Elliot's birthday wrap-up

We (well, I especially) have been wanting to go to the Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary since we arrived here in February, so since we weren't going to have any kind of party for Elliot's birthday, we decided that would be the perfect day to go. We packed up the night before, so we could strike off first thing Saturday morning since we were just planning to go for the day. (This is the part where I kick myself for not pushing harder to make this an overnight trip. Why, oh why do I so easily second-guess myself? Anyway...) As we were getting in the car, Kofi asked if he could go along. No problem. So he jumped in the backseat with Elliot and we struck off, thinking that, with any luck, we'd be up there in time to hike around, have some lunch and get back into the car so Elliot could take a nice, long nap on the way home.

It didn't quite turn out that way...

First, there was the stretch of divided highway where we ended up driving like we were in England because on our side of the road, one lane was occupied by several parked rigs and the other was taken up with (you guessed it) oncoming traffic headed in the opposite direction. There were also cars headed in the "right" direction on the side of the road we were using, but somehow it all worked out. Once we got through there, it was smooth sailing on nice newly paved road... for awhile, until we reached the end of the newly paved road, at which point we were driving on soon to be newly paved road, which is not nearly as nice to drive on, as you might imagine. Unfortunately, the stretch of soon to be paved road lasted much longer than the stretch of paved road. When we finally made it to Techiman, we had already been in the car 3.5 hours and we had covered just 125 km, or just under 80 miles. And we still had about 50 km to go.

Fortunately, the rest of the drive was pretty smooth. Well, except for the last 12 km or so, but we knew that road was rough. And the monkey sanctuary was super cool!! I only wished we could have spent more time there, but by then we were pretty exhausted and thinking about getting home before dark! (We absolutely in no uncertain terms avoid driving at night at all costs here) But we were able to go on the guided walk, and we saw LOTS of monkeys.

You can read a good explanation of how the sanctuary came to be here: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=44060

We also were able to take an alternate route home. When we got back to Kumasi, it was time for pizza and presents, including the much talked about purple chair. Was it everything he'd hoped for and more? I think this picture says it all...

I know, I know, in future years, it will take more than a purple plastic chair to satisfy my kid on his birthday. I also know that if we were home, with more stuff available to us, we probably would have gotten him more (bigger! better!) things. But I ask myself, would he have loved those things as much as he loves his purple chair? Probably not. I think there are two lessons here. First, being a parent, it can sometimes be hard to distinguish between what your kid wants and what you want to give them. I hope to keep in perspective what Elliot (and any future sibling that may come into our lives down the road) actually wants and balance that with what we want for him. Second, it's the simple stuff they always love best!

Here are some more pictures from the big day. As you can see, he was one happy camper: