it was the best of times, it was the worst of times..

Wow its been a while since I wrote. After spending two nights at Danielle's I came back on Wednesday morning. The pain is mostly gone- now I just have a weird cramping thing going on after I eat or drink anything (maybe a parasite or bacteria) so I'm going to take my cipro and see if it clears up..

Wednesday I just sat around the dorm, relaxed, read, chilled with Duncan who got malaria too- I did some homework/studying- weird. When I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth that night I watched a lizard pursue and catch a bug and eat it- I could have sat there for like 2 hours just watching him. It was pretty cool.

Thursday, hung out with Tell for the morning, got bread with jam (oh man), did some handwashing, watched the Departed with Dunc, there was an AWESOME wind and rain storm during the movie. The sky got SO dark and then there was dust everywhere and then the clouds like broke open and it started to pour. The wind was so strong that we could barely open/close our doors and it was almost hard to walk without being pushed. My hair was like medusa or something, going all over the place. After that, just made some rice and eggs with Tell, hung out, read- went to bed early.

Friday, tried to call Emmy for her birthday but she didn't answer. Happy late birthday Em-dog! I decided I needed a day to relax and Amanda needed a break from studying for her exam so we went to the pool! It was so nice to just sit there and relax and it was quiet - we were the only people there. We even ran down a fan ice guy to get some snacks so I'd say it was a successful outing. When we got back I watched Alpha Dog with Dunc and Tell and I made an AWESOME veggie pasta with green peppers, onions, tomatos, carrots, garden eggs, spicy peppers- yum- and some stir-fried okro. I needed the iron- it was great.

Saturday, woke up and met Danielle at the mall to finish up her last minute shopping for Passover . We went to Max Mart- best food store in the world (thats a lie- second to Wegmans) because they have SUCH cool imported stuff- way cooler than stuff in the USA- and a lot of Lebanese stuff which was cool. On the way out we got pulled over by a not legit cop which sorta threw us both for a loop- he tried to like open the car doors and get her to roll down the window and his badge was not real and he was wearing a tank top that had Ghana police on it- we just left. Haha shows you how serious the police are here- even if he was real nothing happened. Went back to Danielle's and I packaged the afikomen presents while she made yummy pasta and mushroom lunch. After that, I made tsimus -it was nice to cook- and showered and got ready. We picked up a girl named Elana who's here for 2 years working in the Eastern Region as a researched about micro-finance loans to farmers in the Eastern Region working with rural banks. Interesting! She's 24 and went to Amherst and we had a lot to talk about. We picked up Ryan and his friend Oscar and went to his AWESOME house for Seder. There were five families: Marcy (works for CARE) and her husband Steve (management consultant)- they owned the house, Canadians but have lived in like 5 counties and haven't been in Canada since 1989, have three kids, very cool cool people. Peter and Judit- Danielle & Daniel's neighbors, from Hungary, he works for the World Bank, brought us matzah from Budapest, have two daughters, really nice nice people. Peter and Sunny- she's from California and he's from Holland (I think) and works for the World Bank- they have two cute girls- made DELICIOUS homemade gefilte fish. and Brian and Claire- he's from the US and she's from Australia but they met on their junior year abroad in the UK- two really nice girls, and he works at the Embassy and is getting moved to Baghdad soon. We had a great seder with a cool, new, contemporary hagaddah with cool stories and additions. There were 11 kids so it was hard to keep everyone interested but it went well. We ate awesome food- Moroccan lamb and Ethiopian veggies- it was wonderful. It was cool to see how other people do Passover- my favorite Jewish holiday- and share customs and experiences. Everyone shared their most exotic/exciting seder and the places named were insane! Like Nepal and Turkey and Budapest and Ethiopia and all over! And it was cute cause in each of the couples, one person wasn't Jewish so a lot of the "exciting" seders were their first ones with the spouse's family which was so cute. It was a great way to spend the holiday.

Today, Jenna and I went to the Shangri-La pool with her parents. It was awesome to just relax and swim and tan. I'm pretty pink but happy so its ok. We had a great pizza too- best in Ghana! Just relaxing now, getting ready for MOM!!!!!!!!!! 7am!! AH! I'm so excited. I think we're going to go play Apples to Apples and watch the Lakers/Nuggets game cause Dunc is so excited we can get it here in Ghana. ha! simple pleasures my friends!!

Hope all is well in the USA or wherever everyone is!! More tomorrow when I'm with MOM!! :)