Observations on the top of the Iceberg

Ghana is loud. Every hour of every day, the outside world floods your ears with noise. Be it the beautiful call to prayer, the neighbors blasting some azonto, or the church behind our house loudspeakering their service all throughout the night including a two hour long broadcast to the world of the congregation speaking in tongues. This church seems to have a service every night of the week. There seems to be at least one church having a service whose noise cannot seem to be contained in the church. It spreads throughout the town permeating everyone's half asleep ears making sure you too hear the word of God, even if you don't speak Twi and are trying to sleep. Or if the word of God didn't hit you in the evening, maybe the 4:00 wake up call by the evangelist preaching right in front of your house will do the trick.
It isn't only at your house that you are bombarded with noise. The streets here are filled with honking cars, vendors announcing the names of their goods, and the music flowing from random shops. Noise is not the only sense that is ever present in Ghana. Every sense here is bombarded with the new & exciting as well as the not so exciting. The eyes are treated to continually amazing skies which makes one understand why people here are so religious. The sky here holds so much beauty and almost everyday there is at one point or another what I call a "God sky". And it is not just the sky that invites staring. Everywhere I turn, there is something new to observe. The brightly painted houses, the fauna, the wandering  livestock, and best of all the clothing full of every color under the sun. The smells of frying food, burning trash, and exhaust overwhelm you as you meander through this city.

The view from my porch