look! i'm abroad!

2006-12-22T03:12:00.000+13:00

okay, so now it's clear that i am incapable of keeping a blog updated. here i am with 5 days to go until i leave ghana, and i'll update about my most recent adventures because i don't like cello sarah being disappointed in me.
first i'll talk about today, a typical day in ghana, because i'm sure you're all wondering what exactly it is i do here since classes have been over for weeks.
i stayed at a friend's house last night because i was out watching their band perform and it was too expensive to get back to campus alone. i woke up around 5am and tried to fall back asleep for a couple hours, then decided i should just go home and do something. as soon as i got outside every single person around stared at me because it isn't an area where white people usually are, and a lot of people talked to me in languages that i don't understand. i either smiled or ignored people as i went to find a tro tro. waited 20 minutes for a tro to fill to circle (huge tro tro station), then wandered through the mass chaos of a giant parking lot full of hundreds and hundreds of vans driving every direction within inches of each other and innocent bystanders while also avoiding the bigger hazard at a station- the vendors. man, people carrying giant trays on their head are ruthless and can pursue you through tiny spaces like you wouldn't believe. about a million mates asked where i was going (OBRUNI!!!!!!! wo ko he?) and they couldn't be convinced that i knew which tro tro i wanted. now sometimes mates come in handy, but more often than not they are constantly in your face when you're just trying to walk by, but when you actually have no idea which car (out of thousands) you want to take, they are nowhere to be found, or suddenly don't speak english. so i finally get in my tro tro (to madina in case you're curious), and i spend twice as long as necessary in the car because of horrible morning traffic. surprisingly the mate understands what i say without any trouble, and i get off at okponglo to pick up clothes from a seamstress. miraculously the clothes fit pretty well, and the seamstress makes the small alterations on the spot. i walk away having paid 75000 cedis for 2 shirts and a wrap skirt. now i'm lazy and it's about 100 degrees so i decide to take another tro to my hostel instead of walking 15 minutes. today is clearly my lucky day, because the mate of this tro tro also understands what i'm saying and where i want to go, and i get my change without having to ask 47 times. finally i get back to pentagon, where there are now about 5 people living since all the students left for the holidays.
i get up to my empty room (empty besides my luggage spewing its contents all over the floor, beds, and desks) and try to figure out what needs to be done today. first is a shower, and for some strange reason the water is warm. i enjoy the warm water so much that i actually stay in the shower long enough to scrub the layer of filth from my skin rather than just rinse so i'm not smelly. after i'm clean i stay in the shower to wash my filty burkina clothes. my laundry soap disappered so i use a bar that somebody left behind. now i always hate doing laundry, but last night i tripped and scraped my knuckles raw, so today was particularly horrible. after some halfhearted scrubbing (and 7 buckets of dirty water for my jeans) i decided my clothes were clean enough, and went to hang them up. finally i get dressed and i'm ready to start doing...something.
there is a knock at the door, and it's the horrible porter from downstairs. (i hate this man. earlier in the semester he wouldn't let one of my friends in the building because he's rasta, and he's generally just a jerk. stupid jerk. anywhere, i am staying 5 extra days, and he told me it's alright to stay in my room.) stupid porter says he is doing rounds and asks how i am. he then asks when i'm leaving, even though i have told him about 82 times, including 5 times yesterday. me: the 26th. him: the 23rd? me: no, the 26th. him: the 23rd? me: no. tuesday. the 26th. tuesday. him: oh! the 26th. now what will you give me? hahaha. and he walks away. a minute later he comes back. him: really, what will you give me? i tell him i'll give him 100000, and he laughs and says it isnt enough. i explain that i'm only staying 4 extra nights, i dont have a lot of money. he says really, what can you give me? i tell him to just tell me what he wants and if i cant pay it i'll leave, and he gets defensive and asks what i can afford. at this point i'm sick of this man and tell him i'm going to speak with the managers. he tries to stop me, but i walk down to the office. he comes in with me, and explains to the first woman we see that i want to stay. she says it's fine without a second thought. stupid porter looks at me and goes to talk to somebody else who also says it's fine. i ask what i need to pay, he laughs and says nothing. he then starts acting like i was trying to be sneaky and risk getting him into trouble by trying to stay without telling the managers. he follows me back upstairs and before leaving he says you will give me your mobile when you leave. i laugh and tell him my phone was stolen last week, but thanks for letting me stay! stupid jerk.
