The Case of the Vanishing Lizards

It was Sunday night.  I finished what I needed to do in the restroom, and was almost tucked away for the evening.  Amanda had waited awhile to ready herself for bed.  She used the restroom, washed her hands, and was about to leave the restroom when I heard a whisper say, "Stacy."  I wasn't sure what was going on, as I was almost nearly drifting asleep.  Then I heard it again, louder, "Stacy!"  I rolled around and asked her what was up?

"There's a lizard in the shower!"
"Noooooo....why? How did it get in there?" I asked as I was slowly sitting up in bed.
"I don't know!"
I asked her how big the lizard was.
"It's just a little guy."
"Oh, okay.  I will just make sure not to use the rest room for the rest of the night."
"Yeah, but you're lucky because you showered already!"
I decided to climb out of bed to take a look for myself.  Sure enough, there was a tiny lizard on the wall in our shower.  "Ewwww!  Amanda, I am scared.  How did it get in here?" I asked again, not really believing what I was seeing.  She said she didn't know.
"Maybe he crawled up from the shower drain..." I ventured.
"That could be.  If he touches me, I am going to scream bloody murder."
We both watched the lizard for a few minutes, thinking about what we should do.  Amanda started to walk back to her bed, leaving me standing in the doorway to keep an eye on the little guy (little guy is not being said in an affectionate way).  Amanda was content leaving the lizard where it was.  I suddenly needed to use the restroom again, and was not going to go in there while the lizard was there. 

We kind of sat/stood in silence for a while, wondering what the lizard's next move might be.  I turned and looked at Amanda for just a second, and in that time, we had lost any visual on the lizard.  "Amanda, he's not there anymore!"
"Well, where is he?"
"I'm not going in there to look for it.  No way."  I looked around the bathroom as best I could without entering through the door.  No lizard in sight. 

All of a sudden, a white lizard (different from the one we had seen) ran on the wall from inside our bedroom, and entered the bathroom through the crack in the door.  Amanda and I both screamed.  No one came to our rescue. 
I tried looking for where that lizard went, and couldn't see him or the first lizard anywhere.  The worst part is knowing that the lizards are in your bathroom, but not being able to see them. 

Amanda got up and went into the bathroom, no lizards.  We decided it was probably safe for me to use the restroom.  It took every ounce of courage I had to enter the room.  The last thing I wanted was for a lizard to drop into my lap or run across my feet. 

20 minutes later, I was in the restroom.  I told Amanda that if I screamed, she needed to come save me.  No lizard sightings.

I decided that I would feel better if the bathroom door was closed.  It wouldn't make any difference I was sure, but in my head I could convince myself that it would.  We shut the door and put our laundry bucket on one side of the door, and had the box of laundry detergent on it's side, trying to cover the space underneath the bathroom door.  We definitely didn't want a lizard crawling into bed with us. 

The rest of the night was fine as we had the bathroom door shut, and decided that we weren't going to open it until morning if it could be helped.  It took us both a while to fall asleep.  The next morning, there wasn't a lizard in sight and we thought we were safe.

Lizard to the left of the light.

Yesterday after work, we returned home, and Amanda went into the restroom.  She came out, and it was my turn next.  After Sunday's events, there was no way I was entering the bathroom without taking a look around first.  Sure enough, on the ceiling by the light was a little lizard.  "Oh my gosh!"

"Whaaaaaat?"
"A lizard friend is back."
"What?!  Ewww!  He was in there while I was in there?!"
"Yeah."
Amanda came and took a look.  "Gross."
She went back to her bed, and I stood watch in the doorway.  The lizard didn't seem as scary as the night before because 1.  There was still some daylight left, and we all know things are scarier at night time, and 2. This lizard was moving very slowly.  "I am much bigger than the lizard."
Amanda smiled and laughed, "yes you are."

I watched the lizard for a while, and he wasn't going to go anywhere too quickly. 

I walked back to my bed and unwrapped the souvenirs I purchased earlier in the day.  I went back and looked for the lizard, but he was no where to be seen.  "Amanda, he is missing!"
"Are you sure?"
I manned up and walked into the bathroom and looked for him.  "He's definitely not here."  How does a lizard just disappear?  It didn't make sense, especially for how slowly he was moving.  The rest of the night we never saw another sign of him.

