Today I came from work with a plan to go do some shopping (headphones and washing powder), but got hooked up to stupid stuff on internet instead. Before I realized it was 22:10 but I still did put on my running shoes and went to the park/castle hill close to my place.

There I found out that some 200 kids are having fun there drumming, doing firedancing and getting intoxicated. Fire and drums is a good combination and the fact that I have done some running made me feel even better.

Generally a fine evening worth remembering – and there is shit load of things you are missing out by sitting at the pc now too… so get the hell out. If you dont know where to go, ask me – I will do the googling for you [but only during workhours or late night before going to sleep, other times I am inshallah not on internet]

I have heard about 4chan before, even visited it for some  moments earlier without seeing any sense but for some reason I dont remember anymore I went there again this sunday to figure out wtf is this unfamouse place about.

shorts story long: I got this close to being hooked up

so what is it? in technical terms its a free post/image board that doesnt require registration. anybody can post anything (literally). and so weird pictures and even weirder comments fill in gaps between porn.

for me its a combination of the ideal place to be exhibitionist and gladiator fight arena.

explain “exhibitionist place” : say what you want we all want to be special, recognized, be seen, basically walk the street naked. at the same time we are all very afraid of the consequences and loosing of social status. in here its all anonymous, you can say and do whatever you want and actually be at your weirdest to get the attention from the thousands of users online at any moment of time. so dont be surprised to see girls and boys showing their reproductive shit just to get attention of some people for a maximum of 1,5 hour – because it takes maximum this time before a thread gets so old that is automatically deleted. the reason is that the page has not memory, if a thread is beyond the 15th page it just disappears. its the ultimate attention seekers in us showdown.

explain “gladiator fight”: bread and games. flashes of genius mixing with utter nonsense but also really nasty/evil things. for the amusement of viewers lifes are being destroyed, secretes revealed and shockers delivered.

and here be some examples of what I have seen being discussed during one single day:

• for the amusement of masses: go to chatroulette.com, pretend to be a 13 year old girl, find a guy who will talk about sex with you and show his penis, get his msn/email, find his facebook, send a message to the persons family, friends and boss, that the guy is a pedophile/pervert and include a printscreen of the chat, pretend to be a stressed mother or the harmed underage girl. repeat
• girls who will strip in front of webcam just to keep attention of viewers for some time.. so called attention whores
• how-to guides on: how to construct an RPG, tie a shoe in 20 different ways, get access to pictures on facebook of a person using the info from the filename, hack a facebook account, get high by hyperventilation, set up a proxy, find out what is the time from the sun height, make a crossbow from pencils, tie an executioners knot, tie a tie, make cookies in microwave, make crack tabs, read the palm, xray clothes on pictures and I dont know what else.
• copies of past communications where people asked questions like: “i want to have sex with my daughter, what do you think?” or “i think my sister is hitting on me” or a kid saying “I have a rifle I am carrying it with me to school”… and making a mistake of giving a slight detail too much (original file name, badly removed name from pic, college jersey, email…) and be tracked down by the scherlocks on the forums – down to their names, addresses, phone numbers and pictures and being ordered pizzas, gay strippers, visits from mormon preachers, reported to police or anything you can imagine just for “great justice and lolz”. The guy with the guy got actually caught with a loaded rifle in the school and got jailed…
• some of the most funny pictures I have ever seen of all cathegories, both totally dumb and highly nerdy
• sources of all the internet memes you can think of… and more

its easy to get hooked up, like a TV that changes the channel every 1 minute and there is basically always something interesting on. but I will fight the urge and will not visit it anymore but how I understand how a 15 year old gets easily sucked into internet…

And as last piece… One of the how to`s gave an advice how to get crazy lucid dreams and partial paralysis: when going to sleep, lay on your back and dont move. Your body will itch and you will feel like stirring – thats your brain testing if you are already sleeping. If you resist and dont move, the sleep-part will assume that you are asleep and will start with the dream sequence, but because you are awake you will dream with full consciousness!

