Junie's Online Thoughts
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Today, in lieu of my own thoughts, Im going to type someone else's. Four people actually. They speak more accurately of where my head's at than I ever could. After typing, Im going to make eyes at the ocean and have tea with the sun. ;)
"Its tough to say who's a greater threat to the world, an ambitious CEO with a big ad budget or a crafty cleric with an obsolete Bible verse." --Tom Robbins, Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates
"'Ever wonder,' Switters asked, 'why people get so worked up over whale hunts, yet object very little to the killing of cattle? Its because whales are rare and intelligent and untamed, whereas cows are commonplace and stupid and domesticated.' Presumably, he was referring to the manner in which the powers that be, with the greedy compliance of the media and the eager assistance of evangelicals, were busily bovinizing humanity, seeking to produce a vast herd of homogenized consumers, individually expendable, docile, and, beyond basic job skills, not too smart; two-legged cows that could be easily milked and, when necessary, guiltlessly slaughtered." --Tom Robbins
"'Recently physicists have started to conclude that in the entire universe there may be only two particles. Not two kinds of particles, mind you, but two particles, period. One with a positive charge, one with a negative. And listen to this: the two particles can exchange charges, the negative can trade off to become positive and vice versa. So, in a sense, there's only one particle in the universe, it being a pair whose attributes are interchangeable.'
'What makes them decide to trade places?' asked Domino.
'Excellent question, sister love. Maybe they get bored. I dont know. Figure that out and you can go eat lunch with God. Twice a week. Make him wash the dishes.'" --Tom Robbins
"You only live twice:
once after you're born
and once before you die." --Basho
"But listen to me: for one moment,
quit being sad. Hear blessings
dropping their blossoms
around you. God." --Rumi
"Some go first and others come long afterward. God blesses both and all in line, and replaces what has been consumed, and provides for those who work the soil of helpfulness, and blesses Muhammad and Jesus and every other messenger and prophet. Amen, and may the Lord of all created beings bless you." --Rumi
"Try to be a sheet of paper with nothing on it.
Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing,
where something might be planted,
a seed, possibly, from the Absolute." --Rumi
"You are the source of milk. Dont milk others.
There is a milk fountain inside you.
Dont walk around with an empty bucket." --Rumi
"Look as long as you can at the friend you love,
no matter whether the friend is moving away from you
or coming back toward you." --Rumi
"The importance of the Goddess symbol for women cannot be overstressed. The image of the Goddess inspires women to see ourselves as divine, our bodies as sacred, the changing phases of our lives as holy, our aggression as healthy, our anger as purifying, and our power to nurture and create, but also to limit and destroy when necessary, as the very force that sustains all life. Through the Goddess, we can discover our strength, enlighten our minds, own our bodies, and celebrate our emotions. We can move beyond narrow, constricting roles and become whole.
The Goddess is also important for men. The oppression of men in Father God-ruled patriarchy is perhaps less obvious but no less tragic than that of women. Men are encouraged to identify with a model no human being can successfully emulate: to be minirulers of narrow universes. They are internally split, into a "spiritual" self that is supposed to conquer their baser animal and emotional natures. They are at war with themselves: in the West, to "conquer" sin; in the East, to "conquer" desire or ego. Few escape from these wars undamaged. Men lose touch with their feelings and their bodies, becoming the "successful male zombies" described by Herb Goldberg in The Hazards of Being Male." --Starhawk, The Spiral Dance
"Mother Goddess is reawakening, and we can begin to recover our primal birthright, the sheer, intoxicating joy of being alive. We can open new eyes and see that there is nothing to be saved from, no struggle of life against the universe, no God outside the world to be feared and obeyed; only the Goddess, the Mother, the turning spiral that whirls us in and out of existence, whose winking eye is the pulse of being--birth, death, rebirth--whose laughter bubbles and courses through all things and who is found only through love: love of trees, of stones, of sky and clouds, of scented blossoms and thundering waves; of all that runs and flies and swims and crawls on her face; through love of ourselves; life-dissolving world-creating orgasmic love of each other; each of us unique and natural as snowflakes; each of us our own star, her Child, her lover, her beloved, her Self." --Starhawk, The Spiral Dance
Friday, June 20, 2003
Alas, last night didnt go as expected. After finishing up here, I walked past Bywel's, only to see no band and no people. All was dark at the complex as well....so I read the last of my book. This lead me to contemplate the universe, so I climbed the stairs in the big house and laid down on a chair on the roof, letting the clouds and stars play tricks on my eyes, wondering about myself and my place in the Grand Scheme of Things, missing Jeremy. Before midnight I returned home and slept.