After we got ready to go to bed, we finished what we needed to do in the bathroom, and I shut the door, "Just in case."  We were reading for maybe an hour or two, and I wanted to use the restroom once more so I wouldn't have to get up during the night and encounter any friends.  I turned on the bathroom light, and opened the door.

On the wall was a lizard at least 3-4 times bigger than the one we saw on the ceiling earlier.  "OH MY GOSH!!"
"Another lizard?"
"Amanda, this one looks like he ate the other one!  Ew ew ew ew."
Amanda crawled out of bed to take a look.  "That's so gross."
"Where are they coming from?!  This doesn't make any sense!!" 
Suddenly, the lizard ran across the wall.  We both screamed bloody murder. 
Two minutes later, a guy walked by and knocked on our glass, "hello?  Are you okay?"
"There's a lizard in our bathroom!" I told him.
"A lizard?"
"Like a gecko or something."
"Is it okay if I come in?"
"Of course of course!  Amanda, please let him in!"
Amanda unlocked the door and our friend came in and looked in the bathroom.
"Do you see him?" I asked.
"Yea, he's right there," he said, pointing to the floor of the shower.  The lizard had ran again while we weren't looking.  "Do you want me to kill him?"
Amanda and I looked at each other.  "Whatever you want to do.  You don't have to kill him.  We have a plastic bag if you want to just take him outside."
"Yes, please just take him outside.  He doesn't need to die," Amanda said.
Our friend didn't want to take the lizard outside.  He started moving closer to the lizard and Amanda couldn't watch, so she ran out of our dorm room.  Our friend took off one of his sandals and hit the lizard with it.  The lizard wasn't going down without a fight.  It kept running around the shower floor, and I just didn't want the lizard in the bathroom anymore.  Finally, the cat and mouse game was over and we had a dead lizard on our floor.
"Ew," was all my brain would let me say.
Our friend cleaned up the lizard for us.  Amanda was still in the hall, talking to another gentleman in the hallway. 
"Thank you so much!"  I then decided that I should probably ask the guy in our bathroom about the lizard. "What kind of lizard was it?"
"A wall gecko.  They just climb on the walls."
"And ceilings and floors," I added.  "How are they getting in?"
"They live in the walls, and then they go outside and enter rooms through the windows, and crawl on the inside walls.  They aren't that common."
"Not that common?  We've had 4 in the past two days."
"Wow.  This one was an accident though."
"How do you know that?"
"He was too big to come in through a window.  He was just here."
I didn't know what else I needed to know, except "will they crawl into our beds?"
"No."  I think that was all I needed to know.  Our friend left before we could get his name.  Amanda came back into the room and I filled her in on the details about the gecko.  We checked all our windows, and none of the netting was ripped or broken, but we closed a majority of them anyway. 

As part of our new nightly ritual, we shut the bathroom door and went to sleep. 

Final Weekend in Ghana

Believe, Amanda, Eric, and myself at the Retiree Lunch

On Friday afternoon, the library was holding a program/lunch to honor the five library employees who were retiring later this summer.  The lunch we heard was supposed to start at 11am, but it definitely did not start until 2:30, 3pm.  Despite our tummies being hungry, it was worth the wait.  We sat at a table with two people who work in Henry's office, Believe and Eric.  I feel very fortunate to have been placed at their table as it was a great time.  Eric couldn't sit still and was always up and about taking pictures or dancing, and Believe was great company.

Rice and chicken platter

After introductions, lunch was served.  You could choose between chicken or fish and different types of rice, or banku.  Since I have had banku before, I opted for the different rices and chicken.  It was fantastic!! 

As people were eating their food, each of the retirees were honored.  First they were introduced and then their accomplishments at Balme Library were described, as well as how long they have been serving the library.  The least amount of time was 25 years, the most was 46 years.  It was remarkable to see these people and hear about what their professional accomplishments.  What was most moving about this event was seeing how the other staff at the library appreciate them and will truly miss their presence at the library. 

