Elaine's Birthday in Osu

I'm playing catch up here, but you should all know the highlights of the last two weeks. The first big piece of news is that a girl on our program from Berkeley named Elaine just turned 22. We've already had one birthday (Ali turned 21 and then promptly fell ill with malaria alongside yours truly), but we were so disoriented that aside from showering here with praise and taking her out for drinks we didn't put anything special together. To make up for it, we took Elain to 'Mamma Mia', a real live Italian restaurant in Osu (the wealthier more touristy neighborhood in Accra where you can find supermarkets, fancy restaurants, etc). In fact, there were no Ghanains at the restaurant at all, save a couple of the waiters. It's weird when getting settled to find these pockets of tourism that are not quite like home, but are certainly not the same as the country we are used to seeing.


Here we all are at Mamma Mia's in a group shot. From left to rightNatalie, Katie, Megan, Elaine, Thien Vinh, Kelli, Alicia, Me




Right after dinner, we went to Frankie's- a hotel and restaurant most famous for a downstairs ice cream parlor. They have about 8 flavors, but when it's 90 degrees outside all the time, you take what you can get with a smile so long as it's cold. The smaller 2-scoop cups were really expensive compared to the larger 8-scoop sundaes, so this is Thien Vinh, Alicia, Megan and I embracing the cooperative spirit that is only too famous in Berkeley :-)





The evening continued with drinks and dancing at Lizzie's Bar (really just a bunch of plastic tables outside of a kiosk where you can buy beer, and they have a sound system that is absolutely more powerful than necessary for how crowded the place is.









On the right: Daisy and Cindy who met us there made some friends with soda-guzzling kids.






We then returned home by taxi and got into bed by about 1, which is just unheard of here considering how early people wake up. All in all it was a blast, and I'm sure it's not a birthday Elaine will forget too soon