This morning, I went a little crazy in the used book store, buying up lots of books on spirituality. In U.S. terms, I got a bargain...seven books for less than $20. Here, of course, it feels like more.
I want to do something celebratory for the summer solstice tomorrow...Im really wishing for a nice patch of woods, but the ocean is all Im going to get. Maybe I will watch the sun rise over the water, run around for a bit, then watch the sun rise later in the day. Thats fine...but Im a little blue because I wish Jeremy were here....things are more fun when he's around and all my plans invariably involve him. Oh well.
Today Im reading in a shady spot.....having dinner with Erin and Terry....then after the sun goes down, I dont know what. Life's wide open....
Thursday, June 19, 2003
Due to Jeremy's departure in MN (his mother is celebrating her 60th birthday--happy birthday, Trish!--in northern MN and they wont be back until late Sunday----no more IM dates) and my oncoming PMS, I fell into a bit of a funk this afternoon. I picked up my Tom Robbins book and gratefully perked up. Always happens with him...I love his brain, the way he writes. He seems to put a different twist on the world, and renews my faith in humankind. He also inserts a little mirth, goofiness, glee into my life. Bless his heart. Im trying to slow down....I have painfully few pages left of Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and know that there wont be another book by him for a while.
Around 5ish, I decided to work out. Since Erin and Terry were playing tennis, and they are the only ones to ever drop by, I merely closed the front door instead of locking it. Then I donned my white sports bra and grey spandex shorts and proceeded to clomp around the apartment. In the beginning, it resembled exercise....lunges, squats, jumping jacks, running in place...but it quickly deteriorated into dancing. To tell the truth, it was really playful frisking...the kind reserved for serious pick-me-up days...when you dont even look into the mirror because you know you look like an idiot, but BOY, is it ever fun! Anyway, long into the dancing-spree, midway through an old, but beloved song, I looked up mid-bounce to see a strange black woman standing in my dining room and staring at me. The noise that erupted from my mouth sounded a little like this, "AARRGGGHHHHRRRLLLLLOOAAAARRRAAAAHHHHHHHHoooooooAAAAAAHHHHRRRRGGGGGGH! MY GOD! YOU SCARED ME!!!!" She seemed just as startled and sincerely apologetic, rather than dangerous, so I told her to wait a second while I put on clothes. After turning off the music and wrapping myself in cloth, I walked into the dining room. "You caught me exercising. GOD! You scared me!" She apologized again, claiming that the music had drowned out her repeated knocking. For some reason, she felt compelled to come into my house, just to hand me a long-overdue receipt from our landlady. Why she didnt just leave it at the door is beyond me, but her visit forced an abrupt end to my sweaty fun. Such a shame....those moments are ruined when you know someone has seen you....then you have to worry about looking like a fool when you should really just turn the music back on and continue. Instead I showered, ate and came to the internet cafe to write about it. Feeling rarely social...and chipper. I even feel like making phone calls, can you BELIEVE that?????? Yeesh. I MUST be lonely or happy. Or both. Think I'll go to Bywel's bar tonight to listen to live music, maybe dance for a bit (in a more socially acceptable way) and be around people. Wish you all could be here tonight....I could use the company.
I almost had a very sad night last night. I had invited five different people to supper for redred, this Ghanaian bean stew and plantain dish. I emailed/wrote letters/sent phone text messages that it would be ready at 6:30. At 7, no one was there. Just as I was about to throw myself on my bed, Marsha Brady-style, and weep, Erin and her boyfriend, Terry showed up. They were the only ones, but it made me feel much better that I didnt have to stare at this huge pot of stew and feel like a loser because I had no friends. We ate, and Terry is nice (he just got here and is staying with Erin until they both leave the beginning of August.) Its interesting to see someone as a couple when I've only known them as an individual. They have very funny patterns together...I always get a kick out of that.
