It was a good week. A lot went down this week. I had a lot of good adventures this week. To start off, this week was transfers. Our district leader got transferred, which was a good thing because he spent nine months in the same area. But as for me, I am halfway done with my training!
On Monday, we climbed the mountain in our backyard. We were told there was a giant paragliding platform on the very tip of the mountain. So we set off, not even really thinking about it. But oh my heck, it was a hike and a half. It wasn't extremely difficult. There was a road leading all the way to the top, but it was steep and forever long. But we made it! It was super cool up there. We heard every Easter there is a giant party up there, and people paraglide off the mountain. While we were hiking up to the top, we found a guy who was also walking up the mountain with all of his things. He was headed to the same place as us, and he said he was going to work on the radio towers up at the top of the mountains. So we helped him carry his things. When we got to the top, sadly, the platform was gated off. But lucky for us, the guy who we walked up the mountain with had keys and just gave them to us and said to bring them back when we are done! So we four Americans had full access to a giant paragliding facility. It was pretty cool. I have plenty of photos I'll put in the link.
As for the other crazy experience, Elder Bloomfield and I went to a high school sporting event. It was a soccer tournament. Multiple schools in the area were playing each other to see who was the best for this year. Apparently, it is a really big deal because there were a lot of people there. People love their soccer. Every time a team scored, the people would lose it. They would jump up and down and storm the field. During one of the matches, a group of "rastamans," which is just Ghana's name for potheads, started yelling and shoving each other. Apparently, there was a disagreement, but that's normal here. But people tried to get involved and break the fight up, but it only made it worse. Instead of just two people fighting, it was a giant group of people fighting. Once we realized it was getting pretty bad and the spirit was gone, we decided to try and leave along with a lot of people. We were just casually walking away from the match when a mass of kids came running past us yelling "knives and scissors." So we turned around to see what that meant, and the mob had moved into the field and also doubled in size. But this time, many of them had machetes and scissors, and they were just going to town on each other, just swinging machetes frantically into this huge crowd of people. And I wasn't able to see anyone get stabbed with scissors, but I was able to see someone get smacked a few good times with a machete. I haven't asked, but I guarantee someone lost an appendage in the mix of that. It was kind of scary, but I was in awe because all of this happened over a small disagreement at a high school soccer match. Kinda crazy. Lucky for Elder Bloomfield and me, we were able to get away fast enough.
That's something I find very cool about the Spirit: we were having a great time watching this soccer match, and right before things went south, we already had the feeling to leave and were on our way out. If it weren't for the Spirit telling us to leave and us listening to what we were being told, we would have been right in the middle of that mob. God is good. He protected my companion and me that day, and I'm sure many people were also protected. I love having the Spirit to warn and protect.
For this week's photos, I have one of me at the market with our neighbor Elizabeth. She sells fish, and she is a wonderful lady. While at the soccer game, kids wanted to know how to tie a tie, so I taught them. There are photos of the view from the top of the mountains, and there is a video of me stirring banku, a very popular Ghanaian dish that tastes and smells like corn silage. Mango season is in full swing, and I was able to get one of my favorite photos here in Ghana so far: a little boy going to town on a mango. I hope you enjoy.