Saturday, we were supposed to go to Shai Hills with some people from Henry's office, but those plans fell through.  There was also talk of going to KFC (yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken!) Saturday night, and Henry was supposed to call us after he returned home from a wedding.  So Amanda and I waited and waited to hear from him, not sure how much time we had to go do anything.  We finally called him at 5pm, and he said that he would have to take a rain check.  Instead, Amanda and I walked over to the Guest House on campus, and had dinner there. 

Sunday, Henry called us at 9:45 am, and it was decided that we would have dinner with him that night.  He said he was going to take a bath, and then call us.  We weren't sure how long it would take to take a bath, so we chose not to go to the pool like we had originally planned.  Apparently it takes three hours or so to take a bath.  He called us and we met him at the Accra Mall.

Beef Banku in Okra Stew

Once we met up with Henry, it was decided that we would go to his city, Tema, which is about a 45 minute taxi drive from Accra.  So we got to see a new city!  We had dinner at his favorite dives, 2.1 Bar.  There, we had some banku (good thing I didn't get it on Friday!).  We had beef banku and okra stew.  It was spicy.

After dinner at 2.1, we went to Henry's house and saw what a typical Ghanaian house is like.  They weren't bad!  Cozy for sure.  He also had TV!  So we got to watch just a little bit of that with him.  But we had a lot of interesting conversations with him, and it was a lot of fun.  We also talked about his girlfriend with him.  We told him that we hoped to meet her before we left, so he called her and she came over!  She is a sweetheart and we wish Henry and Olivia the best of luck with everything.  There are marriage talks going on, and we talked to him about somethings that girls like, such as chocolate and flowers--he had no idea.  It was great fun, and hopefully we can see the two of them again after we leave Ghana. 

The Whirlwind at the End of the Week

Scanning using the Mekel M200X

Yesterday was another exciting day of scanning!  Except, we also were able to learn and practice using the Mekel M200X scanner for scanning Microfilm and Microfiche files!  Akwasi is the sole person who digitizes theses from microfilm/microfiche formats, and he has lots of shelves with theses that need to be scanned.  He introduced us to how the scanner works, as well as to the imaging software that is used to run post-production on the images, Image Mate for Presentation (this is also used to capture the images onto the computer).  After a brief introduction, we were left to our own devices (and Richmond) to practice scanning from microfilm (another great thing to add to my resume!)

After we were in the microfilm room for an hour and a half, it was time to break for lunch.  When we returned, we headed straight to the digitization room on the 3rd floor to continue our work with the Atiz BookDrive scanners.  Shortly after we arrived, Mrs. Adanu called and she wanted to take me and Amanda to the mall so we could see the store where we could have clothes made for us.  She then had to go to a grocery store in the mall called Max Mart.  This store was AWESOME because not only did they have JIF peanut butter(!) but they had a lot of American food that Amanda in particular has been craving such as skittles, and potato chips, M&Ms (for me!) and other such goodies.  We were really excited about it, and are planning to go back on our own this weekend. 

This morning, we are finishing up our cost analysis that is due at 11 this morning.  It is turning out quite well, and I am excited to finish this so that I may continue working on the other projects I was given and hopefully complete them before I leave. 

Today, there is a library-wide lunch event honoring retirees of the library.  Free food!  It supposedly starts at 11, but we were told that many things don't start on time, so we would be lucky if they started at noon.  We were also told that it would last all afternoon until 4 and there would be dancing and drinking, and an all around good time.  Let's hope that it doesn't rain as it is being held in one of the courtyards outside (Although, it would be nice to leave the function a bit early to work on our projects!).  It will be a great opportunity to get to meet a lot of new people and possibly network! 

Scanapalooza

One thing I forgot to mention in yesterday's post was that on Tuesday, when Richmond was introducing us to the Atiz scanners, we were interrupted by four people entering the room; 2 of whom work at the library and we've met before, the other two were obrunis from Google!  As if that weren't interesting enough, one of them was a University of Michigan Alumnus!  He graduated from UM about 8 years ago (not from the School of Information--he actually hadn't heard of SI) and he was a friendly face.  They were interested in the two scanners, and from what I could gather, digitization practices at the Balme Library.  They were taking photos of the two scanners with their iPhones, and I think we may have been in a few of the shots.  So that was fun and all the news on Tuesday.

