the best-laid plans of mice and men

[warning: potty talk at the bottom. if this offends you, rinse and repeat]

i was going to embark today on a grand adventure to Akropong, this town on the Akwapim ridge mountain range, which is the site of the first mission to be set up in Ghana. On the way i was going to stop at a woodcarving village and this huge bead market, then do some archive
research at this institute there and go to crazy church on Sunday and talk to people about the role of Christianity and witchcraft in their lives. the tro tro ride would have been gorgeous, especially on an overcast day (not too hot, rain forest in its natural lighting and moisture level). it was going to be amazing. however, Ghana has, as usual, caused me to completely reevaluate everything about anything. Exhibit A: access to cash. The atms are not working today. Mine because they decided that today would be a good day for the whole bank (Standard chartered) to SHUT DOWN COMPLETELY so that they can go through the computer system and somethingsomethingsomething. And everyone who has an international visa card has no access to their money at all for some reason (the main rumor i have been hearing is a world bank strike that has blocked international banking transactions, but that may or may not be true). so no one i was going to travel with has any money at all. none. and we are going next weekend instead. which will be fine. oh, and there has been no water at volta hall for two days now. This means several things. 1) bucket showers wooot! where you just soap up and dump cold water on yourself. effective for things like skin and NOT for things like hair. ps getting ready for a
date and not even being able to wash your face is fun. 2) no flushing for the toilets. this is pretty much the most lovely consequence of having no water. just let your imagination deal with it. one result is that people pee in the shower stalls (which have drains) because the toilets are gross, but there is no water to wash it down, which means that when someone comes in to do the bucket shower thing, well... 3) the stairs, covered in slippery tile, get REALLY WET because people haul buckets of water up the stairs. do you know how hard it is to NOT spill a bucket of water walking up three flights of stairs? pretty much impossible. so i always almost die trying to go to class, etc, and that just makes every day i am not dead that much brighter.