next step: go to campus seamstress. today there is some giant political rally on campus. that means there are tons of ghanaians who have not seen hundreds of obruni students wandering campus for 4 months, so they think i'm really really interesting. i pass dozens of people who yell things at me, and then get offended when i don't answer. really, is it that big a deal if you don't know that the obruni is fine? i pass a group of boys my age sitting together, they all stare, a few say hi. i smile and walk by. 1 boy gets up and follows me. he wants to be my friend. i explain that i'm leaving in a few days. i explain that i don't want friends. i don't have a phone number here or at home. he will not be dissuaded. he follows me for 5 minutes down the road, and that's quite a feat for a ghanaian because i walk really fast and people here are the slowest walkers in the universe. finally i give him my email address, because he really really REALLY wants it. after all this, i'm sure he won't email me. i cannot understand the effort people put into getting my email address and then they NEVER EVEN EMAIL ME.
also! when i went to paga there was an abc news reporter filming, and apparently i was on the news! a bunch of people have told me they saw me, and i bet it's pretty embarassing :o) but hey, i guess it takes going to ghana and touching a crocodile to get famous.
well that's pretty much all for today. now i'll make this one GIANT entry and write about my trip to burkina faso!
i have a friend named adama who lives at kokrobitey. he makes instruments and jewelry and sells them. he's from northern burkina. after he told me about taking camel rides in the desert i decided i needed to go, and he said he'll take me. last tuesday morning we got on a bus, and after a long long long long long time we got to the ghanaian border. turns out my visa is expiring the next day. now i remember something about having a week grace period, and if you leave the country you get extra time, but it's really all a blur. the important looking man is nice and says if it were tomorrow we would have a problem, but it's fine, and he stamps my passport. i think about asking if i'll be allowed back in the country, but i decide to just get on with business. now we walk about 20 minutes to cross the border and get to the burkina police station so i can get my visa. the first thing i see in burkina is men fighting in the street. with a machete. adama laughs and tells me how it's not like ghana where people just yelll, in burkina people fight and it's over. great! (regardless, i didn't see any more fighting during the week, and much less yelling than i see in ghana). we get to the police station and i sit and wait. i wait and wait, and adama goes off to pray. it's my turn, and the officer doesn't speak english. and i don't speak french. i try to explain that i need to buy a visa, he doesn't understand. finally adama comes back and says i need a visa. oh! ok. time to fill out a long form. unfortunately i also don't read french, and neither does adama (he only reads arabic, but he's fluent in 4 or 5 languages). i try to read to adama so he can translate, but apparently i'm horrible at pretending to speak french. we suffer through this form long enough that people take pity on us and try to help, and after far too long it's done. but wait! i don't have any CFAs, so i have to go change money. okay, after that it's done. on to burkina!
we get in a tro to go to ouagadougou, the capital city (i think?). we wait about 40 minutes for it to fill, and after about 10 minutes of driving it breaks down. wait for the driver to fix it. drive 5 minutes. breaks down. people yelling and arguing, driver wont give money back, finally he gets a ride to get us another car. okay, on to ouaga! after a lot of hot painful hours dragging by we get to ouaga. man this city is dirty. and full of motorbikes. and french bread! we stay with adama's best friend's older brother's (who is really a cousin and works in switzerland) wife's house. there is a little girl who is scared of me. apparently all the small children in burkina are scared of me. this is too bad, because i think they're adorable and i'm used to ghanaian kids who love me. anyway, we shower (i love outdoor bucket showers), eat, and sleep. hang out the next day, and then take another bus to dori. goal: to ride a camel. now the original plan was to go to adama's village, but he has dreadlocks and that is unacceptable for his muslim family, so we go to dori and hope things will work out. we get of the bus and it is hot and sandy. it's hard to walk in sand with a heavy backpack when my legs are asleep from hours on a cramped bus. and it's hot. man it was hot. anyway, we meet a person who does camel rides and we go talk to them. (adama talks to them, i sit and look at everybody). we get overcharged because these are tourist camels rather than adama's family's friend's camels, but i want to ride a camel.
