Later Gator...

...Though technically in Ghana it's crocodiles not alligators.

Anyway, next time I'm around these parts I'll be home sweet home. As I pathetically lay around recovering I can't help but think that it feels like just yesterday that I was pathetically laying around recovering post-wisdom teeth waiting to come here. I don't think any period of time in my life has moved as quickly as these last five months have.

I could probably get all nostalgic and blabber on about everything I loved and learned and am going to miss so much, but I think those things will actually be more clear once I'm home. So instead I'd like to give a quick thank you.

Thank you to my parents for their love, support, and sponsorship. Thank you to my extended family and friends for the constant stream of emails and hellos. You have no idea how much a simple email could make my day, even if my internet was too shady for a prompt reply more often than not. Thank you to my roommates back in Berkeley for making sure I was kept up to date on every event this semester. A giant thank you to Paige for sending me Cheez-its and Sour Patch Kids. I was going to dedicate a whole post to that thank you, but I accidently ate everything before I could do so. Oops. Another giant thank you to my roommate here. Thanks for being as lazy as I am, for loving the forest, for cooking, and for forcing me to eat crackers while I've been sick. Also for surprise attacking me with that temporary tattoo while I was too weak to fight back. Thanks to the amazing EAP staff for making this semester so fantastic. Thanks for keeping us all happy and healthy. Thank you Ghana. Thanks for your oceans and trees and monkeys. Thanks for your... interesting cuisine and new life experiences. Thanks for teaching me patience, for helping to mold me into a better person and hopefully a better global citizen. Thanks for opening my mind and teaching me more than a life time of books or lectures ever could. 

See you all soon!

One last stereotypical I'm-in-Africa picture.

Another One Bites the Dust

Trip to the hospital: 64 Cedi

Medication: 15 Cedi

Counting down the hours until you go home based on Malaria treatments?: Priceless

It started out innocently enough. We went for Indian food Tuesday evening, so naturally my stomach hurt in a too-full kind of way. But then on Wednesday it still hurt. Sweet, excuse to sleep all day. Then Thursday it still hurt, but I figured I would just hike it off (I don't recommend that method). Then Friday it still hurt. So I sent a text to my program director, something casual about 3 days of stomachaches and should I be worried. She instantly called and was like uhhh yeah.

So I was back to the hospital. After chatting away with the doctor about Ghana and my research and all he got to the issue. He determined it was the pre-cursor to ulcers. Which was interesting because I've had that for years (thanks Berkeley), so funny that my mind didn't instantly go there. He asked if I wanted a blood test anyway just to double check. I was going to pass it up but Auntie Rose said I should just do it.

Good thing I did, turns out I have ulcers and malaria! Wow! So yeah, that'd pretty much definitely give anyone a stomachache. Ha. 

It was all fun and games until I thought I was going to die. I now 100 percent understand how and why malaria kills so many people. I would not wish the feeling of those little plasmodium eating you alive on anyone. I won't go into detail, I'm pretty sure the description alone would cause a person physical pain, but the crazy part is that you wake up the next day after starting treatment feeling better. Crazy that so many people die from something so easily and quickly treated because they don't have the means or access. 

A big giant thank you to everyone who called, texted, emailed, and facebooked! It's way easier to be sick when so many people are looking out for you. 

Some malaria facts:

*In Ghana, malaria is transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito

*Only the female mosquito bites (a blood-meal is necessary in egg production)

*This mosquito is active between 10 pm and 1 am

*Some 1.2 million people died from malaria in 2010

*Something like over half of us UC-EAP kids have gotten it

*It sucks

Thanks Parasitology and Public Health! If you want to know about this little protozoan parasite, here's wikipedia.  

The image of death. 

Hahahah.

Die plasmodium Die!

Goodbye Forest

Yesterday I got to say goodbye to the rainforest. Besides wanting to die (on day 3 of food poisoning here or something like it, thanks Ghana) it was lovely. Also, Mariel saved a bat.

All those tiny dots are bats!

I don't have rabies at all!

Promise ;)

Mole

I have been very lazy on the blog front. But between finals, trips, goodbyes, and internet destroying storms, there's been little time for such things. Here's a summary:

Last week I saw elephants. I took many finals. I turned in my independent research. I danced, I laughed, I adventured.

FOUR DAYS.

It's hard to be sad about leaving when I'm this excited to go home. I'm sure that will all change on the ride to the airport, but still, I started packing today!

Time for some more last minute fun, see you all soon!

Dear Togo, Let Me Count the Reasons for My Love

1) Guacamole on fresh baguettes. 

2) Taxis didn’t honk at us. They didn’t try to over charge us. They didn’t lie about knowing where things were. 

3) The gutters were covered.

4) No one came up to us for the sole purpose of speaking to us in a language we didn’t understand and laughing at our blank stares.

