Intermission

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Hey All!

Where on earth has the time gone? Here we are. Nine weeks down, and only nine to go. Act 1 is over. Everything is down hill from here… when did that happen!?!? Oh well, life goes on. But hey, if Act one is over that means intermission has begun. But before I touch on that, let’s back track a little since I’ve been kinda negligible with my updating. My last trip in a five weekend series and the act one finale, Green Turtle Lodge.

Correction, the magnificent Green Turtle Lodge. A beautiful beach resort that is high in quality and low in cost… which is always a wonderful combination! The resort boasts a wide variety of activities for its guests, ranging from guided hikes through the area forests, canoe tours on the river, ping pong tables, darts, a miniature library, volleyball, soccer… oops! I mean football, and hammocks (Hooray!!) located on a premium beach front location, complete with a well stocked bar and restaurant. It was a welcome break from the arduous hikes of the Volta region. That I know for sure!

The only annoying part of the trip was getting there. Max, Bethany, and Melissa left earlier on Thursday, but Loren and I departed Saturday. We left our hostel at 6:30 am and arrived at the Lodge by about, oh… 4:00 pm… AHHHHHHHHH!!! 10 hours… 10 long, hot, sweaty, bumpy, uncomfortable, dusty, smelly, claustrophobia-inducing, cramped, hours on a four different Tro Tros. If we didn’t have to wait each time for a Tro Tro to fill up before leaving, and we didn’t have any traffic to contend with, we could have easily arrived in half the time. Oh well, life goes on. And really, it wasn’t that big of a deal, and the trip was well worth the results. The weekend was spent catching sun and surf, eating, sleeping, reading, and relaxing. Oh yeah, it’s a rough life I live, a rough life indeed.

Green Turtle was truly a great way to finish off five straight back to back weekends of travel, and the perfect finale for the first half of my semester. Needless to say, after all of this traveling, a guy could use a little break, so this past weekend I stuck around Accra for a short rest, before venturing out again. But hey, just because I stayed home doesn’t mean I didn’t have a good time!

Intermission was kicked off by a week of no classes. Why? Well, I missed one because of traffic coming back from the lodge, two of my classes the professors didn’t show up, and the last one was canceled because it was a National holiday. Score.

So I just kicked back, relaxed, made new friends, took some naps, explored the city, and got pumped for the festivities that were about to take place… Independence Day!!

March 6th marked the fifty-second year of Independence for Ghana from Britain. Myself and group of about eight others woke up extra early on Friday to head to Independence Square to see all of the festivities. There were vendors everywhere, selling…well, everything! Food, trinkets, posters, hats, overpriced flags, you know, all that good stuff. The actual Independence event, while slow in some parts, was so much fun to attend. Cannons going off, hundreds of men and women from the armed services and local senior high students all the way down to elementary kids marching in different formations, jets flying over head, horses, tanks… It was sweet. Saw the president too. I can’t even say that about any of my presidents. It was tons of fun! After Independence festivities, me and two others went to the movie theater in the Accra mall and saw Doubt (which I highly recommend). We capped off the evening with a visit to Champs sports bar. We played pool and foosball, had some drinks, danced, talked, and just hung out. Friday nights are karaoke nights, so I busted out a little R. Kelly and sang “I Believe I Can Fly”… good times. The next day I went to Jazz concert on campus for the wonderful price of Free.99! It was so good; it definitely made my day twenty times better. After the concert about ten of us went to an outside bar in East Legon. Very chill. Sunday morning eight other people and myself went back to the Interdenominational church. As always it was a wonderful service, lots of singing and dancing, a good sermon and a hilarious skit about the true meaning and power of prayer. It was awesome! The rest of the day was fairly uneventful aside from the thunderstorm that blew in at nightfall. Which was great because it cooled everything down… in fact, I was actually cold… never thought that would happen in Ghana…hmmmmm… it’s gonna be a rough winter this next year. Moving on. Monday we took a trip into the city visiting the commercial district of Osu. It was here that I found Pop Tarts…I have been craving those things for two months… Thank you Jesus. The remainder of the afternoon was spent talking with friends, and relaxing. I polished off the evening watching a few episodes of The Office in one of my friends’ room. Not a bad respite if I do say so myself. Not bad at all.

So, 9 weeks down, 9 weeks to go, act 1 and intermission are over, and the second half of my adventure is about to begin. Ready for this? I know I am! Thank you all so much for continuing to show your support for me. Your comments, your words, your letters, thoughts, prayers, calls, and actions are what continue to pull me through the yesterdays, todays and tomorrows. Hope all is well in everyone’s neck of the woods.

Until we meet again, which seems like it will be pretty soon…

Stay frosty!

Jonathan

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Comments

[Rena]

As always...
I look forward to hearing from you. So proud of you, but what about all of these bars that you are going too! (smiles)