We showed Terry how to play Go and proceeded to kick his butt. Lothar showed up a little later and we all played spades. Lothar and I were partners and we pretty much got creamed score wise. But we had a few fabulous, tense games. The last game was all or nothing, and we lost by one trick. Oh well.
Today Im feeling L-A-Z-Y and dont think I will do much. Already walked to the post office, photocopied my friend's French book and emailed a few friends. Just have to buy jam and lemons...then I will be a house-bound sloth. Might go to Bywel's tonight....or maybe not. Depends on how much energy I have. Well, Im not too exciting today, so Im outie. Buh-bye.
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Last night for supper, I ate an entire watermelon. Is that bad?
Then, starting at around 1 am, the sky blew up. I cant remember a fiercer storm than that one....lightening that nearly blinded me, thunder that rumbled so loudly it hurt. I thought for sure the bathroom ceiling would collapse under the torrential downpour, but nope, it only dripped an inch of water on the floor instead. (Three whole bucket-fulls to clean it up, which I did at 3:30 am) It leaked a bit in the bedroom because one of the windows doesnt have little plastic flaps to block the rain, so there was more water on the floor. It lasted a LONG time...until nearly 6 am. I meant to run this morning, but couldnt muster the energy to do it in the tsunami. Pity...I spent too long in bed, so now Im exhausted for no reason. I hate that.
As the taxi drove to Busy Internet this morning (the rain had killed the connection in every single internet cafe in Osu, as well as the bank machine), traffic was awful. Turns out the wind had yanked out two enormous trees by the roots and threw them across Ring Road. That explains why we had to sit in the car so long that we heard two Phil Collins songs, one by Michael Bolton, Boyz II Men and some generic r & b band (Alll my life, I prayed for someone like yoooooo....I thank god that I, I finally found yoooooooooo......). Thank goodness Busy was up, as was the bank across the street. (They gave me 20,000 cedi notes, HOORAY! I hate those damn fives when I have an eight inch stack of them!)
Today is more errands....grocery shopping, buying a phone card, writing, reading more of my book (just finished The Life of Pi. FABULOUS book. Now starting the Tom Robbins book I've held onto but never read for going on three years now....). Erin's boyfriend arrived from the U.S. last night, so I might have them over for dinner.
I miss Jeremy and am starting to get grumpy that he's not here. Dont know how Im going to make it through the stretch of three long months....cant think about that now.....grrr.....Im glad he will be back in less than a week. Im too used to him being around every day. Miss him too much when he's not. Alright, thats it for today. Im out.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Dinner last night was fun. Half of the guests didnt show, but Lothar, Erin and I feasted on watermelon, burgers (i didnt eat those), potato salad, onion rings, french fries and baked bananas with chocolate. Yum. Onion rings are pretty easy, but maybe its not such a good idea to know how to make them....makes indulgences too easy to make....and the last thing I need is a huge bowl of fried foods every day until the grease goes bad.
Kind of in a mood today......keeping it short. More later.
Monday, June 16, 2003
Did you know that it's physically impossible to drink an entire gallon of milk in an hour without vomiting? The body cannot process that much lactose, so it throws it up. Oh sure, you can TRAIN for it--gradually drinking more and more milk over a period of months. But the average milk-drinking person can't do it. If you dont believe me, go ahead and try it. Just make sure to have a bucket nearby.
