King Kong (African style)

on christmas morning, my peace corps friend, jessica, and i left tamale at dawn and headed to her village (about 45 minutes). she lives on a mango orchard right on the white volta river. needless to say her site is gorgeous. her village is tiny, less than 1000, and all the houses are traditional round mud huts with thatched roofs. after hitchhiking on the back of a sand dumper truck (the only means to her village, and great for making sand castles while driving down the road), we pulled into town just in time for christmas church service. under a woven grass lean-to held up by twigs, i heard luke 2 ( the christmas story) in dagbane, the local language followed by a hell fire and damnation sermon given by a pastor with no hair or teeth, but wearing bright white tennis shoes. the small congregation responded with traditional songs and drumming, then turned right to me and said, "you look like a golden angel, sing us one of your songs." on the spot i went through all the songs i grew up with, but wanting to keep the tempo going with the drums, jessica and i sang jingle bells (accompanied by drums of course). we then did some traditional dancing, that looked something like a booty shakin' chicken dance. i felt the same family feeling with these strangers drumming and dancing as i do singing christmas carols with my family in the states. it was a beautiful christmas that i will never forget AND i didn't see a present the entire day! we then went back to tamale to join the other volunteers and cook as much food as we could.

highlights from the beach:
the beach was beautiful! a great place to hang out for a few days and welcome the new year. i got to meet some volunteers who have been in the country for a while, body surf, listen to guitar and singing on the beach at night, and eat a whole lot of fresh tropical fruits.
on the ride home, jessica and i decided to spend the extra money (spend half the time) and take the big nice bus back up north. during the 11 hour ride they played king kong on the tv in the front of the bus. i sat there in shock as i realized how similar i must look to the ditsy blond, and how the Ghanaian on board looked like the wild savages running around half naked in monkey masks.... i wanted to crawl under my seat as to avoid anyone making this connection.
until next time
jenell