Death Cab for Cutie

Yesterday after the huge storm the weather cooled off quite a bit, and once the sun went down it was actually quite comfortable. I mean, I still had on a sleeveless dress, but our night guard was in a winter jacket and a hat....so, he thought it was cold. We had all of the windows open and turned the fan on for bed and it was sooooo nice and cold in our room! I slept so well!

Today, we had a typical taxi ride to the office, but todays cab driver had the looooooongest nails that I have ever seen in my life. I was so distracted by them the entire ride. Gah! It made me want to vom a little.

This morning we spent most of our time sketching out designs for the batik workshop that we had in the afternoon. We took a while figuring out sizes and shapes and then we traced them onto the ash foam. Nick and I were trying to figure out the best way to turn one large piece of foam into six smaller ones, so when we noticed a hack saw in the corner, we decided that we would give it a try. I had a flashback to the movie The Edge, where they give the inexperienced guy a knife and he cuts a huge slash in his leg....have no fear, we had cutting success.

We then carved our designs into our smaller pieces. I made a mommy and a baby bird. Speaking of mommy, I FINALLY skpyed my mom today! Yay for Prggy! She was looking good sporting her work out gear! :-)

In the afternoon a taxi came to the office and picked all 7 of us up for the batik workshop. We drove a little outside Cape Coast to Aunti Ginas house, where we learned the basics of batik. Did you know that the word batik comes from Java, meaning "to write with wax". In our case we were not doing so much writing as we were stamping. For the design that I was making I first made a wax stamp of the smaller birds onto the solid white cloth. Then I put it into a vat of blue dye. I wanted to use more of n aqua color, but due to lack of powder, it ended up more of a blue.

Once we applied the first color we had to hang them up to dry before we could apply the next layer of wax. However, as soon as we all had our cloth hanging, it started to down pour! This put us in a bit of a pickle. So, good 'ol Auntie gina invited us into her house to sit while it rained. Once the rain stopped we went back out to the porch to continue batiking. However, due to lack of day light we have to go back on Sunday to finish.

While we were waiting around, we played with some baby chicks they had at the house. Ooooo they are just sooooooo soft and cute! I wanted to take it home with me!

We had to walk a little ways to get a cab, and thankfully Auntie Gina came with us to do some negotiating. We had to settle on paying each taxi 5 cedi to take us back to our town...even though we were closer than work, and that ride only runs about 80 peswas.

So, our drivers were not happy that they had to drive "out of the way" and then we had to give him directions to where we live. So, we told hime to head back to Elmina and he took a "short cut" through the University campus. When we finally came out the other side we ended up on a road that I recognized. Then, we told the driver that our road was coming up, so he pulled over, and we said no, no its down the road, so he started driving down the wrong side of the road, like into on coming traffic!! We were like get over on the other side, and he just kept driving. So as headlights were shining into our car, and the silhouette of Jesus was being cast onto the roof from the Jesus sticker on the back window, I didn't know whether to be horrified or feel comforted. I think that my body went with the first option tho. But, in the end we made it back.

I think I am going to be traveling this weekend, so I will not post tomorrow.

Peace. Love. Jesus sticker.