World AIDS Day & Ten Thousand Villages

December 1 is World AIDS Day. The WHO and UNAIDS estimate 39.5 million people are living with HIV/AIDS at this very moment. Please please please remember to wear a condom and keep yourselves safe :)

It is that time of year again where i'm feeling slightly charitable. This is horrible as i know people are in need year round, not just during the holidays, however this is when i choose to give. Last year i supplied a school kit to a child in Laos through Ten Thousand Villages. I struggled with choosing a gift as the live animals (think goats, chickens) could really really help a family in need, provide milk, eggs, protein...you get the idea. I just couldn't get myself to send such an item and decided that education was the way to go and hence sent the school kit.

This year the choices are:

Trees for restoration efforts
Learning materials for preschoolers affected by AIDS
Livestock for hardworking families
Training for inspired artisans
Fill a farm with a four legged charm

Just to give a bit of a background on Ten Thousand Villages they provide vital, fair income to Third World people by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America.

Ten Thousand Villages works with artisans who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed, providing sustainable income through fair trade. This income helps pay for food, education, health care and housing. Thousands of volunteers in Canada and the United States work with Ten Thousand Villages in their home communities.

As well i was made aware of World Vision and their gift ideas which are quite vast. They range from Mosquito Nets, Bee Keeping Kits, Child Immunizations to Clean Water, Mother to Child HIV Prevention and Building Homes and Schools. Phew!!! That link will take you to the catalogue which is quite large and very very cool. I think a lot of us take our lives and our privilege if you will for granted. This is one very small way each and every one of us can touch anothers soul and show that we care.

Weekend in Review

So as most of you know i have a slight obsession with Mr. Jeff Martin formally the frontman of the Tea Party. The first show i ever went to was 14 or 15 years ago so i cannot even muster up a guess as to how many shows i've actually seen. I can say however that the show i saw on Friday was my absolute favorite thus far hands down. He played a solo show in a small venue accompanied by the Toronto Tabla Ensemble. The musicians were amazing and so incredibly talented. They brought together the rhythems of India and meshed it with a Canadian artist. Kathak dancer Joanna de Souza a member of the ensemble was also able to interpret parts of the evening through dance which reminded me of the Indian dance recital i went to see recently. The evening was almost spiritual in nature and i felt goosebumps all over my body more than once over the evening.

Saturday was a little bit different than Friday. M and i decided at 12:30am to hit up the Wrinkle Ranch as us locals call it to see what our life will be like after 30 and single...let me tell you it's not pretty. As you can decipher from the name the crowd tends to be of a more mature nature 30 to 70 give or take. So we go in and sit down and within 5 minutes there is an older gentleman at our table offering to purchase us booze. We politely decline as we had just arrived and purchased our own and continued to watch the car wrecks all around us. There was the 50 something woman, gyrating around and stealing ballcaps off of men's heads while laughing like mad...is this the mating dance of the drunk 50 year old? There was the man my father's age that grabbed my arm while i was merely walking by. I did not entertain that move and grabbed my arm back and kept on walking. M and I decided to get away from the crowd and sit on the patio. Silly girls, we were not safe out there either. A group of men in their late 30's decided to chat us up. We gave in, let them buy us drinks and actually had some really funny conversations but that was it. It was a ridiculous evening, i felt like Gisele Bundchen on the catwalk. If this is what single at 30 looks like....i will stay 28 forever.

Things you don't say...

So i read a few other blogs with this and decided to borrow it.

List things you want to say to people you know, but you never will for whatever reason.

*I wish you felt about me the way you do about her.

*You are the only person in the world who does not judge me and for that i am eternally grateful. You've surprised me in unique ways when my heart has been left for dead. You even accompanied me on a roadtrip that i was competely and utterly embarassed about....and said that you would do it again in a heartbeat! You're an amazing friend and I cannot imagine my life without you.

*I have given up trying to satisfy you. Every single movement i make is under your microscope, infront of your disapproving eyes.

*You suffocate me.

*The distance between us makes me appreciate our friendship even more. I miss the late nights and laughter and I cherish those moments when we make time for one another.

*You are so self-centered...it's not always about you.

*You light up my life!! I never laugh with anyone the way i do with you...tears streaming down my face, snorting, side splitting ridiculous hurt my ab's type of laughter.

*I am envious of your life and would trade places in a heartbeat...even though i know deep down that you are sad.

What up Bitches.....