Of course I have decided to try this out and as I went to sleep with fresh memories of this weird place. Which resulted in very vivid dreams for the whole night in the form of 4chan boards! what i mean is that my dreams were very much realistic but in the form of picture and text threads on a pc screen. image some of the old text and picture based games – thats how. Weird it was I can tell you that.

So long, time to sleep and wake up for work tomorrow… lets see what strange sights will my dreams offer tonight

• the expression “Panenka skakava”, freely translated as “Skipping virgin”, is an exclamation like “Jesus Christ” or “Holy cow”. Its fairly common in czech and slovakia, but virtually noone knows that it comes from the name of (now non existing) village Skoky (leaps/jumps) and the picture of Virgin Mary that was reported to cause some miracles (healings, protection from storms) in 18th century when more than 35000 people are reported to come for a yearly pillgrimage, because of this Skoky was also called the Czech Lurdes
• I wanted to go there on my own based on instructions from web
• whole week was sunny and warm, friday evening came thunder storm and whole weekend was to be crappy weather
• miracle#1: instead of at 5:30 I woke up at 6:30 with the train leaving at 7 (last train, any other connection for some 5 hours), sweated I made it into the train
• from the train window I see a pheasant bird, not sure if I have seen one free ever before… or at least for last few years
• miracle#2: in first train a lady sits opposite me and reads newspaper, there I notice an article about “be aware, time is changing!”, if not for that I would not know that this weekend on Sunday 2am becomes 3am.
• I met a group of 5 guys in the train who were checking the map of the area and asked them for some details as I had only a (now I really know for sure) crappy printout of a small area with my path of choice marked on it
• at 11:00 I was finally in my start-point, village Stedre (Generous), village so small that even the pub went bankrupt
• I started hiking, after an hour took a path (a cycling track) that was supposed to copy my trail, after hour and half realized the path is taking me South instead of North… lost #1
• at moment of deciding if to go all the way back I noticed a road under the hill I was on, so I skipped it down and came to a 1m wide river, I cant really jump that far with a bag so needed to build a bridge of broken pieces of wood I found around
• got into the village, found out the village is so far of my planned trip its not on my crappy map. Instead of going 3,1 km to North-West from Stedra I finished up going 3 km to North, than 2,5 km back South AND 5 km to West
• miracle #3: in the village I finished in (Radyne) starts a marked path going straight to the Skoky village (didnt know that, never heard about the track before)
• I follow the track for next 3 hours going through beautiful country with nothing but nature, didnt meet a single soul, some 3 times I think I am finally there. Than I run into a village with people thinking WTF (I had no map so no clue there was a village), there a cute big white dog brings me a stick and wants me to play throw with him, I do – its fun and it looks nice on pictures. That dog is with me for the next 24 hours and becomes center to most of the next story.
• The path goes through woods, meadows and springs, is very well marked but only one-way – the markings are visible only if you go towards Skoky, I think to myself  “going the other direction this way would be pretty difficult, good thing I am taking the other route on way home”
• dog is fun, runs around, such a happy creature he makes me smile, additional 2 hours of walking or so, I consider calling him Angel
• I FINALLY come to Skoky, I meet 5 guys there (sounds familiar?) who are just leaving
• I will stay for night in the deserted village in the ruins of the old Guesthouse, take some pictures, dog refuses to go back home
• I go to check up the upper floor of the house, 1 m of the staircase is missing but I make it with a big step, after some 1 minute the dog is up there too… Guessing right, when I go down the dumbass cant jump down, I try to carry him but try to pick up a 50kg wiggling scared furry dog. After several attempts, including offering him my leg, hand and own back as steps I decide to go out and find some wide piece of wood to make stairs for him. As soon as I go behind the corner the dog starts whining and crying like I am killing him. After 3 min when I find a suitable piece, the dog runs to me… So much for “I cant go down, help me” theater you sissy…
• I am hungry, the dog is hungry, he can make a sadder face. I “share” my food, I had enough food for one person for two days… That bitch ates all I offer and beg for more.
• Problem: I am to sleep on ground in sleeping bag, thus within range of dogs tongue. Thanks god that he is able to understand “sit” and “lie”, not that it would distract him for too long. After a few wrestling matches I find that only solution is to cover my face with blanket, than he leaves me kinda alone.
• Its 2,5° C outside/inside. Dog is wet, cold and possibly hungry. All he does is whine, run around and try to lick my face. I make him lie down but cant stop him from whining, try to calm him down by giving him my jacket as blanket… Wrong idea, dog is just bored and after a “little” drooling into it decides to check out its taste. Stupid me, jacket has now a decent breathing hole. Thats pisses me off so much that even the dog lies down and shuts up.
• All night is a chain of following repeating episodes: I wake up because its cold, because the dog is snoring, because dog decides to take a quick walk, because I think I hear the dog chewing on my camera/beer bottle/bag/blanket (thanks god all wrong, its just dogs weird snoring).
• Morning at 5 am dog succeeds in waking me up.
• Dog refuses to go home (that idiot has no clue where is it) so as a nice person (with feeling of guilt for letting him go with me and playing throw with him) I decide to track back my steps and return him to his village.
