Mount Afadjato

When I'm with friends and I love nothing more than a nice argument about religion, philosophy and whatever else that leads on to. God knows (pun intended) institutionalised religion is the last thing they are in need of in Ghana. The local store is called "Jesus is Lord", the bread shop is called "Finger of God" and the hair dressers "Anointed Hands". Now this guys comes all the way from Massachusetts to Ghana.. been here for 2 days and is ready to convert people... who? They are 90% christian. Ah.. he wants to convert them to his church. Sure.. Fine... whatever floats his boat. What is really annoying is him with his holier than thou act trying to tell me that he know more about me in 15mins than I do in 25 years. I am nodding my head with a stupid smile waiting for him to finish so I can get back to blogging. Anyway whatever... he's gone now.

We climbed Mount Afadjato and as expected it hurt. Pics later in the week on facebook. It was an awesome day - we ended up with 30 people on the bus with plenty of singing on the way back. I was grinning ear to ear listening to the kids belt out these ghanaian numbers - tell you what... it beats the sh!t out of "Wheels on the bus..." It was awesome. Then the girls got into it - with their bold confident voices - leading the singing. I almost pulled a grin muscle. Erin pointed it out a bit earlier. There is something going on here which I don't quite understand. These teenage girls are so full of self esteem and pride - they walk tall with their shoulders back and head held high. Maybe the media hasn't got them yet... they don't worry about their hips or lips or their nose being up to some absurd standard. They demand respect by the way they carry themselves and they get it. It's extremely attractive.

Oh man... I am going to miss these guys.

Them treks..

It was all a case of miscommunication. When Erin suggested bike ride through Aburi I imagined biking through the villages slowly, stopping every hour for a few beers. Little did I know that she meant riding up everestian mountains, one hand on the handle bar and the other wielding a machete to chop down thick rainforest vines and fend against rabid gorillas with a taste for human flesh. It did feel great afterwards to have done some excercise after such a long time.

This weekend we climb Mt. Afadjato. It doesn't seem that high (800 mtrs) but apparently there aren't any proper roads. I'm sure keeping up with Erin and Michi will be challenge. The weekend after it's Green Turtle time and then it's outski.

On a completely different topic... lovely pic:

Tough morning

Jerry was born to be a philosopher. Every morning I see him sitting alone at the bottom of the same tree and staring into the horizon. I tried once to sit with him but I felt like I was intruding on something so now I just smile from far. This morning he was there again but there were people all around him keeping a good 3-4 mtr distance. They probably felt what I did. There were cries of "Yoh" which drew us out. He was sitting quietly, seemingly blind to all these people around him. I found out that his mother passed away this morning.

But what hurt more than the lack of tears in Jerry's eyes were the tears in Michi's. Jerry has been helping Michi with the sports program for the past 5 months and they're pretty close friends. Michi is a man of few words most of the time. When asked if he knew Jerry's mum, while choking back tears told us how he went to Jerry's house just a few days back and had taken a picture of his family for him. I wasn't sure what to do. Giving Michi a tissue would mean acknowledging the tears that he was trying so hard to ignore. Then he said with a smile - "ok... I go cry some and come back" and walked towards the guesthouse.