there and back again...

We've been told by multiple people to expect power-outages quite frequently. Since the rainy season is coming to an end, the Volta is drying up, which means the dam we went to visit (the one that feeds power to all of Ghana, Togo, Benin, and part of Burkina Faso) cannot provide as much power as is is needed and thus there are random power-outages. The rainy season went a little long this year so we hadn't yet experienced a power-outage, that is until last night...
Most of us from the Calvin group had been planning (for a few days now) on going to a Karaoke bar called Champs last night...the other international students had told us it was a good time so we decided we'd give it a try. Most of us girls had been planning on showering and getting all dressed up (since we usually feel dirty and frumpy) before leaving--which would have been fine if the power hadn't gone out as it was getting dark at 6:30pm. Most of us ended up showering in the pitch dark of the girls bathroom and I will probably never forget the time I had trying to apply my make-up in the dark while Sam was shining a flashlight into my face. Magically we all ended up looking great! Even more magically, the lights flickered on as we were about to walk down the stairs and out of the hostel...timing is everything.
We all had a really good time at Champs. The atmosphere was a little strange since there were mostly only white people there and it was so packed that most of us couldn't sit down. I spent most of my time at Champs lingering around the bar (with most of the group) mingling with the other internationals. (The very fact that I couldn't sit down made for an interesting night because I had broken the strap on one of my heels as we were getting out of the cab in front of the restaurant.) We ended up meeting some really interesting people who we hung out with for the rest of the night... We got to know an Italian guy (David) who is our age and is the manager at a gold mine a few hours from Accra. We also met a Afrikaans guy who had just come from South Africa (also our age) to work as a distributor of merchandise into Ghana--his name is Paul. There was also a teacher from Switzerland named Berit who lives with the aforementioned two men.
The night was long, but to make a long story short, Joy and I ended up singing "Wonderwall" by Oasis in front of about a hundred or so people, we also danced to other ridiculous songs sang by random drunk people including Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" performed by Brad, Matt, and Berit. Most of the group spent much of the rest of the night with David, Paul, and Berit as they took us around and introduced us to more of the town.
My favorite moment: When we were dancing there was this creepy guy who kept coming up to me and wanting to dance with me, I kept saying no and dancing away into a crowd of my friends but he kept coming back throughout the night. So I told Matt: "For all practical purposes tonight you are my boyfriend." He quickly got the hint and began to hover over me to shoo off this dude whenever need be. As we were leaving the place he walked out next to/behind me as this creepy guy went to grab my arm to ask me to dance with him once again. All of a sudden, Matt breaks in and shoves this dude against the wall away from me as he escorts me out of the building... it was great. Thanks goes to Matt, He's a trooper... his girlfriend back home would be proud!