• Walking back, lost#2: found way after 10 min.
• I see a group of animals on the field some 50m away, they are too big for deers so I think its cows, at a closer look I realize its Capricorn/Moufflon! Not kidding, I have a picture (not a good one, I had the wide and not zoom lens on, so it took a minute to change + I thought its cows so was not in hurry).
• The dog starts barking at something, I turn and see he spotted a tiny (moufflon, deer?) calf, first I think of it as weird encounter and take a picture, a second after that realizing that the stupid piece of dog thinks he is a hunter and starts to run after it and before I am able to hit it with a stick he bites the calf in back. I pull the dumb-fuck away and return to check on the calf, its lying in grass giving me a sad look and crying but no blood visible so I hope its ok, take pic and leave some 100m away with the dog. I hope that when I am gone the mom (that I have seen for a sec behind a tree) will come and take it away. I decide to return after some 5 min and if the calf is still there take it with me to village – if mom doesnt come now, she wont come at all. I return and the calf is still there… eyes open, dead. “Angel” broke its neck. At least it was fast. But you can imagine the pang of remorse, if I knew whats coming on I could have saved it… One more reason to bring the now “did I do something bad?” looking dog back home.
• Soon Lost#3, lost for half an hour, cant figure out where the fuck I came from. I pray (nearly literary) for a sign to see or to meet someone. Miracle#4: After hopelessly walking aside the river thinking “ok, 100 steps more and than I turn back”, I actually run into a group of 5 guys (YES, those) who show me a map and point me to the village I want to go, thanks to their map I finally know the name of the village.
• I come to the village, a local shows me his home and locks him in the yard of the house. My attempts on stories on how he ate my food and jacket and killed my sleep and a calf leave him calm saying “yeah, he always runs away”… while finishing that sentence the dog is next to me again, jumped the fence
• “locked” in yard again, I eat my last pieces of food and of course as soon as I start the dog is here again. I start taking hike towards the town I am supposed to take train from. Dog follows. Me and dog spend 20 minutes in the “go home!” vs. “sad eyes” duel, that ass must have fallen in love with me. When trying to pull him he just lies on his back and does the “scratch my ball please” posture. As last resort I go back to the house (“angel” follows), ring the bell, master comes down and says “yeah I saw you the first time, thanks, well I will put him on chain this time, he always runs away with some cyclist or hiker”, doesnt seem concerened at all that if I havent returned to the village it would follow me for next 20 km…
• finally on my own I set on the path to Zlutice, where I am to take a train.
• Miracle#5: On the way I see a ruin of a small castle in some distance, decide to try and see it. Go to it, its called Hartstejn (= folkalized version of “hard stone”). I get to it to find out its a pure ruin except of the main tower that is beeing changed into a viewing tower, nearly complete. I check the entrance gate and… its open Someone must have broken it very recently, no marks of any visitors inside. I climb the ladder and stairs to the observation platform on the 3rd floor, great view all around. If I could choose a place to sleep it would be up here – smell of  freshly processed wood, sound of wind but warm with a view… Outside starts rain with hailstones, but soon finishes.
• From the tower I see a deserted church in the fields under the castle and decide to check it out. There is a 2m wide river between me and the church hill and some rain falling from skies, but with a little bit of acrobacy I get to other side climbing an old cow-fence. The church is practically a ruin, even though recently they have put up a new roof, but still this is the most desolate church I have ever seen. After taking some pics and waiting for rain to stop I start walking towards the next town from where a track to Zlutice is to lead (the sign under the castle said its 12.5 km away)
• I have to cross the small river back to the other side, I try doing it at the old mill (now someones house), an old semibroken bridge is there, I call to the guy on other side if its possible to cross on it. He says “sure”, well… He doesnt like slovaks or just didnt try it on his own but after second step a part of the bridge broke and I got ankle deep into the water. My shoes ARE waterresistant.
• on the way I think I have no drinking water left, but Miracle #6 puts a freshly renovated mineral-spring water in my way, good water.
• I walk towards the town, find an open shop there, go in to be welcomed “Topri ten” by a vietnamese girl who runs it. Ok, I thought its just Prague where all shops are run by them. I finally get some food.
• I go to the direction sign that says Zlutice 16km… yep, I was going the opposite direction (lost#4), but right when thinking what to do next, Miracle#7 offers me a bus that goes directly to Zlutice leaving in 2 minutes. Btw, remember that woman with newspapers and the changing time? If it wasnt for that I would think I still have plenty of time and would go walking… and miss my train. (Miracle#8?)
• So after a while here I am in Zlutice having 1 hour spare before the train leaves. So I go randomly walking around to find a path that leads to a small hill right above the train station. There used to be a tiny castle over there and is a left-over bunker from the 60’s, I check it out, take pictures and realize I have 13 minutes till the train leaves (cause I didnt check the time properly)… I run like hell down the hill, jump sweated in the train… and wait 5 more minutes till the train decides to leave.
• So thats how the day ends, in a train sweated. Than me getting home, cooking a dinner too big to digest that sends me straight into limbo that I dont wake up until morning when I have to go to work.

