writing on stone

exciting things from the last couple of days:

-oasis restaurant, just down the road, started selling cranberry-raspberry juice!
-taught the kids from annai secondary school to play kickball last night. they loved it, which makes me happy, because i think it is my all-time favorite game.
-ray found a tarantula in toka village and brought it back here in a plastic pop bottle just for me to see! then he smushed it under his foot, because apparently they are super dangerous and can kill people. i wish he hadn't killed it, but i am glad that i don't have to worry about tarantulas sneaking into my room. neil told me i didn't have to worry about it anyway because the tarantula doesn't have a key to my room. so silly. i will post pictures of it when the other computer is working, so check back soon.

-an unlikely set of friends: a cranky canadian girl of irish/ukrainian heritage (me), a 30-year-old cree/soto girl from saskatchewan (crystal), and a startlingly unpretentious 25-year-old oxford/cambridge ph.d. candidate from wales (gareth, who is here for 6 weeks and then goes back to the u.k. to finish his ph.d.). we went for a REALLY nice walk last night to oasis restaurant just after the sun set. the walk was about 2 kilometres each way, and although we used our headlamps when we walked through the savannah, we agreed to all walk in darkness along the road. it was lovely! there were millions of stars, and fireflies, and only one vehicle passed us in each direction! the weather was comfortably warm, not stiflingly hot like it usually is here nor bitterly cold like it is at home. when we got to oasis we drank our cranberry-raspberry fruta (gareth had beer), and we played dominos and made fun of gareth's mosquito-repelling armbands and legbands. he is a fount (font?) of entertainment, i tell you. it is nice to have friends here. too bad he is leaving in december (he comes back to guyana after april, when we leave).

i always get really jaded about my work here, believing that it is not as important or valuable as the work that some of my peers (ie. king's graduates, AFL alumni, etc.) are doing at home or overseas. i am not feeding hungry people or saving aids-stricken africa, nor am i equipping ghanian women to set up sustainable small businesses for themselves (arg - that's a whole other story). i am playing kickball with secondary students and going on fishing trips. at times, i recognize the value of this program: youth in ylp are very obviously being equipped with communication and leadership skills, which are vital in a time when their country is being invaded by companies looking to exploit their traditional lands for natural resources. and we are building relationships and community, which are undoubtably important. but sometimes it is really hard for me to see those things.