African Elephants, Mosques, and Trying to Order Milk

After a long and treacherous journey on unpaved, dirt trodden paths on a rusted tro-tro with internal screws coming loose; we made it to Mole National Park. Where I got to see my first African Forest elephant.

This elephant did not seem to know mine from the elephant sanctuary in Thailand, but I figure elephant news might not travel very fast and we'll hope Pang Boon Me is 58 and still kicking (or swaying her trunk)?

So we were on our 'African Safari' that left at 7 AM on our same tro-tro we took to get to Mole National Park and everyone was half nodding in and out of sleep between views of antelope, deer and birds when we hear some one sleepily say ELEPHANT.

The tro stopped and we were out of there quicker than you can say 'fu fu.' We got a perfect view of 2 elephants and were a few yards from both. They were African forest elephants that are much, much smaller than Asian elephants. They also have smooth skin; and I missed seeing the quilt of wrinkles that my elephant in Thailand had.

Seeing elephants makes time stop.

I'm seriously considering moving to Tennessee and working at the elephant sanctuary there.
The trip at Mole continued with jokes about eating elephant burgers and coming home with new ivory piano keys. I was the only one making these jokes; and I don't think they were always well received with all of the elephant lovers among us.

As for today, we just got back from visiting a mosque. It was probably 110 degrees like it is everyday here, and I was wearing a scarf over my head with a long sleeved shirt (thanks for letting me borrow one, Dan) and pants. And I lived through it.

We were fortunate enough to be able to go inside and pray with the women there, but before we could we needed to thoroughly clean out ears, face, nose, mouth, feet, and hands three times each with water and our hair once. We were then able to go into the space divided by a cement wall that the women pray in while the men pray in the bigger room adjacent to this space. It reminded me of going to Orthodox Jewish weddings and services. It was a really powerful experience taking part in prayer with all of these women and I am extremely grateful for this rare experience! Islam is an incredibly peaceful religion and it is unfortunate that due to circumstance, many disregard this.

As for the milk:

There is no milk in Ghana.

But, we are staying at a more touristy hostel and there is milk and cookies on the menu at the 'jungle bar' restuarant. While everyone else was ordering beers; I decided to order a milk because of all the antibiotics I'm on. I asked the waitress to make sure it was real milk; which she said it was. We were all very excited being as milk deprived as we are. The waitress returned a few minutes later with a milk stout beer. I told her, no, I wanted a glass of milk. She looked at me strangely for a minute but left with the milk stout beer and sure enough came back with 'milk.' It was the condensed milk concentrate, Ideal Milk, from a can that we have been taking with our tea everyday. I spent 50 pesawa for it (the equivalent of maybe 30 cents) and called it a night. So much for trying to get my milk fix. Good thing eventually I'll make it back to good ol' Vermont where I can have more milk than I could ever want.