Now tell me… isnt that a pretty long story for a single weekend?

I know, hard to read and harder to believe… thats why I have pictures

I dont want to say I have a boring life, no way, its just that its only a normal life with fun moments and also dull hours. But to catch up, I will give you a taste on what I have been doing here and by that also what is there to do in Prague

Seen in Cinema:

• Dracula in Pakistan (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0360232/, 1967) – hilariously bad, great thing to watch with friends on a bad movie night
• Hells Ground (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887973/, 2007) – a great fun horror movie, a true best of worst
• The Pagan Queen a.k.a. Knezna Libuse (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1096997/, 2009) – a real gem, “bad” does not qualify as description for this, its “totally awesomely bad”, the film makers tried to make a serious movie, but finished up in a perfect parody of bad film making, the whole cinema was laughing all the time
• Pure hearts (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0495237/, 2006) – a real good movie, a demented man falls in love with a movie character and decides to find her in real life, the movie combines shots of the “original movie” that the character was from and the “current one” that depicts what happens to this man (the original movie didnt exist, its very well shot “40s looking” sequences). Watch it, make you laugh, cry and think.
• 2010 – a fun movie to watch on big screen, whole world ends.. nothing new
• Avatar – in IMAX, 3D sci-fi movie… all that needs to be said
• Let the right one in (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139797/, 2008) – a great movie, exact opposite of Dracula in Pakistan… yes its a vampire movie, but a very good one with a great story, ranks as 200th best movie ever by imdb ranking, see it
• Mary and Max (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0978762/, 2009) – a very good animation movie, great artwork, good story, emotional moments (will make you hide a tear), very recommended

Watched a concert life of:

• Australian Pink Floyd (see previous post) – great experience, but shit cold in the concert hall (actually a hockey stadium with just ice covered with temp flooring), www.aussiefloyd.com
• Chiki-liki-tua – very fun slovak band, pogo+jokes+fun lyrics combined, always brings a great energy relief, my neck was hurting for two days from headbanging and pogoing, www.chikiliki.sk
• Cechomor – a band that takes folk songs of czech and morava, makes them faster and ands some currenty music instruments, creating a great great experience, always gets me, www.cechomor.cz
• Puvodni Bures – fun-folk-alternative band, a random discovery I made some two years back, good music, good lyrics, great relax, www.bandzone.cz/puvodnibures
• Krystof – not really my type of music, but with the right company (crazy cows), some beers and a lets-have-fun attitude a good evening, www.krystof.net

Exhibitions I have seen:

• Herbert Tobias – an interesting character who started to do photographs as german soldier on russian front, than did fashion and later focused purely on gay photography (he was gay too), interesting exhibition but not a hammer, www.herberttobias.com
• Industry and Art Musem (umelecko priemyslove museum) – nice, but again not an amazing experience

Theather piece visited:

• Krysar (The Pied Piper) – a theathre/musical by Daniel Landa (www.2landa.cz/en/daniel-landa.html) is a pretty ok piece, but still I consider Landas origianal song Krysar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb9uHawHQfI) and the book by Viktor Dyk (made also into a stop motion movie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krysar) as much better

And places visited: I walked at least 100 km in last months just walking around Prague (I plan to make a google map to trace my wandering here), going to earlier known places but also randomly picking places to see based on googling.

So yeah, life is good and as time goes by slowly I will also catch up with pictures on www.picasaweb.google.com/tomas.klesken and from time to time come to my blog and drop a line or two

For now, farewel all those who have not forgotten that I have a blog and for some reason do sometimes come and check it up

Simply said, it was a great experience. Shit cold (they played in a hockey stadium with the ice intact, covered up by temporary flooring), the show was real fine and if you just listened to the music, it wasnt difficult to think this is a real pink floyd concert (for a rather small audience of some 2.000 ppl) and being a litte boozed, so sometimes loosing the grip and making littel variations away from the original sound

So it was not exactly Pink Floyd and who they are and most of all how they play, but was close enough – I do recommend to all who realy like PF but are not shit crazy about them so will listen to every tone misplayed.

It was good and I am glad I went to see this, even though it was rather by accident – I went to buy tickets for Stomp (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu15Ou-jKM0) but changed my mind in the process …Heck, stomp is in march, I still might change my mind and go there too

So now I have seen The Offspring and Pink Floyd (or at least the closest you can get), which are the two international bands that influenced my teen-music-formation-period. Job well done. So lets see whats next, afterall, music soothes even the savage beast.

Goodbye blue sky

So, I climbed my first artificial wall today. I have mixed feelings, I liked the feeling of going up – achieving something, on the other side I felt doing it alone can get tiring, and most of all – I am weak. After a short, enthusiastic climbing, my hands got tired and wobbly, considering that even before that I was able to hold only on the biggest grabs is not too good news.

I basically have two options – stop after first try or really get into it. This is not like cycling or running that its ok to be slower. In bouldering you can hold on to the wall or you cant. So that might be one of the reasons to put this post up – it might push me to do those push ups, pull ups and at least once weekly go to see if it has any effect… I might actually manage to start with the second option, lets see if it stays

And as final I have to say I have seen the kind of beauty of a rather Michelangelo kind. If you check his paintings, he was painting women being rather masculine and having musles. No way am I saying that the girl I have seen today on the wall looked like a man (NO way), but when she was hanging by fingertips on the wall on her back I have seen flexing muscles that I havent even know exist Michelangelo was an autist who had crazy talent for art, but in this case we would agree

And if you think that picture looks good or think that girls climbing is not sexy, you should check www.stonenudes.com

- my colleague from MC Sue told me she is engaged

- I had 4 beers, 2 ganja joints and 1 jack daniels with my current colleagues

- I called some doctors and asked if they want to work in Germany

- was told that starting tomorrow I will be finding and calling potential sales managers for a company that sells turbines/generators for middle-sized power plants with a monthly wage of some 20.000 EUR

- am going to sleep at approx. 2 am

- talked about pakistan and india and than about the importance of genes vs.  society in terms of differences of behavior of different people

- have been told I should get 14 days free during xmas…. paid

- havent seen my flatmate, he went to work before I woke up and fell asleep before I came back

- watched a lot of dumb videos on the internet tubes

- realized most people dont like their job but still some like doing it (e.g. me)\

…actually this is a normal day

you know, sometimes you just feel like you have to do something and right now I feel i need to write this story while its still fresh in my memory. Because it surely is one of the weirdest 1 hours in my life.

