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Hello Family and Friends!!
We (Wren writing) come to you, happy and sweaty, from Kumasi, Ghana. We arrived in Kumasi this afternoon on a bus from Accra, the capital city, and were picked up by Ralph, the Liberian man (and friend of Renee) who will show us around Kumasi and Cape Coast (more on that later). On Thursday, we arrived in Accra around 6 and met George, a friend of Renee who had come to pick us up for the second time (he thought we were supposed to arrive Wednesday). We then had a filling dinner of fried rice and potato chips (what you Americans might call french fries) at George's friend's restaurant and listened to some American rap music. Then, completely exhausted from our nearly 20 hour trip, we rode to our hotel (the Tri-Circle Hotel) and crashed for the night. In the morning we had breakfast with George, who is in the Ghanaian Army, and his younger brother Daniel AKA Ryss (Rice) (funny story: Rice got his nickname because when he was young, he tried to sing a song that went "Alright, alright" but sang "Fried rice, fried rice"), who is a production manager of Empire Records (a Ghanaian record company). Then we went with George to get his car (a '74 Renault) fixed. We sat and listened to some High Life (more traditional Ghanaian music) and talked to George and Rice. After that we went to see George's father who works for the government to catch officials who are embezzling money. He was very welcoming and even said he would have some police officers check out the situation in Kumasi to make sure it was safe for us because he used to be the police commander there. Then we went to see the grave and museum of first Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah. And speaking of presidents, the entire city of Accra is getting ready for Obama's visit on July 10-11. They are painting the curbs, planting flowers, and there are countless billboards telling Obama "Akwaaba!" (Welcome in the Ashanti language). We had lunch at George's Army Mess. Then we went to visit another friend of Renee's (Amelia) who lived in a sort of village within Accra. She was making lots of food including the traditional Ghanaian dish, banku, which is made of corn and cassava root. Then we relaxed for a while and later that night (around 10) we went out on the town (with George to protect us, of course). We went to Oxford Street (apparently a very famous street in Accra) stopped at an outdoor club/restaurant and talked and danced with some of George's friends. We also met a very outgoing Pakastani man who told me, "I live in Michigan!! You come to Michigan, you live with me." George calmly explained, "They don't drink in public in Pakistan." We took a few pictures with the parking lot guys who, after every picture exclaimed, "Lovely!!" Then we headed to a night club where Ryss/Rice was holding a Micahel Jackson night (we unfortunately missed the impersonators) for Empire Records. It was very fancy and even air conditioned and we were disappointed to hear that if we had come the night before, we would have seen the famous Ghanaian soccer (football) player Essien! We danced with lots of people and had a great time and then went back to the hotel, slept for a couple of hours and were up at 7:30 to catch the bus to Kumasi. But since this blog entry is already quite lengthy, we'll tell you about those adventures (and many more!) tomorrow. So now, we leave you, even sweatier, but just as happy.
P.S. Happy fourth of July!! Watch some good fireworks for us.
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Ann
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Happy 4th!
our fam is celebrating the 4th in Berkeley, Laurel, and College Park - I hope you wore your red white an blue today - sounds like our summer weather is over in Kumasi - still having Spring temperatures in MD. Love your blog - keep it up!