we walk around the town for awhile and eat amazing frozen yogurt. not processed frozen yogurt like fanyogo, actual real fresh yogurt that was sweetened and frozen. delicious! adama told me that his people are some of the very few who drink fresh milk, but a lot of others will eat yogurt. (and why not? yogurt is delicious!) this market is awesome. it's really crowded because it's market day and i can hardly move and everybody is staring at me and talking in languages i can't even begin to comprehend, but it's awesome. the women in this area are beautiful; they have lots and lots of big beautiful silver earrings and silver pendants hanging from their hair and wear bright beautiful colors and some have facial tattoos. i saw some women with large gauged holes in their ears (mom: the kind that you're worried that i'm going to have but i'm not so stop worrying!), and i was taken aback. it's something i see regularly at home, but in some way still think of as some far away custom that some remote people practice, and to see the far away remote people with big ear holes was something of a shock. it was pretty funny to me that the people in this area with all their ear piercings and exotic jewelry still looked at my lip ring like it was the craziest thing ever. anyway, i oggle the beautiful women and their jewelry for awhile, and then it's time to start our camel adventure.
man, camels are taller than i thought. and camel chairs are probably the most uncomfortable thing in existence. you sit on a wooden board with a narrow wooden back and a narrow wooden post in the front to hold onto for dear life when your camel sits or stands or runs. camels are wobbly, that's for sure. when my camel first stood up i thought i was going to die. he roared like a dinosaur and his front got higher, then his back got higher, then his front got higher, and finally we were up in the air. you have to keep your feet on the camel's neck so you have some balance, and i was worried the camel might not like my feet all over his neck. i asked adama what he thought and he removed his feet only to have his camel start roaring and waving his head around. i guess they don't mind it after all!
we rode for awhile and got to the place we were supposed to stop. are you kidding? an hour of camel and then you sit for hours and eat and sleep and wake up and ride for an hour and you're done...stupid jerk ripping us off for 2 lousy hours on an uncomfortable camel...luckily the boys who came with us to make sure we didnt die were nice, and since adama spoke their language and knows how to ride camels we got to ride around for awhile by ourselves. unfortunately he decided we should run for awhile, and my bouncing camel made the zipper on my bag open and my ipod disappeared into the sahel. we searched for hours, but really what's the point? (adama later tried to explain that i lost a small machine that plays music to the people in the nearby villages, but if there is anyone in burkina faso that doesn't know an mp3 player it's the people here.) after our extra ride we returned to the sand dunes where we were to spend the night. we sat in the sand and waited. and waited. and waited. eventually a man with a donkey pulling a cart brought us food and wood to start a fire. remember how hot it was before? yeah, now it's that cold. good thing i brought 3 layers into the sahel! we sit around a fire for hours, and a bunch of random boys from the area wander over to enjoy the warmth. hours and hours pass where i don't understand a word anybody says, but it's warm and comfortable and everybody is friendly and i'm happy. i learn how to make tea! (you might think you can make tea, but it's not desert tea!) writing out all the steps would take another hour, but it involves a tiny teapot over hot coals, a tiny glass cup (like a shotglass), lots of loose tea, mint, and sugar, and lots and lots and lots of pouring back and forth from the pot to the cup to the pot to the cup to the pot...and not just any pouring, but pouring from a very great height. very very great. after about 30 minutes you get to drink a little tiny slurp of really really really hot sugary minty delicious tea. (of course when we got back to ouaga i immediately needed to buy a tiny teapot so when i get home and go into the desert on camel i can make everybody tea...). anyway, the tea making continued until about 2 or 3am. i fell asleep a few times, but was woken up when more tea was ready. i guess nobody would choose sleep over tea...around 4 the fire was dying, our friends were gone, i couldn't sleep because i was freezing, and i couldn't speak the same language of the only other person awake, but the air was clean and clear, the sand was soft, the camels were sitting watching us, and there were millions of stars bright in the sky.
finally it was bright enough to wake up, so i went to say bon jour to the camels. camels are funny. they don't make a sound when they're alone, but as soon as a person comes close they start groaning and growling and roaring. i love them! my camel had a nose ring, and he liked me a lot. in the morning we spent a few hours riding around the villages looking for fresh milk, and eventually we sat down with our friends for tea. i've learned that "tea" can be anything, and in this case tea was warm milk with sugar. and more milk. and in 2 days i had more milk than i have in a year. gross.
okay this is long enough for now and i can't sit here any longer, so i'll sum up the rest of the trip: long bus ride to ouaga, lots of delicious bread and cafe au lait, not enough sleep, bread, traumatic bus station experience (i hate stc) longlonglong delayed bus ride home, i am sick, i throw up out of the bus window repeatedly. serves the stupid bus right, finally get home, sleep all day. here i am!