A few of us went to our old stomping ground on Friday evening. The music was fabulous, we danced and had some beverages and of course played "there's your boyfriend." There was the guy with the bling and the one with his hockey jersey tucked into his jeans....quite the looker. LD pointed out some loose change on the ground (i love picking up change) so she slyly slid it over with her foot so we could crouch down and grab it. I think i made 56 cents. LD was handed a rose from a stranger who then just walked away, I had a cutie try to engage me more than once in witty banter and i giggled at his remarks and continued on. This reminded me of the time Jennifer and i were getting take out in the wee hours of the morning, and the hottest man came up and asked if we would join him and his friend for food. We declined and said we were ordering take-out....silly silly girls, whatever were we thinking?

The charmer however came at the end of the evening. We were at the car gathering our purses and such from the trunk when this guy drove by and said "What up bitches?" We all sort of stood around looking at one another rather confused "did i just hear what i think i heard?" Yes indeed ladies "what up bitches?" It's a wonder we're all single with such talent out there. After the charmer left a woman who was alone in her car summoned our friend Jen over. Apparently she wanted us to smoke a joint with her...yeah ummmmm let me see....no thanks!!

Hope you all had a great weekend. I am off to volleyball this evening and tomorrow morning i get my lady bits frozen off (Well not my actual lady bits but those pesky cells that are causing me grief). Wish me luck !!

Music

Sorry, i've been rather sick and quite busy back at work which has left me little time for much else this week.

Have you ever heard a song and it brings you back to a place, a moment in your life? The song that holds the most significance for me is Angel by Sarah Mclachlan. I could live the rest of my life just fine without ever having to hear that song again. It was played at my Aunt's funeral, and if i happen to be out and it's playing it brings me back to that day and i'd rather not go there. Funny how the mind works.

It happens to me as well for silly reasons. For instance every time i hear Tiny Dancer i think of Almost Famous or when i hear Breathe i think of the bomb episode on Grey's Anatomy. Also, when i was young i sent an ex Jann Arden's Insensitive for a laugh, he didn't find it so funny, i thought it was hilarious albeit immature.

Does this happen to anyone else?

(sorry this is terribly choppy and not at all eloquent i realize this but it's all i have today)

At last...photos...

I had a bit of a day yesterday. I got some news from someone and felt rather hurt and terribly embarassed cause clearly i'm an idiot, then my mother did something i asked her not to do when i was away and i had a lettuce moment (Dan will get that reference). I stood in Jennifers livingroom and just started to cry. I'm not sure if it was the jet lag, no sleep, that time of the month, perhaps reverse culture shock, i haven't a clue but i just started to cry and cry after i got off the phone with my mother which is quite unlike me. Thanks for the hugs Jennifer!! I think i just felt overwhelmed and very tired.

Ahem, so i am all better now and i present to you the photos. I've put about 80 or so into a yahoo photo album that you can check out (click on the West Africa one obviously). I took about 500 so be lucky i've narrowed them down :)

Here are a few of my favs though:

This little girl was at the GAR where we were trying to get a taxi to take us to the village. She just kept staring and staring. I would smile at her and she would just stare blankly at me. It was just so strange as most of the children are overly friendly. We left for the village and returned a few hours later and there she still was. Again she stood right by us and continued to stare. I had Dan take this photo and then i showed her. She looked at the picture, smiled and put her head down. I tried to talk to her as well, but again, she just stared curiously at me.


Worst toilet EVER!!! This was at a bar near K's house, i went to the washroom beside it, i just could not straddle over that thing.


These girls were my first experience with children in Ghana. They were sooooo cute and wanted to take us up a lighthouse. They hugged us, held our hands and were just so incredibly happy and excited.


I was barley able to balance this bucket on my head long enough to take the bloody picture, how the heck is this woman carrying so much while walking....


Cutey Patooty in the Village!!


The coconut boy that Jennifer tried to barter with. She wanted to pay less than the 10 cents he was asking for the coconut.


Come on now. How the heck are they able to A) get all that stuff up there and B)drive like that.


Myself and Dan back in Ghana after wrestling our bags from the people in Lome at the border...so happy to be in Ghana!!

Continuation

So yeah, the fetish market was not my bag at all, and they were scammers in the end trying to get us to buy horribly over priced fetishes. I'll post photos of the elephants foot and such later on. We left Togo and headed onto Benin where the border guards were none too friendly but they let us into their country anyway (Glad i don't speak French as we let Dan deal with the mean lady). We stayed at this amazing place in Grand Popo called Awaleplage on the beach. We were so tired and hot from all the travelling that day, we decided to relax on the beach for the rest of the afternoon which was heavenly. The next day Dan and Jennifer headed off for more sightseeing while K and I soaked up some more sun. We had a hell of a time trying to find a ride to the border to go to Tsevie and stood on the side of the road in the sweltering heat for what seemed like hours. We were grouchy and finally caught a lift in this great Bob Marley car. The driver was cool, had great tunes playing and his car had decals of Bob on the side with psycedelic interior, we could not stay in a foul mood after that ride.

