Today was the day to end all days! We arrived on site at 8am and the sun was already shining. We've been REALLY blessed all week that the sun has been hiding behind the clouds... thus keeping the temperature tolerable... but "here comes the sun do do do do"... UG! This morning we mixed a lot of concrete and mortar and did a lot of shoveling. All of us were really sore (I don't know if it was the cumulation of many days of shoveling, the one day of rest or sleeping on thin moldy mats) and that made the work feel a lot harder. Even the bricks feel heavier (is that possible? They already weight 40,000 tons! Even my super Sheri muscular arms were seriously dragging!). For lunch we ate Foo Foo... how do I describe Foo Foo? Foo foo roo! Foo Foo moo! Foo Foo goo! Ah, I like that last one... it's a goopy, globular paste that we ate with a peanut sauce. Not exactly my favorite lunch.
After lunch... the heat melted us... there is no other way to say it. I was up on the scaffolding for a little while but between the sun beating down, the lack of a breeze and the humidity... I ended up sitting in the shade for a LONG time trying to recuperate for the short amount of time up on the scaffolding.
I went over to grab some water, and a small group of preteen girls had come out to check us out. They had beautiful pink flowers in their hair and they began to tuck them into my headscarf.
One of the girls took a flower and began to rub it on my lips. Her gentle touch brought me to tears. We quit @ 3pm because... let's be honest, we just couldn't go on. 
At home I took my first shower since Saturday! I hadn't washed my hair since Friday and it had been in the same braids since Saturday evening (once I put them up, I didn't even want to touch them!!!) That was the BEST bucket shower EVER!!! Pure bliss if I do say so myself (I am currently scratching my head while writing this just remembering how itchy my scalp was!).
A little while later, Karen, Jennifer and I were sitting in the room looking at each other's photos and writing in journals when Nii came in asking for Crispin. Nii went in to town to find Crispin at the bar. When they returned, Nii was crying,Crispin was in his room and Ashley came in and told us what happened. Crispin's best friend since childhood had been killed in a motorcycle car crash this morning. He left behind a wife and two small children. The entire mood shifted. Jennifer went to go check on Crispin and Karen and I just laid on our beds... completely silent for a really long time. I was imagining what I would be thinking and feeling if it had been me that got that call. I was sending out loving vibes of safety and protection to all my loved ones back home and praying that they were all safe. I was feeling scared, sad and very, very far from home. I have always been afraid that something would happen to someone I love when I travel, but for the first time ever, I felt unreachable. I felt completely out of touch with people back home. And God forbid something had happened to one of them... it was a TEN HOUR DRIVE back to Accra, and even then, it's not like there are any number of flights I could hop on immediately to get myself back home. I felt further away than ever before... and at that moment I realized... hmmmmm... too far. We all know that I am quite the adventurer... and I always manage to go to places off the beaten path... but never before did I feel that it was too far. Until now. It was a moment of realization when I realized "I don't like being this far away from the people I love." I will continue to travel but I don't know if I will ever choose a location like this again.
At dinner everyone was VERY quiet and most people came and went. We were all thinking, feeling, grieving. At one point, Jennifer was trying to get Marc's attention and he totally snapped at her and was seriously disrespectful. Even calm, cool Karen raised her eyebrows and let out a sigh! At this point, the team went off in different directions. Crispin went for a walk with Ashley, Beatrice and Nii went out back to talk, Angela and Andrea and BEtty went out front, Marc went into his room and the final 4 of us stayed in the main room. A storm was coming and thunder and lightning had started up off in the distance.
We went to bed around 10pm and were completely exhausted. I awoke at 3am and Jennifer was also awake. We whispered about Crispin and how he must be feeling. We also talked about the division of the team that evening. It had started to rain and when the rain got so loud we couldn't talk, Jennifer handed me one of her earbuds and put the Toto-Africa song on (I blessed the rains down in Africa... gonna take some time to do the things we never had). The music was cranked up, the storm was wailing around us, the events of the past 24 hours and the words of the song moved me so much that I began to cry. Not really tears of sadness but tears of pure, raw and simple emotion. I don't even have the words to express what I was feeling (maybe I should quit my job as a social worker now... I can't even figure out how to label emotions?!?!?!) other than to say that it was a mixture of fear, worry, exhaustion, empathy for Crispin, pure unadulterated joy, bliss, safety, the power of being in Africa, and simply being present in the moment. Jennifer grabbed my hand and just held it... I didn't have to talk, just be present. At the conclusion of the song, Jennifer played it again. Same effect... tear city! She then said "ok, one more time?" I was calming down mid-song when suddenly something CRAWLED ACROSS MY LEGS! I don't know what it was, but it was big enough that I felt it through my mosquito netting AND my sleep sac!!! I said "something just crawled across my legs... fan-freaking-tastic!" And at the same time, the rooster crowed!!! We immediately began to laugh... one of those belly laughs with a good friend where when one of you stops, the other can't contain their laughter and you end up joining back in. Those are precious moments in life... when you can go from crying one moment to laughing uncontrollably the next. It was the perfect!! Unfortunately our perfect moment woke Karen up and we couldn't even talk to tell her what we were laughing about... what would we have said anyway?
Moments like that remind me not only of why I travel, but also of why I come home. There is nothing like the presence of good music and a good friend. There is something awe inspiring about a storm raging outside and being dry and safe inside. In moments like that, it doesn't matter when your last shower was, or how much money you have in your travel sack... what matters most is being present, being open to new experiences, loving even at the risk of losing and continuing to look for the joy in life.
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