ill be home on wednesday, and i have lots of ghana stories, so hopefully i'll actually write about more things, but i'll definitely post pictures and you can ask me about them :o)
i'll be in PA for a couple days, maybe nyc for a few days, then new orleans 4-9, then PA, then rochester where i'll be living in eco estate with vivek!
can't wait to see everybody :o)

2006-09-06T00:10:00.000+12:00

this past weekend was definitely the most eventful few days i've had since i've come to ghana.
on friday i skipped my morning class to go with some people to Boti Falls. The falls are huge during the rainy season, but they stop running during the dry season, so we wanted to go as soon as possible. It took 3 tro tros and a few hours to get to the falls, but it was great. You walk down a stone pathway to get to the bottom of the falls, and since it's been dry there were 2 small waterfalls left from what used to be one huge fall. The water was great and we got lots of good pictures. After hanging around for awhile we noticed some Ghanaians bringing a sheep down to the beach. Turns out they were going to sacrifice it. The men said we were allowed to watch, but couldn't take photos, we considered leaving, but decided to stay and watch.
There was a prepared area for the yearly sacrifices done for the water, so the men began to clear the area and wash all the supplies they brought. As they were doing this the sky was darkening, and we knew rain was coming. After a long period of preparations, rain began to pour down from the sky and the sheep was slaughtered. Trailing a stream of blood, two men carried the sheep to the water to pour some of its blood in front of each waterfall, and then they brought it back to prepare it for cooking. We later found out that this sheep was slaughtered to remove a curse that one of the men believed had been put on him. Very interesting.
By this point we were all completely soaked and also leaning towards being in shock, so we went back up to a building to wait out the rain. Apparently this rain wasn't going to stop, so we found our tour guide and walked to a cave (where we ran into a huge church group and had to spend 30 minutes getting our photos taken with various men) and then on to a HUGE rock that looks like a mushroom, there's a big round rock on top of a big rock stem. A few of us climbed a scary bamboo ladder to the top of the rock, and it was awesome, but didn't feel like the safest thing I've ever done, especially in the rain! After that we were pretty spent, and we headed back to catch a trotro for the long wet ride home.
Saturday morning we left earlyearlyearly to go to Cape Coast. We stopped at Cape Coast Castle which was used to house Africans being sold in the slave trade. It was a pretty somber experience, but very interesting. We saw the dungeons and the "Door of No Return," the last point the slaves passed through as they left Africa. More recently the other side of the door was labeled "The Door of Return" when bodies of early slaves were returned to Ghana to be with their ancestors. We saw a shrine in the castle where there were recent offerings including bottles of alcohol and liberal amounts of chicken blood.
After the castle we headed to our amazingly nice hotel for lunch, and then had free time to go back downtown to watch the festival! There were chiefs and people from all the towns around Cape Coast having a huge parade and celebration. We got a great spot to stand for the parade, and it was amazing. Groups of people from each village wore matching shirts, often with a picture of their chief printed on the front. The chiefs all reclined in huge wooden beds and they were carried on peoples' heads! Each chief was under a huge colorful umbrella, and they were followed by drummers. The huge drums were also being carried on peoples' heads, and the drummer would stand behind the drum. Each chief also had somebody carry their traditional stool which people in their culture believe to be a symbol of the chief's power. Everybody surrounding the chiefs were singing and dancing, and even the chiefs would be rocking out to the music. It was pretty amazing. Lots of people were wearing traditional clothes with elaborate jewelry and embellishments, and it was really exciting being there. The Tulane students in CIEE said it reminded them of Mardi Gras. I wouldn't know about that, but it was definitely one of the craziest most rowdy groups I have ever been in. A few people in CIEE got pickpocketed, but luckily the people I was with were all being really careful of our bags and cameras and we were fine.
That night we all hung out at our hotel pool, and in the morning we headed out to Kakum National Park. Kakum is beautiful, and the biggest attraction is the canopy walk. There are a series of narrow suspended bridges spanning 350 meters separated by 6 tree platforms, and the higest point is 40 meters off the ground. Unfortunately we were in a huge group of students, but we split up and could take our time across the walkways. It was amazing to look down at the forest from above. There are lots of animals in the park, but apparently they avoid the tourist saturated areas, because we didn't see anything.
After Kakum we stopped for lunch at a tourist attraction that has crocodile ponds. That was pretty interesting, but the crocodiles didn't look too happy being there.
After that we headed home, and I had definitely had a full enough weekend to be content with a the start of a new week.
Internet time is up for now, post again later, and hopefully I'll find somewhere to upload my pictures to webshots!

