Asaa -- It is Finished

Sunday, October 8^th

After a steady dose of baseball, the boys decided that we needed something different: football. And not futbol. Real American, bone-jarring football. Duncan, Will and I made our way to Champs, for the thousandth time in a week, hoping to catch the 49ers-Raiders game. When we arrived at Champs, we found a pair of signs on the front door. One said that there was a 60,000 cedi charge to get in, which is outrageous to begin with. The second – and worse of the two – signs said that Sundays were movie nights and they would be airing “The Da Vinci Code” and “The Lakehouse.” Uhhh, where’s my football? And what kind of obruni-run sports bar doesn’t show football on Sundays?!
We asked around where we could watch football – no not that futbol, as we had to explain countless times. We went to a bar across the street that had a satellite. But Sundays were karaoke night at this bar. Argghh!

Needless to say, we were sorely disappointed, but we made the most of a bad situation. There was a live band playing at the hotel near Champs, so the three of us sat down, enjoyed a beer and called it a night.

Monday, October 9^th

Today was a day full of accomplishments, by African standards. By that, I mean that if you get more than one thing done in a day, it’s an amazing day. That one thing may be going to a market, going to class, whatever. As long as it gets done.

For a nice change, we had no running water (this is starting to get to me). Desperately needing to wash my sheets and towels, I rolled out of bed, filled 2 buckets of water from a different water line downstairs, walked up 4 staircases with 2 very full buckets of water and got scrubbing. By 10:30, I had already down my day’s work. As a reward, I gave myself a nice bucket shower, which is not exactly like running water, but in a pinch, it does the job.

I was a man on a mission today. I decided that today was a good day to get crackin’ on the rest of my independent study paper, which is on the High Holy Days (killing two birds with one stone for sure. Haha.). I had already written my bit for Rosh Hashanah, so I’ll I needed was a couple pages on Yom Kippur. At 2 in the afternoon, I was finished. I’m amazing.

The afternoon was lazy, and well deserved if I may say. I got in some internet time, took a solid nap, and cleaned up the room a little a bit.

For dinner, Duncan and I went to Rich Love. Duncan has been fighting malaria/post-malaria symptoms for some time now. One of those symptoms is a lack of appetite, but as evidenced by his sheer dominance over our 20,000 cedi shared bowl of food, that was clearly over.

Tuesday, October 10^th

Just like Sundays mean Football, Tuesday means one thing (well two): beer and 2-for-1 pizza. Woo! But before that would happen, I would have a lazy, unproductive Tuesday.

We actually had running water, so I sprinted from my room to the disgusting bathroom (pictures of that will be coming soon). The shower was perfect. By the time I got out, I was dirty again and already sweating. Why can’t we get a nice 78 degree day here?

I rolled over to the International Programmes Office to capitalize on some free internet. But internet was asaa (finished – get used to that word). Gah! There is only one way to fix the situation: Rich Love. Yum. Duncan and I rolled over and ordered our typical stuff: 20,000 cedi bowl with rice, chicken, salad, and vegetable sauce. But vegetable sauce was asaa. Alrighty. So we decided to spruce it up with some fresh grilled pineapple. The pineapple here is really amazing. It’s not too sweet, and it’s so juicy. It is salivating.

We downed the food in no time flat and took a short walk to a palm wine chop bar. Duncan is doing his research on palm wine, and this means drinking many a-calabash of palm wine. Palm wine is low in alcohol content and sweet when it is fresh, but it ferments and sours very quickly (after a while, it can be distilled to make akpoteshie). I refrained from drinking, but Duncan had his calabash and 2 liters to go to give to someone for payment for a drum lesson.

The afternoon was killed by doing nothing, naturally. There is pretty much nothing to do in Legon, and going anywhere is both time-consuming and tiring. I filled out my multi-country (Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Niger) visa in preparation for some serious international travel in the coming weeks. Then it was beer and pizza time.

As always, I got my two mediums, which aren’t that medium. They’re actually rather small. I asked for thick crust, but thick crust was asaa. Duncan got the last one. Not a big deal though – with enough beer, pizza is pizza.

Tuesday night was one of the best nights for me on the trip. I had a good buzz going, which is always nice, but I also got to talk to a lot of the important people in my life. I was able to speak with my brother via Skype (which might be the coolest thing ever), IM with both my parents, IM with Ryan and Joe – my two best friends, and Agustina, a friend from home. It was nice to catch up with everyone a bit. The night could only be better if the A’s could pull out a victory in the wee hours of a morning.

Wednesday, October 11^th

I must be out of my mind. I’ve finally lost it. Mark, my fellow Oakland A’s lover, found not one but two ways to view the ball game: via satellite in one of the internet cafes, and via streaming video. While people in the States cannot getting streaming video – they can only get radio – people abroad can get streaming video of every game for 14.95. Cash money.

I met Mark at Tyme Out internet café on campus just after midnight. The game was on, and we were happy, despite both being awake purely on caffeine and adrenaline. It looked good for a couple innings. Zito was dealing, the A’s were having no trouble getting on base. Then the rains came, in more than one way. Zito starting sucking, giving up a pair of homers. D’Angelo Jimenez blew an easy double play. And nobody – literally nobody – on the A’s could hit with runners in scoring position. The rain also actually came down hard on Legon, so much so that because of the rain, the satellite was asaa.

Like a military squad through a storm, Mark, Kevin (who had joined us in the café) and I gathered our things and ran to Volta internet café. We hooked in my laptop, and we were up and running again. It was not looking good for the A’s, down 5-0. After 3 and 2/3 innings, Zito was asaa. And it only got worse. The score remained the same, but the A’s (outside of 5+ innings of great bullpen work) looked miserable. Bottom lines: 4 double plays (an LCS record), 0-13 with runners in scoring position (tied for the playoff record), and stupidly high 2.8 WHIP and 7.50 ERA for Zito. Disgusting.

The game ended at 4 AM. Like I said, I’m out of my mind.

After four-and-a-half solid hours of sleep, I got up for class, feeling rather disgusting and tired. Organisation Theory is my favorite class, but it’s a class where the inmates run the asylum. Class ended 30 minutes early because the students wanted it to end. Something like that would never happen in the States.

Don’t know what’s on tap for the afternoon. Game 2 is tonight, at midnight again. But I have a 7:30 class. I don’t think I’m getting up for that one.

I’m not that out of my mind.

LDG