5) People gave us space. They didn’t stare. They didn’t yell. They didn’t mob. They didn’t harass.

6) Their Fanchocos (frozen chocolate milks) tasted like if you somehow made a brownie into the best ice cream ever.

7) The air smelled delicious and not like fish and sewage. 

8) We weren’t dragged into one shop.

9) I got to speak French. (Kind of.)

10) Everyone went above and beyond and out of their way to help us. Whether it was figuring out where we were going in our broken French or getting us to the closest bakery stat, everyone was full of hospitality like I’ve never seen in my life.

The best example of this was our taxi driver from the mountain where we took the hike back down to Lome, the city on the border of Ghana. It was a shared taxi, which means there is a set price and a set route. He got to the end of his line when we asked him where the nearest bakery was. 

He told us to get back in the Taxi and he’d take us. We asked him how much and he said no no. We thought he was doing the Ghana thing where people don’t want to tell you the price to get somewhere and then try to charge you an arm and a leg upon arrival. What he was actually saying was that he would take us there for free.

Once we got to the bakery he told us he wanted to walk us in. He walked us in on his injured foot and asked where we were going next. We said the border but that we’d probably just take motos (motorcycle taxis. Oh add that to the list. Motos are the greatest). He once again said this was no good. I thought he was wanting to guilt us into paying him to take us to the border in exchange for his kindness (vehicles are 2-3 more times expensive than motos).

Wrong again, he thought leaving us on our own with no ride was no good. So he asked the owner of the bakery to call and negotiate motos for us when we were done eating. He then shook our hands and headed out.

My heart was all warm and happy, and those were the kinds of things that happened consistently all weekend. 

Togo, you’re the best. 

beach, baguette, birkies

Kuma-Kunda

After our stay in Lome we headed up to the mountains where the were rumors of hikes and butterfly gardens. Have you ever cut your way through a rain forest using nothing but a butter knife in the search for insects? It was a fantastic stay. Our guide was great, the village was all too sweet, and the mountains were breathtaking. And there's nothing quite like a motorcycle ride through rain forest roads.

All these paintings are made using leaves... you'll see.

Slap this fern on you!

And get a cool fern tattoo. 

Rubber!

There was this sad moment where I thought about all the 

people who lost life and limb over something so simple. 

The grasshopper whose face looks like an African mask.

Our first butterfly!

Up in the mountains. 

Natural sand paper.

You can actually do some serious damage with that stuff.

Pretty.

Pineapple! In its natural habitat. 

This was once a green leaf.

Crush it up and you get red paint.

That's how they make those paintings.

Inside of this bark is orange.

Painting.

Hurray for butterflies.

Oh gosh.

At this point I was just impressed with his insect

whispering abilities. What a pro.

Crazy rain forest disease.

That is my friend being all graceful and stuff in that tree.

Just moments before I tripped on a vine and fell out of said tree.

How????

On the upside, I can now say I tripped off a waterfall in Fiji and out of a tree in Togo.

We found avocado and mango in the forest and feasted.

Using the same butter knife used to cut through the forest.

So multi-functional!

Orange lichen? Mold? Fungi??

This is what I mean by cutting our way through.

Our guide used nothing but his butter knife.

Do you see any real path?

Yeah, me either.

And I have the scratches to prove it.

Cool picture of grass.

Psyche!

That stuff cuts you like a razor.

How crazy is that?

It felt like one of those stretchy ball things.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Does it get better?

The answer is no.

Moral of the story is that the only thing better than a hike through the rain forest is a guided hike through the rain forest. He showed us so many cool things. Lots of things that aren't shown here too because it was more fill-your-head-with-cool-facts stuff than anything visual. We got to smell the plant that gives us black licorice! So many things I never knew came from the rain forest!

Akodessewa Fetish Market

Fetish markets and voodoo and all that jazz originate in West Africa. That's why you've heard of it in America. Voodoo came over with the slaves. The Akodesseawa Fetish Market is considered the largest fetish market in the world. As I was in Togo I figured I shouldn't let this opportunity pass me by. It was interesting, not really what I was expecting either. Mostly just a lot a lot of dead things, each with its own purpose and power. I don't suggest looking at this post if you love animals, like animals, or are even apathetic toward animals. Also, if you get nauseous easily. 

Our guide.

He tried to convince me to hold the bird head and he'd take the picture.

Yeah.

Rawr?

Chameleons as far as the eye could see.

So many mixed feelings.

Voodoo.

They were just all these little guys with nails in them.

Just your casual delivery of dried-rats-in-a-box

mmmhmm.

So many heads.

He was actually kinda cute.

Edgar Allen Poe?

Kid chillin' with a hippo.

Porcupine quills. 

For asthma he said.

The End.

No pun intended.