God and French Fries: Kumasi '09

So in case you weren't already aware of how much better my life is than yours (cough cough Jane and Michael), you should know that on Sunday, at the end of our trip to Kumasi, we met Almighty God. And it was good.

Okay, that was a little misleading. Almighty God is an artist whose real name is Kwame. His alias comes from his belief in the fact that when actual God paints, it is through Almighty's brush, and all of his works are of divine inspiration. After viewing each of his paintings, he would boisterously remind us, "this is creativity!" 

Almighty was just one of several characters we met this weekend, though, on our adventure to the capital of the Asante region. The Asantes used to be like the Romans of West Africa but now they are just known for awesome fabrics, the biggest market in the region and stools. When we went the craft village where stools were being carved, I must have been told 100 times, by pushy saleseman who all seemed to sell the same beaded necklaces and wooden fertility dolls, "no charge for looking!" as if I would have assumed otherwise...

On Saturday, we went to the palace of an old Ashante king where the obsessive-compulsive tour guide walked into every room and explained in ad nauseating detail that THIS is the fridge that the King used and THIS is the wine glass that the King drank from and THIS is a creepy Madame-Tussaudesish wax figure of the King. I'm not a fan of museum tours as it is--I like to explore and learn at my own pace. But this was just silly. I didn't need to know that the King touched THIS doorknob in 1953. 

On Saturday night, we went to vic baboo's, a restaurant that, despite being in the sketchiest part of Ghana I've seen so far, was amazing. The burgers tasted like burgers and the fries tasted like they were sprinkled with fairy dust. 

The drink menu was a whole other level of ridiculous. There were well over 100 drinks, from simple ones like a classic margarita to a milkshake with Baileys and whiskey and a Walk Me Down (get it, like walk me down the stairs cause I'm so wasted?), which had 5 different kinds of booze in it and some lime juice. Sorry Almighty Kwame, but I think these were the real works of God. 

Katey got a banana chocolate pina colada dream milkshake. I definitely just made up that name, but that's what it looked like. The boys got beers because they are boring and I was too exhausted/impoverished to drink. Aren't you proud, mom?