Atiz Pro scanner at Balme Library

Richmond has been taking the time to explain the InoTec Scamax M06 scanner and the Atiz scanners to both me and Amanda, and he is probably one of our favorite people to talk to here in Ghana.  Richmond is a bit quiet, but when he talks, he likes to talk about serious issues and wants to get our takes on them, as well as the United States'.  We've recently covered gay rights (actually, this one was before I had arrived so Amanda got to talk about that), marriage, topics and large themes in the Bible, and other topics such as food/food science, and customs in both the U.S. and in Ghana.  He is quite entertaining to talk to because as he is talking about something serious, he always seems to have a little smirk on his face and it's just a good time.  His catch phrase is "Wow."  He says that a lot and there are a few times when "Wow" wasn't warranted, but he says it anyway.  It always brings a smile to our faces.

Starting the scanning process for a large Thesis

One thing I thought was interesting about the Atiz scanners, is that there are two cameras hooked up to the computer, which take photos of the book being digitized.  The book is propped on a black base, and there is a clear plastic that is used to hold down the pages, flatten the pages, and get as clear a picture as possible (glass plates would be better).  There are two metal arms on either side of the black base which hold the two cameras.  Once a button is hit on the keyboard, the camera on the right takes a photo, which is followed automatically by the camera on the left.  The camera on the right takes a photo of the left page, and the camera on the left takes a photo of the right page.  After the photos are taken, the plastic overlay is raised so we can flip to the next page in the book.  Once the page is turned, the plastic is lowered, a button is hit on the keyboard, and two more photos are taken.  This occurs after each turning of the page.  There is a switch you can turn on so when you raise and then lower the plastic overlay, photos are taken automatically.  This can be good for documents that won't need much adjusting, but you lose a little bit of control of the process.  As you scan, you need to watch the computer monitor to make sure the lighting is accurate, the margins of the text aren't cropped (this frequently happens with larger books as their bindings don't usually like to give more room), and watch the book's shifting as the pages are turned and the book moves, so that these may be corrected for in post-processing. 

Happy to be here

Yesterday, we were able to finish scanning two large theses, and I had a lot of fun doing it.  I have to finish the post-processing for one of the volumes later today, and I am looking forward to it.  We still have an additional three theses to scan before Friday with the Atiz scanners (Yay!) and then we are going to take these same 5 theses to the bindery and have them unbound, so we can scan them with the Scamax scanner.  We are going to then compare the time it takes to scan using the two scanners, and prepare a cost-analysis report with recommendations for the library, which is also due by Friday.

Speaking of Friday, our plans to go to Mole National Park have been thwarted it seems.  Last we we received clearance to go from Henry.  This week, the woman I had originally be corresponding with prior to my arrival in Ghana, Ms. Gifty, had returned from a trip to Europe for part vacation, part business.  We had to get approval from her, and then once more from Prof.  I met with Henry yesterday, and he told us that Prof did not want us to go to Mole due to it being too far away from Accra (12+ hours on rough terrain roads).  We thought this made sense because they would be liable if anything should happen to us, and if anything did happen to us, they would be too far away to help us.  This morning, Ms. Gifty came in and spoke with us, and it seems there IS more to the story. 

Apparently, there is a lot of disagreement (to put it lightly) over the land in Northern Ghana.  As a result, she said some people have died as a result of it (I believe some tourists as well), and that it just wasn't safe for us to go up there and see the Elephants.  We were a little bummed about not going yesterday, but this morning we feel as if it is DEFINITELY a good thing that we are no longer going.

On the plus side, I think we have some backup plans for Saturday though!  A few people in Henry's office said that there is a really cool place near Accra where we could see monkeys and baboons, and other animals (no elephants) called Shai Hills.  To make things even better, they offered to come along with us!  Now we just need to figure out a few things to do on Friday and Sunday for my last weekend in Ghana. 

Finally! The work I was hoping for!

