Celebrating 26 years in Ghana

Yesterday was my 26th birthday. Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday greetings on Facebook and to my parents for the cards and everyone else who sent me a message, etc. I had fun yesterday...but I would have had a better time if at least Audrey had been here with me!

Birthdays in Ghana have rituals like US birthdays...but they are quite different! When I got up yesterday I had a breakfast of Eto and Eggs - the traditional birthday breakfast - Eto is mashed yam with palm oil, onions, and spices - really good! Then I got "Pounded!" This is kinda similar to getting 26 spankings on your 26th birthday...except it involves getting nailed with anything gross...In my case it was dirty laundry water and water with dirt and food in it - 4 buckets of it! It was pretty gross and the laundry soap wasn't nice on the face but I survived! The idea is to make you suffer for making your mother go through so much pain when you were born. When I told my mom this she said, "I didn't feel a thing! I was knocked out!" But my friends didn't let me get away with that excuse!

While I was getting pounded I got a call that I was supposed to go to a UNAIDS meeting so I quickly took a shower and went to the meeting to report back to WAAF about what happened. It was a meeting about high at-risk groups - commercial sex workers (CSW) and men who have sex with men (MSM). Basically the rate of HIV among CSW is really high and it is really difficult to reach MSM because of stigmatization.

To celebrate my birthday 8 of us went to Champp's Sports Bar to eat Tex Mex!!!! The plan was to go at 6pm and then go to Salsa Dancing at 8pm which ends around 10:30pm. We got to the restaurant at 7:30pm in two cars. I was trying to park on the street and some small boy was directing me and directing me right into the open gutter! So my front right tire was in the gutter. He got some friends to help pull me out and when we gave them 50 cents they wanted $5 - even though the kid who directed me did a horrible job so it was his fault. We went into the restaurant and a couple minutes later the manager came to tell me the kids had let the air out of the tire. So I went with him and he grabbed one of the kids and was yelling at him and even slapped him a couple times. Fifi arrived now with his carload and there was more yelling and threatening of the kids (middle school aged). Fifi took the car to the gas station around the corner to fill the tire and now it needs to be replaced because of driving on it while it was flat - his spare was spoiled as well.

After all this drama we had a nice dinner...I had tortilla chips and salsa and beef and been burritos!! My friend Zahida from Howard Univ joined us and it was nice to see her again. We all watched the football game (soccer) on the big screen and had a good time. By the time we left it was 9:30pm and it was starting to rain so we decided to skip the Salsa dancing since it was outside and ended around 10:30.

It was a fun day! It would have been even better if all of you had been here to celebrate with me! Well, Fifi is spending his 4th day this week running the stupid dogs to the vet for Eddie (boss). I went the first day - 5 really stinky dogs in a mini van!! To top it off one of the dogs pooped in the van on the way back! The second day I didn't go and Fifi told me more of the dogs pooped in the van and some were vomitting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is so disgusting and has nothing what so ever to do with HIV/AIDS! Well, maybe we can get back to work soon!

I miss you all and I hope everything is going well wherever you are reading this!

James