WEDNESDAY

In the morning Nick and I took a stroll through Elmina. We came across the market which we have been looking for. Its more outdoors than the Cape Coast which is good, the smells aren’t as potent. On our way back we saw some fresh doughboys being made and couldn’t resist. We asked for one each and she gave us a bag of 5 each. Only 50 peswas and we couldn’t really say no so we had them all. I mean we really ate them all. Way to go Keane, I don’t even eat doughnuts in the states. The taxi’s are always an exciting part of the day. Its funny, I think I’ve only seen a handful of cars that actually have speedometers that work, not that it matters if they did since no one really follows the rules and if the rules of the road did matter there wouldn’t be anyone to enforce them. And if there was someone to enforce them you could just pay them off. Oh Ghana! Today the steering wheel was upside down, doesn’t seem that safe but we made it in the end.
Today we had two sight visits to go on. Both were for nick but since I didn’t have any to go on for my own stamps it went with Nick for his. The first is with Jennifer. We were both really excited to go; yesterday Katie and Sarah visited with her and she is a very good batiker, has a nice area to work and she fed them popcorn. Not just any old popcorn though, she popped it fresh and she made it like kettle corn.
She did have a really cool set up. Her father worked for the government, I think as a police officer. All government workers in the area have to live in this certain building. When her father passed away two years ago they had to move out of the building and into a house next door. Fortunately they still let her use the space to batik. I would describe it almost like a parking structure underneath an apartment building.
Nick’s pattern was a difficult one which is why it was given to Jennifer to sample. She doesn’t have any trouble stamping it and gets the rhythm of the pattern on the first go. When we were finished batiking we waited for Jennifer outside when she said she had a few things to take care of. We both wondered what she was doing in the house and when we saw her come back out we were happily surprised that she had popped us fresh kettle cooked popcorn. It was tastier then how Sarah and Katie had described. Crazy delicious!
Done with batiking we waited for the fabric to dry and for Jennifer to get ready. While we waited we talked with her mother which was really nice. She gave us the background of her life and how many kids she had, where they all are and what they do for a living.
Finished getting ready, Jennifer took us back to the office when she was finished getting ready. Once back to the office we didn’t have much else to do because we spent too much time at Jennifer’s and didn’t have enough time to do the other sight visit. I think that it was ok though because the other woman didn’t show up to come get us.
Back at the house we went across the street to one of our new spot (the C Spot) for beers, sausages (non for me of course) and an exciting Black Star match. Apparently we were supposed to win this game or else we wouldn’t be able to make it any further in the World Cup. So we didn’t win the game and everyone got really disappointed because that meant the end for Ghana. Then all of a sudden the Ghanaians went nuts!! None of us ‘bruni’s knew what the hell was going on. I’ve never seen such passionate fans as the Ghanaians. Anyways the stats of the game where added up and I guess we did well enough to make it through. This means that the next match will be this Saturday again none other than the United States. I know who I’m going to root for (Ghana of course) but I wonder what the other girls will do.