The streets of Hohoe

Since I can't attach the smells or sounds, or the heat or dust to this post (in fact the blasted blog won't even let me copy and paste), it is difficult to share the experience of living here. But I'm always up for a challenge....

There are kids everywhere, playing in and around the wooden and tin huts that line the road (the road being a wide, flat dirty mud track). They wave and call out 'yevu' (white person) to you as you walk past. This is not an insult - they just want your attention and it always feels such a privilege to have their interest. They are so excited about cameras when they see them and clamour to have their photos taken, posing angelically and jumping up to see their faces on the screen just as the photo takes, so you end up with a fuzzy blur.

They also love our plastic water bottles and will take them from us, if we let them, to fight over amongst themselves. The locals drink unfiltered water from plastic bags with chemicals added to kill anything in it - hopefully that doesn't include the locals themselves! We are advised firmly not to drink this water and likewise the food that is cooked on grills at the roadside and spends the larger part of the day sitting in the sun.

Apart from food and sweets, the huts lining the streets sell books, fabric in abundance, bags, or services such as hairdressing and dress making. Dress making incidentally is a roaring trade as most people (including many of us at the moment) have clothes made rather than buying them off the shelf. There are several places with signs advertising internet access, most of which provide no such thing - they just draw people in. There are a few cafes, which have a couple of tables and a few chairs. Better not to go in groups of more than 4 or 5.

The smell in Hohoe is distinctive and always present. Possibly it is just the accumulated smell of different types of rubbish burning or having been burned (and of the goats and sheep wandering around everywhere) but it is not usually unpleasant. Probably much like the smell of hops in Edinburgh, it is a smell you become accustomed to and either like or dislike according to it's association.

Monday saw us through the rest of our orientation, a trip to the bank (somewhere to be visited as often as possible by virtue of its air conditioning) and a visit to the market. The market is closely packed with stalls and stalls of fabrics and local foods among other things and there are people everywhere. There is NOT room for cars to drive through but that doesn't stop them. Pedestrians absolutely do not have right of way and cars will often not even slow when they wander into the road, the likelihood of death by taxi being far higher than that of becoming lion food!