of it.

Jake has been gone for over a week now, and it’s time to throw down on the latter chunk of our trip.  We wiled away a few of the days, me putting out fires in the Lumana office, him reading Dean Koontz and working on his sunburn.  We also had fun running around in a thunderstorm with our umbrellas.  We were hunting for lightning, but all we got was wet.

On the way into town, way back on day one, Jake had seen a sign on the road for a sustainable aquaculture project.  I barely caught a glance of the sign, but I recognized it.  There are lots of them around, signs with several placards, the topmost of which always stating that the project was funded by the Millennium Development Fund.  We set out one morning, thanking our former President, Mr. W. Bush, for the opportunity to visit a fish farm funded by old fashioned greenbacks.

Our plan was simple: find the sign, then find the fish farm.  We caught a car down to Savietula to find our driver for the day, and we were in luck.  My main man, Surprise, was hanging out with his cab and we scooped him up and told him of our plans.  He seemed a little wary about our indefinite destination, but I was very convincing.  We drove and drove and drove, our keen eyes searching for the sign.  As time went on, it seemed less and less likely that we were going to find the sign.  But how could we have missed it?  Surprise was beginning to show his frustration.

Finally we got to Dabala, a town that we knew was beyond the farm.  Surprise helped us ask around for a fish farm, and one lead sent us deep into a residential area.  We arrived at a house surrounded by a Ghanaian family.  We were told that the man of this house was a fish farmer, but as Surprise made our objective known, the alleged fish farmer just looked confused, then laughed.  He told us that someone had made a mistaken, then led us to a small concrete enclosure filled with water.  There were a few Catfish inside, planted there as a bit of an experiment.  That’s what we get for asking random people on the street for directions I guess.  We had a good laugh and continued on our way, but now Surprise was bordering on despondent.

Heading back towards home, I spotted what looked like a Millennium Development sign down it a ditch, so we had Surprise stop.  Sure enough, the storm that Jake and I had been so excited about had lain waste to our landmark sign.  No wonder we didn’t see it.

We found our way to the village with the fish farms, and a group of big men convened to discuss the important issue of us seeing the fish farm.  Finally, it was decided that someone would show it to us.  Thank god we all put our heads together to come up with that solution.  We went off and finally tracked the damn thing down, but we weren’t allowed to take the canoe out to investigate, so we had to settle for a glance from afar.  We drove right to the site, but I’m pretty sure we were on a footpath.

Gah! I’m out of Internet Cafe time.  Check out my photostream for a bunch more pics of Jake being a baller, and a few of me being a goof.