Here and There

About four days after my last post, I got slammed with a massive fever just after teaching lessons for the day. After a day and a half of nausea, chills, fever, and lethargy, I made the trip to the local hospital after some prodding by my host mother. Long story short, I took 18 pills a day for three days and made it out from the depths of malaria. I could venture into the boresome details, but malaria is about as common to the Ghanaian people as strept throat is in an elementary school, so no big deal.

Much more disappointing was that only days later, I had to say my first goodbye to the kids at the orphanage, as I prepared to travel to my new placement at a hospital in the mountain region. I left very downhearted, but I will be visiting the orphanage again on my last month in the country, so that was quite relieving. It was also quite sad to leave my friends and colleagues from the town of HoHoe, who unfortunately, will mostly all be gone when I make my return visit. The friendships I've had in this country are very comfortable and powerful, but extremely powerful. It seems as though all world-traveling volunteers share some personality trait that makes us all get along so well, and I hope that I can see all these amazing people again.

My new town of Mamfe is very nice in the fact that we are perched at just over 3000 ft. above sea-level, which means it is quite a bit cooler in climate. I actually have woken up cold once or twice . . . who woulda thunk it? My new roommates are nearly all british which meant that my fourth of July celebrations were a bit abnormal:

"Come on guys, its the 4th, lets go blow something up!"
"What's the 4th of July?"
"It's when we beat you fools in the war! Here, have a hot dog!"

(I am aware that the 4th of july is actually when we started the war, not ended it, so no one bother correcting me)

Regardless, we have a great ole' time after work each day, and I've developed a Brit-esque inflection to my speech patterns, as well as the worlds "Chaaarleyyyy" and "Cheers." Its also tremendously nice to live with people who I don't work with due to their placements involving building schools, teaching English, and coaching football (soccer). It gives us something to talk about each afternoon. Once again, I'm out of time, but I'll talk to you all soon about my new job, and my recent travels! (This is my disappointing attempt at presenting some amount of jaw-dropping suspense and deafening anticipation)

Hope all is well across the pond

And talk about one heck of a Tour de France . . . I'm almost glad that I can't see all the gruesome crashes.