Thanks for all the birthday emails and wall posts, guys. I was so excited to get to the internet cafe today to read them! For my birthday, me and the other volunteers (the 5 others at my house and then 2 from Kasua) went to Cape Coast and stayed at Oasis again. I didn't go swimming this time because I am so terrified of the ocean here and plus I may or may not have seen a sting ray in one of the waves that was crashing. Its likely. Instead, I spent my birthday laying on the beach and signing with my newest friend Julius who is a deaf fisherman and who was so sweet. He knows american sign language and I know some too so we sort of had a conversation for like 2 hours but to be honest I didn't know everything he was saying.

The next morning we rolled out of bed and walked down the beach til we found this hut where this guy that looks just like Bob Marley makes chocolate pancakes for you and you sit there and watch the waves and eat pancakes. I had two banana milkshakes and chocolate pancakes and it was heaven. He kept running out of bananas because we kept ordering banana milkshakes so he would just get on his little blue bike and ride into town to buy more and then he'd come back and make more.

I HAVE TWO PUPPIES. I'm not sure why this wasn't the first sentence of my post. The lady down the street has a dog who gave birth to 2 puppies and they are only a few weeks old so i cant have them completely but I babysit them all the time. She tried to charge me to babysit them but then she decided not to when she saw I gave them baths and gave them flea medicine which was very hard to find around here. I made Azar and Crystal hold the puppies in different poses around the yard while I took pictures. Facebook album coming. They are named Bear (Bear looks like a bear) and White Heat (he's white) but Crystal calls him Jackson. I also have a cat that also belongs to our guard, Abu, but the cat won't let me near it. I'm working on getting a goat but I have to make arrangements for someone to watch it when I leave Africa and I don't trust anyone because they'll just eat it.

Hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving!