I'm comin' up so you'd better get the party started

This weekend we went to the big market, called Danktokpa (At least, we think that's were we went! I didn't see any love potions or hippo heads, so it might not have been it). It was about a 45 minute walk from the ship. We had to cross the street several times, which is probably the most dangerous part of walking in Africa. There aren't those pesky "traffic laws" that govern how people function on the road. When you cross the street, you basically look both ways, take your life firmly in your hands, and run across, preferably while screaming in terror.


The market is not clean or nice. But it has a TON of stuff. There is a large variety of stuff there too. In shoes, they had everything from football (soccer) shoes, sandals, keens, tennis shoes, heels, and anything else you might think of. They were all in heaps on the ground. I didn't bother to take the time to look through. If they even have shoes my size, I'd still need to find two that match. The ground is all mud and dirt. At one point, my roommate Lisa and I looked down and were horrified to see a mouse. But this mouse looked like it was half drowned in muddy water and was suffering some form of mouse mange. We looked at each other wordlessly after watching it crawl under a FanMilk cart tire. Suddenly we both burst out with, "WHAT WAS THAT?" It was hilarious and nasty.


We found this stand that was selling head scarves. There was a waist high pile of them on the ground. The man kept flipping the whole thing over and over for us as we rooted through them. They were about 40 cents per scarf. The guy who was turning it was really surprised that I was speaking English, which I got a kick out of because he was also speaking English.





Saturday night there was a costume dance party. Lisa, Katie, and I went as Benin footballers. It was really fun. I hope we have another dance party soon!



Katie, Kelsey (going as a deckie), me, and Lisa




Today I got a card from my friend Chelsea's grandma! How cute is that? Chelsea is another crew member and her grandma asked about her friends and mailed some of us cards. It made my day! Thanks to her!