Back at Tafi

The rest of the pictures are up on the Ethiopia post. Thanks for your responses. And thank you, Bonnie, for reminding me--I meant to mention that there is an episode of Planet Earth (the one on mountains) that is mostly set in Ethiopia. It talks about the Danikil desert (we didn't go there...but it looks crazy) as well as the highlands- the monkeys, wolfs, and everything. So you should watch it!

On January 25th, I returned to Tafi Atome. It was great to be back and see everybody- I received a very warm welcome! On first view, some progress has been made. They finished painting all of the sanctuary buildings (guesthouses and bathrooms), and put up signs given to them by NCRC at the head of some of the paths through the forest. One of them is named after a peace corps volunteer, so I asked which path they were going to name after me! :-)

On closer inspection, not too much has changed. They are still having trouble with the signatures on the bank account, so the money is not going to the bank. Community members and chiefs are still asking for money. And the tour guides have not come up with a receptionist schedule (so that someone is always in the office). So there is definitely still work to be done...lots of it. But I have not been frustrated yet- either with the work or slow-moving days. I think that is because this time I really prepared myself for the worst (which I don't think was the case) and for the immense amounts of downtime.

On Monday I headed back to Accra to try to get into the Ghana-Morocco African Cup Football (that's soccer...) match. I went with my friends Samson and Joshua. It took over an hour to get to the stadium, and we still didn't have tickets when we got there! Tickets come out a few days before the game and cost about $4, so people buy huge stacks of them and so they sell out within the hour. It is illegal to scalp tickets, but of course it happens. So we stood on a sidewalk outside the stadium and started asking. Luckily, we saw a guy with a big stack of tickets and managed to get 3 of them for about $10 each--definitely not bad! We got into the stadium and to our seats just as the players kicked off--perfect timing!

I really don't know how to explain the atmosphere in the stadium, but I will try. Everybody -and I mean everybody- was in some kind of Ghana gear-- flags, wigs, hats, shirts, paint, belts, ties, pants, shoes, everything. The Ghana colors are red, yellow, and green so the stadium was so colorful! And loud. Constantly loud. The fans never calmed down. I had to scream to talk and never heard the ref's whistle. My ears rang the rest of the night, and my voice was gone! Oh yeah, and we won :-). We scored 2 goals in the first half and never gave Morocco a chance. It was a beautiful game.

Unfortunately I do not have digital documentation of the game because my camera was stolen from my pocket about 3 minutes after getting into the stadium. I noticed it quickly, but not quick enough. The good thing is that I didn't have any pictures on it that I don't have on my computer, and it was close to falling apart anyway. I am mostly sad because I didn't get pictures at the game!

So my posts might not contain pictures for a while. I am trying to find a temporary solution, but it may take some time.