Katie in Ghana

The most recent email from Katie about her travels (travails?) in Africa. Katie, I'm sorry to say it, but there's a distinct chance I will have to give you English lessons when you get back.

Sorry to hear you were sick. I remember that 'winter-type' cold/sickness that never seemed to go away. Dry and scratchy-ness and always blowing my nose. ugh, not looking forward to that part of winter in america. It's hot in Ghana, way hotter than Senegal at this time of year . . . I wan't expecting it and I'm pissed that I'm lugging around 3 pairs of pants when all I wear are my capri pants and 2 skirts. I know i'll need warm clothes in Mali, but that seems so far away. and three pairs of pants was just excessive. damb. and i thought i did such a good job of packing for 2 months. Doing laundry has become the bane of my traveling existance. A lot of the hotels i stay in don't even have sinks in the rooms and i don't always stay places for 2 nights (the amount of time i usually think merits a load of laundry). today I spent over an hour trying to was clothes in a sink that didn't have a drain plug (i tried to use a plastic bag), wringing out my clothes, and then going back and forth between my room and the bathroom to hang them up on the make-shift clothes line i hung under the ceiling fan. I don't know if my clothes are any cleaner . . . but maybe they'll
smell a bit better. reminds me, i need more laundry soap . . . i was using my shower soap this moning. ah, such is life. sorry for that little rant there.
I'm in Cape Coast, Ghana, once a major British and Dutch slave trading center. They built these giant fort/castels to house their merchants, goods, and slaves before the ships came in (about every 6 weeks) to take them accross the atlantic. It's been as interesting as it is disturbing. I'm learning a lot that I always thought I knew but never really understood about the slave trade. I have a lot of new questions and i'm anxious to try to read up on things more when i get home (to the land of bookstores, can't wait for that). The coast lines here are beautiful, but the water is too unsafe to swim in. Seems fitting, based the the past these towns carry.
Also, Ghana is intensly christian, signs of god and jesus everywhere. churches everywhere. it's disturbing, i'm so used to islam and for some reason christianity hitting me in the face like this is wierder. But i wonder how people feel about the fact that they adpoted the religeon of the same people that captured and sold them like goods for trade. How can they feel that that religeon is just and right?
But I do get to hear American christmas carols everywhere I go. Feels just like home :)
ah, I'm rambling. Tomorrow i'm going to try to go to a rainforest with a
canopy walk 300m about the ground. I'm excited, and hopefully I can get a guided
walk through the forest for a bit as well. Oh, the crocodile post is being drained at the moment and the lush, tropical resort I was so excited to stay at looks more like a construction sight. but there is a pool :)
I'm off,
time is up.