Minutia Update

Well, the African Cup of Nations is over. Ghana took third place, which was a bit of a disappointment, but they beat their arch-rivals of Nigeria, and honestly, I don't know if the celebrating could have been any more raucous even if they had won the cup. Egypt took the cup home, with Cameroon coming in second.

We tried to go to a game, but it was a bit ridiculous. Unfortunately, as soon as tickets for a match go on sale, scalpers go and buy thousands of tickets, creating a “shortage” so they can hike the prices way up. Most Ghanaians can't afford the high ticket prices of the scalpers, so the end result is that you have to locate a scalper and pay up to $100 for a ticket (which is insane, because the tickets are $4 when you buy them from an authorized dealer). Since most people won't pay that money, the stadium was always half empty, even though lots of people would have spent the $4 to go see the match if they could get a ticket. Such a shame.

In other news, the harmattan appears to be over, which makes me want to cry. Temperatures are rising, along with humidity levels. I'm just so grateful I'm not in Accra where it's three times as bad. We get a brief rain shower every other day or so, which helps keep the temps, if not the humidity, down to a reasonable level.

The moist air has brought the snails out of hibernation, and my oh my- they are feeling frisky. Soon our garden will ring with the pitter-patter of little.... er, snails. Or something.

Other than that, not much is new. Mus and I will be heading to Accra on Wednesday for Valentine's Day and to take my host sister Julie to the dentist. We've been in Obo for three weeks straight now- a new record for us- and it's been wonderful and relaxing, but I'm ready for a small change of scenery.