At 22.50 I have decided I feel like a beer. In the part of town I live now its possible – go to a few bars around the block or just go to a TESCO some 2 km away. So I decided to go for a walk and go to TESCO. I logically wanted to take some empty beer bottles so I dont have to pay for them again. Just to realize that the huge collection of empty bottles has disappeared – 1 month worth of 8 people drinking beer… So I assumed someone took them to the shop to collect the money, so I asked and was told they have been all thrown away! Where I asked – in front of the house, big blue bag full of bottles. So I decided to take a few with me… filled in my backpack with them… and decided… that I am gonna take them all! Walking 2 km (= 0.5 hr) with a backpack and a huge blue plastic bag in a hand was what I considered to be weird and worth calling it a strange day… Sweated I reached the TESCO – 56 bottles, thats 20 kg of glass… Of course I bought only new beer and chocolate for the money I got for the bottles…

So I started walking home, nearly midnight. And see an old lady pushing the TESCO cart on the other side of the street already some 5 min walk from the TESCO. The cart was sliding, jumping, going out of its way to make her stride slower and more tiring. So with the first bottle of beer open in my hand I have decided to cross the street and offer help. Thats when the stranger part of the evening started…

She said yes, visibly already tired. Realize, its midnight and an 80+ year old lady is pushing a TESCO cart on the street with her shopping in it… She agreed and while leaning on the handle of the cart together with me was pushing/pulling the cart. She didnt live that close, actually even a little further than me, had to ask me to slow down and take a rest a few times while going, told me about her son who “is coming late, so she didnt want to wait for him”, that she “was hungry at home because she all her food and thats why decided to go shopping”, that she is “very tired, because she hasnt been going this way out for a while”… Even in two it was not easy pushing the unstable cart on the stone paved side walks. And when we have been only behind the corner from the place she said she lived, she asked for a rest… And started to fade away… She was leaning on the cart handle, eyes closing, hands loosing grip, knees slightly bending. She said she is just very very tired, was yawning, looking like she will faint. I picked her up and sat her on the ground with beck to the wall. Only when I started to dial the ambulance did she wake up and shown some ability to get home. But her ability to walk was close to zero, just slowly moving feet, to tell the truth I was not sure if she is ok (if thats possible in this situation). So I had no other choice just to pick her up and like a baby bring her to her door, sit her down on the stairs, unlock the door, carry her to ther door and let her enter. She asked me to bring the cart in the flat – cause “last time someone stole it”, but the shit was damn heavy. So in a spark of genius I asked if I can take it to tesco on my own, right agead.

She agreed, let me take that stupid piece of metal away and invited me for coffee any time I feel like… I feel like going to check up on her these days and making sure that she is ok… Coming over repeatedly and making her shoping… She was so vulnerable, lost, repeating herself without noticing… If I hadnt brought her home she would just stay somewhere and fall asleep.

I drunk a bottle of beer, ate a big bar of chocolate and went to sleep thinking how weird this city can be.

2. Location update: I am in Slovakia. I came from Ghana in August, in August went to Cairo/Egypt for a week to see the wedding of Gannat Akef and use the chance to see Cairo and the White and Black Desert (www.picasaweb.google.com/klepo.egypt), in September I went for a week to Krakow/Poland and Lvov/Ukraine just to see Mia/Ania/chatbuddy and now I am again home in Vrutky/Martin/Slovakia looking for job or a suitable TN in HR in Europe

3. Today I walked through fog and wind on the top of a mountain above my town, it was so windy that even the deers could hear me I have faced a 2m tall male from like 10m and actually came as close as 4m to a pair of females! In both cases I just came from behind a fog covered curve and stood there staring at these beautiful animals. Sadly they always run away before I could take a picture But I took pictures of the foggy hill, will post tomorrow.