2006-08-29T07:41:00.000+12:00

first full week of classes started today! i had dance again(which is really hard and amazing), and a lot of other CIEE people joined, so it's a lot of fun. also had our first Twi class. it only lasted about 20 minutes, but we have it 2 hours a day Mon-Thu for 6 weeks, then I'll be an expert. Today we learned how to ask how are you and what's your name. I already forgot. The power was out over most of campus all day, luckily my dorm had power the whole time I was there. There are going to be rolling blackouts throughout different cities because the dam isnt generatnig enough power, so this should be interesting. Classrooms packed with people get HOT without fans!
The weekend was good, Saturday was CIEE day- we went to the Aburi Botanical Gardens, and that was an experience. There were tons of fundamentalist type church groups with people falling on the group screaming, being saved and such. There was also an old helicopter that they bought for children to play on! We got to eat the goo out of the inside of a cocoa pod. I was excited because I remember Sarah mentioning it, but I was NOT prepared when our tourguide cracked open the pod and there was what looked like a giant slug wiggling around inside. Each cocoa seed is coated with a slimy white gross little slime pile, and they're all stuck together. I licked at mine, it tasted pretty great, but I could not put it in my mouth. It grosses me out just thinking about it. We saw some trees that there were ficus trees (I think) growing around, and there was one in which the original tree was dead, so you could walk inside the hollow treeshell made by the vines of the parasitic tree and look out.
We also went and saw a bunch of woodcarvers on the way to the gardens, and a group of us got dropped off their on the way back to Legon so we had time to bargain and shop. I am AWFUL at bargaining. One female vendor actually told me that I had to bargain with her to get a good price, that was pretty terrible. I ended up buying some really nice things, and I may go back later. It's just amazing to see what people can make out of a tree. We were ensured by our group leaders that we could catch a trotro back to Legon, but every trotro passing was full. We were bummed until we got a ride home on a bus full of people from a church group. They were amazing and let about 8 of us jam into their already full van. Free ride!
On Sunday Doreen (my Ghanaian suitemate) invited Nicole (CIEE suitemate) and me to her house. We left the Pentagon around 7:30 and took a taxi to her town. Her house is really big and really nice. We got fed breakfast and went off to her chuch, Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Church was definitely interesting. It went from about 9 to after 1pm, and this was a short service! Lots of people wore traditional African style dresses, so I had interesting things to look up, but it was hard to stay awake the whole time. At the beginning of the service a band came out and everybody started singing and dancing around the church. They also spent about an hour getting people to come up and donate money. Doreen's mother gave Nicole and me money to give, and everybody stared when we walked up. They also had us go up grouped by the day of the week you were born, and I was the first Friday to go up. Everybody clapped and that was pretty embarassing. Anyway, church was longlonglong, and then we went home. Doreen made lunch (fried yams and chicken, very yummy) which turned out to be specially prepared for just me and Nicole. We ate what we could, and our leftovers went to her younger siblings and cousins. I felt really bad that so much time and effort went into just feeding us, but they were insistent upon our eating. A couple hours later we had dinner, fufu with groundnut soup. We were still full from lunch so only tasted the fufu that about an hour of hard physical labor went into making. Fufu is made from cassava and other tubers. They are boiled and then put into a big wooden bowl on the ground. Somebody then takes a giant wooden pounding stick and mashes the cassava while another person is on the ground next to the bowl turning the mash between pounds. It looks VERY dangerous and Doreen assured us that it's no fun when you get your hand smashed. After dinner we sat and watched some interesting shows on tv, including a special on Hurricane Andrew which happened in the early 90s. Doreen's father drove us back to campus, and she brought back a gas cooker so I'll be able to cook in my suite :o)
Internet time is up for now, I'll update next time something interesting happens!

2006-08-24T00:23:00.000+12:00

here i am trying to revive my blog!
i've been in ghana for a little over a week now, and it's been interesting. all the CIEE people (about 30) spent a few days staying in hotels in West Legon and everyday we did orientation talks and tours and got lots of free food. Friday we moved into our dorms on campus. I'm living in the Pentagon, there are 3 doubles in a suite with 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, and a common room. The rooms are yellow and it's pretty nice. My roommate brought in curtains, pictures, and borders to decorate the room, it looks a lot better than when there was nothing. She's moving in this weekend, so i won't really know anything about her until then. We've been registering since Friday, and it's an ordeal. You walk around to all the departments to find out what they offer and when, but lots of the departments don't even have a final schedule of their classes or locations. I just went to my first class, Intro to traditional ghanian dance. It was pretty sweet, except that it's almost all obruni (white people). In an hour i have intro to drumming, hopefully that will be good too. i might also be taking off campus drumming and dancing with a group that performed for our orientation, they're amazing. My other classes should be interseting, but we'll see how they go.
Last weekend a bunch of CIEE people went to the beach, and that was an adventure. We took trotros (basically vans or mini buses with a driver and his mate, and the mate hangs out the side and calls out where they're going, and you flag them down if it's the one you want. then they cram on as many people as can possibly fit, and you weave your way through traffic hoping you don't die or kill somebody. The beach was crazy, lots of people trying to sell us things from necklaces to pringles, and lots of guys trying to get our phone numbers and email addresses. i made the mistake of giving somebody my number, and in the past 3 days he's probably called about 12 times. good thing incoming calls are free!
campus seems very different here, it's huge and pretty spread out. the roads are lined with open gutters and there is barbed wire bordering most of the grass on campus. the sidewalks are very uneven so i trip a lot, and it's always a battle to avoid both the gutter and the barbed wire. we really stand out, but most people ignore us and do their own thing. guys have been regularly stopping us to complement some random thing or another (my lip piercing is a big hit), and to collect our numbers. mostly i just go about my way though, and i'll be happy when classes really start and i get into a routine. there are a lot of volunteer opportunities through CIEE and i'm hoping to get involved, but a lot of them require nice clothes, which i don't have.
that's enough updating for now, i'm off to find some pineapple and a bag of water before i go find my drumming class! if you happen to have an international phone card give me a call (check facebook for my number), and i should be able to use skype or google talk at some point if you're cheap :o)
miss you all, keep in touch

2006-05-15T15:24:00.000+12:00

So I've realized that I really don't like writing very much, and that's not very conducive to keeping an updated blog, but I'm not doing anything so I'll try to update. I'm sure you all want to hear about my mid-semester break, especially since I haven't done anything since then.

