Greetings from West Africa

Here I am. It's been a wild and wonderful ride so far. The flight to Germany was just fine, and I finally crashed in the airport in Frankfurt, which made the layover less of an ordeal. On the second leg of my journey I sat next to a cool Ghanaian banker making his annual journey back to his homeland from Switzerland. He gave me the lowdown of what to see in and around Accra, and even knew a great deal about the sights to see in Togo. Almost to my destination, I got to check out Lagos, Nigeria from the window of the plane as we dropped off about a quarter of our passengers. Kevin met me at the airport in Accra, Ghana, and thank God because things can be a bit overwhelming for a Yovo visiting West Africa for his first time, but Kevin negotiates things in the region like he's lived here forever. We spent the night in Accra eating, drinking, dancing. On Saturday morning we took a taxi to the coast to spend the night in the Rastafarian fishing village of Kokrobrite. More drinking, reasoning, playing on the beach. At one point Megan and I noticed a crowd of about one hundred people about two hundred yards down the beach. As we got closer we could see that the crowd was all men, and that they were taking turns jumping over a rope held by two Lebanese cats. When they started playing "Steal the Bacon," I had to ask around. Turns out, the story I got was that the two Lebanese men were Olympic Scouts testing the athletic prowess in the village, seeking prospective members for the Ghanaian Olympic Track & Field team. Whether that was B.S. or honest to God truth, everyone was having a blast. The food in the village was fantastic, with ample vegetarian options thanks to the ital diet of many of the village's fishermen. The beach was as beautiful at nighttime as it was in the day, so we spent a fair portion of the evening in the sand. In the morning we bathed in the Bight of Benin before hopping on a very crowded bus back to Accra where we caught a taxi to Aflao, Ghana for a smooth border crossing into Lome, Togo. We had a lovely dinner at Kevin's doubly lovely apartment with three triply lovely Peace Corps Volunteers. Then the fun really began. Kevin threw the greatest party I have ever been to, where one of many highlights was dusting off the fed catalog with a combo of crack Togolese musicians.