Hello! My name is Greencard

This is a post where I tell you about stuff that happened last weekend. Sorry about the confusion to the space-time continuum. Anyway, onwards.

May 23 - We have arrived at our hotel in Cape Coast, after much confusion, and trying to stay at two-not one, but two!- different hotels that no longer exist. Our motley little group (Catherine, Joseph, and I) are starving and have high hopes of finding some good food that doesn't taste like tomatoes and onions over some kind of starch. Our guidbooks take us to Blue Cheese, or at least, to where Blue Cheese should be: that is, across the street from the crab statue in the middle of town. Yeah. The crab statue, I know. There is a cafe there and someone informs us that they've changed their name. Of course they did. So we sit, and decide upon three orders of fried rice, two veggie, one with chicken, and a round of Star, one of the local beers here. (On a side note, after ordering one today, I saw that they are only - ha! - 675 ml, so about 2/3 of a liter. I swear they seem bigger at night.) Anyways, the fried rice arrives long after the beer, so we're a little tipsy by the time the food arrives. But it is excellent. Amazing. Mind-blowingly delicious. Okay, I was really hungry, and it tastes different from everything else I'd been eating, and it was semi-familiar, and I'd been drinking. But still, it was good. This cafe turns into a nightclub in the evening, and I can tell we're getting close to that transition, because the speakers are turned up ridiculously loud. After we finish eating, we move to the far corner away from the wall of sound. From our new perch, we get to watch the movie that is playing on the single screen: The Specialist, starring Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone (alongside them is James Woods, which I practically have a fit about). We get to see Sly's gross naked ass and an assortment of things I could have lived without, but the shower scene is what really gets us. Mmmm... showers. So we pack up, pay, and head back to the hotel in hopes of running water. On our way back, J. & C. stop for a pack of cigarettes. A little foreshadowing: over the course of this evening, the entire pack will disappear. And no one bums a single one.

Once we are presentable (or at least up to African standards of presentableness) , we head over to the bar by the castle, right on the beach. It's absolutely gorgeous here, and the cool salty breeze feels wonderfully refreshing. Another round is ordered, then a round of tequila shots (which actually ends up being rum, all in one glass, but we take what we can get). The rum is awful and burns like crazy. I am officially intoxicated at this point, and decide that I am done drinking for the night. Catherine inherits the rest of my beer.

Over the course of the night, Eze, a musician-turned-preacher, joins us at our table. He is friendly and has an aura of peacefulness about him. He's most definately a Christian, but very open minded. His views on the world are very similar to mine and my tablemates'. I just don't happen to agree with his conclusions that religion and Jesus in particular are what makes people stop their madness and try kindess with one another. (Or for that matter, that using Jesus as your main reason for being a good person is wise, healthy, or of value on its own.) Eze's singing gets the attention of another musician in the bar, and soon we're being serenaded.

Within an hour or so, I've sobered up and our new friend gets us into a cab for a good price. We drive by the spot we had dinner at, only to see that this place is bustling with activity now. We make a split-second decision to have "one more drink" and ask the driver to let us out. As we weave our way through the crowd, past the crab statue, and into the bar, I am reminded of the moshpits of my youth (or my youthier youth). Of course, in the African version, people are really dancing, not just shoving and pushing, and it's full of black people, which would never happen in the U.S./punk version. We grooved our way to the bar and ordered another round. I find that I'm a much better dancer with a drink in my hand because now I only have to figure out what to do with the one extra hand. I dance for a few minutes in this crowd of bodies. Catherine and I are popular, with our light skin, long hair, and the stickers we're wearing on our foreheads: "Hi, I want to take you home to America with me." Catherine has is especially rough, as she's totally adorable without the added attraction of a ticket to the United States. Our dance cards fill quickly, but, like the moshpit, I am exhausted soon after starting and I go to sit down. A man comes up to me and tries to introduce himself, but I can't hear him over the music. He is motioning with his hands, but I'm still not getting it. Finally, the woman next to me whispers in my ear that he's deaf and mute. Instantly, a see the opportunity to use my dusty ASL skills. I sign my name and where I'm from, and introduce J. & C. He's very polite, which is a nice change (people here, most specifically men, are very bold and direct, which to little American me, comes off as rude). He asks me if I can ask Catherine to dance with him, and I hand him off to her. After they dance for half a song, we polish off our beers and head back up to the Savoy, our sub-par home here in Cape Coast.

As we walk, two young Rastas start up a conversation with Joseph. C & I are ready for bed, so we forge onward to the hotel. We sprawl out on our bed, two twins side-by-side in the same bedframe (later this evening, I will dream of this bed, seeing the little ravine between our two mattresses as the canals of the open sewers that flank most sidewalks here). A few minutes pass, we're nearly sleeping, when J. walks in with two bags of nasty looking weed. It seriously looks as though someone smoked it, ate it, shat it out, dried it, and then sold it J. for 50,000 cedis. Seriously gross. Manic, he searches aorund for DIY bong supplies. I am horrified that he actually intends to smoke that crap, and I think C. is too. We're wishing he'd just go to his room and leave us out of it. A couple of aluminum cans, spurts of coughing, and a lot of frustration later, he gives up and lies down on the bed next to C., who is clearly not interested in sleeping next to a 6'6" beanpole of a man tonight. She doesn't scoot over, probably in hopes that he will take the hint, give up, and return to his own room. Soon enough, he does just that. Finally, we sleep.