I don't miss snow but I miss my friends

It feels weird to be going to the beach in December but I’m going to Busua, Butre, and Akwidaa for several days. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we are leaving at 5 am to hop on a tro-tro and go to Madina. From Madina we have to find someone who is going to Kaneshie. From Kaneshie we have to take a bus to Takoradi. From Takoradi we have to take a tro-tro to Agona Junction. From Agona Junction we take a tro-tro to Busua. From Busua, we have to walk along this footpath with our big backpacks, along these cliffs that look out over the ocean, about a mile to Butre. You can’t get to Butre, this tiny beachside village, by car so you have to do it by foot.

I’m trying to get us to this place called that is a grouping of tree houses that are built around several ancient trees and you can sleep in one of them for like 5 cedi’s a night (like $3.50). These girls I met about a month ago told me about it. Each tree house is connected by rope bridges. We’re going to stay there for a couple nights and then we might try and go on to Akwidaa for a few days because there’s this place called Green Turtle Lodge and its on this gorgeous beach and you sleep in straw huts and can see the mama turtles nesting at night.

We had a really fun party for the kids yesterday. It was Corrie’s last day so we had a going away party and we decided to teach them all these games that we grew up playing. We formed teams and I was the captain of the blue team. Despite being naturally unathletic, I’m surprisingly competitive. Sometimes at night we sit on our porch and play Bullshit and I can’t help but cheat. Crystal is always calling Bullshit on me so I don’t have a choice but to cheat. I’m always pulling hidden cards out of my pant leg or bra at the end of the game but I still don’t win. Anyway, I’ve been here longer than the other volunteers so I know which kids are fastest and I purposely chose Kwame Adu and Abom and Abigail. We found these big flour sacks and had a sack race which was hilarious. We played a bunch of other games and we stopped keeping score but I’m pretty confident my team won if you added it all up. Then, just to satisfy my obsession which watching little children waddle, I lined up all the little 3 and 4 year olds and made them have a race. It was the cutest thing ever. Prince was just wearing these gold sneakers, pajama bottoms, and a girls knitted sweater that was open down the front. He was getting so serious about the race and it just funny to see him in all girls clothes and trying to look tough.

It was the most fun I’ve seen all the kids have so far. At the end of it, each kid got a coca-cola bottle and a lollipop and the little ones didn’t know how to drink out of the bottle. Prince, the one who was dressed in girls clothing and the one who is in the video below, was just walking around clinking drinks with everybody.

It ended up being one of those days in which I forget about the flies that are landing on my open cuts and biting the healing flesh and about the fact that everyone here cooks with a red oil that makes me really sick so I’m always a little sick, or the fact that men just come up and tug on my hair because its yellow, or the fact that there are termites eating my bed and everyday I wake up with a new pile of sawdust under it. Instead, I was just really happy to be sitting there watching these two hawks (or vultures maybe... I hope they were vultures) and there was this really cool orange sunset and I was drinking coke with some of the cutest little kids ever.

Side note: I hate that you guys are also having fun without me. Sometimes when I’m in a bad mood and I’m feeling sick and my bites are itching really bad I lay awake and make a mental list of things I miss. Some examples of things I miss are:
- cheese in all its forms (cream cheese, nacho cheese, grilled cheese, etc)
- laying on the couch on Sundays eating buffalo chicken dip and drinking White Russians and pretending to care about football with the boys
- Christine in her bathrobe watching Two and a Half Men and I also fantasize about her homemade salads
- seeing Danielle with her glasses on and also when she makes me french onion soup
- sitting in parks with Liz and eating bread and cheese together
- having blondie cigars with Chloe at the cigar bar (PS Chloe I have some Nigerian music I think you’d like!)
- late night a capella sessions with Shea
- falling asleep to the sound of Mike talking to his XBOX Live friends on his headset
- smashing bottles in the “Smashzone” with Joel and Brad
- going to breakfast at PF Changs with the Paperboy
- sitting on Anne’s back porch and holding her dogs tightly in my lap
- drinking Bud heavy’s at Kim’s little red house
- I miss my mom and dad and my brother and last but not least, my grandma, Trouble.