And yeah, I promise to revive my blog… actually even plan to add articles about what was going on with me in the whole last 8 months…

Exactly… I am bored

catching the balls

girls and me on the ride

Starting from Accra by bus/car going to Akosombo – a small town first built to provide living space for the the workers building this amazing dam and later becoming a tourist spot. Akosombo dam is THE biggest man-made lakes in the world. It covers 3.6% of the land of Ghana. A friend of ours (Ghana-born Indian ) took me, Heleni, Jorien and Isabella for a ride on his boat across the lake – damn cool stuff His company is producing plastic stuff and everytime he comes he brings a bag of one of his products – a childs toy plastic ball that he throws in water for the kids from the fishing village to pick. Its a real fun sight as not just kids but whole village gets on boats and makes a race of who gets the most with those still on shore cheering for them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akosombo_Dam

___________________

Next is the time to climb Highest Mountain of Ghana – Mount Afadjato – with amazing 88O m

slovak posing on top of Ghana

Slovakia vs Ghana

It sounds like an easy thing to do but in the heat and humidity its a real torture and getting to the top not being covered with sweat is impossible. The view is great to Ghana on one side and Togo on the other. Add to it the walk through jungle and the cool signpost on the top and you have a very good reason why to do the climb.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Afadjato

__________________________

And the third is the most amazing part of the trip and actually one of the best things to do in Ghana – take a shower under a 60 m tall shower – the Wli waterfalls. Its a two level waterfall that is very easy to reach from the village of Hohoe by foot, first you get to the lower stage with a beautiful lake and waterfall and hundreds of fruit hanging on the walls above you and than those who feel like can climb to the upper level (some 1,5 hr hike up the hill through jungle), where you find another lake and a waterfall that you can partly climb (trying at least to climb the rocks while the water is falling on you from the sky). This was the only time in Ghana we actually felt cold because the water was chilly and air too. The water was actually coming from Togo

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/artikel.php?ID=105563

1) a small boy, that I once invited for food and once for cinema – telling me he “needs school schoes that cost 7 USD”;

2) my colleague – telling me that if somebody calls and asks about the result of his interview that was few months ago, he wont tell him the obvious thing – that the guy didnt get the job (a person is employed in 99% within 1 month after interview)… reason? I wasnt here so I wont tell him anything. After 10 minutes of arguying I realized that he is just absolutely stuck on this, accepted it, decided to not assign him any tasks that are connected with a past and wished him in my mind luck with being Recruitment Officer (becasue with this kind of approach – not taking responsibility for anything that happened before you joined – will not allow him to be a Recruitment Manager).

3) my colleague – I make her very busy, she makes calls on my behalf to job applicants, so I started to be friendly with her and tried to support her, even brought her a chocolate in a half-joke once… Now when she saw me with chocolate from home (Slovakia), she wants one. And not half, but a full one, and not tomorrow, but today. I have not given any of it to anybody till now, I actually have not even eaten nearly any of it on my own. But she wants one. I gave her a piece of a 100g bar (because I have no smaller), she got offerended (of course still with a smile on her face) and put it aside and said “Its okay” (understand: “Its NOT okay”).

4) job applicants – I made the mistake to give some of them my number as I needed some information from them, now some of those dumbasses call me up at random times, Sunday 5.45 am, Wednestay 7.30 am, Thursday 10.30 pm, Saturday 10.00 am…. Outside of my working hours – LEAVE ME ALONE!

5) a seller of eggsandwiches – she sells close to the cinema where I go like once a week, she was really friendly, making jokes and sharing stories. But after a while I realized that her stories often dont make sense and that I am not getting their point and that more and more often she is mentioning the fact that she doesnt have a cellphone and wants to call her friend in UK who is driving a bus there and is called Christine and who is thinking about moving to Australia and blah blah.

