GO TEAM GB!!!!

What an amazing few days!!!!! I am so proud of the athletes in team GB!!! Especially Jessica Ennis, WOW.

Missing the Olympics madness is definitely the theme of the week. It's been a super busy one, so I've had plenty of things to take my mind off it, but really the main thing zapping up my attention is the constant scrounge for snippets of the amazing Olympic moments, and the futile search for somewhere where I can actually SEE some of what's going on! I can't believe how many rights restrictions there are on the internet, radio, TV and news! I was all prepared, downloaded all the apps, got the radio stations logged on my laptop, and the Olympics news pages as firm favourites on my browser...but being away from my Zebilla home for a week has kind of scuppered all of that.

So now, after a week of Olympics madness in the UK, reading about it on the web and seeing photo's of Jessica Ennis in action just ain't cutting it...I mean, I can see the pictures, read about it, and almost feel the atmosphere, but there is not a snippet of video action I can get here, and no TV with a decent satellite dish in sight. And to be honest, really nothing is going to be the same as actually being there. And I'm truly gutted.

I miss family and friends at home a lot, especially with close friends weddings, and my dad's 60th birthday track drive coming up, but to adding the Olympics to the mix it's like missing out on a national event and a whole load of excitement and atmosphere that has taken over the whole country (or that's how it seems when you have a heap of sports-loving friends and relatives!).

So, in response to my situation, instead of wallowing in the doom and gloom of missing out, I have decided to educate the children around here all about the Olympics!!

They now know all about the different countries taking part, the hundreds of different events, the reems of crazy sports people compete in, and many different famous sports men and women and what makes them so amazingly talented. In just the last 24 hours...

Ayuuba (my 17 year old neighbour) has now become a huge fan of Usain Bolt someone he has never heard of before - I had to practically peel him away from my laptop after he became glued to watching clips of Usain Bolt-ing to the finish line and winning the 2008 Olympics 100m over and over on You-Tube, I now have a feeling I might see him sprinting about town!

My cleaner has fallen in love with the gymnastics events and the diving watching in awe with her jaw pretty much on the floor and her eyes wide as hula-hoops as she saw Gabby Douglas strutting her stuff all over the beams the bar and the floor.

And the many little boys and girls that have been frequenting my house today have been learning all about athletics, beach volleyball, karate and boxing, practising their moves in and outside the house - it was chaos, like Saturday morning sports-club mobbed by twenty super energetic Ghanaian boys who simply want to do everything and fast and all at once!

So, with my constant chatter about it, and all the fun and games going on at the house, somehow I am generating a sense of excitement and curiosity about the Olympics here in Zebilla (probably the excitement and curiosity of these people is actually more about slowly watching me go mad!), which is slowly but surely helping me overcome the home-sick feeling tugging at me like a goat on a string.

So, this afternoon there'll be a white lady wandering about this town, looking for a man by the name of 'Agoogo'. This is apparently the secret code for 'the sports-mad man with DSTV who is lurking somewhere about town with a DSTV station just waiting to be glued to by this Nasara'!. With the men's 100m finals tonight, and more medals to be won by GB, there has got to be a way to get me to a TV!!

With love from Ghana

(GO TEAM GB!!!)

Em

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