Taking a "Holiday"

So we are closing in on one week of living in Ghana and we are still alive. We are also well other than lack of sleep and a small bout with The Diarrheas (Lukas termed the phrase “I hate the diarrheas”) today. Romana convinced us that we needed a “vacation” so we are spending the weekend in Cape Coast. We got an early start on Friday because all the government offices were closed and we could do nothing regarding the adoption. We got up on Friday and left our place at around 8 and took a taxi to a place where there was supposed to be an air conditioned Ford Bus (van) that would take us to cape coast for a very reasonable rate. On the way there we drove down a 3 or 4 block long market where they sold everything from used mufflers to food. It was not the cleanest space and most of the “buildings” were make shift lean-tos made of whatever they could find. Have we mentioned that the driving here is amazing. Imagine one of those games where you had to get the little red car though traffic where all of the other cars are touching with the exception of one car that can move one space in one direction freeing another car to move one space in one direction and so on except in real life. They do have similar traffic lines to us but they are more of a guide line for keeping the vehicle straight and have no real meaning for lanes. The difference between a dotted center line and a solid one is that you must pass extremely fast on the latter one so as to avoid the semi truck coming around the corner and over the hill. Fortunately all of the cars are equipped with seat belts that no body but us wear. Any how, we missed the bus the first time, because even though we were in line, as soon as the bus pulled up, everyone rushed to the bus, pushing and shoving each other, one man almost fell onto the street. And we stood there in complete shock and missed the bus. Two hours later of standing in the sun and having wares peddled to us we were on the bus. While the rate was reasonable at $14 for the 2 hour ride we actually got on the wrong bus due to the language barrier. For the first 15 minutes of the ride we were blessed by a Ghanian pastor who gave the entire gospel to everyone on the bus. It was one of the most amazing examples of a modern day apostle that I have seen. I was inspired. I wish I had it on tape. He was “on fire”. We encouraged him and gave him some $. He gave as personal blessing and prayer. As for the rest of the ride, we ended up driving past a few signs that said Cape Coast turn here and about 10 minutes after that we asked the driver where we were going. He said some place about 60km past where we were already. He dropped us off at a taxi and we took a 15 minute drive back to our resort. It all worked out though it could have been bad had we not asked the question. The resort is relatively nice and the scenery is beautiful. We have air-conditioning which allowed us to get the best night sleep we’ve had which has helped us regain some strength and composure. The food is ok and we have found a few things that the kids won’t eat. They don’t like raisins, Kathryn does not like green beans or cabbage, and Isaac does not like carrots. Other than that they will eat everything on their plate including Isaac scooping up the french fry ketchup with his hands. We spent most of Saturday hanging out at the pool and beach. The ocean looks so big here. We saw fisher men pulling in nets, Gardeners shimmying up palm trees to harvest coconuts and many fast little lizards that Isaac likes to chase. We bought a bunch of stuff from one of the traveling peddlers who said his name was Philip though Amanda thinks he was just saying that to make us feel more comfortable with him. He liked my “I like Ike” T-shirt and wanted to use it for bartering. The TV is sketchy and gets about 10 chanels of which 5 are fuzzy, two have no sound, and only one has anything that interests any of us. Tomorrow we will try to catch the correct bus and do the whole thing in reverse. Hopefully we will make it back with less misfortune. Monday, we hope to have Kathryn’s passport so that we can continue the process. Without it we can’t do much more. We will be having the kids poop into bags and check for little poop bugs or something. Why this matters I don’t know. If there are bugs we will have the US doctors take care of it. If there are no bugs then who cares. Anyhow, we will post again when we get back tomorrow. Please continue to pray specifically that Kathryn’s passport will be ready early Monday and that the rest of the process will be completed by Friday so that we can come home on the following Monday.

P.S. It may look like marinara or meat sauce but it is really spicy.