Puddles from the rain storm

Yesterday was quite the eventful day.  First we awoke to a downpour, which completely muddied our paths to the library.  There were some roads that were completely flooded, and I saw a taxi attempt to drive through said flood.  He managed to cross the water, but as soon as he did, his car must have been giving him some problems as he kept getting out of his car and attempting to restart the car.  Needless to say, our feet were muddy and gross the entire day, and I am pretty sure my feet are stained red from the clay. 

Yesterday, we met with a few people from the library, and we were introduced to the InoTech Scamax M06 scanner the library had just purchased a few weeks ago.  This scanner scans books, so long as they are unbounded and in loose-leaf form.  We were shown how it works, and then we were told that we needed to construct a workflow on how to use the scanner.  I was excited about this because 1.  I know how to make a stellar workflow handout due to my experiences at Taubman and 2.  I was able to play with a book scanner for the first time in my career.  I have been fortunate enough to take part in all the tasks regarding digitizing books, except for the actual digitizing part. 

The library has has two Atiz BookDrive scanners, a BookDrive Pro and a BookDrive Mini.  Yesterday afternoon, I was introduced to both scanners, and was able to scan 200 pages from what they consider to be an old PhD Thesis (from 1967)!  The second part of our project is to prepare a cost analysis between the two scanners and provide some recommendations on what we think is the best financial option (or options as it will be dependent on the quality and age of the materials) for the library. 

This morning, we are working on creating our workflow for the InoTech Scamax M06 scanner, and this afternoon, I think I get to do some more scanning!!  I am really happy at the moment :)

When we returned home yesterday, we had to pay the remaining balance on our dorm stay, and as we were doing so, we were told we had to switch dorms as they were closing Elizabeth Frances Sey Hall for the summer.  This news came out of nowhere for us, so last night as I was packing, I was able to get a move on for my packing back home to the States (I leave in a week's time).    We moved into our new dorm this morning, and it leaves much to be desired.  The walls are stained and there were bugs everywhere when we first arrived.  Justice was there and swept them away for us, but I think we will have to do a fair amount of cleaning and maybe a few repairs (our toilet seat cover is not attached the toilet).  Luckily, I only have a few nights there (as we will be gone for at least 2 nights at Mole National Park), but it wouldn't hurt to spruce the place up for Amanda's extended stay.

A Weekend in Accra

After last weekend's excursion to Cape Coast, Amanda and I wanted to stick a little closer to home this weekend.  Accra is huge and has over 2.4 million people living in its several different suburbs or neighborhoods.  Thanks to our Bradt Ghana Travel Guide, we were able to map out a few things we hoped to do on Saturday.



Jamestown Lighthouse

The first thing we had hoped to do was to travel down to the lighthouse in Jamestown, which is the oldest part of Accra and remains an active fishing center.  Accra was originally two settlements, one British and one Dutch, with Jamestown being the British outpost.  The lighthouse is literally right next door to the Jamestown Castle, which we had also hoped to see. From there we had planned on walking to Ussher Castle, then check out Independence Square, possibly Osu Castle, the AACD African Market, stop and get some lunch, and then head back to our neck of the woods to try and locate a bookstore with used books (we are quickly running out of things to read!). 

Saturday morning, we took a taxi, and asked the driver to take us to the Jamestown lighthouse.  He said okay, so we thought he knew what we wanted.  He asked us on the drive what we were doing in Jamestown, and we said we wanted to check out a castle, and then see a little bit of the surrounding area.  He said, "oh, okay.  The castle."  And we agreed, "yes the castle, but the lighthouse first."  After a few minutes of driving, he said that the castle was right there, and he pointed to a gray building.  I said, "oh, okay, great!" and he dropped us off.  We got out of the taxi and walked up to the entrance gate. 

Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park

There were a few other obrunis in line at the gate, so we knew we were at a touristy spot.  I was talking to Amanda, and one of the taller, blonder obrunis asked if we were from the United States.  I told him we were from Michigan, and he told me that he and his dad and some other guy (perhaps an uncle?) were from Illinois.  While I was talking to them, Amanda was looking in the guidebook and said that we weren't at the castle: we were instead at the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park.  We decided we still wanted to check it out because it was pretty cool, and we would figure out how to get to the spot we originally had hoped to be dropped off at (please note that we were neither dropped off at the lighthouse, nor the castle.  How we ended up here, I don't think we will ever understand). 

Statue of Dr. Nkrumah in front of his mausoleum

We walked around and saw some neat gardening, as well as fountains and statues.  Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park was created to honor Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to its independence from Great Britain and became the nation's first president.  The gray building in the background is the mausoleum where he is buried.  It was a beautiful day at this point in Accra (as the picture shows, not a cloud in the sky) and we decided to spend a bit logner here at the park.  There was a small museum behind the mausoleum and we checked that out as well.  After we were done scoping out the park, we noticed that there were some pretty tall clouds in the sky.  We looked at the guide book and decided that we would try and walk a little more than a mile to the lighthouse, despite the guidebook's warnings of it being a very grueling walk. 



Partial view of Accra from lighthouse

After our walk we had to do in Cape Coast, this walk was a breeze!  We arrived at the lighthouse.  The guide book said that if we talked to the lighthouse owner, we might be able to persuade him to let us go up to the top of the lighthouse, where we could get a great view of Accra.  As we were nearing the lighthouse, a man asked us if we wanted to go in the lighthouse.  We told him, "absolutely!" and it cost us 5 cedi, but we made it into the lighthouse.  We had to first climb 52 spiral stairs, and then take a questionable ladder and a deteriorating staircase up to the top of the lighthouse.  The view was definitely worth any thoughts of dying!  We could see for miles!  We saw the city, the fishing village (which lies to the right of the photo above), and a large amount of coastline (including the Atlantic!)

While we were on top of the lighthouse, our guides pointed out different parts of the city, including the Jamestown Castle next door.  We were told that the castle was once part of the slave trade (as Cape Coast Castle was).  Once slavery was abolished, it was used to store prisoners, and today it remains empty (?).  Our guides told us that we weren't allowed inside the castle, but that they could take us to an underground tunnel that would lead us into the castle.  We denied this offer. 

Jamestown fishing village

They also offered to walk us around the fishing village, which we took them up on.  Amanda and I do not like fish, so the smell was a bit overwhelming.  Not to mention that a lot of people relieve themselves where ever they needed to, so we had to be careful of where we stepped.  Our guides even offered to take us out on the boats and go around the pier and check out some of the other boats on the water.  We saw one guy emptying buckets of water from his boat, and we decided to decline this offer as well because we were carrying our passports and our cameras and couldn't afford the chance of getting them wet.  After our tour, they hailed a taxi for us.  As we were leaving them, we tipped them for our tour, and we were off for Independence Square. 

Indepence Arch

Independence Square celebrates Ghanaian independence from the British in 1957 and features an eternal flame first lit by Dr. Nkrumah himself in 1961.  We were dropped off at this open arena type area, and walked to the main road, where we could see the Indepence Arch.  Under the arch is where the eternal flame resides, but we didn't get much closer than the photo implies. 

Atlantic Ocean in Accra

We were slowly making headway with our day; we could not explore Jamestown Castle and Ussher Fort as we had hoped (we did see both of them, however) but we consitnued on with our plan.  As we were heading to Osu Castle, I noticed a path running alongside Independence Square with some people walking on it, and perhaps even the ocean behind it.  I asked Amanda if we could explore a bit.  As we got closer, we realized there was a beach there!!  We walked along the coastline for a bit.  I wore my swimsuit under my dress, so I was ready to go in the ocean!  Amanda brought hers, but had no where to change into it (nor did she want to).  I checked with her to see if it was okay if I went in and she said "of course!"  I was not going to pass up the chance to swim in the ocean, so I ran in.  

In Michigan, we hear about undetows, but we never really get to experience strong ones in the lakes--at least not compared with the undertows of the ocean.  They were quite strong on Saturday, and I didn't go into too far (least not further in than the other Ghanaians in the photo above!) as even as close as I was to the shore, it was threatening to pull me in.  The waves were really strong, and a few knocked me over and pushed me into the beach, my butt skidding along the sand.  I was in the water for a few minutes.  There was a kid in a Michigan t-shirt swimming near me, and he waved at me.

When I returned back to Amanda, I started getting ready to go and the boy asked me if he could be my friend.  At this point, a few little kids came up and started making kissing noises.  I said sure, we could be friends, but little did I realize that he wanted to go on a date with me.  I then declined at this point, and he asked to get his picture taken with me, so I obliged.   

