This keyboard is sticky.

when I was showering this morning, that was the closest I had come to dancing up to that point-- beneath a trickle of cold water. After a wonderful breakfast of toast, steamed cabbage, and warm links of what looked and tasted rather like hot dogs as opposed to the sausage that we're more accustomed to at breakfast time. Regardless, it was absolutely fantastic;trying new things is a concept that has been absolutely intrinsic to this trip. On our way out, we waved good-bye to one of the little boys who lives at the guest house that we're spending our nights in. His name is "Papa," and it's been somewhat strange calling such a young boy that name, more of a title to us. He waved back as the van left the guest house behind.

On our adventures in the town (I refrain from calling it a village now because that word, when used to reference his home, seemed to strike one little boy as disrespectful, and he warned me of this): I can now, upon some reflection, say that it all seemed to smell like a U.S. civil war reenactment camp, on account of the myriad cooking fires. Anything burnable and dry was burned, and everything was dry and burnable. At the town limits by the road, there could be seen a sort of shrine looking thing. Low, white-washed concrete walls festooned with painted imagery of village elders, one with a spear and the other brandishing a rifle, and a tiger lunging forward with a porcupine caught in its toothy maw.

Walking down one of many winding, rust-colored and narrow paths towards the new school. Little boys and girls, all sporting shaved heads and ear-to-ear grins shouted "obruni, obruni!" as they tugged at our clothing. There was a grassy clearing between the left and right sides where we were greeted by a toothy, leather skinned old man with salt-and-pepper whiskers and a hot-pink mesh hat on. Her seemed to be dancing a sort of low to the ground free-form jig as he shook our hands and swept at our cheeks and necks with an off-white handkerchief. He tried to get us to dance with him and the others, but to no avail on my behalf. The most comfortable I was for a while was playing ball with the town boys-- mostly a volleyball-like game where we all tried to keep a small-sized plastic soccer ball up in the air for as long as possible. I was afraid for a bit that someone'd get smacked in the face, but all went well. There was quite a hooplah, drums and clapping evrywhere, and even a brass band, as well as a few efforts to get me to dance. I had to cave eventually.

After a good two hours of laughing and shouting and carrying on, the real ceremony began, as the delivery taxi with the chief's ceremonial umbrella finally arrived-- remember, we're living on Ghana time now.

From within the school building emerged the first umbrella, beneath it Rae-Anne ("Queen Mother") and Jay ("Nana Jay"). Ray-Anne and Jay were garbed in cream-colored wrap-around robes with gold ribbon interwoven into the fabric, coupled with gold necklaces, bracelets and anklets, as well as (according to Jay) very uncomfortable sandals accented with yet more of the glistening stuff. The same might be said of the Chief, but rather ten fold. The village proceeded to parade 2 miles up the road, government officials directing traffic to facilitate the festivities.

All is well!