Mid-semester break here is for 2(!) weeks, it's pretty awesome. The first week I was planning to go to the south island, but it wasn't working out very well, so I decided to stay in Auckland. This turned out to be useful because I had to get my paperwork for CIEE in, and I had time to relax. I spent a couple days hanging out with Yoana (my awesome Bulgarian friend from Vassar who I met at a Mountain Goats show) and that was fun, but Auckland pretty much sucks after a few months. 3 people in IES (Leah, Kristen, and Dave) and I decided to drive up to the north of the north island (northland) where hopefully the weather would be nicer. We rented a car, filled it with way too much stuff, and we were on our way, driving to northland in the pouring rain!
There was really no plan, Leah and I had spent the entire night before making a VERY detailed schedule with Kyle, but he decided not to come so our plans fell apart...The plan mostly consisted of driving up the west coast and figuring it out from there.
So we drove and drove and drove, and it rained and rained and rained. We followed some turn off to a scenic view, but it led to a carpark with a smelly tower and not much else, so we continued on our way. Eventually we came to the Kauri forests (which are HUGE trees) and we stopped to see Tane Mahuta, the biggest tree. It was dark and raining, but this was THE biggest kauri tree. There was a pullover and a short loop trail to get to the where the tree is. Leah Kristen and I wandered ahead and wondered which tree we were supposed to be looking at because all of the trees were really big. We stopped and started turning in a circle wondering where the AWESOME GIANT tree was. Dave was behind us, and we hear holy shit! The 3 of us turned around asking what? what? and then we saw it...Tane Mahuta sure is a big tree. We tried to take pictures, but the dark and rainy didn't work so well, so we got back to our car and started driving again.
The driving was funny because our car sucked, there was absolutely no pick up. The roads through the forest were very windy and hilly, and did I mention it was raining? There was a really slow car in front of us that we could NOT pass, because our car would not pick up the speed. This was frustrating to Dave, but funny to the rest of us, especially when we came upon a second lane made for passing, and our car still didn't pick up enough speed to pass the slow car.
FINALLY we saw signs for 90 mile beach which runs up the west coast to the tip of the north island. We drove and drove and drove some more, and finally turned off to the beach where we planned to sleep. After following another looooong road we emerged on the beach! Luckily the rain had stopped by this point. We all hopped out of the car and had a look around. Dave and I went up to the edge of the water, probably 100 meters away from our car. It was surprisingly warm! It was fun for a few minutes until we noticed that some waves come in really fast, and moved about 30 meters up the beach. We finally had to run away from the water to avoid getting wet, and Dave's sunglasses drowned. That was enough ocean for one night, time to sleep. We decided not to park on the beach, heeding the warnings of people finding half buried cars along the water all the time, and tourists losing their rental cars. Leah and I slept in my tent, the other 2 in the car, and it was time to pass our after a long day of driving.
I woke up early and went to read on the beach while I waited for everybody else to get up...I finally went to wake them up, twice, and about an hour after that we were on our way! We had no real plan, other than to drive up to Cape Reinga at the very top of the island. Along the way we passed a place to rent 4 wheelers, but it was closed :o( We made a stop for gas and food at the last place we'd come across, and then we got to the sand dunes! We rented boogie boards and started trekking up the huge sand dunes! Well at first we trekked up the small sand dunes, but eventually we got to the big ones! It probably took almost 10 minutes to struggle up the dune, and then 5 minutes to catch your breath. After after 10 more minutes of getting up enough courage, you get on your belly and go flying down the steep hills, it was amazing! I didn't bring my camera because I don't trust myself to not destroy expensive things while sledding down massive sand dunes, but I stole some of Dave's pictures and put them up on webshots: http://community.webshots.com/user/pinkestsarah (I know the pics are small, but I stole them off facebook and that's what they did, I don't know how to fix them!)
After we went well over our hour rental of boogie boards we tried (in vain) to brush off our sand-coastings and headed back to the car. More driving, but at least today was gorgeous weather! Pretty uneventful, until we had to stop for a herd of stampeding cattle. Seriously! We stopped and all of a sudden the road in front of us was full of cows coming right at us. Well maybe they weren't REALLY stampeding, but our car was definitely in their line of travel. The cows were the most exciting thing to happen to us until we got to Cape Reinga.
Well I guess nothing very exciting happened when we got to Cape Reinga, we checked out the lighthouse and watched the waves where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean come together. That was interesting (the water was a slightly different color coming from each side and there are apparently HUGE waves during storms), but there wasn't too much to do, so we drove away and had dinner at some random beach. STILL nothing to do, so we drove back to Cape Reinga for sunset! Walked along a trail towards a beach that we were too lazy to get to, so we sat on a ridge and drank some boxed wine while we waited for the sunset. We waited and waited, and it wasn't too amazing, so after it set we headed back to the carpart. WAIT NOW THE SKY WAS REALLY PRETTY! Took pictures, then back on the road heading south.
We ended up back at Waipoua Forest and slept at their campsite. In the morning I woke up Dave for a hike only to discover that the trail we wanted to take was closed :o( We decided to do a few short hikes to see some of the other REALLY big kauri trees. It was nice to hike, but nothing too amazing, other than FINALLY getting to see some of the curled up ferns that NZ puts on absolutely everything.
This is getting to be a long entry for a 2 day trip, so I'll stop here! Check out my pictures on webshots :o) Since I'm apparently in a writing mood I'll start an entry about Tonga, so hopefully I'll post that soon and you can all read about how awesome it is.