We then decided to continue on with our day's activities.  We walked quite a ways in the extreme heat and sun to the AACD African Market, which we read contained souvenirs with sticker prices (no bargaining!).  We arrived there (after some help with a Ghanaian woman!), only to find out they were closed.  We were able to peer into the window, and it was exactly what we were looking for as far as the items they had in the store. 

Chicken pannini and smoothie for lunch

We decided that our next stop was for lunch.  We walked for a few minutes to Nourishlab Smoothies, which had phenomenal smoothies!  We also had our first sandwhiches there: chicken panninis, which were great as well.  They were so yummy, albeit a bit small for the price.  We then decided that we were still hungry, and we knew a bakery was not far away.  We walked to Frankie's and each bought a slice of cake.  It was so delicious!

We then decided we wanted to try and locate our last stop, a bookstore called Payless Books.  We weren't sure of which neighborhood it was in as we only had a cross street for the store, but we hailed a taxi and the taxi driver said he knew where it was.  He had me try and call the number in the guide book to see if we could pindown an exact location.  I tried calling 20 times, and no answer. The driver also stopped and asked a few people if they knew where it was: no one did.  After over a half hour of driving around, we asked him to take us back to Legon where the university was.  We had a mildly successful day, save for the shopping aspect.  No sooner had we gotten home than the threatening clouds proved themselves and it downpoured and stormed all night. 

Being in Accra

Amanda doing a "load" of laundry

Last night was designated as cleaning night.  Amanda and I did some laundry in our bathroom using the bucket and laundry detergent we had bought.  We each took turns washing a few things in our little bucket.  Soaking them for 20-30 minutes, squeezing out the soap into the shower, and then rinsing from our shower head for a few minutes to get rid of all the soap.  These were all fun (at least for me) because we got to play with some water and bubbles!  The not so fun (and more tiring) part was wringing the water out of our clothes.  Jeans and towels are a lot of work.  But the shirts and shorts weren't so bad.  We wrung out the clothes in the shower, and then hung (more like layed them out as we don't have hangers) the clothes all over the room to dry.  Since it is so humid in Ghana, it will take a few days for our clothes to fully dry.  They would dry much faster if our patio door would work and we could put our clothes under direct sunlight.  It was a fun experience, but we are excited to see a washer and dryer again soon!

Using the resources we have

While we were at the mall, we also purchased little bottles of Savannah Dry cider to drink while we were doing laundry.  We went to open the bottles, and realized that we didn't have a bottle opener.  Leave it to two librarian grad students to be resourceful.  We looked around the room for things we might be able to use, and I found my keys from back home.  I proceeded to try and open the bottle with the keys, and it worked!  It took a few minutes to get the first one opened, but it was much faster when I was trying to get Amanda's opened (only about a minute!).  We were very excited about this and felt proud of our accomplishment!  The cider wasn't too bad--it was a bit warm for our liking (since we don't have a fridge).  But it was good.



Sweeping the floor with a shoe brush

We also desperately needed to finish and resweep our room.  So while one person was soaking their clothes in the bubbles, they took a turn at sweeping the floor.  The other person was busy rinsing and wringing out her clothes.  We had a nice system working and it was more fun than either of us had anticipated.

Tomorrow, we are hoping to stay a little closer to home than Cape Coast, and check out a bit more Accra.  Our plan is to leave when we wake up for Independent Square which commemorates the independence of Ghana (some sites say we are prohibited from taking photographs of the Independence Arch, Black Star Square, and the Liberation Day Monument--which will be a bit sad as far as scrapbooking and sharing our experience with everyone!).  From there we hope to check out the Osu Castle (which also prohibits photograph taking), then a market with ticket prices for their items (no more bargaining for these two obrunis!), and a used bookstore, a restaurant called Melting Moments, and if time permits, a trip to La Beach which is Accra's most popular swim area on the Atlantic Ocean.  We plan to do more walking around so we can see more of the city and check out a few things we wouldn't be able to otherwise.  There are still a lot of different suburbs in Accra to check out, so we will be quite busy!