Okay, here's the final chapter of my adventure:
We begin in Ho, at the trotro park, ready to ride to Amedzofe. In the Volta region, we are Yuvu (Yohvoo) instead of Obruni, and we were directed to the empty trotro. Nearly two hours later, it finally filled up and off we went. Once we left the outskirts of Ho, the road turned into a rough, bumpy red-dirt road. By the time we arrived in Amedzofe, my butt was feeling it. However, it was worth it. Amedzofe was beautiful...this quaint little village built into the plateau of the mountain, surrounded by huge lush green hills, other small villages and towering trees. Gorgeous. And even though Amedzofe lies smack dab in the middle of the Volta region, where they speak Ewe, the residents of this village spoke their very own language called Siase, meaning "our language." From there, everything felt easy. The trotro stopped directly in front of the Visitor's Center, where a Peace Corps volunteer told us about the area, took our money for the hike to the falls the next day and offered to show us around. The guidebook claimed the best place to stay was the government resthouse up the hill, but the PC guy, Jason, said they discouraged visitors. He instead led us to a homestay down the road. Amelia, this cute little old lady, and her sister both offer rooms in their house. For 15,000 cedis each (less than $2), we had a nice, clean room with two beds, access to a toilet (with paper and lights and a seat!) and a shower. It was better (and cheaper) than anything we ever saw in Lome', so we took it instantly. From there, Jason introduced us to Betty, the caterer in town. We ordered our supper of spaghetti, then agreed to go on a short hike to Mount Gemi with Jason for only 7,000 cedis each (less than a dollar.) Mount Gemi stands above the village and overlooks the entire area. Its certainly not as grueling as Adaklu mountain, but we were still huffing and sweating by the time we reached the top. While we peered at the tall greens and deep blues, Jason explained that the entire region was developed by German missionaries at the turn of the century. A lot of the architecture remains influenced by them, and some people claimed that during the war, the Germans used the giant metal cross at the top of Mt. Gemi to communicate with those back in Europe. Erin was in a bit of a mood, so she poked a bit at Jason, complaining about the Peace Corps, USAID and other NGO's in Ghana. I stayed out of the conversation and looked around.
We desended the hill and ate a plentiful, decent supper. Erin and I returned to the room, got ready for bed and read our books. Shortly before we turned off the lights, I needed to use the bathroom. When I walked toward the door, I saw a bunch of beetle-ish bugs crawling under the door. At first I feared they were cockroaches, and squished a couple, before realizing they were a bug I hadn't seen before. Then a giant winged bug (as long and wide as a dragonfly, but less pretty) flew under the door and started ramming against the lights. He died, with the help of a rolled up Togolese newspaper. (Sorry, bug.) When I opened the door, I was showered in literally hundreds of these winged bugs, with hundreds more of the beetleish ones on the ground, supposedly attracted to the light. I nearly screamed. A boy who lives in the compound watched me. I asked him if I could turn off the light, and he said, No. No? No. Of course not, I said. By now the old woman heard me talking and came out to see what I wanted. She saw the bugs and seemed mildly surprised, but did nothing about the bugs. She suggested I walked the other way so I didnt have to walk through the tornado of flying critters. When I returned to the room, I realized that the bugs were probably mating. The newly arrived ones in our room seemed to wander in twos, either mating or smelling each other's butts. I had just written about ants here...how every spring, the ants with sexual organs and wings fly off into the night for a frenzy of mating. Then they fly off to a hole, eat their wings and become new queen ants. I figured these beetle-ish bugs were doing the same. I shoved a blanket under the door and tried to push the increasing number of mating bugs in our room out through a crack by the floor.
The next morning, I woke up early to pee. When I ventured outside, I saw thousands and thousands of wings on the ground, but not a single bug. Apparently they were not only mating, they were eating off each others wings as well. We dressed and walked out to meet Jason at the post office at 7am to hike to the waterfalls. On our way, we saw millions of wings on the street. There must have been an avalanche of those bugs in the village the previous evening. Erin and I asked Jason about it, and he informed us that they were actually TERMITES. Blech! (Sidenote: Erin has forever traumatized me with the idea of termites. She saw a documentary once about them. Here in Ghana, termite mounds exist everywhere...these humungous red mounds that sometimes stand taller than telephone poles. In the documentary, they showed a queen termite that filled the entire mound...all six feet of it. She was this writhing, white blob that was six feet tall....and to think I was standing in a hurricane of soon to be queen termites!)
