technical difficulties

I'm sorry that it's been so long since I last posted! I myself am possibly more melancholy than you, reader, because I'm down to my waning days in Ghana (8 days to departure, and counting) and there is still much to be blogged about! A variety of factors have made internet access and blog-updating opportunities scarce; here's a short overview of what's been up in recent days:

-No internet at GSMF.
-No power at the house.
-Fantastic field trip to the Volta region.
-Waterfalls and monkeys!

So yes, the internet at GSMF opted to play hooky for the last few work days, and the whole office was left stranded, high and dry, with no access to anything web-related. Not to our website, http://www.gsmf.com.gh/, nor to Blogger. These posed big problems for me, because my website-updating duties and downtime blogging activities were both rudely interrupted. I found myself reading a LOT, and then when I ran out of books, I played Spider Solitaire for more hours than I care to admit. I think our situation is still a little touch-and-go, but I'm hoping hard that the internet will hang on through this last week. The most ironic part about this whole fiasco is that a new IT intern recently started at GSMF. And we never had any problems with the network until he arrived...

And of course, I can't discuss internet problems without also mentioning the power issues plaguing Okponglo junction, the neighborhood where our house is located. We're starting to get quite accustomed to intermittent blackouts, because they occur on an almost-daily basis. Every time, they're longer and more frequent. I returned home from work on Thursday evening just in time to miss the end of a two-hour outage, the longest on record thus far ... though one popped up later in the evening, once it was actually completely dark out, so I didn't miss out entirely. Thankfully, because having no power is so fun. Not. (Although, I'm from California, the land of the rolling brown-outs; I should be used to this, right?) Anyway, now I basically just carry my Mini MagLite around with me everywhere, and it's not so bad. And considering that the group last year had scheduled, 12-hour blackouts every other day, it's definitely not so bad.

We jet-set (er, bus-set?) to the Volta Region this weekend for our third and final field trip. Updates on that (and the accompanying waterfalls and monkeys) will follow shortly!