Like I said, I haven't been up to much. Classes aren't very busy, but the weather is crap so it's no fun to be outside. I'm jealous of everybody graduating, but I'm really looking forward to Ghana- I just wish I didn't get all the emails about senior week events! Speaking of Ghana I'm definitely going, still have things to work out though (vaccines, malaria meds, take five approval...) but I'm not too worried. I only have 3 more weeks of classes (short semester!), and then 3 finals in June. Also can't forget about the Kapa Haka performance at the end of May! (Form 1 and Form 3 both perform for everybody who wants to come, and it's supposed to attract quite a large audience. You're all welcome to come- you can watch me be awesome at poi and there will be food!) I'm hoping to go away at the beginning of June, still no plans yet. Colin is coming in July and we're going to go around the south island doing awesome things for a week. A friend here is coming with us, and she and I are going to travel more after Colin leaves, then I'll head back to Auckland. I might try to wwoof up north, or maybe just come home (still no ticket!)
Let me know if you'll be in the south-eastern PA/upstate NY areas in late July or early August, I'd love to see as many people as possible before I head off again.
(My cell phone is no more, so I'll try to figure some way of contacting people while I'm home. Like the internets, or having you call Tim :o) )

Enjoy the nice weather, and hope you're all well!

2006-04-17T10:58:00.000+12:00

I'm having a bored day, so i'll start writing about things i've been doing. Now i'll be able to remember new zealand forever and ever!