However, our ride to Tsevie was unfortunately not as plesant. The driver had no idea where he was going and instead of taking the main route decided to take us down this "road" to avoid paying the police. This "road" was awful, completely awful. I thought for sure he was taking us out into the boonies to rob us and leave us for dead. There were no lights, pitch black, all mud with potholes and pools of water, not safe at all. My other fear other than robbery was getting stuck out in the middle of nowhere which was completely possible. He stopped to ask a lady about the road and wanted to bring her with us to navigate the road. After much discussion with Dan and the driver, we went it alone. The driver told us he knew the road, so Dan asked why he then needed the lady to navigate the road if he knew it. Dan "either you know the road and don't need the lady, or you need the lady and don't know the road" the driver just continued on. He also told us it would be about 5km, after 15km still in the middle of nowhere Dan asked if it was going to take 10 mins, an hour or 3 days. The driver laughed "3 days hahaha." It was an appropriate question given the circumstances. We came upon a pile of garbage to which K replied "hey this is my neighbourhood" how lovely LOL. We made it out alive. We went for dinner and i went to the bathroom beside the worst toilet in the world. It was so bad i could not even use it, i had to go beside it. I'll post a photo and you'll see why.

On our last day we went to K's friends Village. (While getting ready to go Jennifer and I perfected carrying a large bucket on our head....well for the photo at least as that is how the people carry most of their things and we wanted to try it.) It was not something one would normally see on such a trip and it was wonderful. The people in the village made us lunch Fufu and K's friend took us around to show us the sites which were mostly mud huts. The children were amazing and flocked around us and loved their photos being taken. They laughed and laughed when we showed them the digital pictures and followed us the rest of the way. We bid farewell to K and headed back to Lome for our last evening. Tuesday was insane, we were up at 6am, at the market buying last minute things, getting our fabulous dresses from the amazing tailor and heading to the border to go back into Ghana. The border was absolute mayhem, people were crowded around the car trying to "help" us with our luggage for a fee even though we told them no and not to touch anything. As soon as the trunk opened hands were flying, luggage was being carried off in every direction, i had to wrestle my suitcase out of this man's hands it was brutal. We finally made it over the border into lovely Ghana. It was such a breath of fresh air after the whole melee. People greeting us "hello beautiful ladies, welcome" and one of the guards at the border bought us water...i LOVE Ghana!! After even more shopping and dripping with sweat (Jennifer commented that if we took a shower we would be less wet) we headed to the airport.

Our flight left at 8pm and arrived in Frankfurt at 5:30am. Woo Hoo!! Our connecting flight did not leave until 1pm, we saw a lot of the Frankfurt airport. We travelled for about 40 hours straight on no sleep and have finally arrived home. I'll post some pics soon, i'm off to bed :)

The long dark road

So we left Ghana and travelled onto Lome, Togo. It's actually more impoverished in this country if that's even possible. It was absolute mayhem at the border, trying to get out of the car while everyone was rushing up trying to sell us their wares (a toque??) or carry our luggage. We made it to Chez Leon, dropped our bags and went out for dinner. Great Lebanese food. We all decided to partake in smoking a Huka which was interesting, while eating dinner and having some beer. We met a few of K's friends and had a good evening. The next day we went to meet the tailor who was to make our African Lady Dresses. He was amazing and went with us to the market to purchase more material, we all loved him. Jennifer made a new friend we dubbed the "market lover" and sang a song "Jennifer, where are you, Jennifer, come back soon" when she went to a few stores as he waited for her to return. Dan and i witnessed this and i have Dan on video reinacting the song, it was ridiculous, i was crying i was laughing so hard. We then went to a Fetish market which was quite shocking especially to me as i do not eat meat. Seeing tables and tables full of dead animals, heads, an elephants foot, a hippo skull.It turned my stomach. I"m getting kicked out of here, i will tell more later.

