Survival, in several ways

Well... Ghana, like any other country, likes its tourist traps. In order to get to see the crocodiles, we had to pay a 7 Cedi entrance fee (each), a 4 Cedi fowl fee, and a 2 Cedi camera fee. After this, a tour guide and a little boy led us around the lake and through a marsh on the far side, “where the big ones are.” We were pretty jumpy at first, cause there were several crocs just hanging out in the shallow water near where we were. However, after watching the little boy wade knee deep into the pond and hit one of them with a stick (it was too small, we told him we wanted a nice big crocodile to impress everyone back home), we manned up. Despite looking like a ferocious dinosaur, he was quite a tame monster, and didn’t so much as blink for our entire photo shoot. Oh, until they fed him. The tour guide grabbed my by the hand and put me back on the crocodile (apparently I was “good” with him), and then the boy threw our fowl towards the croc’s mouth... and I sat on his back while he chomped on the poor (formerly) living bird. Disturbing.

Normally, there are little outdoor shops near NHRC that sell essentials like eggs, bread, and cookies, but actual market day is a huge affair. After a short morning meeting with the head of the Navrongo Demographic Survey, we set out for town on our bikes. This was a little terrifying, as we had to deal with the normal crazy drivers, plus motorcycles, plus avoiding rampant children and several stampeding herds of goats. Market is definitely an experience-- once you step off the main road with all the cell phones and pirated dvds, you might as well be in a different century. The little bazaar we found is this narrow, twisting path of huts that opens up into a clearing occupied by little old women and their vegetables. A girl at NHRC has been trying to teach us a few words in Kasem, the local language, but my efforts with the old ladies at market seem to indicate that I need work.

In other news, we are going on 72 hours of no water. Times are desperate. Let’s pretend for a second that I’m ok with not showering for a few days (I am not ok with this), this also means that we exhausted our reserves of drinking water sometime yesterday, and the outside pump gave out this morning, leaving us without water to wash dishes or flush the toilet. Yum. We biked half a mile this morning to buy bottled water, and are rationing it carefully, because that’s probably all we’ll have until the center reopens tomorrow. Our neighbor, Dr. Issac, said it’s only going to get worse in the dry season. And the plumber doesn’t answer his phone on weekends.