i knew when i came over here that i wanted to wwoof. for those who doesn't know, wwoof (willing workers on organic farms) is a network people can join to get a directory of organic farms in a country. you can contact people and arrange stays where you'll do a few hours of work a day in exchange for food and housing. wwoof hosts can have big commercial farms, family gardens, b&bs, or just about anything, and you can end up doing pretty much anything. it's a really good way to travel, because you're pretty much only paying for transportation.
like i said, i knew i wanted to wwoof, but like everything else i was reluctant to try to get into it by myself. fortunately for me, phoebe, one of the awesome girls also doing IES, is really into farming so she also planned to wwoof, and she's good at things like calling people and figuring out bus schedules, so we're all set.
some wwoof hosts prefer people doing long term stays, but phoebe and i wanted to do try going to some places for a day just to get out of the city and meet some cool people. it also makes sense to get to know a place before you go stay there for a week. we went to 2 different places for a day each, and they were both pretty cool.
the first place we went (heather's house) was interesting, but we didnt do anything very exciting. heather was working on establishing mandalas. it's a permaculture principle where you basically have a bunch of little round gardens within a big round garden, and you have a mobile chicken dome that you move from plot to plot and the chickens eat all the leftover vegetation and leave the soil really fertile and ready for planting again. heather also raises miniature cattle, but we didn't get to see them. we did, however, get to play with her 4 dogs who just had about a million puppies! the puppies were only a couple weeks old, and they looked like big fat rats. the dogs were fun, she had a powderpuff chinese crested and poodles and one "choodle." they spent a lot of the day chasing the ducks around and begging to be petted. it was fun, but not the most exciting day of my life.
the next place we went was owned by liz, she worked establishing Montessori schools but was transitioning to sustainiable organic growing. she had some cows and phoebe and i learned all about diatomaceous earth and how it's the best thing IN THE WORLD for them. we looked at lots of pictures and got some good suggestions on other places we can go. the work we did was mostly weeding and moving a giant pile of wood that was being eaten by weeds. we also played with her little dog and got to feed tomatos to a parrot. there was a pretty cool/crazy british man wwoofing there. he informed us that he is an occidental philosopher, and he spent a long time living in india and hanging out with tibetans. he also complemented us for giving people a good impression of americans. people really do buy into the american stereotypes of us being fat lazy warmongering republicans who spend all day worshiping bush and eating mcdonalds. they also often expect american students to only be looking to party, drink, and have sex. it doesn't help that a lot of american students go abroad and do that, but it's nice to have people recognize that all americans aren't the same...
the third place we went was definitely the best. we spent 2 nights staying at conny's house. she has a pretty large garden and lots of feijoa and citrus trees, also 2 horses and 4 cows and a bunch of sheep and 2 dogs. conny is also an artist, and her house is the most awesome place i've ever seen. the kitchen area is really plain, all wood and very functional, but the rest of the house was covered in animal prints and fuzzy rugs and fluffy trim and old photos and it was so fun. she has a shack/cabin thing that she's converting to a self sustaining place for wwoofers to stay, so phoebe and i had our own room, it was pretty exciting. it had a tv and stereo, but more importantly there was a hammock on the porch! it was drizzly when we got there, so conny told us to have a look around and just relax. we spent a few hours stringing buttons. conny somehow got hold of thousands and thousands of buttons from a friend. she sorts them and is working on stringing them to hang all around her house as room dividers, i think. it was actually really fun, but took a LONG time. we ate a delicious dinner and continued stringing buttons while we hung out with conny and her kids. the next day was a lot of fun, of course we weeded (some of the weeds here are crazy, they're big tall grasses, and the roots can be like 2 feet long, they're reeaaaaaaaally hard to get out and leave your hands all calloused and red), but we also got to paint part of her house, pick veggies from the garden, make fresh apple juice (which is amazing!), and ride horses! it was awesome, my butt hurt the next day though :o( we spent some time relaxing in the hot tub "having a spa," and then another delicious dinner, and phoebe and i made dessert. dinner was out of a hare krisha cookbook, and i have already discovered that their food is AMAZING. that night we strung more buttons and watched legally blonde 2 with conny. pretty horrible movie, but the day was fun. the next morning we went over to a feijoa orchard owned by conny's friends. she and her children are paid for picking, and her twins are using the money they make to go on exchange to australia. feijoas trees have low hanging branches, and ripe feijoas fall from the tree, so we spent a few hours crawling in circles around trees picking up feijoas and trying to avoid putting our hands in rotten ones. 40 big buckets filled the huge wooden crate and we were done! phoebe and i got a bunch of feijoas and apples for our hard work, and after making some apple juice for the road we headed home, filthy and full of food. i'm definitely looking forward to going back to conny's farm, and i might spend some time after the semester staying there. she's awesome and a lot of fun to talk to, and she's happy to tell us about how they built up everything on their property from nothing and why they grow the way they do, it's really interesting to learn about different people's methods of farming.
anyway, those have been my wwoofing adventures so far. at the end of the semester i will probably try to find a couple places on the south island to stay while i travel a bit. i think i probably get along better with the relaxed people who grow their own food than with the backpackers who stay in hostels :o)
i have some pictures of conny's farm that i'll put on webshots soon if you're interested.
for now i have to get out of my room, and hopefully something will be open! apparently the country closes down for good friday and easter. it makes for an interesting saturday when everybody is crazy excited for going out because they stayed in last night, but the bars close at midnight cuz it's easter :o)
enjoy the nice weather in rochester! it's starting to cool down here :o(

2006-04-12T20:30:00.000+12:00

hey everyone :o)
i decided i'll try to keep up with writing in a blog when i do exciting things rather than telling the same things to everybody and neglecting writing emails. we'll see how well it works out.
i just found out that i got accepted to go to ghana next semseter (for those who don't know i decided not to go to melbourne. auckland makes me crazy and melbourne would have been twice as bad ), i have a ton of paperwork to get done really quickly. also, i still need to take take five approval to make changes.
mid-semester break starts on friday, and we have 2 weeks off. i'm spending the first week staying in auckland, plans to go to the south island didn't work out. the 2nd week i'm going to tonga with IES, it's going to be awesome (except i could get deported from tonga for not having a return flight :o) ) after break we only have 4 more weeks of classes, then a month of finals.
exams schedules got just posted, i have exams the 13th, 19th, and 21st of june. i'll probably stay until mid-late july and try to get around the south island, then i'm coming home. i'll probably come up to rochester for awhile, so make sure you're there! then off to ghana in mid-august
well this is enough for now, after classes i'll write about what i've been up to for the past month