We spent that evening with more

You have now been eliminated from the Race

The theme for this adventure has been the amazing race. We're all ridiculous and continuously make reference to the show...this is our roadblock...this is a detour. Apparently Phil voted off Jennifer a long time ago but miraculously she is still here hehe :)

We have thus far closed down 3 bars where the staff have gone home while we continue to drink our $2 625ml beer, I love Africa!! In all seriousness, i've been to 3rd world countries before but have not ventured past the resort walls. I'm in absolute awe of how impoverished it really is here. We wandered around James Town in Accra where the sewers are open and the streets are made of dirt and i loved it. The kids here are quite incredible. They were waving from balconies, yelling "how are you, how are you?" giving us high fives and running up and holding our hands, it's amazing. The people in Accra are quite friendly, our waitress sat and chatted away the evening with us. I have tried some great food, red red beans and fried plantains...yummmm, as well as these rice balls in a crazy spicey sauce that i'm sure burned a hole in my esophagus and i loved it...so good!!

We visited a market where the locals were literally grabbing our arms, pulling us into their stalls to purchase drums and masks. We've taken to just walking away from the big crowds or you get sort of encompassed by everyone. I declared my love of Africa to Jennifer on our 2nd evening here. A few days later whilst standing on the dirt road with all our luggage, surrounded by people barttering for a ride to Anomabo, she looked at me and said "so do you still love Africa" and we just laughed and laughed, it was mayhem. We made a 4 hour trek to Anomabo from Accra. It took longer than we had hoped and it became dark. K asked Dan if he was ok driving in the dark (we had a driver but the roads can get a bit scary at night) he looked around at the greenery surrounding us and declared "no K, i'd love to sleep in the jungle tonight, " which was hilarious as there was nothing but palm trees and bushes and nowhere for us to stop. After a rather frightening drive for the last hour or so on a not so paved, potholed road, swerving to miss the potholes going 120 we made it.

The "resort" in Anomabo was really quite nice, we stayed in a thatched roof mud hut surrounded by palm trees on the beach. It felt kind of strange knowing what was just around the corner and how the people were living, for us to be somewhere rather decadent.

In Anomabo we relaxed on the beach in the morning and headed up to Cape Coast to the Slave Castle. We also wandered along the beach into town which was quite an eye opener for me. As we were further and further from our "resort" the area became a bit sketchy. Kids running up and asking for money, vultures and goats eating garbage together and the kicker for me, was all the human excrement along the beach, fresh turds as the guidebook said, oh my!! It was a little bit uncomfortable but was fine.

We were waiting on the side of the road for a cab and a boy of about 10 was across the street selling coconuts. Jennifer decided i should get one so we wandered over. He told her it would be 1000 cedis. Jennifer said she didn't want the white person price and said she wanted the same price he had just given to a local woman. The boy just stood and smirked at her, so she gave him the 1000. Later on Jennifer remarked "that little shit charged me 1000 cedis" K pointed out that 1000 is like 10 cents in our money. We all had a good laugh at Jennifer trying to barter with a young boy over a 10 cent coconut and she called herself appalling. I pointed out the area in which this poor boy had to be, the diesel he was breathing in standing by the road, the goat eating garbage across the street, 10 cents was a bargain.

We went to Kakum National Park and walked on the canopy above the rainforest on a suspended rope bridge. We also took the nature walk through the forest and learned about the various trees and medicinal purposes. It was really beautiful there, we also saw this enormous blue scorpion that the guide told us was "really small." It was hugggeee. We then went to Elmina which is a little fishing town and went to the Slave Castle there as well. Standing outside this little boy came up to me and was chatting. He then pointed to my leg and said "you're dirty" i was like "what", he said the same thing and pointed to the little bit of dirt on my leg from the rainforest. I gave him a sucker and sent him on his way..little shit :)

We made the 6 hour trek to Lome, Togo yesterday and are taking it easy today, emailing, getting our fabulous African Lady dresses made. Everyone is thrilled that i no longer want front seat privledges after our drive yesterday. There were people walking along the road, tones of potholes that we were serving to miss as were the cars coming at us and almost hitting people, all while going 120...i'm content to not have a front row view of that again. As far as bug bites and what not, i'm totally fine, other than this lump that developed on my neck yesterday, i'm sure it will go away on it's own :) (though Jennifer says it may be guinea worm, she'll get a stick and twist it out haha.) KIDDING!!! No worms, but there is a lump. I've also developed this bruise on my entire arm and shoulder as i had a mishap in the shower at Jeccels house last week and slipped on the non slip mat, go figure. I smashed my neck and landed on my side. Thankfully i was ok and noone had to come and rescue me naked in the shower. I'm sure they are thankful for that too. (Oh and Jeccel is quite the looker i must say, he's in the marines as well.)

For our remianing time we are going to K's, a village and to Benin. Hope everyone is well, i still LOVE Africa!!!!!!