Well, school's winding down, and it's nearly exam week. There's only 3 of us volunteers left, since Caro and Erin left last weekend for home. I couldn't go to the wedding in Kumasi that Jack and Danielle attended as I was stuck in bed with EITHER rampant yellow fever OR the flu. Either way it was enough to make me miss the chance to see the wedding which was a shame. It prompted my first visit to the Ghanaian doctor. There I was asked to give a sample for a blood test, the result of which seemed to be that I didn't have any blood, so after some amateur dramatics with Jack having to rush in to prop me up, and me dashing about shouting "I'm going to faint!" they gave up, and sent me home with a carrier bag full of drugs. But it's all good now.

So, seeing as I've spent most of my time in Ejura the last few weeks, my main entertainment is food. The street food here is AMAZING! It starts at 5 pesewas, which is about 2 pence, for which you can get a sachet of ice water or a bag of fresh popcorn. Everything liquid here is taken in sachets or plastic bags, there's a kind of sour, gingery porridge which the kids all squeeze into their mouths in the morning at school, and little bags of red juice, made from bisep leaves, which tastes like very sweet, very gingery ribena. The best thing is probably Fan Ice, ice-cream in a sachet that we usually eat sitting on the hot tro-tros waiting to get somewhere. One of the most surprising snacks are tofu kebabs, which you can get quite easily for 20 pesewas and the sweet balls, which are big balls of doughnut type stuff all sugary and incredibly greasy. Mmm. Mondays are the best days for street food, because people come to Ejura for market day, and that's when you can find fried goats cheese and little sticks made of mashed together peanuts. The texture of lots of things is very sticky and gloopy. My favourite nights at the house are when Annabelle, our new cook, makes banku or fufu or something similar. These are different combinations of mashed cassava, corn, plantain or yam that we eat with soup with our fingers. It's very soft and messy and is such a comfort food - on those nights I usually eat until I'm just a solid mass of mash and soup. The other food that Ghanaians have got down to an art is egg. For 20 pesewas, a lady outside the school or on the main street will peel a hard boiled egg, split it, and fill it with a chilli pepper and onion sauce. There are different snacks for different times of day, so when the sun goes down and the Ejurans head out to have a beer at a drinking spot, ladies set up stalls selling omelettes of egg, tomato and onion which they set in softly fried hunks of sweet bread.

I'm a bit worried about how I'll fair when we set off in 2 weeks. I've been living quite a sheltered life in the house with all our vegetarian meals being made for us. I don't really think the idea of vegetarianism holds any weight in Ghana, if you say "no meat", it often turns out to be something with no chicken legs balanced on top, but with small pieces of meat in the sauce or rice. I think I'll have to just go with it for a while, get a veggie dinner when I can and when I can't, grin and bear it. However, in my meat-eating days I did always regret never trying goat stew, so maybe one of these days I'll just have to do as the Ghanaians do and try some. I can just pretend its a nice tasty Quorn burger!

Travelling in taxis and tro-tros, we hear a lot of music. One of my personal favourites was the song that went "Shake that booty that Jesus gave ya, Shake that booty in the name of the Lord", and the reggae version of Take That's 'Back for Good'. Michael Jackson has recently become far more popular, even though there didn't seem to be that much interest before he died. There's not much white music, all the American stuff is the Akon and Rihanna that the boys at home listen to. Surprisingly enough, what's really really popular here is Celine Dion. One of the boys' friends was playing it on his mobile the other week, and even when Jacko died, the radio station played Celine Dion's "Goodbye's the Hardest Word I Know" as his tribute song. They liked it so much in fact they played it three times, on a loop.

We've discovered that one of the reasons people follow Jack shouting his name in a really excited fashion is that there's a local soap opera character called Jack who's a soldier. Add this to Jackie Chan and various other connotations, and everyone's convinced that Jack's a killer. I've even seen some of my P1s having play fights and shouting "I am JACK". They'd love for him to have a play fight with them - but of course he can't, because the moment he does, his reputation will be ruined. Being in a country where Christianity is strongly apparent, everyone is convinced my name is Holy. The boys call me Holy Man, Holy Bible and Holy Ghost Fire. When I was ill last week they chastised me, "Holy Woman, you cannot be ill, you have to heal yourself". Applying for my visa was made all the more interesting because my middle name is Marie. The burly immigration officer looked at my application and said "Holy Mary? Are you Catholic?" I laughed, no, and his deadpan response was "I am." I don't know if my name helped me or hindered me there. Picking my visa up again 2 weeks later, a different officer said "Can I ask why you're called Thomas?"
"Oh, it's my surname," I said.
"So you were named after St. Thomas?"
"No, no, it's just my family name."
"Ok. So what can you tell me about St. Thomas?"
"Umm, I don't know who he is!"

Anyway, next time we write I suppose we'll be all ready for the next leg of our adventures. Caro, who's returned has put some good photos of the house and school up on Facebook, so take a look. Until then, miss you all, love you all,

The Blessed Holy Mary