updates

So it's actually really shameful how long its been since I've posted. In the midst of everything in Africa I totally left y'all hanging, not to mention things since then (although, admittedly, almost everything that's happened to me that's worth talking about happened in Africa). So I'm sorry. To close off the post that I hinted at, but never wrote, let me say:

I did go to Sodom and Gomorrah the next day with Michelle. It was crazy, but it was actually not as bad as I had imagined - although, the day I went it didn't rain. Apparently on days when it rains the whole damn place floods. And there's fires all the time that burn down half the shantytown because there's no running water so nothing to put out the fire. Everyone there was super nice to us, just like everyone else in Ghana, but a few years ago I guess Bono visited Sodom and Gomorrah, but no one knew it was Bono and then they found out after he left and realized they could have been a little more hospitable; they had just treated him like anybody else. So it is quite possible that they thought I was a movie star or something, but my suspicion is that they would have been nice to me anyways. I interviewed some people to write an article for my paper (through a translator - hardly anybody there speaks English), but as some of us know, that article never got written. I didn't have enough material for my story, I wanted to interview somebody from Slumdwellers International, the group that provided our guides and stuff... but the next week when I was going to do that I came down with (cue scary music) MALARIA.

Yep, I had malaria. In spite of the probably cancer-causing amounts of toxic DEET I applied to myself, I still got it... oh well. Bound to happen. Anyways, it wasn't nearly as bad as you might imagine because I knew that's what it was... my friend Sheena had already had it and I knew the symptoms. So I went to the hospital the morning after I got a fever and aches and all that jazz, waited around for 6 hours on a bench feeling like I was going to puke, all in order to get my blood tested, and finally somebody was like, "You have malaria."

Upon which announcement we went to a drug store and I bought malaria medicine over the counter. Which was, you know, a little frustrating. Malaria medication is only $10 though, which goes to show how poor people are if they can't afford that. I agree that we need to find a cure for malaria, but this might be a while coming... and in the mean time we should just be able to treat it in everyone when it comes along. Yeah, old people and children are more susceptible, and there's the odd young person that dies from it just because they waited too long to get treated. But honestly, since I got it treated right away, it really wasn't that intense of a thing. I stayed mostly in bed for a few days and by day 3 of treatment, I was able to go out... which was great, because it was our last night in Ghana with the whole crew, and I wouldn't have missed that even for my health.

After, of course, Michelle and Josh and Emily F*%$#@!& Doerr (so named by us because of her incredible ability to be awesome and badass in any possible scenario) headed off on a grand adventure through countries we probably shouldn't have gone to. Everywhere we went was amazing, totally different from Ghana... and I loved all of it. Well, not the part where I got food poisoning in Mali, or the part where we thought we were going to be accosted by Ivoirienne soldiers, or the part where we saw cheetah skins and monkey heads being sold in the voudou market in Togo, but just about everything else. And boy was I glad that I took all those years of le French! Vrai important for all of us. There are too many stories to tell here, I could write a book, but the important thing is that we had an awesome time, didn't get robbed, celebrated Ivoirienne independance day in a bar called Mexico with some drug dealers (?), swam at the most beautiful pool in Africa (Novotel hotel in Abidjian) with some creepy oil barons who bought us $100 champagne, made friends with a wonderful Ivoirien man named "Smiley" (kind of), went to the rehearsal dinnerish thing of a Malian wedding, laid on the floor and stared at the ceiling fan a lot, saw the cutest baby in the world, made chili out of some meat that had been sitting in a 100 degree market all day covered in flies, almost missed a plane because we couldn't find the earrings I wanted, got blessed by a fetish (voudou) priest and got his business card, and celebrated Michelle's 25th birthday with a hefty amount of pizza and wine. Not to mention yelling our way through a situation where I had to bribe a soldier in French, yelling at Toureg salesmen that would not leave us alone, yelling our way into an airport, yelling at some travel agents that we weren't going to pay them, yelling at a taxi driver that took all the money when we accidentally paid him twice, and a lot of other yelling, mostly at each other but always with love. One thing I learned in Africa is that being forward is not only expected but absolutely necessary for your survival. None of the yelling was taken personally, I promise... that's just how people do things there. In a lot of ways I think its healthier... wayyyy less passive aggressiveness.

And now I will talk about something not related to Africa for once, because God knows I could do that for the rest of my life.

I am about to embark on another wonderful adventure with some travel buddies that are two of the greatest people I know. Argentina and Uruguay, here I come! I really have no idea what to expect... so I guess we'll see. I'm totally a spoiled brat, I know, two new continents in 8 months... but I couldn't resist. If it helps, I'll owe money on this trip for years! Whoops... but I think it will be worth it. How often do I have the chance to travel around South America, where I have wanted to go all my life, with my best friend? Not many chances. And it doesn't hurt that she speaks Spanish, since I don't - ha! Anyways, I think I will have lots more good stories to tell when I return from that, so chin up, folks.