(L-R, Back to front) Tim, Crispin, Hailey, Karen, Betty, Me, Jennifer, Marc, Angela, Ashley, Beatrice, Angela
Ok, so our 8 hour bus ride turned into 5 1/2 hours on the first day and 5 hours on the second day. Our stay at the hotel in Kumasi was brief and seriously uncomfortable! There were 5 of us to a room and only ONE TOWEL!!! No showers for any of us! It got really cold in the room that night because of the air conditioning and I didn't have a comforter. Jennifer was really sweet and took off her pillowcase and gave it to me. I tucked my feet down into it and at least my feet were warm!
We awoke @ 5:30am (I'd only gotten one hour of sleep! BOO!) and we were back on the road. At one point we stopped at a rest stop to use the bathroom and Jennifer came over and said "dude, I broke the toilet." We tried to figure out how to flush it but Nii ended up saving the day with a bucket of water! :)
We stopped in Suyani to buy some Schnapps for the Chief as an offering and I couldn't get over watching everyone walk by with all sorts of things up on their heads... one guy had a board 5ft by 5ft and it was styrofoam and had different pairs of sunglasses stuck into it! Another woman had an entire bakery up there!!! We couldn't find the village and we kept asking Nii how much longer... he would chuckle slightly and say "15 more minute." I think 15 more minutes took us about an hour and a half and we were so glad to arrive in Katakyiekrom (pronounced Kata-chia-krum). We finally arrived in KTK and were immediately requested to sit in a circle with the Chief (aka Nana). 
We had to go around and shake hands of all the men and then we sat down and they came by and shook all of our hands. Can we say hand sanitizer please?! Jennifer then had to get up and "speak our mission." It reminded me of all those National Geographic shows you see when the neighboring village comes by to work out a negotiation! We have to speak to Nana through an interpreter when in public eventhough he speaks English and we can speak to him directly when alone with him. It was a very brief interaction as we are having the official opening ceremony tomorrow. We piled back into the bus and drove to our house. The bus got stuck in the driveway and couldn't pull all the way up to the house. The most amazing thing happened then... little kids showed up from EVERYWHERE to carry in our luggage and supplies. There were no parents there bossing the children around or telling them to help... they were SO excited to help and were running to grab boxes! Such a different experience from here where you have to tell the kids to put down their IPOD to help grandma carry in the groceries! We unloaded the bus and once inside the house, we found that the accommodations were pretty basic but clean and simple. We had 4 bedrooms to divide amongst ourselves (3 to each room). 
The bathroom is an outhouse but the toilet looked similar to one here (well except for the flies that would buzz around under the seat while you were trying to use it... good times! Next to the toilet are two stalls where we take our "showers" I use the quotations because they are not hooked up to any water. There is a spigot in the front of the house, and we filled up a bucket and brought it back. There was then a smaller, hand held bucket that we would use to rinse off. By the end of the trip... I was able to get down to a 1 1/2 bucket shower WITH washing my hair! I learned that if you dip your head into the bucket first, it wets your hair enough to lather up the 2 in 1 shampoo/condit. Then you use the rest of the water to rinse of and to help wet the washcloth. 
That night I took a shower and went to journal in my room (I shared a room with Jennifer and Karen). We had electricity but the small light in the room was blue and very dim. Thank goodness for headlamps! At about 8pm the chief showed up in our bedroom!!! I'd been told that we aren't supposed to wear tank tops around the chief and I was wearing a tank top because I hadn't expected him to stop by. I quickly pulled my hair forward to cover my shoulders. Silly me, not expecting the chief to show up in our bedroom @ 8pm!! He came by just to make sure our accommodations were acceptable and to welcome us again to the village. We went to bed at around 9:30pm as I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep in the past 4 nights! :( That's it for now... I will write more tomorrow :)
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