The walk began easily enough. We ate a decent breakfast, brought plenty of water, and easily passed the straightish path. Then we came to a series of steps with wooden blocks on the ends. We then came to steeper, rocker declines where we needed to use a crappy rope (with not enough knots) to lower ourselves down. Fine enough, but we realized after the first step that a million or two ants were headed in the same direction. They flooded the rocks, stretching the full length of the rope ladder all the way down to the lower falls. We tried to step around them and made the descent down. Soon the ants crawled over our shoes, then under our clothes. Its very, very difficult to climb down a trecherous, slippery, steep path with a rope when ants are biting your ankles. It only worsened. The ants moved further up and began biting my calves, inner thighs, crotch, ass and back. I tried to stop on an even rock, to stomp as many as I could, to run my hands along my clothes and crush them underneath. I succeeded in wounding them, but they were alive enough to continue biting me in my most sensitive places. We reached the bottom of the lower falls and tried to shake out the rest of the ants. Jason, the only one wearing shorts, didnt suffer many bites, but Erin and I were near tears, both from the physical pain and the pain in the ass. Ants! Damn you, ants!!
The falls were unspectacular, and we decided to climb a different way up so we wouldnt have to reclimb the ant infested way we had just come. Jason went back up to retrieve Erin's bag, and I took off my pants to kill any leftover, wounded ants. A few remained as we continued, but it's much easier to ignore two or three ants than fifty. I saw a huge one on my shoelace and stepped on it repeatedly. We continued. The path was overgrown in many places and Jason admitted he was leading us on a path he'd never been on before. The waterfalls were not so tall or scary, certainly not like Adaklu, and I was prepared for an adventure. I was ready to get wet, to get dirty, to climb on rocks and sweat. Erin, however, wasnt. She kept falling and quickly lost her patience and sense of humor. Jason tried to both pacify and help her, offering to carry her bag. But then her ego flared, and not wanting to seem too girlish, she instead lashed out that it wasnt her bag that was the problem. It was her shoes/the slippery path/him for not knowing where we were going. I dont blame her. I know how it feels to be unprepared, to feel your body betray you, to be the angry one when everyone else seems to be fine. I just try not to throw those emotions at the people around me. I also knew enough to bite my tongue, lest she push me over the falls. :)
Between the lower and upper falls, Erin realized she had dropped her camera. Since I was in the back, I turned around to scope out the path. There was no way I was going to find her camera in all that shrubbery. It could have fallen over the side of the mountain, for pete's sake. But I walked, asking the forest for help in finding Erin's camera. I stepped less than 100 yards away and felt led to a pile of vines, plants and leaves. Hidden way in the back of them, sure enough, was the camera. I thanked the forest, knowing that something other than my keen camera sniffing abilities had helped me out. We continued our journey, and I hoped the found camera would brighten Erin's mood.
We crossed the springs, soaking our shoes, and Erin again fell. She really lost it this time, telling Jason to be sure he knew where we were going because she was sick of falling and sick of walking. I tried to reason with her, telling her that he was being nice, he was just trying to help. But Erin is Erin, and there was little I could do to change her. Finally, Jason found the way back and we climbed a steep-stepped but relatively pleasant incline to the top, back where we started. Thank goodness....I felt good....and let Erin cool out over breakfast (delicious pancakes with bananas, vanilla syrup, honey and hot chocolate.) We packed up, changed clothes and returned to the Visitor's center to catch a trotro back to Ho. A guy on the porch told us that since it wasnt market day, there would be few trotros coming out to Amedzofe. We would have to wait, but one would eventually come. Three hours later, one arrived, and we joined the other passengers on the "bone crusher" ride....so bumpy we were thrown from our seats....damn choppy dirt road with four foot potholes!
Back to Ho, then on a trotro back to Accra.....it was fabulous to be home. I entirely enjoyed my adventure, but gosh, home felt great! Yesterday, I put on my tennis shoes to work out, and found the huge ant who was the last ant I killed at the falls. I tried to pick him off my shoelace, but his pinchers were dug so deep, I had to use a tweezers to get him off. Imagine what he could have done to my flesh!
Im having a fabulous day today...went to Makola to buy groceries and found everything I wanted except two things..a frying pan (too expensive) and mushrooms (out of season). Walked to the postoffice, had lunch with Erin, bought a few more things from the grocery store and am finishing my emails. Then I have to fix the tires on the car (two flats) and clean the house. Tonight Im hosting a pot luck dinner....Im making onion rings and french fries, with watermelon and Cokes. Should be fun. I will leave you all now....until my next adventure!
