Wli Falls and Basketball

[Belated Post]

What a day. First I should say that it was nice seeing some friendly faces of volunteers the past few days. Two times I was able to visit with PCVs from other parts as they passed through my town. As I said, it is great to have my home in a hub of sorts for the Volta volunteers. Two days, four great people, and lots of stories to trade around about our experiences to date. I loved it and I am grateful that we had the opportunity to meet.

Now, for today. I had a youngster show me to the falls close by. About 13km away are the Wli Agumutsa waterfalls, maybe about 30 or forty minutes by tro-tro ride. The road is a bit rough in spots, but for the time and the money, it was worth it to see some nature. It is a yevu haven of course and I managed to see a few that I think were from Germany paying the falls a visit, but they were leaving and we were going in so I had the place practically all to myself. The weather was fine and the sites were great to see. This land really does have the jungle feel to it when you go off the beaten path. Though we did very much stay on the beaten path to get to the falls.

I have not real eye for distance, but I bet it doubled the height of the falls that I saw earlier at Boti. And this one had some water behind it as well. The mist racing away from the bottom was enough to cool us down measurably, and it gave the lens on the cameras a fit after five seconds, but I still managed to get a few shots. The trip out and back costs a cedi, and the view of the falls is six plus tip for your tour guide (which you cannot avoid having). There was another climb that I passed on which would have lead us to the upper falls. That was three more cedis to see, and I being out of shape thought better of the journey uphill and will leave that for when visitors want to come and sight-see. Those falls are reportedly better, but then again, those who say it want the three cedis in a bad way I bet.

After returning I had the good timing to go out about 200 yards from my front door and plop myself on the basketball court for a pickup game or two. Put it this way though – I am terrible at basketball. I can't dribble if someone is covering me, and my shooting percentage is around 12% inside the free-throw line. I am not making this part up though, I am probably the fourth or fifth best player on the court every time. Some guys are faster than me. Some guys take more shots than I do. But when the average shooting percentage is even worse than mine, well I look pretty good.

My guess is that there isn't much coaching for basketball here, plenty though for football. Lots of people here want me to play football. They are not going to be getting what they want anytime soon. Just the same, I can't run for extended periods because my knees get to aching, and the pick up games, when spaced far enough apart, give me reason to sweat and get the heart rate up. So today was a good day. I only need to work on my layup a bit more and I will be ready to shoot 14% soon.