6) and there is one that I can share only with close friends

I always thought of myself as a friendly and easy to connect to person… and that its nations like Germany or those, that people get annoyed with the amount of “contact” with people – its actually exposure to their attention and affection. But here also I am starting to be annoyed, its fun for some time, but sometimes I just wish they would leave me alone.

I guess I will enjoy going to the beach before dusk more often, sadly also there will be people who will say “now that we are friends, can I have your number?”

No worries about me, and please also no offence, but I guess I am still in the second phase of cultural integration (1. excitement, 2. annoyment, 3. acceptance, 4. accommodation or assimilation)

Right now I wish deeply to be somewhere out in the nature, away from people, and take pleasure in getting physically tired with a simple goal – walk in a direction the whole day, go to sleep, and after awakening continue in the same direction.

When the body beats the brain, when sharpness of mind can not help the fact that its your feet tht have to carry you on and on, when you feel away from people and in the middle of real world, that is the kind of beauty that you will always remember.

After being to dozen countries, those 6 days when I just walked are much harder to believe than me standing at the foot of Nanga Parbat, me hopping of a train in a small town in the middle of a desert or me sitting under palm trees on a beach in Africa. 

This feeling makes me play with the decision to end this internship in June 2009 (making it only 9 months long) or maybe stay longer or go somewhere else, so that I arrive to Slovakia before summer 2009 or 2010 and than spend another at least a month just walking and walking… Maybe its time to go East to West, and maybe not stop on the border…

Its sad that I cant walk or cycle in Africa, its too hot….

First, “who is Salius” – a Lithuanian guy who is in Ghana for the last 3 years

Second, “what is the title about” – its playing with “Simon says” game

Third, “wtf??? You have malaria??? Are you still alive? Flying home right?” – malaria that the f*** / Yes / Yes / No

Ok, so what is malaria…?

me: some sickness which makes You feel like You are in the worst hangover, except that You dont puke but shit a river (at least there is something left in the stomach and after). You get it from those damn mosquitos that fly here everywhere and that I am systematically killing (with pleasure and a feeling satisfied hunter) every day/evening. You need to take pills or You will feel shitty even longer. There is no vaccination, You can only eat pills so You dont take malaria, because than You would have to take pills (exactly… You take pills for weeks to avoid pills for some few bad days).

wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria

How did I get it?

I caught a mosquito and sucked his inside…  :P  It bit me, what else?

How am I feeling?

Now I am good, but as soon as I get late with the pills by some hours I still get a headache.

So how to know You have malaria?

Go to doctor. But basically: You feel dried up, mouth feels like You liked dried shit in terms of it beeing full dry and bad taste. This even a minute after drinking. You dont feel like eating and all food tastes bad. You have a high temperature that sometimes switches to cold skin. You have headache, pains behing eyes, in shoulders and hips. You feel dizzy and are not too good in keeping balance. Your mind and body is slow, sometimes You feel like a puppet on strings. You feel like sleeping all the time, but cant stay sleeping – wake up every few minutes and feel like You slept a lot but still feel tired. In my case I had slightly halucinative dreams involving a huge number of pillows in my bed and me mindcontrolling electric wiring in the house by “growing” into the network.

What is the Salius guy about?

I was at a friends house, still thinking I just got food poisoned, I lay down and take a nap. When I wake up Salius is in and he shakes my hand…. And while doing so says: “You have malaria, right!?”. Thats when I realized I have fever and now have all symptoms of malaria (I had 39 C). He took me to the hospital where I got some drugs and started to get better.

Is it fun?

Well its like getting food poisoned in Karachi… You dont get it – You are lucky… Come and try on Your own.

The CEO and HR Head were trying to find a new Recruitment Services Coordinator, but none of the people interviewed did fit them in terms of wage, experience, attitude or whatever else. So they got insted a guy with limited experience but ability to learn and put him on my place… But what to do with me? Well there is a chair free

So yeah, so now I can call myself boss… Not that it would matter much, wage the same (and I am all fine with how much I get) and chair too. What matters is that now there is two of us so we can handle more work, where I am the more experienced (I did recruit for more than 2 years) so its also my job to keep the other guy busy and interested… Works till now pretty ok.

So yeah, life is good