You picked a fine time to Roach me, Lucille

The hospitality of the Ewe is without parallel. My good friend Emmanuel, the schoolmaster in the neighbouring village, has generously put us up in his house in Nyive. We arrived two weeks ago to find the sitting room and one of the bedrooms decked out for our use, apparently on standby for any moment I may arrive in the future. It seems I now have a home base in Ghana. There is a mango tree in the front yard, a ceiling fan and sound system in the main room, and some very polite and helpful house staff have been hired on for us (over our very, very Canadian protests). In fact, we often feel acute egalitarian guilt over the fact that so much is provided for us - all our chores and a good deal of our food included. But the laws of hospitality makes it almost impossible to refuse their largesse.

There's one drawback to the house. We share it with another boarder, with whom we have limited contact, but who has still managed to make his presence felt. He occupies the room next to ours, which has a separate door and no access to our part of the house, except for a gap in the ceiling that allows sound to pass back and forth freely. When our neighbour arrived home from his week of travels, the first order of business was to subject us to his vile taste in music. I'm talking the complete works of Michael Bolton, for starters. Also terrible gangster rap, and inexplicable country music ("You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me Lucille" a case in point).

The roaches in the bathroom have been finally defeated, and replaced instead with monster mosquitoes. I have bites in so many interesting places. Jessi has not been bitten yet at all; however, she sunburns with extreme ease, so we both have our own crosses to bear.

We braided our hair on Wednesday! Pictures will follow shortly. For now, some pictures and video from our previous weekend's adventures in Tafi Atome are on their way.