Fan Fan Fan

Saturday.

We woke up this morning and headed into the heart of Elmina. We decided that today would be a good day to visit the castle. Let me tell you...the people near the castle are flippin insane! The second you walk into the first wall you are attacked by vendors forcing their crap on you. This was the first time I have really experienced the in your face approach, and I must say that I am NOT a fan.

We had a tour guide for the visit, but he was extremely hard to understand, so I am sad to say that I really did not learn much from the tour. I spent most of my time wandering off to take photos.

On the way out of the castle there is only one way out, so we once again had to go through the cluster of vendors. This time..we got a little crazy/ a little creative. Ok, let me set the scene for you. The castle is slightly up hill from the main street. As you are leaving the castle, you can see exactly where all of the vendors are standing, just waiting to sell you their goods. So, we are coming down the hill and at about the half way point all of the vendors start running up to you. I was a bit warm at this point and I was in great need of some water...aka I was not in the mood to have crap shoved in my face. Now, I'm not proud of what I did, but it worked, so that is all that matters. As the dealers were getting close to me I just started to walk with my arms moving back and forth a little more than necessary. It might have looked a bit like a power walker on speed. Point being...my arms and legs were going too fast for them to catch up with me. I cleared the hill and looked behind me to see the others still trying to make it past. I don't think I would recommend this move in other situations :-)

After we made it through the crowded street we stopped for lunch. I had the most amazing tuna sandwich. It tasted a bit like tuna noodle casserole. Yum.

In the afternoon we came back to the house and headed over to the pool to hang out. We got to the pool and it was totally empty, but then as soon as we set our towels down two bus loads of people came pouring in! I swear there were 100 Ghanans all crammed in the kiddy pool and the shallow end. It was madness. At one point I decided to get in the pool, so I went in the empty deep end. When I was ready to get out, I realized that I couldn't push myself out. I decided that I would swim to a spot where I could touch and push up from there. Well....I got to the spot where I was going to push up when a man suddenly did a back flip into the pool and suddenly appeared next to me. I didn't think much of it, other than wow this man is freakishly close to me. Then....next thing I know he turns to me and says "I will help you" and I was like no no no its ok. Then...he scooped me up and plopped me on the side of the pool! I was literally in shock. How did he know I wanted to get out! I did not know what to think, so I just started cracking up! It all happened so fast that I didn't even know who did it.

Once our time at the pool was finished we made a stop at Shell for a few snacks. Hillary and I had the genius idea to get a vanilla FanIce and mix it with orange Fanta to create a fantastic creamsicle drink. It was such a nice treat. If only there was root beer somewhere in this country.

Sunday.
Happy 4th of July.
Happy first anniversary Michael and Jen!

Remember how last year at this time I had cut my finger off and we wrapped it up to blend into my bouquet. Still so funny!

I actually slept in today....until 8:00. That's pretty impressive for me.

I made coffee and enjoyed a fiber one bar on the balcony while one of the girls did my hair in french braid pig tails. I figured I would go for the "american girl" look today. I had on a navy blue dresss with tiny white anchors and a red tank underneath. Very patriotic!

We went to the pool, and when we came back some of the girls had made some red white and blue streamers out of fabric scraps and hung them from the balcony. It was about as festive as we could get around here. Well, until someone lit a match aka our sparkler and a spark went into my hair. That made it an official 4th of July.

Today I had my first visitor! I say first because I still hold out hope that one of you will come between now and December! But, back to reality. My professor Tanya and her husband came to visit all of the CMU interns. They just got to Elmina today, so they came to the house to drop off treats from our parents and then we all went to Elis for dinner.

Tomorrow they will come to work with us and then we are all going to visit the Cape Coast Castle.

Peace. Love. Sparkler Matches.