Well, this is likely to be the last one of these from Ghana. However, that's really a depressing avenue of thought, so we're not going to go down it today.

The past few weeks here have been a bit less eventful than my time on the road, but definitely a lot of fun. The highlights:

1. PROM - Yes, we had what amounts to being prom for international students 2 weeks ago. Melanie, one of the Canadians here, organized the event - formal/traditional attire, catered dinner, a dancing troupe for entertainment, and then dancing the night away after dinner. As the pictures probably indicate, much fun was had. There supposedly exist pictures of me dancing, but you will not be seeing them...the best adjective to describe my dancing would probably be "spastic."

2. NEW GLASSES - So, after Alexa put the crunch on the old frames in the Nigerienne whorehouse (I never tire of using that phrase...), we went to an eyeglass shop near MaxMart to pick up some new frames at a much lower price than you'd pay in the US. The shop felt like we had stepped out of Ghana and right into Lake Jackson. After 20 minutes, I almost forgot that I was in Ghana; of course, when we stepped out from the air-conditioned boutique and nearly got knocked over by the heat and had tro-tro mates and pure water sellers yelling at us, I definitely remembered my whereabouts. We also had lunch at Nando's, the home of tasty peri-peri chicken.

3. DRUMMING FINAL - In typical fashion for the University of Ghana, our final got moved around a little bit. After waiting around for 40 minutes on Thursday for the instructor, he finally appeared, apologized and then told us the final would be the following day because his supervisor was in a meeting and couldn't come evaluate us. The next day, we surprisingly did actually have our exam. I was to the cowbell what Eric Clapton is to the guitar, or so you would have thought as often as the instructor made me go take over for whoever was playing the cowbell. Of course, just as Clapton's career nosedived with the discovery of synthesizers and adult contemporary, mine went down the chutes after I accidentally flung the stick while playing the cowbell. Oops. The final went well, though, and all of us passed the class.

4. ASSASE PA - This is the vegetarian restaurant across the street from Paloma, and we hit it up for dinner after the drumming final. While eating, we discussed what our Ghanaian occupations would be. I was nominated to be a pure water salesperson who would change accents every five minutes to confuse people, Ginnie would be a guide at Mole, Anna (our resident women's studies student and "angry feminist" for humor's sake) would run a drinking spot in the night market called "God Says Women On Top", Shay (who, shall we say, often explores the mysterious sacraments of the Church of Rastafari) would be a sketchy rastaman at Labadi Beach, and so on.

5. TERRIFIC TUESDAYS - Two-for-one pizza nights at On the Run? Heck yes! The most recent one was more eventful than usual; the Leeds guys, Jenna, Anna, Shay, and I were eating our pizza when an acquaintance (i.e. sketchy, creepy Ghanaian student who had taken a liking to Anna) came and joined us. Real quotes from our unwanted guest's mouth: "So, Anna, are you a virgin? Because I can only marry a virgin...", "Does it bother you all that I am a Marxist?" and so on. It was rather surreal. He kept giving Anna the business, though, so she ended up telling him off and leaving.

6. MEG'S BIRTHDAY - One last birthday party at Lizzie's; it was a nice, full-circle sort of experience. My semester began with a trip to Lizzie's, and they played the first hip-life song that I specifically remember hearing. The cycle of Ghanaian life.

Intermixed with these events have been numerous chats with friends, lots of laughing, meals at the night market, an exam, plenty of studying, and so on. I take my last exam tomorrow; from there, I'll be finishing up my souvenir shopping for friends and family, and then Thursday...I fly out. I change planes in Tripoli and arrive in London on May 12th to beging my month of Eurotravel. It seems so odd to be done already...