pre-internship, post study abroad

this weekend was kind of a limbo between programs. we spent saturday sleeping; i hadn't realized how tired i was until that point, once i stopped doing things. during the study abroad i usually got about 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night and now that we've stopped running around, we were exhausted. we went to the african regent (a really nice resort) to watch the germany vs. uruguay consolation game. (i was happy to see uruguay lose AGAIN). sunday the two new girls for the hospital internship came in and we went for a walk with them and tried to give them all of the advice that we've accumulated over the past month. needless to say, they were overwhelmed. later in the afternoon, i was reading in my room and i got a phone call from the front desk saying there were children here to see me. the little kids that lauren (my old roommate) and i used to play with all the time came to the hotel because i hadn't seen them in over a week because we'd been travelling. i showed them all the pictures from my trip. they are always so excited about the pictures because they learn about all these places in school but don't always get to travel to see them. i wish i could have taken them with me. Annie keeps asking me to come with me to the US and it breaks my heart every time. i'm going to have to do something nice for them before i leave. oh, they also wear the bracelets i bought for them in the Volta region all the time. its adorable.

sunday night we went to watch the final at celsbridge again, where we had watched the ghana vs. germany game. it wasn't nearly as crowded this time and i was pretty disappointed in the game itself. plus i wanted the netherlands to win. whatever, ghana should've won the whole thing. ha. after celsbridge we went out to a bar we'd been to before called epo's, and met some people who work for the peace corps and who have been in ghana for between one and two years. it was crazy to hear their ghanaian-english accents: people here respond best if they are spoken to with the same fluctuations in voice as themselves (which is a much different emphasis on different syllables than a native english speaker). it was also really refreshing to meet (white) people who we havent been seeing 24/7 for the past month. i absolutely love ghanaians, but the cultural divide gets tiring. it's so much easier to speak with someone when you can inherently understand their body language and non-verbal clues, without worrying about offending them or not understanding their meaning. but i think that divide will come down with time, if i ever did spend more time here (as i hope to).